FicWad

‘Goodbye, home,’ Pete sighed as the bus started to move. He watched all the familiar shops and restaurants roll by, and already he felt homesickness setting in. Seeing Bronx’s face so troubled had left him slightly worried about him. He’d managed to divert him for the time being, but what about later on? What if he asked when Pete was coming back? He didn’t ever want to see that expression again.

A sharp elbow in his side.
‘Hey man, you pumped?’
Pete blinked. ‘What?’
‘For the tour!’
‘Yeah… I guess.’
Patrick frowned. ‘You guess? Is that all? Come on, dude, we’re gonna see all our friends who we haven’t seen for months! We’re gonna have such a great time!’
Patrick burbled on like this for a while until Pete finally smiled.
‘We’re gonna, like, totally ROCK OUT!’ He started to chuckle, and Patrick knew his work was done.
He patted Pete’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about Bronx,’ he said quietly. ‘He’ll be right as rain. And you’ll be back before too long.’ Pete gave him a weak smile. ‘And anyway, they might come out and see you.’
‘Yeah. Whatever, Patrick. Dream on.’
There was a moment’s silence. Patrick suddenly reached into his pocket.
‘You’ve gotta listen to this track, man. No, seriously…’ Pete sighed, used to being attacked by Patrick’s music, and started laughing as an earphone was shoved into his ear.

***********************

After a few more hours on the road (entertainment provided by Andy yelling at the computer screen), they reached their first destination. As they ran off the bus they saw another, slightly larger bus was already parked there. Joe eyed it up and down, a mischievous look in his eye.

‘Uh… guys?’
They stopped and turned to look at him.
‘Prank time?’ he grinned.
‘Already?’ Patrick sighed. ‘You don’t even know whose bus that is, man. If it’s not one of the bands on the tour you’re gonna be in a lot of trouble.’
‘But look! That’s Adam Siska’s suitcase! Come on, you guys!’ he complained as Patrick started to pull him away.
‘Not convinced, Joseph.’
‘Please!’

Joe continued to whine as they pushed open the doors, shook hands with the management and found their way to the stage. When they got there, though, it seemed he was proved right.

‘What’s up, Carden?’
‘Hey guys! When’d you get here?’
‘Literally just now. We saved your asses from a prank, actually. Joe recognised your bus but we didn’t believe him.’
Mike grinned slowly and punched Joe in the shoulder. ‘We’ll have to watch you, Trohman. You guys want a hand with your stuff?’

As they brought their instruments in (leaving Mike with the heavy things), the rest of The Academy Is… eventually materialised. It was good to see them all again, but… there was something not quite right about their demeanour. William came over and gave them all ‘man hugs’.

‘Someone’s in a good mood!’ Patrick questioned.
‘Ah, well… It’s just the sheer joy of seeing you all again.’ And with that he bounced off, earning a sly grin from Chislett and leaving the members of Fall Out Boy totally confused.

One sound check and four dinners later, and the rest of the bands had showed up. Panic At The Disco came in, dragging all sorts with them. Ryan rushed over to Mike and whispered something in his ear, Mike replying ‘Great. Go tell the Cobras when they get here.’ Finally Cobra Starship arrived, Gabe wearing some glow-in-the-dark shoes that Pete lusted after, and Alex high-fiving Mike. Despite their friendliness, all of them had that same strange smile on their faces. Whether it was the excitement of touring, the company of friends, some sort of intoxication… they had absolutely no idea.

Later that night, it seemed the whole of Ohio had turned out to see them. Pete and Andy poked their heads round the door to the stage and saw Gabe clapping out a beat for the fans to follow.

‘It’s packed in there, dude,’ Andy whispered. Pete could only watch for a minute as Gabe bounded across the stage singing, but then caught his eye and started to laugh. Some of the fans started to notice too and squealed at the sight of Pete at the door, making him duck back and pull Andy with him.

‘Hey man, what’s up?’
Pete gulped. ‘I’m kinda freaked out.’
‘By the smiles? Yeah, me too.’
‘Ah, just forget about it.’ Patrick and Joe wandered over. ‘Probably just trying to unnerve us.’
‘Patrick, how can I play without my favourite pick?’
‘Easily.’
‘But–’
‘Joe, we are not going all the way back to the bus for a stupid pick. Now come on. Let’s do this show.’ They started the whole high-five routine, and soon enough they were out on stage, deafened by the screams, blasting out America’s Suitehearts. Still completely confused about the strange behaviour of their friends, they physically played and sang but mentally thought about what could be wrong.

The song came to an end and Pete took the mic.
‘You guys having a good time?’ Screams.
‘Awesome. I just wanna let you guys know, that our guitarist Mr. Joseph Trohman isn’t himself tonight.’ A resounding ‘Aww!’
‘He’s a bit mad at himself for leaving his lucky favourite pick behind–’ laughter, ‘but he’ll be fine once he finds it on the bus.’ Whispers and giggles, with a few shocked gasps thrown in. And then Pete saw it. That smile. Had Gabe told them anything? It must have been Gabe, he thought, it’s ALWAYS Gabe, the little…

They moved on to The Take Over, The Break’s Over, Pete still lost in thought. The thing about Joe wasn’t that funny. It must have been some other word in the sentence. He racked his brains. The only significant word was bus… And then he realised. His eyes widened in shock, and in the solo he bounded across to Patrick.

‘I’ve worked out the secret of all the smiling!’ he yelled in Patrick’s ear. He looked at Pete excitedly.
‘It’s the bus!’
‘What???’
‘THE BUS! It’s been…’
‘Can’t hear you, sorry!’ He bounded back to the microphone.

Some time later they left the stage, slightly breathless but happy.
‘That was a great opening–’
‘Come on, guys!’ Pete cut Patrick off and pushed them all to the exit, his fellow band members complaining.
‘Pete, we’re all sweaty, we need showers…’
‘I need to prove myself right!’
‘About what??’
‘Those smiles! They were up to something! And I know what it is!’
‘What? Can’t you just tell us?’
‘Not if I’m right, no!’

They reached the exit, Pete flinging the doors open, to confirm his suspicion.
‘Oh. My. God.’

Their pristine van had had a makeover. It was covered entirely with silly string, with blobs on the wheels and lining the wipers. The windows had been cleared, and very unflattering portraits of the band members had been painted in.

I bet that was the Butcher, Pete guessed.

‘Sell Out Boy’ had been spray-painted across the silly string, and then to cap it all off, a banner stuck across the top of the windscreen.

OHIO SUCKS BALLS

They stood in silence for a while, not realising the other bands were howling with laughter behind them.

‘Alright then. Who did what?’
Mike attempted to explain through the laughter. ‘Well, we silly stringed it, and the Butcher painted in the faces.’
‘I knew it!’
‘And then the Cobras made the banner, and Panic sprayed it.’
Ryland whooped. ‘Let’s hear it for our prank leader, Michael Carden!’
There were lots of cheers and applause. Mike grinned. ‘Well actually, it was my good friend Joe’s idea…’
The rest of Fall Out Boy turned to glare at Joe. But he was staring intently at the pictures painted in.

‘You know, guys, the Butcher’s actually given me some great cheekbones.’

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[AN: Did you CSAK? I hope so. [Check out toothpastefordinner.com, it's where that comes from. Really good website.] Kind of fillerish, but I’ve written the big conundrum of the story so we’ll start building up to that pretty soon.]