Twisted Pretzel Chapter 15: Joe
Title: Twisted Pretzel
Author: 2he_re (Heather and Reena)
Fandom: Jonas Brothers
Pairing(s): Joe/OMC
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, the real people in it are used without their permission and we do not own them or have any copyright to any part of any of them. We do not believe any of this happened, is likely to happen, or will happen. It is simply a story created around known facts about those involved.
Summary: Mrs. Johnson dislikes the Jonas Brothers. She hates Joe. Why? Doesn’t really matter does it? What matters is that she was playing a game to get rid of him. Death. Horrible death.
“Tristan Darthe” was her pawn. Arrested a year after the incident and tried. His mental state was proven to be unstable, and instead of a jail sentence he was sentenced to an asylum for the rest of his poor, pathetic, lonesome life, where I'm not even allowed to go suicidal.
Call me unstable, call me insane, but oh deary me, I’d loved that game. I mean, money is good and all, but you know, killing is better.
But damn, I’d lost.
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 pt. 1 Chapter 21 pt. 2 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26
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When something that has been planned out for months comes down to the last week before it kicks off, that last week is going to be Hell Week. It always is. People try to rush and make sure everything is going to be perfect. It means extra practice, more promotion, double check of luggage, freaking out time, and packing more coffee than you originally thought you would’ve needed.
I have never experienced this “Hell Week” before I came to be with the Jonas’. It started this last week before tour, and they’d planned every single thing out. I had to be planned into Joe’s schedule if I wanted any time with my boyfriend, but why would I be planned into his schedule? No one knew I was his boyfriend. Nick made sure I generally wasn't planned in. He could keep us apart a lot when no one knew what happened behind locked doors.
I finally got time with Joe the third day in Hell Week, sitting next to Joe during a signing. I happen to despise signings. It meant girls shoved their boobs in his face, and pushed out a piece of paper for him to sign while they batted their stupid eyelashes and sparkled with way too much glitter. I knew Joe normally loved the female figure more than the male one.
Which is why I made sure I didn’t end up shabby during the signings, because sometimes the pretty ones came mixed in with the too fat and too thin ones. Our thighs almost touched with my chair squished impossibly close to Joe’s. Because I sat on the end, Nick didn’t really get a chance to throw us any dirty looks, and the girls easily passed over me.
I shifted my head to rest on Joe’s shoulder, and I gave an inward smirk at how Joe didn’t toss my weight off, but let me lay there as he tossed smiles to the girls when they shoved themselves in front of him. I grinned when a guy came up, and his gaze lingered on me. His hair stood short and spiky, eyes a gorgeous green.
Joe straightened up, and his right arm encircled my waist. He signed with his left. The guy gave me a strange look. I moved my lips to Joe’s ear when the guy left. “He was kind of cute, don’t you think?”
Joe absently sent a smile the next girl’s way and scribbled a hasty signature. I always clung to him in public. Enough to raise eyebrows, but not enough to call Joe out for cheating on his girlfriend. I was a guy, so who expected me anyway? “Not really.”
I snorted. Of course that guy was cute. “You don’t have an appreciation of the male body. That guy had muscle.”
“I’m your boy-” Joe promptly cut himself off, and I straightened up with a snarl. It almost felt as if he had slapped me. Why should it feel that way? I somehow knew he wouldn’t say boyfriend in public. It shouldn’t bother me: I kept telling myself that, but I really wished he would’ve. I wanted to be able to kiss him in public, and, right now, I really wanted to do something with him, keep all these boobs from being shoved in his face. Maybe that’s one of the reasons he went bi. Because all the girls had scared him off. I’d be terrified of girls too if they randomly groped at me.
Another pair of boobs finally left Joe’s face, and I chuckled. “That one looked a little slutty…” He gave a smile, but refused to say anything, probably because a particularly flat-chested girl came to stand in front of him then.
“I know right?!” the next girl gushed. “Some girls just don’t know what’s slutty.” She walked away; her butt purposely waved back and forth. Joe took a sip of water, trying to save himself from turning that lovely shade of red I love him in.
“Some girls don’t know when they’re being obnoxious.” Joe choked on the sip of water. I smiled. I put my head back on his shoulder, commenting lightly in his ear about how those shoes really didn’t match the outfit. All the while my mind gauged how Joe responded to each girl, the older ones and the younger ones. The pretty ones, the slutty ones. The wild ones, the sweet ones. He stared at ones a bit longer than necessary with blonde hair. He admired the skin of girls with delicate tattoos longer than I appreciated.
Finally the line came to an end, and everyone got whisked off to the set of JONAS. The rest of the family kicked me out, and I ended up just walking around the other lots, before heading out to the streets. People followed me. A few took pictures. I gritted my teeth and lowered my head more.
The day didn’t end up happy until Joe crawled into bed with me.
His warm body pressed up against mine. His chapped lips pushed against my skin. He could find the parts that made me moan easily now. He didn’t have to worry about giving me hickies. Even if I had to artistically place mine. He bit my skin, and sucked at the sensitive parts. I threw myself over him, pushing him down to the bed. I kissed his stomach raw. I traced his arms into goose bumps.
Joe pushed me back, flipping me over. His hips pressed into mine. He locked my hands above my head. He nuzzled at my throat, kissing me there in a way that made me whine for more. I wrapped my legs around him, and he shuddered. I turned for a kiss, and he pulled back. “Am I your first?”
“Fuck?” I asked at the random question. Really? He was going to kiss me. We were making out. You didn’t ask questions then, even under the policy of kiss and tell, which I don’t think we were doing anymore. He kept kissing and kissing and I kept receiving and receiving, loving and loving, relishing and shivering.
Joe wouldn’t come down for a kiss. He stared at me, with those chocolate eyes of him. He pushed on, needing a question for whatever reason. “Boyfriend. Am I your first boyfriend?”
I scowled, wiggling under him. Seriously? Now was not the time. Let us talk about this over a bowl of ice cream or sometime we’re not kissing. Sometime in the morning when I would be more awake. “Flash,” he pressed, breathing out my name. I felt shocked as shivers travelled down my spine. I don’t think I remembered feeling something exactly like them ever before. “Tell me.” He leaned down and kissed me, slow and sweet. Maybe we were still playing the game. When he pulled back, he gave me another one of his looks that made me long for his touches even more. “Please,” he asked.
So I nodded for him, realizing it was the truth. He was my first boyfriend. Something stirred in my stomach, something warm and thick. But that was as far as he was for my firsts. “But you’re not the first person I’ve done stuff with.”
He chuckled. “Noticed that.”
“You’ve had girlfriends before.”
Joe gave me a guilty look. Though I don’t know why. I fucked tons more girls than he had fucked. “A few,” he confessed to me.
I laughed. He lied. “A lot.”
“How did -”
“You kiss like you’ve kissed a lot of girls,” I stated matter-of-factly. I didn’t mention being able to read him like an open book, his hesitance on the reply and the way he bit his lip as he produced the lie. “It’s a different sensation when someone is used to kissing girls than it is when they’re used to kissing men.”
“I broke up with Camilla,” he stuttered out quickly. I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to judge just why he had said that the way he had said it. Maybe I couldn’t read him as well as I thought. Well, not yet. Did what he said mean he snuck around my back? Did it mean he thought I judged him too harshly? Why did it matter? We weren’t public anyway. I had done lots worse. He was so innocent that way.
“Thanks,” I told him. He gave me a questioning look. I groaned. “For breaking up with her and all.” He got off of the bed, and started out. Oh my God, what had I said this time? He didn’t even lean back to give me a goodbye kiss, and I knew he was still hard. “Wait.” I scrambled out after him. Why was he so dejected? What did he want? A celebratory bash for him breaking up with that bitch? Because I could bring that. “We’re going out,” I told him.
Joe gave me the freakiest look possible as if I was on crack. Maybe I was. Who knew what was in the water I had gotten at signings from the little runners. “What do you mean? It’s one thirty. We’re supposed to be sleeping.”
Like that ever stopped him from coming downstairs. I grabbed his hand and dragged him out to the kitchen. I pushed him to the stairs, laughter ringing around the house between the two of us. “Go pull on a disguise.” I didn’t care if anyone heard me at this point. They would roll over and go back to sleep if they did wake up, but everyone in the house were sound sleepers. Except Nick. But would Nick both another homo event? I think not. I imagined where we could go at one in the morning, and how Joe would have fun. He’d be unstressed, be happy at this. So what if he ended up tired in the end? He could get hyped on coffee, and I would be there. I was what mattered. He’d broken up with Camilla because of me, for me.
I grinned wildly as he pecked me on the lips before running up the steps to his room. I spun around and froze. I swallowed, trying to wet my throat which had gone dry.
I stared at myself. I stared at Joe. I was grinning, sitting on Joe in the picture. My legs wrapped around Joe’s back and I leaned far over, his head tossed back in laughter. An action froze for forever in time.
“She’s obsessed with memories,” Paul had said.
I remembered those clothes Joe wore. They came from the photo shoot just a month ago. We’d been goofing around at the set. I raised my hand slowly, and placed it over the cool glass.
A memory Denise would forever have, stayed captured in the paper just behind the glass. Forever she would remember how close Joe and I had been, how I had been smiling. How not a single thing had seemed wrong with me. I gritted my teeth. I released the picture to pinch my nose. I tilted my head back, breathing.
I looked back at the picture, before starting to trace the space that remained empty under the picture of Joe and I. Slammed my fist to the wall, right under the picture. The whole wall shook, but no pictures fell off. The heart could still fit right there. I pressed my fingers to the wall and traced down. There. A nail could go there, and another one there, to keep the heart from sliding down.
“Tristan?” I spun around, my hand knocking a picture. It swung with a woosh. Joe stood there, behind me. So close I could feel his heat. He wore his customary disguise of a hat and sunglasses. I didn’t see how stupid he looked; all I saw was what would happen if he saw through me. I saw all our moments disappearing. I saw him never coming to me for another kiss. I saw never being able to fuck him. “Are you okay?” His hands slid over my arms, and his fingers started to lightly rub my shoulders.
I nodded numbly.
“You look sad, are you sad?” his voice sounded strained. I forced a smile.
“Perfectly fine, everything is perfectly fine. We’re going out tonight.” I gripped Joe’s arm and started to pull him.
He laughed, and I perked up. My mind lightened, my heart fluttered. “Where are we going?”
“To my room?”
He gave a snort. “Why?”
“Because I’m going to give you a disguise, what you’re wearing now, sorry, that won’t cut it for where we’re going.”
“Where are we going?”
I flashed him a grin. “You’ll find out.”
“You’re insane.” I stumbled to a stop. Fear coming out of nowhere. Insane. I was insane. I was doing all this for a reason. One big reason. I snatched my hand away from Joe’s. It would be cold and lifeless when I would last touch it.
“Flash? What’s wrong?”
I shook my head, starting to go to my room again. I never had these irrational fears before. I had never thought about a job like that. “Nothing.”
“No.” Joe caught my arm and pulled me back to him. “Not nothing.” I sunk into him as his lips captured mine. He pulled back slowly. “What is it?” he asked again.
“I don’t want to say.”
“We’re friends. As friends, tell me what’s wrong. You can trust me.”
I giggled, pulling away. That idea screamed hysterics. Me, a friend with someone? I could trust someone? No way, life didn’t work that way. I moved to my room and Joe followed, seeming to think he had put me in a better mood, somehow. I think he tried to figure out what had put me in the “better” mood. Oh no, no better mood. The same scared mood. Put up the front to pretend I was different. No, no, never.
I pushed him to the bed, all happy, all normal, and he laid down, hands behind his head. “So what are you planning on doing with me?” he teased me.
I smiled, coming over with my great big bag of makeup, of disguise. “Sit up,” I commanded, and he sat up. I liked that he did what I said sometimes. I hated how he seemed to trust me. I loved how he trusted me. It made my life so much easier. “Now, you’re going to close your eyes, and not open them unless I say so.”
“What are you doing?”
I avoided his searching lips, humming. “You’ll have to wait and see.”
I could see him roll his eyeballs behind his eyelids. I grinned as he started humming as I looked through everything I had, trying to think of exactly what I wanted to do with poor Joe.
“Is that my song?” I asked when he continued to hum. The song sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Joe grinned, and I rolled my eyes. I liked it.
I pulled out dark eyeliner and rimmed his eyes, sweeping a little out to the side. He gave a start at my hand and pencil on his face. But relaxed as I soothed him with whispers. The more wacky and wild my job was on him, the harder it would be to recognize him. I grinned, going to work to make his eyes a masterpiece. Eyeshadow and coloring in the eyebrows, shaping them how I wanted. Mom had taught me how. I could still do it, even with one eye. I defined his whole structure. It didn’t take long. I had perfected running.
“Now, stay,” I told him, “I have to get something else.”
“What if I don’t?” Joe asked teasingly. “You’ll kill me?” I stilled. I would. I had to. In the end. Fuck, did Joe know? Insane and killing in the same day. He had to. “Flash?” I shook my head at the warm tingle the nickname sent up my spine.
“Sit still.” I left for barely a second, coming back with hairspray. I grinned, Joe had flat-ironed his hair this morning. Too bad, it was going semi-spiky now. I grinned as he flinched when he felt the first spray of the bottle.
“What are you doing to my poor hair?”
“Making you smexy.” I frowned as the bottle stopped shooting out sticky spray. “Do you have another bottle?”
“No,” Joe answered just a bit too quickly, but I let it go. White lies. Couples made little white lies all the time. Besides, he looked good with just a bottle.
“Open your eyes.”
Joe opened his eyes. “There’s no mirror.”
“I know, now, let’s go.” I grabbed his hand, already tugging him out of the room. He pulled me into a bathroom where he found a mirror, and he stared at himself like the narcissist person he was. But no, not really, I would stare too, if I stood in his place with the look I had put on him.
I came up behind him, and flicked on the light so he could better see himself. I rested my head on his shoulder. His eyes shined with a dark and smoky perfection. Soft wings came out to make his eyes look narrower than they were. His eyes darted up to his hair as did his hands. It stood spiked and sprayed over to one side. A nice bed swept perfection. He looked so fuckable. I had closed the image of his nose down, pumping up his lips.
“That’s not me,” he whispered to me. Our faces both covered in makeup. I rolled my eyes.
“Which is why no one is going to recognize you.”
Joe looked critically over my disguise job. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” I muttered back. I knew how to do my shit.
“We need to be back by five.”
I laughed, tugging him to the window in the bathroom. I pushed it open, and clambered out into the moonlight. Joe uncomfortably slid out behind me. I pressed up to him once his feet hit the ground and shoved him to the siding. “We don’t need to be back anywhere. They’re going to have to wait for you.”
Before Joe could protest, I kissed him silent. “Where are we going?”
I started to run, and he fell into step next to me.
“How are we going to get there?”
I picked up the pace, and Joe halted. I slowed and turned around to look at him in the moonlight and streetlights.
“We’re not walking there.” I turned around slowly, the metal heart pressing into my skin. It had slipped below my shirt. My blonde hair fell halfway over my eyes, and I looked up at Joe through it all. I moved back to him with grace, steps long and lanky. I reminded myself of a tiger, stalking prey. Except this prey wasn’t afraid of me, and it should.
It should be so afraid from me. It should be running in the opposite direction. If only we were in the woods. Happy late Halloween.
“Why aren’t we walking there?” I asked Joe, my voice lower than I had ever heard it before.
He swallowed, and I saw his Adam’s apple bob. “Because the killer could get us.”
That got me. I laughed, my voice immediately changing up to a higher pitch. “Oh no, he wouldn’t get us.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know him, and he wouldn’t hurt a Jonas Brother.”
“Tristan, I’m being serious.” I laughed at the pouting expression on his face.
“How do you know I’m not being serious, I’m very good friends with him. He would never hurt me, if that’s what you’re afraid of.” I slipped my hand under Joe’s shirt, softly rubbing in circles. “And he would never hurt you, because you’re mine.”
Joe gave me a weird look, pulling away. I slipped back into run, and Joe followed without a word. But I couldn’t be positive if it was really Joe who followed me, because it didn’t look like Joe who did. Whenever I glanced back, I saw someone who didn’t look like Joe.
I came to the gate, and gently appraised it. To slip through wouldn’t be hard for either of us. It made me wonder why the gate stood here. Maybe just for show. People liked to say they lived in a gated community. It brought them a feeling of importance and security. But there was no security, especially not when I lurked on the inside.
I slowly slid my body through, and then waited for Joe to do the same. His expression remained a careful blank slate. I shivered at the cold air, and started walking down the road. Joe finally slithered through after me.
I stuck out my thumb at the first sign of headlights. Joe’s alarm seemed hilarious to me. He pushed me down, hissing how stupid I acted. I got back up, and flashed a smile at the car. It rolled to a stop, and I had a quick conversation.
It happened too easily, too quickly for me to enjoy.
The two teenagers carted us to the town, before dropping us off at what they dubbed the best gay club in town. I found the line, relatively small and talked our way in, not having to flash any money when I hung off the bouncer.
Joe didn’t seem to understand the concept of throwing your body on the line to get what you wanted, but I decided to let him be anyway. He strayed off to a corner, and I got away from him the moment I knew he wouldn’t leave the club. I needed to get away from Joe, while he remained in the room, more than I needed anything else at that moment. More than I needed a drink or drugs, sex or killing. I needed to get lost, and have someone I trusted watch over me.
How pathetic did that sound? I wanted Joe to protect me as I tried to get drunk. I flirted and laughed, and threw back shot after shot. My laugh became more obnoxious, the songs became louder, and all comments became funnier. The lights made my head reel, making everything so much more amusing. I giggled as men looked all the same only an hour or two later. More and more fell into my grip, and I kissed one after another. I’d missed this, these many tastes all in one night. These people vying for my attention and touch, making them feel amazing, unbelievably high. Yet, I tasted for Joe, wishing he would appear again, but the whole night, he never reappeared. I got sad. Why wasn’t he coming for me?
The men who flirted around me didn’t seem enough. None of them tasted right. None of them smelled right. But they all looked right. Every single one looked like the fake Joe I had made up, and I hated it. I laughed loudly then, because my life was so messed up. Someone brought me out to their car, and I let them. They said my name. I’m a sucker for someone saying my name, especially a fake name. What was my real name? Someone, can you tell me, please? They said, “Tristan, Tristan, Tristan. No, no, no.” They put me in the backseat, and I tried to kiss them. They wouldn’t let me, and I laughed, because who didn’t want to kiss me?
Joe didn’t want to kiss me. I led out a cry, head pounding. I curled up in small ball in the back. My mind spun at the stars that shot overhead because of the drive, and it reminded me of the ride with Gun Guy and Pussy, just me in the back seat, the world moving by without me. Everything mattering except what happened to me. I was only a tool. Always only a tool. Puppet.
I woke up in the hospital. Denise’s curly head of hair looked disapprovingly over me. I moaned as pain flashed through my head. My butt hurt and my lips had swelled to twice their normal size.
“What were you even thinking?” she asked sharply. I didn’t see the expression on her face because my eyes remained squeezed tight, trying to lessen the pain. “You’d pulled some boy out of the house at some un-godly hour in the morning, and led him through the neighborhood. I don’t even know how you caught a ride into town. You get smashed out of your mind, and I don’t even want to know what drugs the doctors found in your system.”
I grunted at the pain, her words shooting through my nerves.
“And that wasn’t the worse thing,” Paul’s deep voice cut through at an easier level to tolerate, deep but no less hurtful. “The worse thing was Joe found you missing. There was no note. At six in the morning, we had to send out a whole team of people. Everything that was planned for today, is now never going to happen. We had to reschedule everything for you, and your poor choice. You hurt the whole band.”
I sighed when I felt drugs start to pour into my system. I wouldn’t have to deal with Mr. and Mrs. Jonas until I woke up. Hopefully that wouldn’t be for a long time.
When I woke up, things didn’t hurt as much. Joe sat in a chair just a few feet away from me. His expression showed that blank slate he had worn when I’d pulled him to the club. He didn’t wear any of the makeup I had put on him. He was clean. I was dirty. Oh so, so dirty.
I reached out to him, wanting to become a part of that cleanliness, but I stopped when an IV couldn’t be moved any farther. He didn’t reach out to capture my hand. I glanced to the door with its little glass window. Denise stood looking in, her expression an open book of worry, confusion, resentment, and pain.
I dropped my hand. “You left me…” I said so helplessly I wanted to hit myself. That wasn’t how I’d wanted those words to come out. I wanted them to come out sharp and demanding, pissed and reprimanding.
“Whatever happened, he did the right thing.”
I snapped my head around to see Nick seated on the other side of me. Kevin stood next to his baby brother, arms crossed. Three out of four brothers. “Where’s Frankie?”
“Not here,” Nick answered. He seemed the only one willing to talk to me.
“Away from you,” Kevin said, his voice one flat, even pitch.
I rolled back to look at Joe, who just stared at me. Did this mean Kevin had found out? Did Denise and Paul know about Joe and I? I couldn’t stay on those ideas long. The only thought that kept circling through my mind whispered, “He left you there. He doesn’t really care. He left you.” Over and over and over and over and over again. “He left you there. He doesn’t really care.”
I didn’t feel the metal heart on my chest anymore. Was that a good thing or bad thing? Had he taken it back?
~*~