Work Text:
(December, 2006)
There's a five-dollar bill in the gutter at the edge of the crosswalk. It's grubby; folded haphazardly in half and damp with the last traces of slush still clinging to the asphalt. Kevin stares down at it for a full minute as the corner flutters in the wake of a passing Toyota, the toes of his sneakers less than an inch away. He'd nearly stepped right over it.
He picks it up carefully. It's not really that dirty, just wet and wrinkled. It must have fallen out of someone's pocket, but Kevin doesn't see anyone looking for their lost lunch money or cab fare or Starbucks latte or whatever the five was originally going to be for. Does that mean he can keep it? He looks at the bill again. Some previous owner has drawn a mustache on Abraham Lincoln with a Sharpie marker, and another (or maybe it was the same one?) has scrawled Bible verses around the outer edge in fading blue ink.
Jn 3:16, Rom 8:28, Jn 14:1, Gal 5:22, Jer 29:11, Judg 18:6... Kevin reads the numbers and letters slowly and deliberately, tucking himself against the rough brick wall of the Greek bakery that stands guard over this corner. He knows some of them, but not others, and some are too smudged and faded from age and fingertips and careless creases to be read at all. The air smells like baklava, and Kevin briefly considers putting the five to use, but decides in the end to save it.
He believes in signs, sort of. Not all the ladders and black cats and broken mirrors stuff, but little things like rainbows appearing on bad days or five-dollar bills inked with Scripture that he happened to see because he looked down at just the right moment. He's not sure what this sign means, though. Maybe it means everything will be all right. Or maybe it means that they'll have five dollars' worth of gas to get them home before Joe's jokes about eating their merch t-shirts instead of selling them—trying to sell them—become prophecy.
Their rep at Columbia had called again; sales were still slow, not much chance of another marketing push with the holiday season mostly over already. While his parents talked in low voices and Joe tried to teach Frankie how to play a G chord for the fourth time (even though his fingers could barely reach across the fretboard) and Nick read every word of their contract again and again, Kevin had grabbed his jacket and his wallet and took off—slipped out the door and started walking. He might be lost, now. No, he's pretty sure he's lost. He knows he's in Chicago, but that's about as good as knowing he's in the United States as far as finding his way back to the motel where the entire Jonas clan has been holed up for three days, three-to-a-bed. The symmetry is depressing.
Kevin tucks the five in his wallet. It looks lonely against the cheap leather, with only his driver's license for company. He slips the wallet back into his pocket and hunches inside his jacket. The sky had been clear all day—bright, crystal winter blue—but it's cold outside, and getting colder at an alarming rate now that the sun has set and the streetlights have turned on. He should've thought to bring gloves, or a hat, or something. He's not dressed for December in Chicago.
His jacket proves itself even more woefully inadequate as the night grows darker and colder. Kevin's got his hands stuffed as far inside his pockets as he can get them, but his fingers still feel cold—the wind whipping through the streets bites straight through the 'weatherproof' material. The cheap, plated metal of his purity ring is burning against his skin, and he feels a little guilty as he slips it off and tucks it carefully into his jeans' pocket, but he's sure God will understand.
Kevin wishes he had gone into the Greek bakery. Maybe they would've had a phone, or something. He's managed to wander into somewhere vaguely industrial and more-than-vaguely threatening, even though the whole place seems deserted, like five o'clock rolled around and everyone disappeared all at once. Kevin doesn't actually know exactly how long ago five o'clock was, but he thinks it was probably a long time. His family must be worried sick.
Kevin's about to give up and... Well, he's really cold and his head's kind of fuzzy so he really doesn't know what he's going to do, but something, when he hears the soft sound of a bass beat; not too far off, but far enough that he can't see the source of it. He's hoping and praying that when he finds the source of the noise it doesn't turn out to be a bunch of drug dealers (Kevin has heard bad things about drug dealers, or, more specifically, what drug dealers might do to teenaged guitarists who wander into their midst), but when he gets close enough, the bass resolves itself into music (good music) and voices, talking and laughing. He rounds a corner to see an open door about halfway up the next block, spilling light onto the sidewalk. There are a few people standing around in the glow—smoking, maybe? Every breath rises as a puff of condensation, but Kevin can't think of any other reason they'd be standing around outside when it's so cold, then one of them flicks a lighter to life so yeah, he was totally right!
He gets pretty close before they really notice him, close enough to see that they're all guys—probably older than him, but not by too much—and at least half of them are wearing skinny jeans, which is comforting. (Kevin doesn't think violent drug dealers are very into the skinny jeans thing.) But they do notice him eventually. Kevin can feel warm air pouring out of the doorway along with the music and the sounds of a party in progress, and the guy closest to him—he's got long hair and Kevin's first impressions are 'pretty' and 'they're not drug dealers they're serial killers!'—turns toward Kevin and his eyes open up wide and he says,
"What the fuck are you wearing, kid?"
and Kevin is quickly surrounded and hustled into the building, where it's deliciously warm, so he doesn't even object to the guy saying the F-word like that. His teeth are still chattering as he's deposited on a lumpy sofa that smells very, very suspicious and nearly engulfs him when he leans back into the cushions. There's suddenly a lot of noise and a lot of people Kevin doesn't know all standing around and looking at him, like he crash-landed from Mars or something.
He can't feel his feet, which is worrisome, and he's about to say something about it, presuming he can get his tongue to work properly, when something big and heavy and wiggling lands in his lap and declares loudly, "Carden! You brought presents to your own party?" So the big-heavy-wiggling thing turns out to be a person, who isn't actually that big for a person, and he's sitting in Kevin's lap the way Kevin's parents say nice girls don't.
"I'm Kevin," Kevin offers awkwardly, because he's not really sure what you're supposed to say to strangers who appear in your lap. The guy gives him this crazy, too-wide smile that's actually kind of scary and says, "Pete," so Kevin feels a little better that he at least knows the name of the person sitting on him. Then Pete is suddenly removed—which is sad, because he was really warm and Kevin felt like his brain was beginning to function again—and the serial killer from outside is standing there holding the back of Pete's hoodie, and saying,
"Hands off the jailbait, Pete."
Kevin doesn't get around to objecting, because Pete just smiles that huge smile again (it's still kind of scary) and attaches himself to a guy wearing a hat and a grimace of annoyance.
"Fine, be greedy. Besides, Patrick's all the jailbait I need! Right, Trickster?"
"I'm not jailbait," Patrick grumbles, and that's exactly what Kevin had planned to say, but his face was still kind of frozen.
"Kevin, right?" The serial killer is now sitting next to him on the lumpy sofa, and up close he doesn't seem so... serial-killer-ish.
Kevin nods. "I'm not jailbait," he says, just to clarify, and the probably-not-a-serial-killer gets this really stupid look on his face for a second, kind of stunned, and Kevin finally clues into how that's not actually the question he was asked.
"Oh. Um. Yeah, Kevin," he says, and he can't help the embarrassed flush that warms his cheeks.
A long, slow smile spreads across the guy's face, and wow, yeah, definitely not a serial killer smile, and he says, "Mike."
Mike turns out not to be anything like a serial killer, which is pretty awesome in Kevin's opinion. He lets Kevin borrow his cell phone so he can call his family—his mom answers, and she's crying, and Kevin feels so horrible he might cry, and then his dad's on the line and somehow Mike has the phone and is talking to Kevin Sr. and saying things like, "Yeah, he's fine," and "No, sir, just a birthday party," and "...from out of town?" and "...never find it. Yeah, he'll be fine here... yeah, in the morning, can you text the address to this number?" then Kevin has the phone again and it's Nick and Joe's voices telling him how worried they were and Kevin says, "I'm sorry," over and over until they hang up.
"So you didn't run away," Mike says, and it's not really a question or a statement, it just hangs there for Kevin to grab onto or not. He grabs, because if he thinks about the way Nick's voice had been so broken...
"No," he says, but he's not sure that's right. He pulls his feet up onto the edge of the couch and curls around his knees. "I mean, I didn't mean to. Not permanently or anything." He glances over, but Mike's just watching him, waiting for him to say whatever he's going to say. Kevin realizes abruptly that he hasn't really talked to anyone who isn't a blood relative in longer than he wants to admit.
"I'm in a band. With my brothers," he says, and fully expects to be laughed at, because most people (who aren't family, anyway) laugh when Kevin says that, or smile condescendingly like they think Kevin and his brothers just goof around with instruments in their garage on weekends or something and call it a band, but Mike looks actually interested, and Kevin feels a little better already.
"It's pretty much the best thing ever. And we were doing okay. Or, I thought we were doing okay? We were on TRL, even," he says excitedly, because MTV; a few years ago he wasn't even allowed to watch MTV! "It was so cool. Except, our CD isn't doing very well, and our rep keeps calling, and Nick says the label's probably going to drop us if our sales don't pick up. He's my brother," Kevin clarifies. "Nick. And Joe. Um, I play guitar?"
"Yeah?" Mike's smile is back, and Kevin fights the urge to fidget. He settles for picking at the slightly damp hem of his jeans.
"Yeah. I was just going to go for a walk, you know? But I got lost."
Mike makes a noise that might be an aborted laugh. "We'll get you back in the morning," he says, "once Bill's not too drunk to tell me where his keys are." He nods his head at the group of people dancing in the center of the room. Kevin has no idea which one Bill is, but he's really glad his parents aren't picking him up here, because there are a bunch of guys grinding against each other in ways that Kevin is pretty sure aren't approved by the Assemblies of God. At all. Kevin gulps and looks away, but not before getting an eyeful. And the looking away doesn't really help, because he's not looking 'away' so much as 'at Mike' and possibly his face is going to burst into flames.
"Bill's the one who looks like a girl," Mike says, smirking, and Kevin reflexively looks back at the dancers, about half of whom fit that description. He lets himself look this time—he's trying to figure out which one of them is Bill, he lies to himself, and is instantly contrite.
He can't help that his heart skips beats when cute boys smile at him, and doesn't so much as flutter for the short-skirted girls Joe can't keep his eyes off. He tried for a long time, when he was younger and terrified that his parents would find out. Terrified that God knew his secret, because God knows everything, so there's no way He could miss the things Kevin daydreams about. But Kevin can't help that he doesn't want to kiss girls, or that he thinks breasts are nice enough in an aesthetic sense, but sort of confusing and weird. And Kevin Sr. taught him, when he was old enough to understand the lessons, that sins are choices you make, and that God made everyone exactly as He meant them to be.
Kevin watches the boys on the dance floor, and reminds himself that the lying is the sin. (It's still hard to convince himself, but it gets easier every time he does.)
"You okay?" Mike asks, sounding worried, and Kevin realizes abruptly that Mike has been watching him while he's been watching them, and that's... awkward. But then, these are Mike's friends, and Mike doesn't seem to care at all that his male friends are busy groping and... yeah, no, there are definitely tongues involved in the kissing that's going on.
Mike's jeans are old and torn (not for style, but because he wore holes in them), and his hair is several inches past the length where Kevin's mother would have started making noises about it being time for a trim, and his breath smells like tobacco and beer. He's pretty much the poster boy for everything Kevin is probably supposed to avoid, but he has really nice arms, and Kevin wants to see him smile again. And Kevin is never going to see him do anything again after tonight, so he doesn't stop himself from blurting out,
"Would you— Do you want to dance?" He blushes hard, and Mike blinks three times in surprise while Kevin fidgets.
"I don't dance," he says flatly, and Kevin is a little surprised at how much the rejection hurts, and how stupid he feels (which in itself is stupid, because this whole thing is stupid, but he stops himself before he can go any further down that route).
"Oh." Kevin clears his throat and fidgets some more. The fraying hem of his jeans frays just a little further, the damp strands of denim feathering out between his fingertips.
It turns out Mike plays guitar, too. Kevin recognizes the calluses on the fingers that close around his wrist and rescue his jeans from further destruction.
"Hey," he says, "No—" and Kevin's still processing how warm Mike's hand is on his wrist, dry and a little rough, but he turns to look at Mike and Mike's right there and then his lips are on Kevin's, firm but not demanding.
It's not like Kevin hasn't kissed anyone before. He totally has—Angie Thompson, 6th grade, on a dare.
This is nothing like kissing Angie Thompson.
Kevin can feel the stubble on Mike's chin as their lips slide together, scratching against his skin, and when he gasps a little, Mike licks inside his mouth, bringing a hand up to Kevin's neck to hold him steady. Kevin's grateful for that, because he feels like he might fall off the couch from shock. Mike's tongue is in his mouth, wet and hot and teasing along the edges of his teeth, and there's more spit than Kevin was prepared for but it's totally not gross. Mike tastes like beer and cigarettes and somehow that's not gross either; instead it's exciting and illicit and it's making Kevin's stomach feel sort of floaty and all knotted up at the same time.
Kevin's starting to worry about air, and also what he should do with his hands (is touching allowed? Kevin always thought you didn't even get to kissing until the end of the first date, at least, but this isn't a date and the kissing came much sooner than expected and if Kevin has a game—he suspects he doesn't—he's been totally thrown off it), when Mike breaks away, brushing his thumb across Kevin's bottom lip where a thin strand of saliva seems determined not to let them separate. Kevin still doesn't know what to do with his hands, but he reaches out and grips Mike's thigh, and he guesses that touching is allowed after all, because the corners of Mike's mouth turn up.
"Okay?" Mike asks, with just the barest hint of humor in his voice. Kevin just breathes for a moment, because this is something, right here. It's probably not something to Mike, but Kevin has to take a moment to fix this in his head, because this is a milestone, a line that's been crossed that he can never un-cross, and that he doesn't want to. Every second from now on is a second after he kissed a boy, and it feels like something he should remember. He's scared out of his mind and completely exhilarated at the same time, like the first time he went on a roller coaster at Six Flags, and Kevin wants... well, he really wants to go back to kissing Mike now, and maybe he can? He licks his upper lip, just a tiny movement of his tongue, but Mike's sharp eyes follow the movement and it gives Kevin just enough courage.
"Sure. Yeah, I'm— Can we do that again?" he asks, and he knows he sounds overexcited, but Joe's the smooth one in the family—Kevin long ago gave up on that.
It turns out to be smooth enough, though, because Mike smiles again—it makes Kevin's stomach flutter alarmingly—and says, "Yeah, we can do that again." He's laughing, Kevin knows, but not at Kevin, and his amusement is almost comforting.
The second kiss melts into the third, which melts into the fourth, which melts into just making out, and at some point Mike says, "C'mere," and pulls Kevin down horizontal on the couch so he's straddling one of Mike's thighs, Mike's hands bracketing his waist and sliding up under the hem of his t-shirt (he's not sure when he lost his jacket, but it was probably around the time he learned that he really liked it when Mike bit gently at his lower lip). Kevin has a moment of nearly heart-stopping anxiety when he realizes that he can feel Mike's dick rubbing against his hip through their jeans, half-hard and terrifying, because what if Mike wants him to...? Kevin has lots of vague ideas about things he could do with—to—Mike's dick; schoolyard whispers and PG-13, FCC-approved suggestions made on prime-time TV, and the images flowing through his head make him feel like he's burning up inside and Kevin's well beyond half-hard.
His hips stutter against Mike's, and Mike makes approving noises into Kevin's mouth and kisses the side of his neck, just below his jaw, and Kevin's sure it's going to kill him, but somehow, when Mike's hand drifts down to cup the front of his jeans, Kevin only thrusts into his palm once—so, so good!—before he breaks away, gasping. "—Can't, I can't," he's not even sure what he means; he can't do this? Or he can't stop himself if Mike keeps touching him like that?
It takes every ounce of self-control he has (and several ounces he hasn't) for Kevin to lever himself up—he nearly knees Mike in the crotch in the process, but at least they aren't groin-to-hip anymore, even if Kevin is sort of kneeling on Mike's leg and Kevin's erection feels obscenely visible, which is somehow far worse than when Mike could just feel it. Mike lies on the couch, looking a little stunned and a little inscrutable, but he pushes himself up on one elbow and tucks his hair behind his ear while Kevin calms down.
It takes several long breaths, but Kevin manages to gulp down the panic that had surfaced, which leaves only acute embarrassment in its wake. "Sorry," he says, looking down and then closing his eyes because looking down gives him a great view of the outline of Mike's dick beneath his jeans.
"S'okay," Mike says back, and Kevin doesn't really believe him at all, but then Mike's hand is on his thigh, his thumb rubbing little circles, and Kevin feels some of the tension drain out of him. Mike's hands slowly migrate upwards until Mike has a loose hold of Kevin's hips, tugging him forward.
"Come back down here," Mike commands, and Kevin lets himself be pulled downwards and arranged to Mike's satisfaction—lying half on top of him, their legs all tangled up. Kevin's wedged between Mike's solid chest and the back of the sofa, Mike's arm wrapped securely around his shoulders. Kevin drapes his free arm across Mike's ribcage and buries his nose in Mike's t-shirt and tries not to feel like a complete spaz.
He had nearly forgotten about the party, the thumping music nothing but background noise when all he could think about was MikeMikeMike, but there are only a few dancers left now. The party seems to have collapsed into piles of limbs and drunken laughter on the sofas scattered around the space, and on some choice sections of the floor.
"Sorry," Kevin says again, because the silence is stretching out between them and he's not sure if it's the good kind of silence or the other kind. Mike tightens his arm around Kevin's shoulders, squeezing for just a moment.
"I said it's fine." He looks at Kevin, and Kevin has to tilt his head back pretty far to meet his eyes—the angle is all awkward and he's sort of looking up Mike's nose. "If anybody ever tries anything you don't want, you should kick 'em in the balls," Mike says, and there's a moment of utter stillness while Kevin processes this, before he dissolves into completely undignified giggling, because what??
"Hey, I'm serious," Mike argues, but he's smiling and Kevin's lying on his chest so he can feel that Mike's laughing, too, and Kevin feels so much better it's almost ridiculous.
"Thanks," he says, when he can get the giggling under control (so embarrassing!), and Mike squeezes his shoulders again, and sometime not long after that, a wave of exhaustion crashes over Kevin and carries him to sleep before he can even put on a good show of fighting it.
~*~
Kevin wakes up slowly—he always has—so it takes him a good five minutes after the first of many attempts to open his eyes to realize that it's not Joe's armpit his head is buried in. It's only after that realization that his erection becomes a problem, because early on in their touring life he and his brothers had made a mutual agreement that morning wood was to be completely and utterly ignored, no matter whose it was or who it was rubbing against. Whoever does own the armpit is clearly not aware of that rule, because they've got an encouraging hand on Kevin's hip.
"Wha—?" he mumbles intelligently, and the owner of the armpit chuckles and that's when the whole night comes flooding back, from getting himself lost to his big gay makeout session with Mike, the probably-not-a-serial-killer who is the owner of both the armpit and the hand that's on Kevin's hip, plus the thigh he's been rubbing himself against for who knows how long. Kevin is sorely tempted to bury his head right back into Mike's armpit and pretend he hasn't really woken up.
"I should be able to wake Bill up enough to get his keys," Mike says, and Kevin yawns in the middle of saying, "Okay," but he's pretty sure Mike got it, because he waits for Kevin to stop yawning and kisses him softly.
"G'morning," Kevin manages to mumble—he's actually pretty proud of that; it's more coherent than he usually is—and he doesn't even blush very hard this time.
"Morning," Mike answers, turning his head to look out at the space beyond the sofa, which in the light of day appears to be a warehouse that was partially converted into a nightclub or maybe a bar? Kevin hasn't been in any nightclubs or bars, so he's not really sure how they're supposed to look. The rest of the party is still snoring (mostly on top of each other), and Mike's thumb rubs across the front of Kevin's jeans in invitation, but Kevin bites his lower lip and shakes his head.
"I should, um. I gotta—" He makes a gesture at the space.
"The bathroom's at the back," Mike says, and Kevin ungracefully disentangles himself (the sofa is not helping). He spots the sign for the men's room and makes his way to it as Mike sits up behind him.
~oOo~oOo~oOo~
Mike watches the kid pick his way through the passed-out remains of the previous night's party and wonders just what the fuck he'd been thinking. Not pulling the kid in off the street, because shit, he'd looked about three minutes from freezing to death or something, but he doesn't normally go around hooking up with strangers at parties (if not actually getting off could even be considered "hooking up"). Call him classy or whatever, but the random hookups are Bill's job. All he'd planned to do that night was get drunk.
But then, fooling around with the kid (Kevin, Mike remembers, and feels a little better that he at least isn't that shitty of a human being) had accomplished the true goal of the evening, which was to spend one whole night without thinking about Tom's fucking bullshit, and without wanting to punch things. The album is actually working now, which is the one and only benefit to the whole mess—and it's a big benefit, yeah, but it had been a big mess, too. Bill is all fucked up over it and Sisky's been driving himself crazy for weeks trying to fix Bill, so the Butcher's busy trying to fix Sisky and Mike just wants to wring Tom's fucking neck, because they'll eventually be better off without him (they will), but at the moment, a couple of tracks laid down don't make up for any of it.
He'd managed to avoid spending the night thinking about Tom, but apparently that's all the reprieve he gets. Mike rubs a hand across his face and hauls himself off the couch and onto his feet. He finally locates Bill, who's drooling on Gabe's stomach and, apparently, wearing his hoodie. (Thank fuck for Gabe Saporta, who can actually get Bill to loosen up and smile; for that, Mike's willing to overlook how he's a crazy fucker who might actually worship an alien cobra and/or Justin Timberlake.)
Mike nudges Bill's shoulder with his foot. Several times. "Bill. Wake up, asshole, I need your keys," he says when Bill has awakened sufficiently to make some noises that almost sound like words. Luckily, Mike has lived in close quarters with Bill for long enough that he can translate Bill's before-noon-haven't-had-coffee-yet grumblings into useful information, and he finds Bill's keys in his coat pocket—which is located under Sisky's ass on one of the sofas, but Mike has fucking talent and also a zombie apocalypse couldn't wake Sisky up.
He thinks about going to get the car, but it's parked a couple of blocks away and he's not sure when Kevin will re-appear from the bathroom; the kid seemed jumpy enough without Mike disappearing on him. There was a red Sharpie in Bill's pocket along with his keys, and Mike had taken it with the vague intention of writing something stupid on someone's face (he's leaning toward Wentz, because he'd just laugh and take pictures of himself to put on MySpace, whereas Bill would freak out and refuse to come out of the bathroom until he'd gotten it all off), but then he gets another idea. It's a stupid fucking idea in addition to being ridiculously lame, but he remembers Kevin talking about his brothers and their band and their current shitty luck, and Mike can sympathize with that.
He just hopes Kevin won't check his pockets until Mike's dropped him off with his family, because he's not sure how he'd explain the chick-flick shit he's doing.
~*~
Kevin re-emerges from the bathroom not long after Mike slips the jewel case in the pocket of Kevin's jacket. His hair is wet at the edges of his forehead, like he tried to wash his face. (Mike's been in that bathroom a dozen times—Kevin must have been making a real effort to have actually gotten his hair wet.) It isn't enough to have washed away all the morning bleariness; Kevin's movements are only just barely over the line of "awake", and his clothes and hair are still sleep-rumpled. The overall effect makes Mike want to shove him back down on the sofa and muss him up some more, but he'd promised Kevin's dad—his dad, what the fuck—that he'd deliver his son in the morning, and according to the aging clock over the bar, the morning is nearly over.
Mike holds up the keys and jangles them. "Ready to go?" He asks, and Kevin nods and says, "Yeah," and fumbles into his coat, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets, thank fuck. The walk to the car is quiet, but in that subdued, it's-still-morning-why-am-I-awake sort of way, not the awkward walk-of-shame way, which is good. They haven't gone very far when Kevin asks to use Mike's cell again; he hands it over and figures he's not eavesdropping if they're walking together. Kevin calls his family again, to let them know he's on his way, that he's fine. He hangs up just as they reach Bill's car and hands the phone back. His fingertips are cold.
"Thank you," Kevin says awkwardly, ducking his head, "For everything." It's unreasonably cute and so innocent, and Mike thinks he needs to do some serious inner re-evaluation, because before Kevin stumbled half-frozen into his life, he would not have labeled either of those things as turn-ons.
"It's no problem," He says, because it isn't. Kevin's fidgeting, though, like there's more he wants to say, so Mike stands there, leaning up against Bill's not-quite-a-junkheap car with his breath forming clouds in front of his face, waiting for Kevin to get it out.
"I, um. I just—my parents—" He starts, and Mike blinks slowly at him and keeps waiting. "I just, can I—?" And Kevin reaches out and grabs Mike's hand, the one that's holding the keys, and leans in to kiss Mike tentatively. Mike smiles as the babbling makes more sense; he gets it. There won't be a chance for this kind of goodbye with Kevin's parents and brothers standing around.
"Yeah," he says, turning them and using his hips to press Kevin back against the side of the car, "Yeah, you can." They're not going to do anything more, Mike knows. It's too public, and too cold, and Kevin's family is expecting him. That doesn't stop him from kissing Kevin breathless.
~*~
The motel Kevin's family is staying at is a little run-down, but it's not the bottom-of-the-barrel kind of place that caters mostly to drug dealers and low-rent hookers, which makes Mike feel inexplicably better—he's not sure why he cares what kind of place the kid's staying in, but apparently he does. He'd recognized the name when he'd heard it on the phone; he's driven past it a thousand times and could probably find it in his sleep, but the maze of back alleys and one-way streets in hidden residential pockets of the city it takes to get there from the club would be difficult, if not impossible, for a non-local to navigate without precise directions.
Kevin's the oldest, Mike can tell instantly as three younger boys practically explode from room 6 while he parks the car. They've barely stopped moving when Kevin opens the door and is immediately engulfed in a four-way hug. A man and a woman, obviously Kevin's parents, are only milliseconds slower about greeting their son, but Kevin's father makes his hug rather brief, and then makes his way around the car to where Mike is standing. He looks Mike over, a carefully neutral expression on his face—which is fine, Mike's used to being disreputable—and Mike's not sure how, but he can feel Kevin watching them.
"Kevin Jonas," the man introduces himself, belatedly adding, "Senior." Mike can't help but smile a little at that; junior takes after his dad. "Thank you for bringing our son home." He extends a hand and Mike shakes it, trying desperately (and without much success) not to feel like he's meeting the in-laws.
"Mike Carden," He introduces himself back, "It wasn't any trouble." The hugging on the other side of the car has abated for the time being, and Mike is uncomfortably aware of four new sets of eyes focused on him. And yes, rockstar, but fuck that. Being stared at is what Bill's for; Mike wants to play guitar, not be the center of attention.
He's about to move to get back into the car when Kevin Sr. says, "I wish there was some way we could repay you for your kindness," and that's, yeah, no, Mike is definitely not going to take any money from these people when he spent the night feeling up their son. He's got some morals, sort of.
"That's really not—" he starts, but then Mrs. Jonas says, "Oh! I know!" and goes over to the van that's parked two spaces away, trailer hooked up behind it (Mike has known vans like that, and he has an instant flash of pillows pressed up against the windows and feet propped up on cardboard boxes full of merch and crumpled McDonald's bags wedged under the seats), and Kevin says, flustered and blushing again, "Mom, you don't have to—" and then she's wrapping Mike up in an entirely unexpected hug and pressing a jewel case into his hands.
"It's not much," she says, "But please take it. As a token of our appreciation." She smiles warmly at him, and Mike doesn't even really look at the CD before nodding and saying, "Of course, thank you," because Grandma Carden would have his head if he wasn't polite.
He says goodbye to Kevin with an appropriately chaste handshake, and after a brief minute of awkward interaction—Kevin blushes too much, and his father is still looking at Mike like he's some strange and possibly-dangerous new species—Mike is pulling away from the motel and heading back to pick Bill up and drag his sorry ass back to his apartment. His last look in the rear-view shows Kevin being dragged into their room by the smallest of his brothers.
And that's that, Mike figures, sparing a glance over at the jewel case sitting on the passenger seat and smirking at the coincidence (he wonders if Kevin's found the CD yet). He'll listen to the album, he thinks. The kid had said it wasn't selling well, but Mike knows there could be a million reasons for that that have nothing to do with whether the music is good or not. He can probably get away with calling it A&R if anyone asks, though he's almost certain their sound won't be what Pete's looking for. Whatever. He wants to hear it, even though he's never going to see the kid again.
~oOo~oOo~oOo~
(January, 2007)
Kevin's never really had crushes (that one he had on Emilio Estevez when he was nine does not count), so he's always liked to think that he doesn't "do" crushes, except for how maybe he does. In fact, it's becoming increasingly likely that he has a huge, dorky, schoolgirl-style, impossible crush on Mike Carden from The Academy Is....
This is completely awful for a number of reasons.
~*~
As it turned out, Kevin found the CD in his pocket approximately ten seconds after the motel door shut behind him, though he left it right where it was until they had piled into the family's touring van and hit the road toward their next destination, somewhere in Indiana. He claimed the back bench seat for himself (Joe didn't even put up a fight about it, and Kevin took a second to feel really bad about what he must have put them through) and waited until his brothers had settled in with their iPods (or Gameboy, in Frankie's case) to pull the CD out and look at it. The plastic shrink-wrapping had been torn off, though the case was still sealed. The cover featured a bright cartoon sunrise (or maybe sunset?) and small letters in the upper left corner read, "The Academy Is..." and "Almost Here". But most importantly, scrawled on the front in red Sharpie was, "Don't give up. —Mike".
Kevin wasn't stupid. Considering that Mike had introduced himself to Kevin's dad as "Mike Carden" and "Michael Carden" was listed in the liner notes, it didn't take him very long to figure out that this was Mike's band, and Mike's band's CD. And that the "Bill" whose car they'd taken was William Beckett, who was apparently their lead singer (and who did, in fact, look like a girl, but Kevin didn't find that out until later). Kevin hadn't been wrong about the calluses on Mike's fingers; he did play guitar after all; and he was good, Kevin discovered once he got a chance to get the CD transferred onto his iPod. He keeps the jewel case with Mike's message on it safely tucked away at the bottom of his duffel.
It was almost Christmas by the time Kevin got a chance to look for any more information. He went to the public library, mostly because using his dad's laptop to Google-stalk the guy he sort-of-maybe-hooked-up-with just felt wrong. They were home for the holidays, and being in Wyckoff meant that no one worried when Kevin disappeared for a few hours, since he actually knew his way home (and shopping for Christmas presents was always a good excuse to get away without company). His free hour with Google was informative.
For one thing, he learned that the "Pete" who had briefly occupied his lap was Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy, and that the library's internet censors didn't like Pete Wentz very much (which was unnerving, and made Kevin doubly glad he had decided against using his dad's computer).
And for another, he learned that Mike Carden was not just a guy in a band who Kevin happened to have a stupidly massive crush on. No; he could—without any charity—be considered an actual rock star. TAI had their own headlining tour and everything—they'd been to Europe, and Japan! There were pictures all over the internet, and a blog that Kevin browsed through carefully.
By the time the timer started flashing to let him know his hour was almost up, he was fairly certain he was doomed.
~*~
Mike is cool—really, actually cool—and he's still... well. Kevin Jonas. Mike is so far out of his league; he's like, the Yankees to Kevin's intramural fast-pitch softball team (even if they had won the championship two years in a row). And yet the knowledge of Mike's coolness doesn't stop Kevin from wanting to kiss him again; or from wanting Mike's hands on his waist, pressing him back against the winter-morning-cold door of an aging sedan; or from waking up sweaty and hard with the memory-taste of tobacco and beer in his mouth.
~*~
Kevin's shrine to Mike Carden is not a shrine, exactly. It is located in the bottom of his touring duffel, and is comprised of only three items: the copy of "Almost Here" that Mike had given him; a nondescript USB flash drive containing one picture of Mike smiling and one picture of him smoking in a bathtub (which Kevin felt awkward about saving but can't bring himself to delete); and a scrap of paper—which is actually tucked into the liner notes of "Almost Here", for safekeeping—on which Kevin has scrawled Mike's cell phone number, hastily retrieved from Kevin Sr.'s recent calls list when no one was looking.
It's the last of these items that Kevin is worrying between his thumb and his first two fingers as he sits (okay, hides, but he doesn't have to admit that, does he?) in the bathroom with the cordless phone handset from the kitchen. It's not that he's not sure he wants to sign the contracts with Hollywood Records—it's the break they've been waiting and working for all this time, and not only would everyone be so disappointed if he said "No", but he'd feel like such a failure. It's just...
It's Disney; which Kevin loves, to be sure—he can sing all the songs from The Little Mermaid, which is a fact he tries not to advertise too widely—but he's under no illusions about what that means for him, personally. Disney doesn't let its boys kiss other boys, let alone any of the other things Kevin sometimes thinks about doing with other boys.
He knows—thinks he knows—that his family would be fine with him, would be able to accept that he's really, completely and totally gay, even though the church says it's wrong. They love him. And most of the time he's pretty sure they all know already (except maybe Frankie, who still thinks girls have cooties and wouldn't really understand). But he's not ready to tell them, is the thing. Because telling them... there's no way to go back from that. His worst nightmares are the ones where Nick won't hug him anymore; where Joe looks at him like he's a freak. They wouldn't; he knows his brothers and he trusts his brothers, but every time he thinks he might say something (sometimes he gets as far as opening his mouth to speak) the fear wells up and seizes his insides and he can't make the words come out.
Which brings him to Mike's phone number, and hiding in the bathroom.
The guy he made out with once when he was lost in Chicago (and subsequently developed a stupid fanboy crush on, but that's not important at this juncture), who turned out to be a semi-famous rock star, is perhaps not the best person to bring his emotional crisis to, but with his parents and his brothers and, obviously, all his friends from church automatically excluded, there's... truthfully, not many people left on the list of possible sounding boards.
Kevin's fingers shake as he dials; he accidentally hits the 5 and the 6 at the same time and has to hang up and start over. But his second attempt is successful, and possibly his heart is going to beat its way out of his chest in protest at being put through this, but the other end is ringing once, twice, three times, and then a sleepy voice is saying, "Yeah?" and Kevin pretty much completely forgets everything he had planned to say.
He settles for, "Um. Hi?"
"Who the fuck is this?" Mike's voice says, gravelly and unhappy and Kevin thinks, belatedly, that just because he is awake and worrying about things at 4AM doesn't mean that everyone is.
...Oops.
"Kevin," he blurts out, entirely sure that Mike is going to hang up on him (he would hang up on him, if he called himself at 4AM). "It's Kevin. I'm Kevin. You—We, um. I was lost, before?"
There's a not-quite-silence on the other end of the line, mostly made up of rustling sounds and a muted, "Fuck," that Kevin pretends he hasn't heard.
"Please tell me you're not wandering around outside again," Mike says, and his voice is still rough but he doesn't sound angry anymore.
"No," Kevin says. "I'm not. I'm home. In the bathroom, actually, 'cause Joe's kind of a light sleeper? So he'd definitely wake up if I was on the phone in the kitchen, um." Kevin does not know why he can't stop babbling.
Mike just sounds like he might laugh. "So why are you calling at three in the morning if you don't need rescuing?" Mike pauses. "And how the hell did you get this number, anyway?"
Kevin blushes, even though there's no one there to see it. "Um, the recent calls log on my dad's cellphone?" he offers, and Mike really does laugh at that. Kevin fights down the urge to shush him—it's not like Joe can hear Mike all the way from Chicago.
"It's... I mean, why I'm calling," Kevin fumbles, takes a deep breath. "Our label dropped us," he starts over, and Mike says, "Fuckers," which is not what Kevin would have said, but he appreciates the sentiment.
"We got an offer from a new label," he says, and Mike makes listening noises as Kevin lets everything spill out; how excited everyone is, how excited he is, and how scared, because, okay, he was already living in a closet (even if it was a pretty flimsy one), but signing with Disney is like stepping into a steel-lined vault. Or if it's not, it feels that way, because Kevin would never do anything to hurt his brothers, and that certainly extends to getting them dropped from another label because of his immense gayness.
Every feeling and worry and fear that's been trapped inside him has been spread out on the ceramic tile when he's done, and there's a long pause during which he gets to examine each piece under the overhead light (and feel a bit sick) before Mike speaks.
"What do you want to do?" Mike asks, and Kevin wants to smash his head against the cabinets, because he doesn't know and that's why he made this call in the first place.
"I don't—" he starts, but Mike cuts him off.
"Yeah, you do. What do you want?" He somehow makes the question a command, and the surety in his voice breaks through the intangible block in Kevin's head.
"I want to make music," he says, and it's the most honest answer he can give. He wants to write songs with his brothers. He wants to play guitar every day for the rest of his life. It's all he's wanted, for years now.
"Then make music, kid," Mike says, and Kevin can almost feel the reassuring squeeze to his arm, the back of his neck, his ankle, his thigh. "You'll figure the rest out."
"Thanks," Kevin says in a quiet voice.
"Yeah," Mike yawns, and Kevin remembers, right, 3AM in Chicago and that was nearly an hour ago. "I'm going back to sleep now," he says, and Kevin nods, feels stupid, then says, "Yeah, no, sorry."
It's just before they hang up that he thinks to ask, "Your number, I— Can I—" and for a second he thinks Mike already hung up, but then he hears,
"Keep it. 'Night, Kevin."
Kevin presses the End button on the handset and smiles down at the paper with Mike's number on it. He returns the handset to the kitchen and carefully stows the slip of paper back in its customary spot, tucked into the four-fold liner notes before sliding back under the downturned covers of his bed and sleeping straight through breakfast.
~*~
BIG NEWS!!!
Hey Everybody!!
As most of you already know we are no longer with Columbia Records.....but we are VERY happy and excited to announce we have signed with Hollywood Records.
We are currently very busy in the studio where we have already begun the first stages of our new CD which is tentatively due to release late summer 2007!! We have written so many new songs and can't wait for you to hear them.
~*~
We're sorry. You have reached a number that is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again.
~*~
We're sorry. You have reached a number that is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again.
~*~
We're sorry. You have reached a number that is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again.
~oOo~oOo~oOo~
Kevin's crush doesn't go away, not even after he gets the same disconnected line message for the seventeenth time. He still keeps Mike's non-working number in the liner notes of "Almost Here", because looking at it makes him feel a little better, even when he and his brothers are doing ads for Baby Bottle Pop instead of actually writing their music. Don't give up becomes a mantra.
("Santi" joined "Almost Here" at the bottom of Kevin's duffle the day it came out; he didn't quite show up at Best Buy just as they opened their doors, but it was a close thing. He listened to it over and over during most of April and the first part of May, until Nick threatened to skewer Kevin's iPod with a drumstick if he put his headphones in again before he'd laid down his parts for their next two demo tracks.)
For all of Kevin's hesitation about signing, he will say that Hollywood Records is fast about putting up the cash and getting them the studio time for their new album. And sending them out on tour again; state fairs and medium-sized cities are far from a big headlining tour in every major US city (or Japan, which has sort of become one of Kevin's new life-goals-he-isn't-telling-anyone-about), but it's a start, and it's better than "anywhere that will have us", which had sort of been their rule of thumb before. In fact, Hollywood has been doing more than Kevin ever could have expected, including getting them the chance to perform at the White House, which Kevin still can't believe they actually did.
It was the right choice, and Kevin reminds himself of that a lot. Even if they did have to pack up all their stuff and move to the other side of the country (which is fine for Joe and Nick and especially Frankie, who practically grew up in a van, but Kevin misses home more than he likes to admit). And even though sometimes, when his iPod shuffles onto TAI songs, he sees dancing boys in skinny jeans and feels Mike's hands and lips on his skin, and thinks of alternate futures. Despite all that, it's worth it.
It's worth it every time he sees Joe grinning, like he can't keep all the feeling inside. It's worth it when he pulls the guitar out of Nick's sleeping hands at 2AM and pulls a blanket over him. It's worth it because his parents' faces have lost the pinched look they'd had since their last record's release. Kevin maybe doesn't have everything he could want, but he has everything he needs and plenty more besides. He has his family, and his guitars, and he gets to eat and sleep and breathe music every day. It's good, and he's happy. Mostly.
~oOo~oOo~oOo~
(August 2007)
Everything that happens is Gabe's fault.
This is extremely convenient, because for a while Mike needs someone to blame, and the fact that it actually is Gabe's fault makes blaming him a whole lot easier.
It's Gabe who decides that he simply must see the premiere of High School Musical 2 (not that Bill—who is the only one with half a chance of stopping the insanity—does much to dissuade him). And it's Gabe who gathers up basically everyone on the Honda Civic Tour (somehow Andy and Travis escape, though Mark falls into Gabe's clutches) and smashes them all into the lounge of Pete's bus.
Mike ends up wedged between Chislett and Ryland on the floor of the lounge. He has two beers and suffers through an eternity of song-and-dance numbers and far, far too many comments about who would do Zac Efron (and where, and how—he didn't know Nate was that creative, actually). And then, when at last it's over and he thinks that maybe, maybe he has an opportunity to escape while Bill is still in Gabe's lap and Gabe is therefore somewhat immobilized, Hannah Montana comes on, and anyone taping the joyous over-reactions of about half the room would have blackmail material for life. Mike's escape is delayed for a minute by excited flailing and another round of beers, which is long enough to hear,
Sweet mama, it's the Jonas Brothers!
and after that, he stops trying to untangle himself without putting an elbow in Chislett's crotch.
Gabe is to blame for everything that happens (fucking Gabe, seriously). But Mike set himself up for this, he knows, because there's no excuse for knowing immediately that Kevin's hair is longer now (and that for some reason he decided to invest in a flatiron). He can't explain away how he knows that "the cute romantic one" fits perfectly; how it makes him remember shy fingers on his wrist and goodbye kisses against Bill's car. And he's not going to think about the way Kevin's shirt rides up for a second and it reminds him of the back of their CD, a year-younger Kevin frozen in a handstand, with that same strip of skin showing. Kevin's belly is warm and soft and a bit ticklish, and there's no excuse, at all for Mike to remember that, except that he does.
Fuck.
"Don't you have their CD?" Chislett asks, and Mike seriously reconsiders his decision not to elbow Michael Guy in the crotch as every eye in the room swivels from the screen to him. (The only thing that saves Chislett's balls is that he wasn't there, so his question was actually innocent, not Bill's version of innocent.)
Pete's laughing his fucking ridiculous donkey-laugh and shouting, "It's Carden's birthday present!" and Bill's eyes are widening like he's just won the lottery or discovered someone's secret stash of women's underwear or something; Bill's fucking weird sometimes. Then Patrick—Patrick, which is how Mike knows he's completely fucked—says, "Wait, that guy?" It's actually Sisky who ends up telling the story (with liberal amounts of input from Pete, when he can stop laughing long enough to form words) of the night that Mike apparently made out with a Jonas brother. Who is currently running around on the Disney Channel shooting marshmallows at Billy Ray Cyrus.
Bill, who was too drunk to have processed much of the events when they were actually occurring, looks utterly charmed, which is one of his more dangerous states of being. Especially when in the company of Gabe. Mike is never, ever going to hear the end of this.
He does his best to tune them all out—they can amuse themselves for hours with something like this, requiring no extra input from the subject of the discussion—and grabs another beer, and absolutely does not watch the rest of the episode.
~oOo~oOo~oOo~
(September 2007)
Hey there, it's Adam T. Siska. I was just hanging out in the lounge with the Butcher when Mike came in and shoved me off the couch. He started punching me a little and I hit my head on the table. All of the sudden there was blood all over my face and a huge gash. It hurt pretty bad, but all is forgiven. A word of advice, friends: don't mess with Mike's Jonas Brothers albums!
I am currently sitting on a couch in between the Butcher and Michael Guy Chislett. The Butcher has put his arm around me and fallen asleep.... it's pretty sweet! Following the show we are going bowling. I am not very good, but I will try my best.
~*~
Judging from the comments on the blog post, most of TAI's fans think it's a joke.
It might be a joke, but Kevin still has to sit and stare at his laptop screen in disbelief. He's one of only a few people who know for certain that Mike Carden does, in fact, own a Jonas Brothers album. Or he had owned one, anyway—Kevin tried not to think about how Mike might have just tossed the CD in the trash and forgotten about everything. It's probably nothing. It's not a sign, it's not some indication that Mike has been thinking about him the way he's been thinking about Mike.
...But the post said "albums". Albums, plural, meaning more than one, and the only way Mike could have more than one was if he'd actually gone out and bought their new one; their new CD that only dropped a couple of weeks ago.
Kevin can't think about that. He just can't, because it makes his stomach twist up and makes him want so keenly that he has to hide in the bathroom for twenty minutes until Frankie comes in and hugs him tight and says, "Mom made waffles."
~*~
So on the plus side, at least Kevin's not as far gone as Nick, who hasn't stopped talking about Miley Cyrus for like, more than a year now, and has only gotten worse since they moved to LA. And of course, signing on to open for her impending tour hasn't helped matters. Kevin actually doesn't see much of Miley, since she stops by ridiculously early in the morning before she heads into the studio, and Kevin would normally be in college which means he's entitled to sleep late. Or something.
Anyway, Kevin's barely ever awake early enough to even see her leave, but Nick is still as smitten as he was the day they met (if slightly more sleep-deprived), Joe is spending most of his time snickering about it and making up ridiculous future-baby names, and Kevin... Actually, Kevin feels bad, because he clearly doesn't care as much about his brother's delirious happiness as he should. As it turns out, he's much more concerned with the number of people on the internet who, apparently, think Mike Carden is a jerk.
Posted by x_MrsBillBeckett_x at 15:37 GMT
wy is carden such n asshole? they shuold hav kicked him out not tom. poor sisky :( :( :(
Posted by LostInChicago at 16:02 GMT in reply to: x_MrsBillBeckett_x
he's not an asshole! sisky shouldn't have been taking his stuff!
Posted by x_MrsBillBeckett_x at 16:22 GMT in reply to LostInChicago
u actully think carden lisens to teh jones bros? ur an idiot. he just beats up sisky
Posted by LostInChicago at 16:43 GMT in reply to x_MrsBillBeckett_x
how do you know he doesn't?
Posted by x_MrsBillBeckett_x at 16:57 GMT in reply to LostInChicago
wtf cardens an asshole hes not a fag
Kevin shuts his laptop with a click and wipes his palms on his pajama pants. People on the internet suck.
~*~
(November 2007)
The American Music Awards' backstage area is crowded and confusing, even though they'd been there not too long ago to rehearse. There are ridiculously famous people milling around and stressed-out PAs running everywhere, and Kevin got turned around somewhere because he kinda recalls their dressing room being on the other side of the stage?
Kevin is positive that somewhere between rehearsal and their arrival for the actual show, someone rearranged all the hallways and moved their dressing room. Possibly to another solar system or something. He'd tried asking a PA, but instead of answering she made several startlingly abrupt hand gestures and started yelling into a headset, so Kevin decided it was probably best to leave her alone. He's pretty sure he spots Pete Wentz at one point; Kevin's tempted to ask for directions, but the likelihood of Pete Wentz remembering him is close to nil, and he probably wouldn't know where Kevin is supposed to be, anyway. Besides which, Usher—Usher!!—bumps into Kevin and says, "Sorry, man," and Kevin says, "It's okay!" in this high, squeaky voice that he hasn't heard out of his own mouth since he got over the worst of puberty, and when he turns back around, the guy who was most-likely Pete Wentz is gone.
He and his brothers had arrived together and found their seats in the actual auditorium without much difficulty, but then Kevin had made the mistake of leaving them to find the men's room and now he's fairly certain he's going to end up lost backstage forever and completely miss their performance, which means that he'll have to stay lost or Nick will strangle him to death.
(Nick had been increasingly edgy about the AMAs ever since they found out they'd be performing, on top of hearing that they'd be headlining their own arena tour in January, after Miley's ended. He's always been uptight that way, putting too much pressure on himself; Kevin knows that's just how his little brother operates, but he's asked his dad to start thinking about scheduling a vacation anyway.)
He contemplates calling Joe on his cell, but Kevin is well aware that calling his brother to ask for directions back to their dressing room is a level of lameness that even he has not sunk to yet, and that Joe and Nick would both rip on him forever if he actually called and told them he was lost in the vicinity of the Rascal Flatts dressing room, please send help. Kevin has halfway convinced himself to try asking a PA again (implied threat of bodily harm or no), when a voice behind him says,
"Are you lost again? Seriously?"
Kevin nearly trips over himself turning around because he knows that voice, and once he's managed to not-fall-over, he's rewarded with Mike Carden standing there with his arms crossed and one eyebrow raised. He looks like he's fully prepared to murder puppies, but Kevin's heart (which is currently lodged in his throat) doesn't get that memo, because Mike's maybe the best thing he's seen in ages, right up there with an arena full of kids screaming out the lyrics to their songs, and like, baby pandas. And he wore flipflops to the AMAs.
"No?" Kevin offers, trying not to do anything embarrassing. Like throw himself at Mike and demand to know whether Mike thinks about him anywhere near as often as he thinks about Mike. In front of half the music industry. Yeah.
Mike rolls his eyes. "We have to stop meeting like this," he says, then, "Follow me; your dressing room's this way." Mike takes off down a hall that Kevin's pretty sure he's been down at least four times, but he's out of options and realistically, there's no way he's going to let Mike, the Mike, the one he's only had a stupidly massive crush on for nearly a year now, just walk away.
"How did you know I was lost?" Kevin asks once he's caught up, because Mike could have mind-reading superpowers, but Kevin sort of doubts it.
Mike shrugs. "Everyone gets lost back here. And Pete saw you wandering around." They turn right and pass a door that smells overwhelmingly of Axe. Kevin kind of wants to hold his nose.
"He couldn't just tell me where to go?"
"No."
Kevin's actually a little hurt. He knows some people think he and his brothers are massive tools, but he's never thought that someone could dislike them enough to not even be willing to give him directions. "Why not?"
Mike stops short and looks at Kevin like this is obvious. "Because then I would have had to kick his ass," he says, staring at Kevin intently. Kevin's mouth goes all dry and cotton-y.
"Oh." He manages, swallowing thickly. Mike's just looking at him, but maybe Kevin's the one with mind-reading superpowers, because he's pretty sure he knows exactly what Mike's thinking about.
"In here," Mike demands after a long pause, opening the door to what Kevin is certain isn't his dressing room. In fact, it turns out to be a broom closet, but Kevin doesn't get much of a chance to admire its many virtues, because as soon as the door shuts Mike has him backed up against it, trapping Kevin's wrists against the wood with his hands. (Also, it's really dark.)
Kevin doesn't fight him at all; doesn't want to. He lets Mike kiss him; bruisingly hard, and possessive, and everything Kevin's been secretly wanting for nearly a year. Their thighs are pressed together and Kevin can feel the heat of Mike's body—through the thin material of his suit pants it's even more immediate and gut-wrenching than Kevin remembers.
"Your phone stopped working," Kevin says when he can catch a breath.
Mike scowls. "Bill got drunk and threw it in a pool. They wouldn't let me keep my number when I got a new one."
Kevin's whole body feels warm and tingly; two parts pre-show adrenaline, one part having had too many Cokes that afternoon, and ninety-seven parts the way Mike's hands are wandering under the hem of his shirt and the knowledge that he hadn't just decided to ignore Kevin's existence. He's really, really not ignoring Kevin's existence, as it turns out, kissing and nipping at Kevin's neck and sucking at the hollow of his throat until Kevin has to bite back a moan.
"I have to get ready. For our song," Kevin explains desperately, needlessly—if Mike's here, he knows the rundown of the evening already.
"Mmm-hmm," Mike hums, "In a minute." Then they're kissing again and Kevin wishes for a fleeting second that he didn't have a performance to give, or brothers to meet, or a ring on his finger; but he does have all of those things, and they're important, no matter how good Mike tastes or how fantastic his hands feel on Kevin's skin.
"I really have to—mmph," Kevin mumbles between kisses, his spit-slick lips sliding against Mike's, "Nick's gonna kill me for being late." And Joe's going to kill him for showing up with a permanent blush and swollen lips, but that's not stopping him any. He hears the PAs calling from beyond the door, queuing up for the performance two 'commercial breaks' ahead of theirs. He guesses Mike hears it too, because he regretfully backs away and lets Kevin catch his footing without the door to support him.
"Take a right and then a left," Mike says, and it takes Kevin a half-second to realize that he's talking about Kevin's dressing room.
"Right then left," Kevin dutifully repeats back. "Right."
"Then left," Mike smirks, and Kevin is bold and daring and kisses Mike hard and fast, with tongue and everything. Mike's happy-surprised noise makes it even harder for Kevin to go, but he has visions of Nick snapping from stress and murdering him in a very bloody fashion, like, right in front of Ryan Seacrest or something. Kevin doesn't want his gruesome murder to be broadcast live by TMZ.
"I—"
"Go on," Mike says, though his fingers are in Kevin's hair and his voice sounds like stay right here. "You don't wanna be late."
Kevin nods, fingers scrabbling against the door behind him, searching for the knob. "After the show?" He says hopefully, and Mike tugs at a lock of Kevin's hair and says, "Yeah."
It's not until Kevin is halfway down the hall that he realizes he just left Mike in a broom closet, without getting his new number. But the current performance is ending (Beyonce, maybe? If so, Kevin's sort of sad he missed seeing her), and he really does have to move if he's going to be dressed in time.
It's not until he reaches the dressing room—and Joe takes one look at him and nearly collapses on the floor from laughing so hard—that Kevin looks in a mirror, and realizes that Mike is a bastard.
~*~
The scarf he manages to scrounge up in the five minutes he has available is not exactly his first choice. He thinks, judging by the size of the thing, that it was actually meant to be someone's dress or possibly a table cloth, but at least it sort-of matches his stage outfit. And, more importantly, it covers up the two bright, red hickeys that Mike left on his neck.
Their performance isn't perfect (Kevin nearly had a heart-attack when Joe slipped and fell on all that glass), but it's fun, even with the fans trying to crawl onto the stage. Kevin knows he's showing off a little, rocking out as hard as he can and even trying out a couple of spins. He probably looks like a massive dork, but he can't help himself. Everything on stage is sort of a blur; his world is focused down to his blocking and his fingers on the strings of his guitar. And, tonight, the feeling of the scarf rubbing against sensitized skin, and the knowledge that Mike is out there, somewhere in the crowd, watching him play.
When the last chords fade from the speakers, Kevin's mildly surprised to see Big Rob on stage chasing some particularly determined fans away. Then he's hustling them off stage so the place can be cleared up for the next awards, and somewhere in the chaos Nick says, "Joe, you're bleeding!" and it's like the backstage explodes.
"It really doesn't hurt," Joe protests, but Big Rob picks him up and physically carries him back to the dressing room, Joe rolling his eyes the whole way. Nick's making hurt-puppy faces at him, though, and Nick's hurt-puppy faces are Joe's kryptonite, so he stops fussing pretty quickly. The paramedic gets there really fast, but it takes a while for him to get Joe's knee and hand cleaned up and determine that he doesn't need stitches in either. Big Rob ruffles Joe's hair and Nick stops giving the paramedic death glares, and then everyone clears out so they can change back out of their stage clothes.
Kevin's the last one changed, mostly because he has to stop to surreptitiously examine his neck in the mirror, delicately touching the tender marks with his fingertips. And then, since he actually has more than five minutes this time, he regretfully digs into their stage makeup and applies a generous layer of cover-up, blending it as well as he can—he doesn't want to call in one of the professional makeup artists for this, and it doesn't need to be perfect. They'll be in the relatively dim light of the auditorium for the rest of the evening, and with an overnight flight to the next evening's concert venue to catch, they'll be leaving early—before any of the after-parties where the paparazzi with their brighter-than-daylight flashbulbs will be lying in wait.
They'll be leaving early.
Kevin meets his own wide eyes in the vanity mirror. After the show? he'd asked Mike, except he's not going to be anywhere after the show, other than stuffed in the back of a limo and shuffled onto a plane by Big Rob. Oh, gosh, he's an idiot, and he has no idea where Mike could even be sitting in the huge auditorium. He feels sort of sick to his stomach already, and then as they're herded back out to the auditorium they're practically mobbed by a bunch of the fans who came to see their performance.
The venue security people look apoplectic about this blatant violation of their 'stay in your seats' rule, but as much as he and his brothers love their fans and always do their best to make them feel appreciated, signing autographs and taking pictures is mindless and easy; it's no trouble. In fact, it's almost nice, because Kevin has trained himself to smile for the fans no matter how he's feeling, and making himself smile actually does sort of make him feel better. The fans are all beaming, and so happy to even be there and meet them, that Kevin can't hold on to all of his disappointment, though there's still a ball of it low in his gut, eating away at his insides.
Most of the crowd is cooing over Joe's bandages; Kevin's distracted, not really focusing on anything, which is why he doesn't notice right away that the next fan to sidle up to him for a photo is significantly taller than the rest of the group.
"Be absolutely certain you're getting young Kevin's best side," William Beckett says earnestly to Siska, who is holding a digital camera and grinning at Kevin. William's arm is wrapped tightly around Kevin's shoulders, comforting like an anaconda.
Kevin sort of wants to bolt, but Big Rob is looking their way, and Kevin really doesn't want to get William broken in half by his bodyguard (it would probably be easy for Big Rob—William is as skinny as Nick was when he was nearly dying). Kevin shoots Big Rob an "it's okay, no problem" smile, which doesn't entirely erase the suspicion from his face.
"Hi?" Kevin offers, and William smiles back at him. Kevin is reminded of several childhood rhymes about crocodiles.
"I have come to apologize," William says grandly, though not loudly enough to draw too much of the crowd's attention away from Joe's 'bravery' about his injuries.
Kevin is confused. "Okay?" he says, which seems to be good enough, because William nods happily.
"Good, good. My dear Carden has extracted my promise never to defenestrate his personal belongings again, particularly not when we are lodging directly above the natatorial entertainments. So this," William extracts a folded piece of paper from his pocket and places it in Kevin's hand under the guise of a handshake, "should work for quite some time."
Siska walks up and shakes his hand as well, smiling cheerfully as he says, "Don't break his heart. We have friends from Jersey!"
Kevin is about to protest that he's from Jersey, actually, but William and Siska are already gone. And when he sneaks a look down at the slip of paper, he sees ten carefully-penned digits.
Kevin thinks that he might have just been given Mike's band's blessing. Okay, it was technically a threat of mob violence, but... He looks down at the paper again, and doesn't stop smiling for the rest of the night, not even when he falls asleep in the air somewhere over the Rockies.
~oOo~oOo~oOo~
hi
its kevin
kevin jonas
i know. hope bill didnt scare u
only a little :)
he does that
where r u? were in tampa
on th way to indianapolis. show tomorow
i hav 2 do my own makeup tonite. u gav me hickys
good
~*~
(December, 2007)
Mike is about eighty-five percent sure he's dating Kevin Jonas, but he's not sure how he feels about it.
Kevin is funny, and cute, and hilariously easy to fluster. And he's a good kisser, once he loosens up a little. Mike likes to think he's a pretty decent guy most of the time, but he's not so good that he doesn't occasionally jerk off to fantasies about Kevin's mouth. And that's where he hits a mental block, because Kevin is a Jonas Brother. Kevin works for fucking Disney and wears a purity ring, and Mike hasn't been in a relationship without sex since he was fifteen.
It's not like he can't get laid if he wants to; the problem is that he doesn't want to. He's only eighty-five percent sure they're dating, but the thought of Kevin's face if he found out Mike fucked somebody else... Yeah, so as it turns out, Mike is as much a fourteen-year-old girl as everyone else on the label. (Except maybe Brendon Urie, but Brendon is in a category all his own.)
Mike is not, however, enough of a fourteen-year-old girl to blend in with the herd of actual fourteen-year-old girls he's surrounded by, which is probably why their parents keep glaring at him and making disapproving noises. Mike tucks his gloved hands into the front pocket of his hoodie and puts on his most disaffected face, leaning back against the wall of the Arena. Columbus isn't too far from Chicago—still cold as fuck, but they're on break now, so he didn't have to buy a plane ticket to get here; a bonus considering that the concert ticket in his pocket cost him a small fortune.
The ticket is getting a bit wrinkled, mostly because he's already had to flash it at four security guards who came down the line to make sure everyone was behaving, and who had given him even dirtier looks than the parents. (Mike is beginning to feel unwelcome.) Luckily there's only about twenty minutes until doors open, so he'll probably only have to convince two or three more guards that he's got a legitimate ticket.
It only takes five minutes for another guy in an event security jacket to come by; Mike pulls his crumpled ticket out of his jeans, but the guard isn't giving him the stink-eye. In fact, he's grinning.
"Carden?" The guard asks. "Mike Carden?"
Mike has to look hard for a second to place him, but, "Jeremy?" does the trick, and yeah, Jeremy the security guard, who was Jeremy the tech three TAI tours ago (Mike thinks he might have gone to school with Siska's older brother or something?), is coming over and clasping arms with him. The parents, who have strategically placed themselves between Mike and their offspring, are staring at them askance.
"What are you doing here, man?" Jeremy looks skeptically down the line of Hannah Montana-clad, barely-pubescent girls, plus associated chaperones.
Mike waves his ticket casually. "What can I say? I'm a big Disney fan." He smirks like he's being sarcastic, because seriously, Jeremy's never gonna believe him, and it's not like he can just come out and say, "I'm here to watch Kevin's band play, then possibly pin him against a wall and grope him for a while."
Jeremy laughs, "Lost a bet with Bill again?" and Mike shrugs, which isn't exactly answering the question, but is apparently enough for Jeremy. "Hey, man, I gotta go, but you should come hang backstage later! I'll tell Tony to let you in."
With that, Jeremy disappears down the line, and Mike is left to spend the next ten minutes before the doors open being given increasingly hostile, jealous glares by every sparkle-clad girl within hearing range. He tucks himself deeper into his hoodie and reminds himself that he's a twenty-two-year-old rock star, and he could totally take the ten-year-old in pigtails who looks like she wants to murder him.
Fucking Jeremy.
~*~
Nationwide Arena is fucking huge, and packed full of screaming girls and awkward parents who have started a booming black-market trade in earplugs. Mike's ticket isn't front row, for all he paid for it, but he's close enough to the stage that he doesn't really need the huge video monitors. That's a big plus, he figures out pretty quickly, because the monitors only focus on Kevin about every tenth shot, if that. Mike really doesn't give a shit about the screaming tweens around him; he didn't drive five hours to watch Kevin's little brother strut around on stage and thrust his crotch in girls' faces.
The girls don't seem to mind the crotch thrusting, and Kevin doesn't seem to mind (or even notice) that he's not the focus of the crowd's attention. Actually, the way he's pretty much focused on trying to fuck his guitar is kinda hot; all the more so because Mike gets it—and might have a slightly unhealthy obsession with his own guitars occasionally (but that's beside the point).
Kevin throws himself headfirst into the music, surfacing briefly for between-song banter with his brothers then going under again, and yeah, Mike's losing any shred of "decent guy" cred he has, because he can tell that Kevin's getting sweaty under the stage lights and it just makes him want to keep Kevin sweaty, for wholly different reasons. Mike may or may not have a detailed fantasy that begins with pulling Kevin's Ridiculous Scarf Of The Day (Mike hopes Kevin never meets Ryan Ross, as the universe might implode) off his neck and licking the stage sweat off of him. Slowly. It's a good fantasy; Kevin's neck was made for licking, and the noises Mike got out of him at the AMAs are conclusive evidence that Kevin would agree with him on that one.
There are other parts of Kevin that Mike wants to lick, but he's got enough of a moral compass that he feels a little guilty for the thoughts he's having, since there are actual kids crushed in all around him—admittedly, most of them are probably fantasizing, too, but Mike would lay down good money that they're thinking about hand-holding and ferris-wheel riding and good night kisses, not what sort of noises Kevin might make if Mike nibbled on his inner thigh.
Mike is both disappointed and relieved when the Jonas Brothers finish their set and exit the stage; he uses the lull between acts (short; the tour's tech guys are good, and Mike is actually kind of impressed) to make his way past the pre-teen hordes so he can track down the mysterious Tony. It takes a while, but the second tech he asks (the first ended up being a tech for the tour, not the venue, and, as such, less than useless for Mike's purposes) directs him down a nondescript, beige hallway, past a long line for the women's restroom, to a nondescript, beige door that's labeled "Authorized Personnel Only" and guarded by a beefy guy in a suit. He's got a venue name badge that says "Anthony" on it, so Mike doesn't even bother seeking confirmation.
"Jeremy said I should come find you," he says, not quite craning his neck to look Tony in the eyes.
"You Mike?" Tony asks, raising an eyebrow.
Mike nods and says, "Mike Carden, yeah."
Tony materializes a backstage pass out of pockets and hands it off with a warning that if anybody figures out Mike's not supposed to be there, Tony had nothing to do with it. Then he pushes the door open and Mike slips through.
~oOo~oOo~oOo~
The last thing—person—Kevin expects to see outside their dressing room when he and his brothers scramble off stage after their interlude performance so the techs can set up for Miley's second act, is Mike Carden. For a second, Kevin thinks he must be hallucinating or something; it's gotta be a crew guy who just looks a lot like Mike and happens to be lounging in a very Mike-like way against the wall. But then Mike sees them coming and catches Kevin's eyes and his lips curve upward at the edges... Nobody else has Mike's smirky grin.
Kevin stops short and Joe runs into his back with an oomph and a, "Hey, Kev, watch it!" Kevin mumbles an apology at him, but he can't take his eyes off Mike, who hasn't made a move other than to smile at Kevin meaningfully. Kevin has absolutely no idea what to do here.
He has a couple of options. He could walk up and say hi, which would necessitate introducing Mike to his brothers and would also necessitate Kevin determining whether to introduce him as, "My friend, Mike," or as, "My boyfriend, Mike"; the latter of which would involve a couple more big revelations that Kevin's not quite sure he's up to making at the moment (plus, he has no idea if Mike would even want to be introduced as his boyfriend; Kevin doesn't want to screw that one up). He could attempt to convey through meaningful looks and attempts at telepathy that Mike should wait, and that Kevin will be out of the dressing room in just a second (which would involve manufacturing some reason to leave again, but Kevin could probably think of something?).
Kevin chooses the third option, which is to stand like a very gobsmacked statue in the middle of the narrow hallway, staring at Mike. He really doesn't notice Joe—who is still a bit miffed about the whole 'running into Kevin because he just stopped with no warning' thing—peering around him and following his line of sight. He does notice when Joe says, suspiciously innocent, "Kev, are you feeling alright?"
Kevin breaks his gaze away from Mike to look at Joe like he just grew a second head. "What? I'm fi—"
"Because you look kinda flushed," Joe continues, and if Kevin was flushed he's not anymore, because all the blood goes rushing out of his face. "Maybe you should head back to the bus," Joe suggests, and he really obviously looks at Mike and then back at Kevin, and Kevin has no idea what's going on but his hands are shaking and he feels a bit like he did that time he went on the Tilt-a-Whirl twelve times in a row at the church's Fall carnival. Mike is observing—not saying anything, just watching impassively.
Nick—who had been ahead of them and already gone into the dressing room only to belatedly realize they were not as close behind him as he'd thought—opens the door and looks out at them quizzically. "Hey, what's going on?" He asks, and Kevin is pretty much paralyzed at this point but Joe says, "Kev's not feeling so great, so he's gonna go out to the bus."
Nick's face goes from questioning to concerned in less than a second, and he comes all the way out of the dressing room to look Kevin over. "You do look kinda sick," he says, and Kevin chokes on what might be a deranged laugh.
"Yeah," Joe nods, "You should definitely get out of here. Away from all these people," he emphasizes, shooting another painfully obvious glance at Mike. Nick looks at Joe like he's become unhinged.
"What?" Nick asks, but Joe ignores him, looking straight at Kevin. It's not telepathy or anything, but they're brothers, and Kevin's kind of dumb sometimes, but after a second the proverbial light bulb goes on in his head and his hands stop shaking. In that instant, he loves his brother more fiercely than he knew he was capable of.
"Thanks, Joe," Kevin says, and the message is received, loud and clear—Joe smiles at him, big and happy, and Kevin feels like his whole body is just a bit lighter.
"What?" Nick repeats, looking between them with an extremely put-out expression on his face; just because he wasn't in on that particular bit of brotherly mind-reading doesn't mean he didn't see it.
Joe continues to ignore him, though, instead turning to Mike and saying, "Hey, man, can you make sure he gets there?"
Nick gawps while Mike nods at Joe and says, "Yeah, I can do that," and Joe nods back.
"We'll see you in about two hours?" Joe looks to Kevin, and Kevin can't do anything but join the nodding party and smile like an idiot.
"No, seriously, what is going on here?" Nick demands, crossing his arms and glaring at both of them.
Joe throws an arm around Nick's neck and rubs his knuckles in Nick's hair while Nick tries to shove him off. "Don't worry about it," Joe says as he manhandles a violently protesting Nick back into the dressing room, kicking the door shut behind them with his heel.
Kevin knows that in two hours, there will be Discussions. Joe will cave in a couple of minutes and tell Nick everything he knows (how much does he know?), but Joe is on Kevin's side (Kevin is still reeling from that little revelation), and moreover, is fully capable of keeping Nick from marching right out to the bus to give Kevin his Values speech (which isn't even his; it's their Dad's, but try telling Nick that) or worse.
Mike's looking at him, eyebrow raised, and once he catches Kevin's attention he asks, "Bus?" and Kevin swallows down his worries.
He's only got two hours until his world might collapse, but for those two hours, he has Mike and an empty bus.
"This way," he gestures, and they start walking that direction; shoulder to shoulder in the narrow hall, letting their fingers brush.
~oOo~oOo~oOo~
Mike has been on a lot of tour buses; each one is different, but they're mostly the same in all the ways that count. So once Kevin has entered the security code and gotten them in the door, Mike steers straight for the back lounge—which almost always has more room and better sofas than the front—walking backwards and pulling Kevin along with quick kisses and fingers curled in the waistband of Kevin's pants. They land heavily on the sofa, but no-one gets a knee in the crotch so neither of them particularly notice.
Twenty minutes later, their shirts are lying in a crumpled heap on the other side of the lounge and Kevin is breathing hard against Mike's neck, warm in the slightly chilled air. Mike runs soothing hands down his sides and over the planes of his back, careful not to drift too far down. Kevin's hips are settled in the vee of Mike's thighs; Mike can feel everything—both how hard Kevin is, and how much he's shaking.
"'M sorry," Kevin mumbles, dropping his head to rest against Mike's shoulder. Mike lifts a hand to pet Kevin's hair, which has gotten even crazier since the previous month. He's still sweaty from being on stage, but Mike doesn't give a shit about that; he's gone more than a week without showering before, so a little stage sweat is nothing. He's more concerned with the tense lines of Kevin's muscles, the staccato rise and fall of his chest, and what he can say to make this better.
"Nothing to be sorry about," he settles on, because it's true.
"I know it's—" Kevin shifts a little and his voice hitches as his erection rubs against Mike's. Mike bites the inside of his cheek to keep from thrusting upward. He loves the sounds Kevin makes; wonders what kind of noises Kevin would make, coming in his pants from just the friction between them. For a second, Mike wishes he were a little more of an asshole. Then he takes it back, holds himself still, because he could be an asshole, yeah, but he's not a rapist, and he's not willing to lose Kevin. Not over this.
Kevin takes a series of deep, shuddering breaths, then tries again. "I know it's stupid," he says, and Mike would protest but Kevin doesn't give him the opportunity, just barrels straight ahead even as he stumbles over the words. "It's not like I can even... They won't... I won't be able to get married in the church." He pauses, takes another deep breath. "I won't be allowed in the church," he says in a small voice, "once they find out."
That hits Mike like a sledgehammer to the chest, and he feels like a complete dick for not putting it together; for not realizing. He's not particularly religious—church, in Mike's memory, mostly consisted of singing a lot of boring songs and counting down the minutes until the service finished and he got to go have donuts and Kool-Aid; he'd stopped going at all, around the time he hit middle school. But Kevin and his family are. Mike's seen and read enough of their interviews to know that; everyone in the country knows that. Mike just hadn't connected all the dots in the right order. Fuck. He pulls Kevin tighter to his chest, and this time when Kevin bites his lip and hisses, Mike doesn't have to fight his inner asshole to keep himself still.
"It means a lot to you, doesn't it?" Mike asks quietly, though Kevin's answering nod is just confirmation of what he already knows. His hard-on is finally going away, and Kevin's too; everything feels a bit less urgent. Mike lets the silence stretch for a long time before speaking again.
"We don't have to do anything you don't want to do," he says, feeling like an after-school special. Kevin mumbles something into his collarbone.
"Hmm?" Mike shrugs his shoulder, just enough.
"I do want to. Do. Things," Kevin admits, his cheeks flaring bright red. "With you." He's smiling shyly, and the earlier tension is almost gone—Kevin is mostly boneless weight, and Mike gives in to the urge to kiss him.
"Whatever you want," Mike promises, and he feels Kevin gearing up to say something; the way the muscles of his stomach flutter, the way his tongue darts out to moisten his lips.
"...Dinner?" Kevin asks Mike's chest. It takes a minute for Mike to parse that out into something that makes sense, because Kevin's brothers will be back soon and he knows they've got another show the next night; they'll be hitting the road as soon as they can after the show finishes. But that's not what Kevin's talking about.
"You want me to take you to dinner?" Mike asks, and fuck, that didn't come out sounding right at all, because Kevin freezes, then starts pulling away. Mike catches the back of his neck and buries his fingers in curls; Kevin stops moving, but he won't look at Mike and his face is blank.
"Not what I meant," Mike says, and that gets him a flicker of something. "You really want that?"
Kevin finally looks at him then. "Yeah," he says, "I really do."
Mike tightens his fingers in Kevin's hair and drags him back down—the kiss is a little rushed and a lot sloppy, but eloquent.
"Then I will take you out to dinner, Kevin Jonas," Mike says, and Kevin smiles like the sun after a storm.
~*~
Mike is now one hundred percent certain he's dating Kevin Jonas, and he feels pretty good about it.
(Click the cover to download the soundtrack, made by the ever-lovely Skoosiepants! <3 )