Jo's No Good, Very Bad Year 2/7
Neither of them could have guessed that one night would be such a mistake. This is, objectively, because Jo Halbig and David Schlichter are emotional idiots.
No one can get drunk like Jo when he’s in a self-pitying mood.
He downs another shot, grimacing at the taste as he slams the glass down.
“This vodka’s gross,” he complains, not that anyone is paying attention. It doesn’t matter. They can all go fuck themselves.
Someone grips his arm- a very stupid move on whoever’s part- and Jo snarls, straight up snarls because a handful of people are allowed to manhandle him, and- Jo peers blearily upwards, taking a second to figure out who exactly is about to get their ass handed to them- and fucking David isn’t one of them.
“Let me go,” he growls.
“You’re making an ass of yourself. Come on.” David’s tone is low but serious.
“I said, let me go!”
David leans in close, reminding Jo that he is just as tall as Jo is and as heavy. “And I said you’re making an ass of yourself. You think no one’s noticed the blondes you’ve been collecting like cards the last few weeks? You think they’re going to make you feel any better. Let me tell you something, Jo, they’re not. You and I are going to take your pity party somewhere else because I’m not having you ruin my brother’s party, understood?”
“Fuck off, David.”
“No.” David is just as aggravating as his brother when he wants to be, without the years of close friendship with Jo to balance out his stubbornness. “You’re going to let Mäx have his fun.”
“Or what?”
David’s lips curve upwards.
“You misunderstand me. That wasn’t a threat.”
ØØØ
David is broad and tall. His skin is tanned; his hair is dark and straight. He’s nothing like Mäx…and he’s everything like him. David was right: it’s not just the blonde hair and the blue eyes that Jo likes. It’s Mäx’s personality, his calmness and strength, his patience. David has those things or most of them. He’s so much more than those blonde dates were.
He’s also not enough.
Jo feels nothing for David. Oh, he likes David. They’re friends in that strange way siblings and best friends of siblings sometimes are. They tolerate each other, say hi in passing, know stupid, little secrets from overhead conversations, commiserate over the grievances caused by the person who holds them together.
But he’s not Mäx. Every difference sticks out. Every time David says or does something Mäx wouldn’t do, the snake eating Jo’s insides takes another bite. Every bit that makes Jo feel better hurts him all the worse.
ØØØ
Nothing develops into something. Jo gets attached too quickly, he knows that, and David knows him and tolerates them. That’s got to mean something. Only David never seems to get any closer. He is always so distant. Jo isn’t sure if he’s got this all confused and David doesn’t even care about him or if he’s oblivious to the signals David’s throwing. He can’t ask, though, because they aren’t officially anything, and Jo doesn’t want David to tell him he doesn’t care.
He can’t take that right now. Somehow- Jo doesn’t want to think about how- the word got out that he was exchanging more than just words with David. One day Mäx goes from spitballing lyrics with him to giving him a look of such undisguised hostility when greeted that Jo draw back in shock.
Mäx stops calling Jo after that. He still picks up when Jo calls, but the conversations are stiff and they end far too quickly. So Jo stops calling Mäx. He can’t stand the pain that burns like so much acid in his chest every time he hears his friend’s dispassionate voice. He wants to yell and scream, “This is your fault! You made me do this!” but he knows, he knows that’s not true. Mäx didn’t make him do anything. He chose David without once thinking that maybe Mäx wouldn’t be okay with that.
Jo should learn to think more.
But he doesn’t and there’s no undoing what he’s already done, and David’s willing. Jo’s hookups with David become more and more frequent, and public. So public in fact, that half the time Jo thinks David wants someone to catch them. Whatever. It probably adds to the excitement in David’s case.
Whatever is a really good word for what Jo feels. Blasé would be better, but whatever felt more real, more Jo-like. Something he’d actually say without Mäx snickering about thesauruses.
ØØØ
There is something darker about David than Mäx. When Jo realizes what that something is, he feels foolish. David has his own motives, his own desires. He doesn’t think about Jo first or second, or probably even third. He’s distracted most times, like he’s replacing Jo in his mind with someone else.
It’s fine, though, because Jo is doing the same thing. Or trying to. David is so different, yet the same. Jo can convince himself for an hour it’s Mäx he’s laughing with, Mäx he’s touching, Mäx he’s kissing. But then David says or does something and the illusion is gone, a curtain ripped away to reveal a view completely different from the one Jo envisioned.
David isn’t Mäx, Jo has to tell himself again and again when the illusion breaks. David has never been Mäx. There’s no reason to be disappointed when he can’t fool himself for long.
“When’s your birthday?” Jo asks suddenly, realizing he doesn’t know.
David chews on his apple a while before answering. “Last week.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
David laughs. “What, were you planning on getting me a gift?”
Well, no, Jo wasn’t thinking of getting him one. It was just one of those basic things people who are dating should know about each other.
“Happy late birthday,” he says lamely.
David breathes out through his nose and takes another bite of his apple.
“Thanks.”
ØØØ
“What’s your favorite color?” Jo asks the next day. He’s trying, he’s really trying to make this normal.
“Puce.”
“That’s not a color.”
“It is, too. Look it up.”
“If you could live anywhere, where would it be?” Jo presses on. He’s realizing he knows nothing about David. He’s Mäx’s little brother and now Jo’s…something. He should know more about him.
“Brazil.”
“You got a favorite soccer team?”
“What’s with all the questions? You making a survey or something?”
That’s the other thing about David: He doesn’t humor Jo. He doesn’t weather Jo’s bad jokes or ignore his more stupid comments. David’s not mean, exactly: he just doesn’t give two shits about Jo’s pride.
“I thought it’d be nice to know a few things about you.” Jo lifts his chin haughtily. He’s doing David a favor, starting this conversation.
“Why? Fuck, you don’t think- Jo, we’re not dating. This is an arrangement. You don’t want me and I don’t want you.” Except maybe Jo wants David. Except maybe Jo wants anyone right now who can make Mäx’s rejection feel a little less bad. Except maybe Jo wants to make it work to shove it in Mäx’s face, like, hey, I don’t need you; you’re not the only one who can find someone else.
He must see the look on Jo’s face because David grimaces and runs a hand through his straight hair. It’s too straight. There’s a wave to it but not Mäx’s curls. Certainly not Mäx’s color. It doesn’t make Jo want to twist his fingers in it, wrap a strand around his finger and release, watch the curl spring back in place. There’s no curl there. It’s small, but it makes a difference.
“I didn’t mean that in a mean way. But, Jo, you want to fuck Mäx.”
“I don’t-”
David cuts him off with a look.
“What are you getting from this?” Jo asks, shifting the focus. For once, he’d give anything for the attention to be off himself. “If you don’t even like me, why are you doing this?”
“Look around, dude,” David says, spreading his arms wide. “I’m the closest you’re going to get to having him. You don’t want to take me, it’s on you.”
“That’s not what I said.” Jo purses his lips, annoyed.
David sighs. “Sometimes we want things we can’t have, Jo. So we make do with what we can. That’s why I’m doing this,” he says. “Because you want my brother, and I want…someone else. We can’t have who we want, so let’s make them jealous together, okay?”
It makes no sense to Jo, but he says okay anyway.
ØØØ
“Did you think the rest of us wouldn’t notice?” David asks another day, smoking another of his cigarettes. They’re dark brown, really more cigars than cigarettes but for the way they’re shaped. The smell, pungent and sweet, lingers on him at all times. “You and him?”
There’s no surprise there. Fabi complains about their looks, those long moments where Jo catches Mäx’s eye and knows exactly what he’s thinking without any words, often enough that Jo’s sure everyone else has noticed, too. Mäx doesn’t like talking in public sometimes, especially during interviews, so it’s easier for Jo to read what he’s thinking than make his friend uncomfortable.
Jo used to think those looks meant something, like they were some secret conversation between them, a testament to the unacknowledged something between them. He was wrong. It was just friendship, just a strong, deep, lasting, and now very nearly broken friendship.
He’s had those before, times when he thought the bond between himself and another was so strong nothing could break it and then…and then it was gone. Something Jo had said or did, something altogether thoughtless on his part, tore them apart irreparably. It always seemed to be the other person’s fault at the time, but there’s only so many times something can happen before you’re forced to acknowledge that you’re the one responsible.
This time, he knows from the start what part he plays in this. Jo knows, too, that it’s no good to blame someone for how they make you feel or for them not returning those feelings because the minute you start doing that, you have to admit responsibility for your own feelings and that is not something Jo is good at.
Emotions flood through him all the time. To people who know him, a look is all it takes to know exactly what he’s feeling. He tries to hide them, but he’s got the one, arrogant “fuck you” face and that’s it. It’d be nice if he could figure out how Mäx does it, keeps himself so blank sometimes but not the least bit unnatural.
“You’re the leader and he’s the follower, or don’t you get that?”
Jo stays silent. What David says is true to an extent. Jo leads. He always does, in everything. It makes him sick sometimes because all he can do is lead. He can’t make people follow. He can’t make them do what he wants, and he’s too hard-headed to follow anyone else. He’s domineering and over the top, and he’s lost friends because of it. Because he won’t bend for other people.
He gets it, what David is trying to say. He really does. He just doesn’t want to listen.
“Of course, you don’t. You wouldn’t. You can’t change people, Jo. How many years have you known him and you expect him to just change? You’re so forceful. You try to control everything. You take over everything. When’s the last time he took charge? And yet you expect him to do it now.” David shook his head. “He’s not gonna be your Prince Charming, come to sweep you off your feet.”
“I don’t want him to be.” Jo’s voice is bitter but not loud. He should be yelling at David, screaming at him to shut his blasphemous mouth, but he isn’t.
“Good.” David takes a drag of his cigarette. “Because it’s not going to happen.”
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No one can get drunk like Jo when he’s in a self-pitying mood.
He downs another shot, grimacing at the taste as he slams the glass down.
“This vodka’s gross,” he complains, not that anyone is paying attention. It doesn’t matter. They can all go fuck themselves.
Someone grips his arm- a very stupid move on whoever’s part- and Jo snarls, straight up snarls because a handful of people are allowed to manhandle him, and- Jo peers blearily upwards, taking a second to figure out who exactly is about to get their ass handed to them- and fucking David isn’t one of them.
“Let me go,” he growls.
“You’re making an ass of yourself. Come on.” David’s tone is low but serious.
“I said, let me go!”
David leans in close, reminding Jo that he is just as tall as Jo is and as heavy. “And I said you’re making an ass of yourself. You think no one’s noticed the blondes you’ve been collecting like cards the last few weeks? You think they’re going to make you feel any better. Let me tell you something, Jo, they’re not. You and I are going to take your pity party somewhere else because I’m not having you ruin my brother’s party, understood?”
“Fuck off, David.”
“No.” David is just as aggravating as his brother when he wants to be, without the years of close friendship with Jo to balance out his stubbornness. “You’re going to let Mäx have his fun.”
“Or what?”
David’s lips curve upwards.
“You misunderstand me. That wasn’t a threat.”
ØØØ
David is broad and tall. His skin is tanned; his hair is dark and straight. He’s nothing like Mäx…and he’s everything like him. David was right: it’s not just the blonde hair and the blue eyes that Jo likes. It’s Mäx’s personality, his calmness and strength, his patience. David has those things or most of them. He’s so much more than those blonde dates were.
He’s also not enough.
Jo feels nothing for David. Oh, he likes David. They’re friends in that strange way siblings and best friends of siblings sometimes are. They tolerate each other, say hi in passing, know stupid, little secrets from overhead conversations, commiserate over the grievances caused by the person who holds them together.
But he’s not Mäx. Every difference sticks out. Every time David says or does something Mäx wouldn’t do, the snake eating Jo’s insides takes another bite. Every bit that makes Jo feel better hurts him all the worse.
ØØØ
Nothing develops into something. Jo gets attached too quickly, he knows that, and David knows him and tolerates them. That’s got to mean something. Only David never seems to get any closer. He is always so distant. Jo isn’t sure if he’s got this all confused and David doesn’t even care about him or if he’s oblivious to the signals David’s throwing. He can’t ask, though, because they aren’t officially anything, and Jo doesn’t want David to tell him he doesn’t care.
He can’t take that right now. Somehow- Jo doesn’t want to think about how- the word got out that he was exchanging more than just words with David. One day Mäx goes from spitballing lyrics with him to giving him a look of such undisguised hostility when greeted that Jo draw back in shock.
Mäx stops calling Jo after that. He still picks up when Jo calls, but the conversations are stiff and they end far too quickly. So Jo stops calling Mäx. He can’t stand the pain that burns like so much acid in his chest every time he hears his friend’s dispassionate voice. He wants to yell and scream, “This is your fault! You made me do this!” but he knows, he knows that’s not true. Mäx didn’t make him do anything. He chose David without once thinking that maybe Mäx wouldn’t be okay with that.
Jo should learn to think more.
But he doesn’t and there’s no undoing what he’s already done, and David’s willing. Jo’s hookups with David become more and more frequent, and public. So public in fact, that half the time Jo thinks David wants someone to catch them. Whatever. It probably adds to the excitement in David’s case.
Whatever is a really good word for what Jo feels. Blasé would be better, but whatever felt more real, more Jo-like. Something he’d actually say without Mäx snickering about thesauruses.
ØØØ
There is something darker about David than Mäx. When Jo realizes what that something is, he feels foolish. David has his own motives, his own desires. He doesn’t think about Jo first or second, or probably even third. He’s distracted most times, like he’s replacing Jo in his mind with someone else.
It’s fine, though, because Jo is doing the same thing. Or trying to. David is so different, yet the same. Jo can convince himself for an hour it’s Mäx he’s laughing with, Mäx he’s touching, Mäx he’s kissing. But then David says or does something and the illusion is gone, a curtain ripped away to reveal a view completely different from the one Jo envisioned.
David isn’t Mäx, Jo has to tell himself again and again when the illusion breaks. David has never been Mäx. There’s no reason to be disappointed when he can’t fool himself for long.
“When’s your birthday?” Jo asks suddenly, realizing he doesn’t know.
David chews on his apple a while before answering. “Last week.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
David laughs. “What, were you planning on getting me a gift?”
Well, no, Jo wasn’t thinking of getting him one. It was just one of those basic things people who are dating should know about each other.
“Happy late birthday,” he says lamely.
David breathes out through his nose and takes another bite of his apple.
“Thanks.”
ØØØ
“What’s your favorite color?” Jo asks the next day. He’s trying, he’s really trying to make this normal.
“Puce.”
“That’s not a color.”
“It is, too. Look it up.”
“If you could live anywhere, where would it be?” Jo presses on. He’s realizing he knows nothing about David. He’s Mäx’s little brother and now Jo’s…something. He should know more about him.
“Brazil.”
“You got a favorite soccer team?”
“What’s with all the questions? You making a survey or something?”
That’s the other thing about David: He doesn’t humor Jo. He doesn’t weather Jo’s bad jokes or ignore his more stupid comments. David’s not mean, exactly: he just doesn’t give two shits about Jo’s pride.
“I thought it’d be nice to know a few things about you.” Jo lifts his chin haughtily. He’s doing David a favor, starting this conversation.
“Why? Fuck, you don’t think- Jo, we’re not dating. This is an arrangement. You don’t want me and I don’t want you.” Except maybe Jo wants David. Except maybe Jo wants anyone right now who can make Mäx’s rejection feel a little less bad. Except maybe Jo wants to make it work to shove it in Mäx’s face, like, hey, I don’t need you; you’re not the only one who can find someone else.
He must see the look on Jo’s face because David grimaces and runs a hand through his straight hair. It’s too straight. There’s a wave to it but not Mäx’s curls. Certainly not Mäx’s color. It doesn’t make Jo want to twist his fingers in it, wrap a strand around his finger and release, watch the curl spring back in place. There’s no curl there. It’s small, but it makes a difference.
“I didn’t mean that in a mean way. But, Jo, you want to fuck Mäx.”
“I don’t-”
David cuts him off with a look.
“What are you getting from this?” Jo asks, shifting the focus. For once, he’d give anything for the attention to be off himself. “If you don’t even like me, why are you doing this?”
“Look around, dude,” David says, spreading his arms wide. “I’m the closest you’re going to get to having him. You don’t want to take me, it’s on you.”
“That’s not what I said.” Jo purses his lips, annoyed.
David sighs. “Sometimes we want things we can’t have, Jo. So we make do with what we can. That’s why I’m doing this,” he says. “Because you want my brother, and I want…someone else. We can’t have who we want, so let’s make them jealous together, okay?”
It makes no sense to Jo, but he says okay anyway.
ØØØ
“Did you think the rest of us wouldn’t notice?” David asks another day, smoking another of his cigarettes. They’re dark brown, really more cigars than cigarettes but for the way they’re shaped. The smell, pungent and sweet, lingers on him at all times. “You and him?”
There’s no surprise there. Fabi complains about their looks, those long moments where Jo catches Mäx’s eye and knows exactly what he’s thinking without any words, often enough that Jo’s sure everyone else has noticed, too. Mäx doesn’t like talking in public sometimes, especially during interviews, so it’s easier for Jo to read what he’s thinking than make his friend uncomfortable.
Jo used to think those looks meant something, like they were some secret conversation between them, a testament to the unacknowledged something between them. He was wrong. It was just friendship, just a strong, deep, lasting, and now very nearly broken friendship.
He’s had those before, times when he thought the bond between himself and another was so strong nothing could break it and then…and then it was gone. Something Jo had said or did, something altogether thoughtless on his part, tore them apart irreparably. It always seemed to be the other person’s fault at the time, but there’s only so many times something can happen before you’re forced to acknowledge that you’re the one responsible.
This time, he knows from the start what part he plays in this. Jo knows, too, that it’s no good to blame someone for how they make you feel or for them not returning those feelings because the minute you start doing that, you have to admit responsibility for your own feelings and that is not something Jo is good at.
Emotions flood through him all the time. To people who know him, a look is all it takes to know exactly what he’s feeling. He tries to hide them, but he’s got the one, arrogant “fuck you” face and that’s it. It’d be nice if he could figure out how Mäx does it, keeps himself so blank sometimes but not the least bit unnatural.
“You’re the leader and he’s the follower, or don’t you get that?”
Jo stays silent. What David says is true to an extent. Jo leads. He always does, in everything. It makes him sick sometimes because all he can do is lead. He can’t make people follow. He can’t make them do what he wants, and he’s too hard-headed to follow anyone else. He’s domineering and over the top, and he’s lost friends because of it. Because he won’t bend for other people.
He gets it, what David is trying to say. He really does. He just doesn’t want to listen.
“Of course, you don’t. You wouldn’t. You can’t change people, Jo. How many years have you known him and you expect him to just change? You’re so forceful. You try to control everything. You take over everything. When’s the last time he took charge? And yet you expect him to do it now.” David shook his head. “He’s not gonna be your Prince Charming, come to sweep you off your feet.”
“I don’t want him to be.” Jo’s voice is bitter but not loud. He should be yelling at David, screaming at him to shut his blasphemous mouth, but he isn’t.
“Good.” David takes a drag of his cigarette. “Because it’s not going to happen.”
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