FicWad

It was sort of like a half-baked game of spin the bottle with three pretty girls on one side of the room, three pretty guys on the other and me somewhere in between. The only differences were: there was no bottle, the only thing spinning would be Joe and no kissing would be invovled.

The shaft of my bass felt as cold as my feet whenever I looked at Melissa in the comfort of my black polish. As usual, the strings were warm and begged for my touch.

Both genders sat a total of two feet away from each other so the amps were begrudingly dismissed. "I'm supposing you guys won't be horribly offended if I take pictures while you play?"

Trohman played with the shiny knobs, "If you don't get Patrick's good side, I'll cry. Trust me, you don't want to see Joeybear cry."

"Hmm...both sides looking pretty damn good to me, Trohman."

Eyes of every color of the rainbow turned to look at the Incredible Blushing Patrick. With an exuberent leap, Jess ignored the assumptions and bounded over to her camera bag. I giggled like a school-girl as she did a fancy ballerina-like leap back over to the 'stage'.

"Wentz, make a pretty smile for the camera," she laughed as I scrunched up my features, "Oh, yeah, the 'dead fish' look is totally in right now, Pete."

Andy brought himself into the conversation, "It's called a 'trend', Jess. That's a little something only us people who take baths in money are aware of."

Various laughes echoed through Andy's big head as Jess shot him a half-smile. He showed her his teeth and Joe took charge, as is his manly nature,

"Are there any requests from the hottest peanut gallery ever?" Smugly, I watched as Bekah shot him some bedroom eyes and I could only guess what they would be doing later.

A voice that could only be decribed as 'confident' silenced the room, "Saturday." We looked down at the blonde on the floor and she returned the favor with a confused spin on it.

"What'd she say?" Patrick was so cute when he was clueless.

"'Enter Sandman', Trick. She asked for Saturday."

He beamed down at her, "That's my favorite from Take This To Your Grave."

"Mine, too."

Several seconds of staring silence led to mass conclusion artists among the crowd. Breaking the link, Trick cleared his throat and started off the song we all knew, oh, so well.

We all played our parts so well for the first verse. Joe was the spinning one, I swear, that man did more revolutions in a verse than I could count, Andy was the intense one, I was the dreadfully emo one, and Patrick was the hot one with the voice to die from. I must admit I couldn't stop laughing when Joe lost his balance and collided heavily into me.

Performing in a bus was a lot different from a stage, it was a lot more personal. It was like the big, rich rockstars were on the same plane as their fans; like the moneymakers were pointing out they were still people who ate, drank, mastuerbated and had to pee like everyone else. And since there were no stage lights, we didn't end up all stinky and sweaty.

Rebekah's foot tapped in rhythm with her palm, in rhythm with the guitar but was less than audible under the noise. We'd played this song so many time it had become routine. Joe's interlude would eventually end and Patrick would start singing. I traced the notes in my head and listened to the end of Joe's interlude. Patrick's vocal cue came and passed silently. I stared at my buddy as he did his best to catch up. My Jew friend questioned Patrick through me and I shrugged. Patrick never missed vocal cues.

I dismissed the disturbance and filed it away for later as my eyes drifted to Melissa. With her it was hard to focus on things...Her bright teeth played a bad game of hide and seek as she spoke. From her perfect motions, I guessed she was talking with Rebekah about screaming in songs.

Hoping to gain her attention, I pressed the microphone into my mouth and raped my vocal chords. She stared at me with bright eyes and caused my voice to crack desperately. A blush crept over me like night time and she smiled at me from her place on the stands.


The song finished with barely anymore flaws and we followed it up with, Melissa's favorite, Dance, dance. "Tell that Mick...", My Heart Is the Worst Kind of Weapon, Yule Shoot Your Eye Out, Sugar, We're Going Down and Grand Theft Autumn barely scratched the surface of our requests before Patrick held up his hands and said 'No, more'.

It was 10 o' clock pm, Sunday, when we replaced the instruments casually and separatetly looked for various things to do. As I came back from tending to the guitars, I walked into the main room and plopped my fat ass on the couch. Barely taking notice of me, Patrick sat with Jess on the floor with the strings of earphones linking them together by the ear. The two of them huddled around her sticker-encrusted laptop and went through pictures she had taken during the show.

My smile watched them happily as I pressed small beads of sweat into the thick fabric of the couch. Every once in awhile, one of them would burst into laughter and I could almost see their guards lowering like drawbridges. The sounds of Bekah getting it on with Joe entered my ear and I tried to block it out with happy thoughts. Melissa sascheyed into the room and set her sweet-smelling self down next to my own interesting-smelling self and all sexual sounds were gone.

"What'd you think of the show, thing?"

"Aw, it was amazing. You guys are great and I love what you all do."

"What exactly do you like about it?"

"It's just so...different, so original. Every aspect of it is pure, raw Fall Out Boy and I just love it."

I smiled stupidly at her and her eyes twinkled beautifully, "So, to answer your question, I love the music. The rhythms are gorgeous and perfect and are wonderfully executed. I love the lyrics; they're just so personal and original and they seem to say the same thing everyone else is but with a new pair of eyes, if that makes any sense."

"It made perfect sense and I love hearing it. It was quite poetic..."

"And the band members are wonderful."

I stopped and stared at her but she effectively avoided my gaze. A feeling in my gut told me to do something, but what? What did she want me to do? Kiss her? God, I wanted to, but that might qualify as 'out of line'. So, I just sat there pathetically with my hands on knees, my own. Eventually, she cleared her throat and whispered she was going to go. I felt as if I'd let her down in someway but what did she want me to do?? Good god, I don't understand women.