Jo's No Good, Very Bad Year 7/7
Neither of them could have guessed that one night would be such a mistake. This is, objectively, because Jo Halbig and David Schlichter are emotional idiots.
Jo, being Jo and thus having no concept of what is and isn’t appropriate when bridging the gap between friends and fuckbuddies, decides he’s going to treat Mäx to a blowjob. Right after the next show, he’s going to pull Mäx into the nearest room with a lock on the door and proceed to do things that would give a sexual harassment lawyer a field day. If, that is, things go wrong and Jo’s read everything wrong, which, hopefully, he hasn’t.
It’s not a great blowjob since Jo’s given exactly zero before, but Mäx seems to like it. A lot. Until Jo pulls off, at which point he proceeds to curse unintelligibly while Jo scrubs his tongue on a hopefully clean towel because, yeah, spunk tastes gross.
“So, uh,” Jo begins even though it’s completely unfair for him to both make the first move and have to figure out whether he screwed up or not. “If that doesn’t tell you I’m serious, I don’t know what will.”
Mäx stops, stares at him. Then he runs a hand through his hair, mouth opening and closing all fish-like.
“There wasn’t a less dramatic way to do that?” he manages in a decidedly squeaky voice.
“What were you going to do? Refuse to let me go down on you?”
Now scrubbing at his hair with both hands, eyes wide, Mäx mouths the words “let me go down on you” in apparent disbelief. This annoys the crap out of Jo because he’s still not gotten an affirmative answer, which is something he’d really like right now.
“Jesus,” Jo snaps, dusting his jeans off. “Look, just tell me if I’ve got this all wrong. If you’re just going to stand there and-”
“I’m kind of freaking out over here, in case you haven’t noticed!”
Oh. Oh, well, that, uh, that makes sense. What with Mäx’s voice being weird and all. And his hands in his hair like that. Jo looks down, trying not to fidget. Way to go, self.
“You really don’t think before you do these things, do you?” Mäx huffs. It sounds amused. Jo’s temper flares anyway.
“If you didn’t like it, you could have told me earlier.”
“I didn’t say anything like that.”
“You said I still had a chance!” Jo snaps. He’s spiraling through emotions now, changing from anger, fear, and distress in bare moments. He has no idea what Mäx is thinking now, and it feels like rusty knives are carving him up inside.
“You do! I thought you’d be a little slower about it, is all.”
“What?” Jo looks up, noticing the change on Mäx’s face. It’s softer, that strange smile-grimace he does sometimes on his lips. “What do you mean slower?”
“I just thought we could start a little more like…this.” Mäx steps forward, reaching out a hand to Jo. He hesitates, arm shaking slightly. Jo knows what he wants though.
The kiss is brutal. Jo’s too used to being with someone taller, and Mäx misgauges the angle. They’re both hesitant and overeager, and completely unused to doing this for themselves and not to delight fans. It’s a mess. It’s horrible. It’s wonderful.
The second kiss is loads better. It’s still horrible. Jo doesn’t care.
ØØØ
They do get better. Slowly. Very slowly. But it happens.
Because he is Jo and thus horribly, surprisingly insecure, every day he asks, “Do you like me?”
Every time, Mäx gives him a look, a long, wordless look, and says slowly, “I always have.” His voice is calm and assured. It makes Jo want to curl into him, just wrap Mäx around him and blush down to his collarbones. It also makes Jo want to kick Mäx in the shins and run away and hide like a little kid. It’s so weird, this feeling.
Jo feels so much more alive now that’s he not perpetually worried that Mäx is avoiding and hating him. It’s really that sort of thing that sets a person’s mind at ease. There’s also Mäx.
Mäx has always at Jo at ease when he most needs it. He’s the type to think before he speaks, actually weigh consequences in his head before leaping straight in. He’s slower than Jo, calmer. Even when he’s scraping his teeth lightly against Jo’s jaw, his breath hot on Jo’s skin, it’s a lazy movement, content and assured. Jo feels like he’s flushed all the way to his soul when Mäx touches him now.
God, Mäx is just so…Jo has no idea what he is, but it’s somewhere between wonderful and fucking amazing. Jo’s still trying to figure out what kind of person picks him after everything he’s done, after every mistake he’s made. Mäx mouths at his throat, and everything finally seems okay.
There is one itty-bitty problem: Benni’s about to rip David’s head off. Jo’s not sure when exactly he realized that David had managed to make everybody either pissed at or about him (Jo’s completely forgotten Fabi telling him pretty much exactly that information because who listens to Fabi? Not Jo.), but he has. This is bad because Benni’s one of three people in this world who knows and is capable of playing all sixteen years worth of Killerpilze bass parts…and they don’t have a backup player. Because they are stupid. Ha! Not really. Benni’s just so reliable they haven’t bothered to find anyone in, oh, ten years? That sounds about right. So there’s no one to finish off the concert season if Benni decides to quit or slap David silly with his bass.
Jo would really like to say David is causing all these problems, but, sadly, there are times when even Jo can see things the way they really are and this is one of them. David’s only about sixty percent to blame for all the messes he’s been involved in lately.
Jo pities him. He doesn’t understand David, not in the least, but the guy did come to him when he needed somebody. In some convoluted way, he wanted to help. Jo wants to help him back.
This, Mäx would have told him if Jo had bothered to run this by him, is a terrible idea.
ØØØ
“It’s Benni, isn’t it?” Jo asks. Drink in one hand, he’s cornered David against a wall and is completely ignoring the annoyed expression on David’s face.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yooouu and Benniiii,” Jo taunts. “You tried to hit on him, didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t. Fuck off, Jo.” A lot of people have been telling Jo that lately. Thank goodness he hasn’t listened to any of them.
“Come on. Are you telling me you pissed my bassist off for no reason?”
“Yes. Sure. Whatever. Go away, Jo.”
“Not until you admit it.”
David shoves past him and disappears into the crowd. A club probably wasn’t the best place to confront him anyway. Oh, well.
ØØØ
“I’d rather not have this conversation with you,” is what Benni says the second Jo starts prying. He’s nice and polite about it because Benni is shockingly nice and polite most of the time, which is why most people don’t realize he’s not a) depressingly, suicidally emo and b) in one but two bands. If it weren’t for the mostly black clothes, the sad, outdated emo fringe, and the tattoos, he’d be your average nice guy.
Jo, Mäx, and Fabi have been slowly wearing that niceness down over the years. Not out of any hatred of niceness but because they’re just kind of awful people when you get down to it. Jo says this with a lot of pride and not too much shame.
“All I want to know is what David did,” Jo wheedles.
Benni’s teeth clack together.
“Your boyfriend needs to learn to solve his own problems.”
“Mäx did something to you?”
“Huh? No. I’m talking about David. Tall, brown hair, that David?”
“David was never my boyfriend,” Jo points out because it’s the truth (and because Benni’s wrong, but Jo’s trying to be tactful seeing as Benni‘s happiness and continued desire to work for the band are very important to him). He was told as much from the outset.
“No?”
Jo shakes his head, contorting his face to look thoughtful and a little sad. He can work this. He is the master at this. “We tried, but we weren’t right for each other. He had someone else on his mind all the time, and I had Mäx.”
“Huh,” Benni says, tongue tucked into his cheek. Jo keeps his smile down. “How’s that going for you anyway?”
“Good, good.” Jo nods his head enthusiastically. “I’m a lot happier, and Mäx is, too. Still, he’s worried about his brother. David wasn’t happy with me, but he was a lot happier than he is now. He does better when he’s with someone.” This is not exactly bullshit. It’s not exactly truth, either. “Then there’s whatever you two are arguing about. It’s all got Mäx worried, and Mäx doesn’t do very well when he’s worried. That’s why I wanted to ask you about it.” Jo smiles to round it all out.
Benni looks at him dubiously. Jo kind of wishes he were emo because then he would tell Jo everything.
“We had an argument,” Benni tells him slowly, suspicion still displayed prominently on his face.
“That’s it?”
“Yes.” Benni looks relieved. Sadly for him, Jo isn’t done yet.
“What about?”
“Why are we talking about this?” Benni complains. “If it’s bothering Mäx, I’ll try to fix things. That’s all I’m going to promise you.”
“That’s plenty,” Jo tells him hastily. Benni looks seriously uncomfortable, which is telling Jo way more than Benni realizes. “I think it’s weighing on him more than you realize. David, I mean. We’re all like one big family so when something goes wrong, it wears on everybody.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Good, that’s really good. I’ve gotta go, but that’s really good. That you get it.” The dubious look is back. Time to get out of here. “David never told me who it was he wanted, but it must be someone great. He could have been happy with me and look what he does? He ruins it over someone else. It makes me wonder who that person must be.”
Benni looks thoughtful. Jo counts it a victory.
ØØØ
Fabi’s wedding is classy. And mainstream. God, is it ever mainstream. The rockstar in Jo weeps at the conformity of it all.
They’re not the only group at the courthouse that day, so they have to wait, and Saskia’s mother is going into hysterics because Saskia isn’t. Or something. Jo has no idea what’s going on, except Saskia, an expression of perfect peace on her face, is sitting patiently in a circle of lacy, white pouf. Jo’s still a little put out she and Fabi didn’t opt for the traditional Tracht. Saskia was not convinced that the sheer joy it would bring her fiancé’s brother was a good enough reason to wear a “fucking dirndl” as she put it. Jo liked her, even if she wouldn’t compromise her wedding for his enjoyment. That’s why he- with Mäx’s help- had elected to throw an entire, old-as-shit toilet bowl at her feet the night before. Fabi had to jump on it a few times before it broke sufficiently. It was glorious.
Jo’s got nothing to say about the church. The pews are uncomfortable and make him genuinely aware of how long it’s been since he’s been to Mass. Add to that the fact that he’s sitting next to the guy with whom he’s having relations the Church would definitely disapprove of and it’s not a fun situation.
Fabi’s got an ironic streak to make Jo proud, though, and Noise of Minority is playing at the restaurant for the wedding luncheon. Chris’ forehead wrinkles in consternation every time he starts up a new, sweet, completely not death metal, traditional song. Jo amends ironic to vindictive and feels even prouder.
He takes a little thrill when he sees Benni making eyes with David again and again. David told him to butt out, but Jo knows they’ve got something going on. It’s just one of those things he knows. Because he’s great at interpersonal relationships like that.
Jo is completely unaware that absolutely no one would agree with him on this.
“So,” Mäx says, wrapping his arms around Jo’s arms and pressing a kiss to the singer’s neck as another painfully slow, old song begins, “did you still want to get married?”
Jo, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips, considers it for a while, thinks about how uncomfortable he was in the church earlier.
“You know what,” he answers, “we’re rockstars.”
Mäx nods. This is irrefutable.
“I think it can wait. Let’s live in sin for a little while longer.”
Mäx’s laughter is brilliant.
Previous
Jo, being Jo and thus having no concept of what is and isn’t appropriate when bridging the gap between friends and fuckbuddies, decides he’s going to treat Mäx to a blowjob. Right after the next show, he’s going to pull Mäx into the nearest room with a lock on the door and proceed to do things that would give a sexual harassment lawyer a field day. If, that is, things go wrong and Jo’s read everything wrong, which, hopefully, he hasn’t.
It’s not a great blowjob since Jo’s given exactly zero before, but Mäx seems to like it. A lot. Until Jo pulls off, at which point he proceeds to curse unintelligibly while Jo scrubs his tongue on a hopefully clean towel because, yeah, spunk tastes gross.
“So, uh,” Jo begins even though it’s completely unfair for him to both make the first move and have to figure out whether he screwed up or not. “If that doesn’t tell you I’m serious, I don’t know what will.”
Mäx stops, stares at him. Then he runs a hand through his hair, mouth opening and closing all fish-like.
“There wasn’t a less dramatic way to do that?” he manages in a decidedly squeaky voice.
“What were you going to do? Refuse to let me go down on you?”
Now scrubbing at his hair with both hands, eyes wide, Mäx mouths the words “let me go down on you” in apparent disbelief. This annoys the crap out of Jo because he’s still not gotten an affirmative answer, which is something he’d really like right now.
“Jesus,” Jo snaps, dusting his jeans off. “Look, just tell me if I’ve got this all wrong. If you’re just going to stand there and-”
“I’m kind of freaking out over here, in case you haven’t noticed!”
Oh. Oh, well, that, uh, that makes sense. What with Mäx’s voice being weird and all. And his hands in his hair like that. Jo looks down, trying not to fidget. Way to go, self.
“You really don’t think before you do these things, do you?” Mäx huffs. It sounds amused. Jo’s temper flares anyway.
“If you didn’t like it, you could have told me earlier.”
“I didn’t say anything like that.”
“You said I still had a chance!” Jo snaps. He’s spiraling through emotions now, changing from anger, fear, and distress in bare moments. He has no idea what Mäx is thinking now, and it feels like rusty knives are carving him up inside.
“You do! I thought you’d be a little slower about it, is all.”
“What?” Jo looks up, noticing the change on Mäx’s face. It’s softer, that strange smile-grimace he does sometimes on his lips. “What do you mean slower?”
“I just thought we could start a little more like…this.” Mäx steps forward, reaching out a hand to Jo. He hesitates, arm shaking slightly. Jo knows what he wants though.
The kiss is brutal. Jo’s too used to being with someone taller, and Mäx misgauges the angle. They’re both hesitant and overeager, and completely unused to doing this for themselves and not to delight fans. It’s a mess. It’s horrible. It’s wonderful.
The second kiss is loads better. It’s still horrible. Jo doesn’t care.
ØØØ
They do get better. Slowly. Very slowly. But it happens.
Because he is Jo and thus horribly, surprisingly insecure, every day he asks, “Do you like me?”
Every time, Mäx gives him a look, a long, wordless look, and says slowly, “I always have.” His voice is calm and assured. It makes Jo want to curl into him, just wrap Mäx around him and blush down to his collarbones. It also makes Jo want to kick Mäx in the shins and run away and hide like a little kid. It’s so weird, this feeling.
Jo feels so much more alive now that’s he not perpetually worried that Mäx is avoiding and hating him. It’s really that sort of thing that sets a person’s mind at ease. There’s also Mäx.
Mäx has always at Jo at ease when he most needs it. He’s the type to think before he speaks, actually weigh consequences in his head before leaping straight in. He’s slower than Jo, calmer. Even when he’s scraping his teeth lightly against Jo’s jaw, his breath hot on Jo’s skin, it’s a lazy movement, content and assured. Jo feels like he’s flushed all the way to his soul when Mäx touches him now.
God, Mäx is just so…Jo has no idea what he is, but it’s somewhere between wonderful and fucking amazing. Jo’s still trying to figure out what kind of person picks him after everything he’s done, after every mistake he’s made. Mäx mouths at his throat, and everything finally seems okay.
There is one itty-bitty problem: Benni’s about to rip David’s head off. Jo’s not sure when exactly he realized that David had managed to make everybody either pissed at or about him (Jo’s completely forgotten Fabi telling him pretty much exactly that information because who listens to Fabi? Not Jo.), but he has. This is bad because Benni’s one of three people in this world who knows and is capable of playing all sixteen years worth of Killerpilze bass parts…and they don’t have a backup player. Because they are stupid. Ha! Not really. Benni’s just so reliable they haven’t bothered to find anyone in, oh, ten years? That sounds about right. So there’s no one to finish off the concert season if Benni decides to quit or slap David silly with his bass.
Jo would really like to say David is causing all these problems, but, sadly, there are times when even Jo can see things the way they really are and this is one of them. David’s only about sixty percent to blame for all the messes he’s been involved in lately.
Jo pities him. He doesn’t understand David, not in the least, but the guy did come to him when he needed somebody. In some convoluted way, he wanted to help. Jo wants to help him back.
This, Mäx would have told him if Jo had bothered to run this by him, is a terrible idea.
ØØØ
“It’s Benni, isn’t it?” Jo asks. Drink in one hand, he’s cornered David against a wall and is completely ignoring the annoyed expression on David’s face.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yooouu and Benniiii,” Jo taunts. “You tried to hit on him, didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t. Fuck off, Jo.” A lot of people have been telling Jo that lately. Thank goodness he hasn’t listened to any of them.
“Come on. Are you telling me you pissed my bassist off for no reason?”
“Yes. Sure. Whatever. Go away, Jo.”
“Not until you admit it.”
David shoves past him and disappears into the crowd. A club probably wasn’t the best place to confront him anyway. Oh, well.
ØØØ
“I’d rather not have this conversation with you,” is what Benni says the second Jo starts prying. He’s nice and polite about it because Benni is shockingly nice and polite most of the time, which is why most people don’t realize he’s not a) depressingly, suicidally emo and b) in one but two bands. If it weren’t for the mostly black clothes, the sad, outdated emo fringe, and the tattoos, he’d be your average nice guy.
Jo, Mäx, and Fabi have been slowly wearing that niceness down over the years. Not out of any hatred of niceness but because they’re just kind of awful people when you get down to it. Jo says this with a lot of pride and not too much shame.
“All I want to know is what David did,” Jo wheedles.
Benni’s teeth clack together.
“Your boyfriend needs to learn to solve his own problems.”
“Mäx did something to you?”
“Huh? No. I’m talking about David. Tall, brown hair, that David?”
“David was never my boyfriend,” Jo points out because it’s the truth (and because Benni’s wrong, but Jo’s trying to be tactful seeing as Benni‘s happiness and continued desire to work for the band are very important to him). He was told as much from the outset.
“No?”
Jo shakes his head, contorting his face to look thoughtful and a little sad. He can work this. He is the master at this. “We tried, but we weren’t right for each other. He had someone else on his mind all the time, and I had Mäx.”
“Huh,” Benni says, tongue tucked into his cheek. Jo keeps his smile down. “How’s that going for you anyway?”
“Good, good.” Jo nods his head enthusiastically. “I’m a lot happier, and Mäx is, too. Still, he’s worried about his brother. David wasn’t happy with me, but he was a lot happier than he is now. He does better when he’s with someone.” This is not exactly bullshit. It’s not exactly truth, either. “Then there’s whatever you two are arguing about. It’s all got Mäx worried, and Mäx doesn’t do very well when he’s worried. That’s why I wanted to ask you about it.” Jo smiles to round it all out.
Benni looks at him dubiously. Jo kind of wishes he were emo because then he would tell Jo everything.
“We had an argument,” Benni tells him slowly, suspicion still displayed prominently on his face.
“That’s it?”
“Yes.” Benni looks relieved. Sadly for him, Jo isn’t done yet.
“What about?”
“Why are we talking about this?” Benni complains. “If it’s bothering Mäx, I’ll try to fix things. That’s all I’m going to promise you.”
“That’s plenty,” Jo tells him hastily. Benni looks seriously uncomfortable, which is telling Jo way more than Benni realizes. “I think it’s weighing on him more than you realize. David, I mean. We’re all like one big family so when something goes wrong, it wears on everybody.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Good, that’s really good. I’ve gotta go, but that’s really good. That you get it.” The dubious look is back. Time to get out of here. “David never told me who it was he wanted, but it must be someone great. He could have been happy with me and look what he does? He ruins it over someone else. It makes me wonder who that person must be.”
Benni looks thoughtful. Jo counts it a victory.
ØØØ
Fabi’s wedding is classy. And mainstream. God, is it ever mainstream. The rockstar in Jo weeps at the conformity of it all.
They’re not the only group at the courthouse that day, so they have to wait, and Saskia’s mother is going into hysterics because Saskia isn’t. Or something. Jo has no idea what’s going on, except Saskia, an expression of perfect peace on her face, is sitting patiently in a circle of lacy, white pouf. Jo’s still a little put out she and Fabi didn’t opt for the traditional Tracht. Saskia was not convinced that the sheer joy it would bring her fiancé’s brother was a good enough reason to wear a “fucking dirndl” as she put it. Jo liked her, even if she wouldn’t compromise her wedding for his enjoyment. That’s why he- with Mäx’s help- had elected to throw an entire, old-as-shit toilet bowl at her feet the night before. Fabi had to jump on it a few times before it broke sufficiently. It was glorious.
Jo’s got nothing to say about the church. The pews are uncomfortable and make him genuinely aware of how long it’s been since he’s been to Mass. Add to that the fact that he’s sitting next to the guy with whom he’s having relations the Church would definitely disapprove of and it’s not a fun situation.
Fabi’s got an ironic streak to make Jo proud, though, and Noise of Minority is playing at the restaurant for the wedding luncheon. Chris’ forehead wrinkles in consternation every time he starts up a new, sweet, completely not death metal, traditional song. Jo amends ironic to vindictive and feels even prouder.
He takes a little thrill when he sees Benni making eyes with David again and again. David told him to butt out, but Jo knows they’ve got something going on. It’s just one of those things he knows. Because he’s great at interpersonal relationships like that.
Jo is completely unaware that absolutely no one would agree with him on this.
“So,” Mäx says, wrapping his arms around Jo’s arms and pressing a kiss to the singer’s neck as another painfully slow, old song begins, “did you still want to get married?”
Jo, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips, considers it for a while, thinks about how uncomfortable he was in the church earlier.
“You know what,” he answers, “we’re rockstars.”
Mäx nods. This is irrefutable.
“I think it can wait. Let’s live in sin for a little while longer.”
Mäx’s laughter is brilliant.
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