Fic: Knock You Back With Something Sweet and Strong
Knock You Back With Something Sweet and Strong
PG-13/7,228 words
Mike Carden/William Beckett
Disclaimer: This is fake.
Notes: A big thanks to morganya for being a marvelous beta, and to sleepherealone for playing cheerleader. Title taken from “Valentine” by The Replacements.
Summary: When Mike and William get tired of fighting and make a wish that has some unexpected consequences, it’s up to the rest of the band to get them back to normal-that is, once it stops being hilarious.
“How long’ve they been at it for, now?” Sisky asked with a sigh, trying to sink further into the couch.
“Dunno.” Michael seriously considered the question. “Could be two hours, could be forever.”
The Butcher viciously stabbed at the drawing he’d been working on for the past half hour with his pencil.
“I’m going to kill them, really,” Tony announced, making his entrance and collapsing on the couch next to Siska, “I mean it this time.”
“Please don’t. I don’t want to write songs by myself,” Michael entreated.
“Can’t we just find look-a-likes? Maybe the fans won’t notice.”
The Butcher stabbed at his paper again and laughed. “The fans notice everything, Tony. Everything. Does anyone remember how this one started, anyway?”
“I think,” Sisky screwed his face up in concentration, “It was over whose fault it was the toaster broke. I think. Wait, listen.”
In the bunks, William’s voice reached a broken fever-pitch. “I just wish you cared every once in a while.”
“Oh,” Michael winced, “Mike’s done for. He’s a sucker for lines like that.”
Everyone else nodded in agreement. Lo and behold, the fighting died down.
______________________
Afterwards, lying in the bunk they always somehow managed to cram themselves into, against all odds, Mike pushed a sweaty strand of hair out of William’s face. “Hey, what you rather have: no fights, or no makeup sex?”
William laughed, soft and low in his throat, and then suddenly turned very somber. “I think a lot of it is my fault, you know.”
Mike frowned.
“Really, I do. Too many fairy tales in my head. My expectations for relationships are unrealistic. If I could change, we’d be okay.”
“You shouldn’t have to.” Mike smiled a sad smile; William kissed his shoulder. “I wish I could give that to you, that we could be how you imagine.”
“Yeah, well-you know what they say about wishes.”
Something that cynical coming from Bill brought up questions Mike had no desire to consider, not after everything. “You’re tired and it’s late. Sleep.”
“Yeah.” William’s eyelashes fluttered against his skin, “Sleep.”
________________________
The next morning, Mike and Bill stumbled out of the bunks dead last, hours after everyone else was already awake. All traces of the fighting that had filled up the previous day (and a good chunk of the night) had fallen by the wayside; now, William had an arm draped over Mike’s shoulder, and Mike had a hand on the small of his back. They looked disgustingly like a normal couple-maybe even a cute, normal couple.
“No more fighting today, I hope.” Butcher announced, drinking down his third coffee of the afternoon. He’d had to wake up at nine because of how late they’d kept everyone up the previous night. He mourned those precious, wasted hours.
“Fighting? What would I ever argue with William about?” There wasn’t the slightest hint of sarcasm to Carden’s voice; adoring glances were cast in William’s direction.
“Nice one, Santi.” Sisky laughed, “Seriously, since when can you keep a straight face saying shit like that?”
Mike looked honestly, genuinely confused, as did William, who batted guileless eyes at Siska. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Adam.”
“Seriously, guys? Try this act on someone who hasn’t seen you practically come to blows over which Replacements album is best-multiple times.”
“I love The Replacements!” Mike said, beaming, and then, to William, “But not as much as I love you.”
Bill leaned in close to whisper something that may or may not have been “I love you more.” By this point, no one was in a fit state to properly diagnose the words.
“Was the makeup sex really that good?” Siska regretted the words the moment they were out of his mouth; Carden never needed any motivation to torment him with details of their sex life. He braced himself for the worst.
It never came. Instead, William looked down his nose in that familiar, disapproving way. “What happens within the sacred confines of our bedroom, stays in our bedroom.” He made a face, “Or as it were, our bunks.”
That was a William-enough thing to say to reassure everyone, even if Mike was still smiling that spaced-out smile in Bill’s direction. They settled down on one of the couches, half in each other’s laps and communicating only in the soft murmurs of lovers. Most everyone else in the room decided that the best course of action was to pretend nothing was wrong. Michael, who was not yet entirely capable of the kind of self-deception it took to live comfortably around the tidal wave that was Mike and William, let out a nervous laugh.
__________________________
Much to everyone’s chagrin, the bus ride that day was one that dragged on and on through miles of flat and featureless land-a chore in the best of times. On this particular occasion, it was especially difficult, as everyone in the bus’s lounge had their eyes determinedly glued to the window.
“Another cornfield,” Siska sighed, “Shit. I think I lost count. Was that three hundred and fifty-six or fifty-seven?”
“Fifty-seven,” Michael said, half-heartedly. “At least the Midwest is home for you guys. Puts a positive spin on things…Why is your home boring?”
The Butcher nodded. “It’d be pretty cool if we were driving through your home right now. There would be kangaroos and shit; we could watch them hopping.”
“Kangaroos are definitely more interesting than cornfields,” Siska agreed.
Michael just glared.
Somewhere from behind their backs came the soft strains of “The Rain Song.” The last time anyone had dared look in that direction, Mike and William had been curled up on the couch, heads ducked down low and faces close, silently listening to Robert Plant croon about the seasons of emotion.
William’s voice joined the recording; Butcher twitched, violently.
“I know, Butcher,” Siska lamented, “The worst part is, this isn’t even normally their Zeppelin song. They’re a “What Is and What Should Never Be” couple, through and through.”
Michael and The Butcher stared incredulously.
“What? I hang out with William a lot. He talks about these things.”
They snickered.
“Screw you guys,” he said, standing up to storm out, “I’m-” Siska had been in the process of turning to head towards the bunks, but now swerved violently to once again face the window, and collapsed back into his spot, a stricken look upon his face and his knees pulled to his chest.
A few minutes later, when he was still in the same position, Michael tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, Sisky, man, are you alright?”
There was no response.
“What were they doing?” Butcher asked, a mixture of horror and curiosity painted across his face.
At that, Siska looked up and grabbed his arm.
“Ow, Sisky Biz. You’re hurting me!”
Siska tightened his grip, his eyes manic. “You don’t ever, ever want to know.”
______________________________________________
Necessity was forcing The Butcher away from his sanity-preserving spot facing the window. Every body part that could possibly fall asleep and a few he hadn’t known were capable of it was asleep; there were no comfortable positions left; and most importantly of all, he really, really had to pee.
Butcher braced himself, got to his feet (which was a difficult process, thanks to the aforementioned sleeping body parts), and turned around, hoping against hope to avoid seeing something mind-crushingly sappy. Attempts to avert his eyes were futile; he couldn’t not look.
The afternoon was a slow and quiet one, and both Mike and William were succumbing to its effects. They were on the couch, and Bill was dozing, head on Carden’s chest. Mike was only half-asleep, and watching William with half-lidded eyes.
Butcher found himself frozen like a mouse before a snake.
It took Carden a few moments to notice his presence. “Oh, hello, Andy. How long have you been standing there? I’m sorry. It’s just hard for me to notice anyone else when William is around. Isn’t he beautiful when he sleeps? I’m so lucky.”
Butcher tried and failed to swallow down a desperate, horrified sound. “Santi, buddy, are you even in there?” He attempted to inch towards the bathroom as Carden gave him a confused look.
Just then, William woke up, and Butcher was frozen once more.
He sleepily cuddled closer to Mike, smiling. “I can hear your heartbeat. I want it for my lullaby forever.”
Carden beamed; Butcher whimpered; Bill looked up. “Oh, hello, Andy. How long have you been standing there? I’m sorry. It’s just hard for me to notice anyone else when Mike is around. Isn’t he amazing? I’m so lucky.”
The Butcher ran for the bathroom, screaming.
___________________________________
By the time soundcheck rolled around, everyone had simmered down to a rudimentary level of unease. So, their friends were acting like lovesick zombies-it was actually pretty funny. And Mike and William hadn’t fought about a single thing all day; some things were worth the tradeoff.
“Do you think it’s wrong to leave them like this?” Michael asked Jack when they were grabbing lunch at a vegetarian place not far from the venue.
Jack didn’t take a moment’s pause before answering. “No way, dude. They look happy enough, right? Hell, I can’t remember the last time I saw either of them so happy, and I’ve known them for a while.”
Michael nodded, thoughtful. They had certainly looked happy sneaking off into that supply closet earlier.
“Plus, it’s funny as hell.” He grinned wickedly. “I wish I’d filmed Bill instructing the techs to make sure his mic was ever-so-slightly closer to Carden’s side of the stage. I think I’m going to keep the camera rolling around them for a while.”
Michael was still a bit uneasy about the whole thing; he was pretty sure Mike would resent being a love-zombie, and Mike was his friend…but Jack was right, it had been funny. Besides, it seemed like the sort of thing William would be okay with, and William was his friend, too. He returned Jack’s smile and wondered if it looked as deranged on him.
The deranged smile widened into something reminiscent of the mad scientists Michael had seen in a hundred bad horror movies. “I knew you’d go over to the dark side eventually, Chizzy.”
_____________________________
The crowd roared the way they always did when William sauntered onto the stage-his stage. The mic was, indeed, just a few inches off center, just like he’d asked. William had been very, very insistent.
Sisky was a bit anxious. Soundcheck had been difficult, with Mike and Bill glued to one another, but he knew how to read William’s moods by now, his demeanor. He’d sounded good during his warm-up, and that hunger for the stage, the fans, the music had been in his eyes for hours. Somewhat damaged or not, all signs pointed to William Beckett being on fire that night.
“Hello, Omaha!” he called out; they cheered, “I don’t know if you guys know how much I love being in the Midwest!” They cheered louder. Yeah, Bill was good tonight. It was in his voice. “I also don’t know if you know how much I love my awesome guitarist here, Mike Carden.”
They cheered, but not all of them. Siska’s world stopped, for a moment. It had always amazed him that the same two people that could argue for hours over who’d forgotten to change the coffee filter had been able to sit down, calmly as anything, and decide that they were far too volatile to take the scrutiny of going public, and that the records they sold to girls who cared less for William’s voice than his sharp hipbones were too valuable to give up.
It-this thing-”had been funny, harmless, until this moment. This could ruin them. He scanned both their faces; Mike and Bill were both smiling the same besotted smile, unaware of the world around them. Sidestage, Tony looked like he might explode. Time seemed to be moving at the wrong speed. Had just a few seconds passed, or had it been minutes? Siska realized, with a start, where they were, took a moment to try and will them to San Francisco, New York, home.
Nothing was happening. Why wasn’t anything happening?
Hours or seconds later, Chislett frowned and leaned into his mic. “Hey, what about me?” He threw a pick in Bill’s direction. It landed in his hair, and caught for a moment, before bouncing off his shoulder and on to the stage. A laugh rumbled through the audience.
Both Mike and William seemed to simultaneously realize what had just happened. Bill smiled, bright and apologetic, in Michael’s direction. “And how much I love our other awesome guitarist, Michael Guy Chislett!”
Siska could breathe again. The cheering was back to full-volume.
Everything clicked into place. Bill knew exactly what he was doing. “And our amazing bassist, Adam T. Siska!”
He grinned for the girls who screamed his name, slowly coming back to his senses.
“And who could forget our wonderful drummer, Andy Mrotek, alias The Butcher!”
They went into “Slow Down,” from there, and the rest of the show went off without a hitch, even if Bill hung all over Mike about a thousand times more than everybody else.
It wasn’t until later that night that Siska realized William had said “my guitarist” for Mike, and “our” for everybody else.
____________________________________
Tony groaned when the bus pulled to a stop in front of the hotel where they would be spending the next two days. The debacle the previous night been forgotten by nearly everyone but a few particularly enterprising fan-girls on the internet, so now it was time for a new disaster: the hotel was across the street from a music store.
Michael was already foaming at the mouth. Tony had cancelled the one radio interview they’d had planned for the two days in order to prevent further chaos on the Mike and William front. He had, on his hand, five musicians who were going to have nothing to do but buy up an entire store.
Tony prioritized the risks in his head: Chizzy was always the worst offender-they were going to be lucky to move on to the next town with only one new guitar; Carden was next; Siska wound up buying things like banjos and extremely limited-edition eight-string basses; The Butcher usually kept it to accessories, unless a particularly whimsical instrument of some sort caught his eye; William was actually, for once, the least of Tony’s worries.
He had to get them into the hotel and drunk as soon as possible.
Of course, knowing his luck, there was a problem with their reservations. Midwestern states were unkind to touring musicians, they really were. Tony got back to the bus to tell the guys it would be just fifteen more minutes in time to watch Carden and Chislett leaving. Or rather, in time to see Chislett standing next to the door and impatiently tapping his foot as Bill and Carden exchanged their sappy goodbyes.
“I’ll only be gone a little while, and I promise to think of you every moment I’m away,” Mike said, leaning in for a quick kiss.
“You’ll text me, right?”
“Every time anything happens. Every time I think of you.” He squeezed William’s hand.
Bill took a deep breath, as if gathering his strength. “Go! Enjoy your friend time. Just not as much as you enjoy your with-me time.”
“I promise,” Carden said, moving towards the door, but not letting go of his hand, “I promise.”
He didn’t let go until he was completely out the door, and the very moment their fingertips broke apart and Carden began to turn away; William cried out, “Wait!” and lunged forward for one last, lingering kiss. “Now you can leave. Just don’t be gone long.”
With that, TAI’s Mikes finally crossed the street and headed into the music store.
William watched them go, and then climbed up the stairs and back into the bus. Once there, he sank wearily into a spot on the couch. “Adam, my young friend, you will comfort me in my time of loneliness and despair.”
Siska settled next to him with an incredulous look on his face. “Whatever you need, buddy. I am here to ease your suffering.”
Bill failed to pick up on the sarcasm. “Good. Let’s talk about Mike.”
Siska convulsed a little and tried desperately to find a route of escape, to find someone else to throw in William’s path, but there was a hand on his shoulder and nowhere to go.
“He’s really the best, isn’t he?” William said, beaming. “I have the best boyfriend ever. He’s so talented, and handsome, and funny, and have you seen his eyes? And his shoulders…I really, really like his shoulders…Oh, look! It’s a text! It says he misses me, and that the guitars are pretty!” He paused to text back.
Siska had given up, and was staring blankly over William’s shoulder, trying desperately to float away, beyond his physical body and this terrible situation.
“I’m so in love, Adam. Have you heard the story of how we got together? You’ve heard the story of how we got together, right?”
“William-I was there. I listened to you bitch about Mike for months when you two thought you hated each other. I don’t need to hear the story.”
Bill made an unhappy face. “You make it sound so un-romantic. We were like Romeo and Juliet, but from rival bands instead of rival families! But the connection we felt was strong enough to overcome all that, and we realized we were better together than we could ever be apart. It was meant to be. We’re the perfect team. Another text!”
Sisky had to admit, they were a good team. Mike and William balanced each other out well-normally. Right now, they weren’t balancing each other out at all.
“I miss him already, Adam. Being away from him this long hurts.” The look on his face was one of genuine sorrow. “It’s been almost ten minutes. How will I manage even more?”
“Bill, ten minutes is not a long time,” Siska finally snapped. This was ridiculous.
“It is when you’re away from the other half of your soul!”
Just when Siska was about to lunge at William’s throat, the bus door opened, and Carden burst in, flushed, as though he’d been running. “William! Babe! I couldn’t be away from you a moment longer. It just hurt too bad. I told Michael to text me a picture if he saw something I’d want, but that I needed to be with you.”
They embraced like a newly-returned sailor who’d left a month into his marriage, and the wife who’d pined for him through six months of voyage, clinging to each other as if they’d never let go again.
“Mike, baby, I’m so glad you came back, so glad you came back…I love you so, so, so…”
Siska took that moment to get the fuck out of the bus and away from the sickening spectacle within. It was several hours before his sporadic shuddering subsided.
____________________________
Mike and William had holed up in their hotel room, writing songs and presumably continuing their barrage of disturbing coupley-ness. Everyone around them had long-ago noted that the two of them, both as a couple and as individuals, didn’t do anything in halves. Normally, their relationship careened wildly and unpredictably from moments of intense happiness to the most pointless arguments possible. When they were good, they were great; when they were bad, they were horrible; when they were brainwashed, mindless love-zombies, they were brainwashed, mindless, love-zombies.
They did everything all the way, so what happened next shouldn’t have surprised anyone.
Mike and William made the journey from their room to Michael’s, where everyone was gathered, with twin self-satisfied expressions on their faces and their hands firmly entwined. “We’ve got a song!” Carden announced. “It’s perfect!”
Bill just blushed and smiled. “We’re going to play it now.”
Chislett handed Mike a guitar (newly bought at the music store across the street), and he played the intro. As William came in with the vocals, the looks on the faces of everyone in the room gradually went from amusement to disbelief to horror. Some (long, long) time later, the song ended.
“Well, what do you think?” Bill asked, brightly.
“Carden, man,” Michael began, trying to find a gentle way to voice his criticism, “Isn’t this guitar part a bit…simplistic for you? There were like three chords in that whole thing.”
Mike frowned. “The guitar part is perfect. I let William write it. He’s certainly not capable of anything less than perfection.”
“And um, Bill…do you have the lyrics written down somewhere, so that I can just…double check?” Siska asked, “I need to be sure I heard what I thought I heard.”
William handed over his notebook.
Butcher read over Siska’s shoulder. “Wow, yeah. It really did say that. I could have sworn I misheard.”
“Bill,” Siska said, “I’m not sure how to word this best, but these lyrics…If a crappy romance novel-and no, I don’t mean a romance novelist-could write a song, this would be it.”
“That’s a really good way of putting it, actually,” Butcher agreed, “I think you’ve created a new phenomenon-purple poetry. This stuff is so violet it should be off the visible spectrum.”
Mike and William both looked crestfallen.
“We’ll work on it!” Michael said, smiling his best, most-comforting smile, “It just needs work!”
“We need to talk,” Siska told Chislett and The Butcher. He was wringing his hands and staring to pace, “Someone, find Tony. We meet at our room, in fifteen minutes. You two-stay put.”
___________________________
Fifteen minutes later, everyone milled around Butcher and Siska’s room.
Tony was pacing, occasionally pausing to rub his neck. Siska and Butcher had a whiteboard whose origin was truly puzzling, and were both attacking it with markers. Jack was setting up a camera, because he was pretty sure something interesting was going to happen.
Michael stood in a corner, wringing his hands. Even the new guitar couldn’t make him feel better-he missed his friends. The strange, love-struck creatures inhibiting Mike and William’s bodies were not Mike and William. There was little resemblance. Carden didn’t care about making music or talking about bands, and Bill couldn’t write and didn’t watch movies. It was all wrong.
The Butcher and Sisky stepped away from the whiteboard, and Siska cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention. He gestured to the board, which was split in two sections with a vertical line. On one side, “The Problem” was written on it in huge letters, the words underlined repeatedly. Underneath the heading, Butcher had drawn a rough-yet-remarkably-realistic rendition of Bill and Carden, wrapped in one another’s arms, with everyone else standing around vomiting.
Michael had to admire his artistic talent; it was an accurate rendition of the situation.
On the other half of the board, “The Solution” was scrawled in an equally bombastic manner. The Mike and William drawings on this side were arguing, hands at each other’s throats. Everyone else was watching them, mildly annoyed.
“So,” Siska announced, “As you all know, we are gathered here because our friends, one William Eugene Beckett and one Michael Stephen Carden have been acting-” He pointed to the first drawing with a flourish (and when had he found time to get a pointer, anyway?), “Like this. We would like them to act-” He pointed to the other drawing, “Like this. You know, normal.”
Tony tapped his foot impatiently. Butcher scowled at him and made a threatening gesture with his own pointer. (Seriously, where had they gotten those things?)
“Patience,” Siska said pointedly, giving the Butcher an approving nod. “What we need to do, my friends, is make Mike and Bill fight again. Now, considering their current predicament, this will be no easy task.”
Butcher nudged him with an elbow and whispered something in his ear, and Siska let him take over. “However, we have an advantage here. William and Carden have a variety of ongoing fights.”
As he said this, Siska rotated the board. On the flip side, “Mike and William’s Ongoing Fights” was the heading, and the rest of the massive board was filled up with an equally massive list and the occasional helpful illustration. Chislett figured they’d get to it and decided he felt too lazy to read that much. Seriously, there was like a novel up there.
“The mere mention of anything remotely related to any of these fights is enough to cause the two of them to pick it back up again, if they are in a remotely salty mood. My dear friend Siska and I have taken the liberty of listing all of them for you.”
“We have also taken the liberty of selecting, and underlining-the underlining was all me, by the way-four of the biggest fights Bilvy and Santi have ever had.”
“Yeah, and the drawing was all me,” Butcher said, with a glare, before returning to the planned speech, “My dear friend Siska and I will now present them to you.”
“We’ll start with the ever-popular “why-aren’t-you-jealous-when-I-hang-all-over-other-people?” fight. As all of you know firsthand, our William can get a bit touchy with absolutely everyone. You all know first hand, that Mike, despite his possessive boyfriend schtick, doesn’t kill anyone, or get angry about it. What you all should know, is that every once in a while, Bill decides that means that Santi doesn’t love him, and everything goes to hell.”
Butcher continued. “Most of us kind-of-sort-of remember the nights, and in fact, the approximate twelve month period in which Carden and William turned twenty-one. Now, neither of them remember those nights at all or that year very well. This fact does not stop them from arguing over who got more drunk on their twenty-first birthday. This fight is one to be cautious about, because those who witnessed those nights and have a vague recollection of both of them tend to join in, and that is not our goal.”
“Quite ironically,” Siska said, “They also fight about who has more of a drinking problem. Sometimes, one of these arguments will segue into the other. No, they never see the irony.”
“All you all know, Mike was a swimmer in high school, and Bill played baseball. This is the basis of my person favorite Mike and William argument-”the “whose high school sport was better?” dispute. It’s much more fun than most of them, and everybody joins in.”
Michael frowned. Clearly, swimming was the obvious choice out of those two sports. Americans and their baseball…
Siska left a long, dramatic pause before picking up where Butcher left off. “If these fights fail us, then, God help us all. So let’s not have them fail.”
“And that, my friends, is our course of action,” The Butcher concluded, “Any questions?”
“That is…a surprisingly solid plan,” Tony said, “Get on execution.”
“Why’d you write out all the rest?” Michael wondered aloud.
Siska grinned, “I’m glad you asked, man. Brainstorming. And then we kept it all up, because you need to see some of the fights you missed.”
Chislett walked up to the board, curious, and skimmed over the words. Had they really fought over which Russian revolutionary was the coolest? Why so many fights about baseball? Didn’t they root for the same team? And what was the Days Inn, 2005 Incident?
_______________________
The next ride was a long one, and this time, no one was displeased. It meant more time to try and implement their plan, which seemed destined to succeed. Everyone waited for the perfect opportunity with bated breath; it was time to get their friends back.
It was decided that Siska would take the first stab and fixing the happy couple.
He lurked around the back lounge until the two of them were cuddled up on the couch-their new favorite activity, it seemed. Mike was affectionately stroking the back of William’s hand as they gazed lovingly into one another’s eyes, not really saying anything at all.
Siska fought back the urge to gag and run away, in that order, and plunked down next to them. “Hey, Bill, remember your twenty-first birthday?”
“Not really,” he responded, distracted.
“Yeah, I don’t remember mine either,” Carden chimed in, “There is that video you guys took of me…You were there, though,” he told William meaningfully, “So I must have had a great time.”
Bill smiled that radiant Beckett smile. “I must have had a great time at mine, too.”
Siska stormed out.
_______________________
“Okay, okay,” Tony said. “I’ll take this next one. There is potential for great Beckett anger, and it’s better for him to be angry at me than one of you.”
He walked into the back lounge, where William had his head in Carden’s lap, and was reaching up to play with his hair. Tony was un-phased. He’d known the two of them a long time.
He tapped Mike on the shoulder. “Hey, Santi?” He stage-whispered in Mike’s ear (more than loud enough for William to hear), “How’s Bill’s drinking lately?”
He got a puzzled look from Carden in response.
A moment later, William looked up at him, hand frozen in Mike’s hair. “Oh, we don’t do that anymore...I want to remember every moment I’m with Mike.”
Carden nodded and smiled-it was a genuine smile, not a please-help-he’s-crazy-and-not-letting-me-drink smile.
“Um, okay.” Tony had seen the two of them do a lot of crazy shit, but quit drinking? He wasn’t sure he could deal with that. “That’s very nice for the two of you. I hope you enjoy it very much.”
He began to walk briskly from the room before giving up and breaking into a sprint.
______________________
“So, it’s agreed,” Butcher said, “The sports one next?”
“Yeah, okay, sure,” Tony replied, nervously wringing his hands. He hadn’t been the same since he came back from the back lounge. Everyone else was getting a little worried.
“I am so doing this one. Like, don’t any of you try. Mine!”
“Go right ahead, mate,” Michael told him. “If you’re so eager to go back there, I really don’t think anyone’s competing.”
“You’ll all be sorry you didn’t do it when I’m the one that fixes them.”
He strolled into the back lounge, cocky and nonchalant.
“Hey guys! Aren’t sports awesome?” He’d learned his lesson the last time, so Butcher was being very careful to watch a spot on the wall and avoid looking at the happy couple. It was a wiser choice than he knew.
“Yeah, I love sports!” Carden replied, strangely breathless, “But not as much as-”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve got it, not as much as you love him-say, weren’t the both of you high school athletes?”
“Why yes, we were!” William answered, also breathless, “It’s another one of the reasons we’re perfect for each other!”
There was soft laughter, and wet, smacking sounds.
Butcher made a face. “You guys! Focus! You say perfect for one another, but say-didn’t you play different sports? You, Bill, were a baseball player, and you, Mike, were a swimmer. It’s like you’re from two different worlds, the land and the sea! Your love is doomed.”
“Actually,” Carden said, very solemn, “Our different interests help balance us as a couple.”
“If we shared all the same experiences, what would we have to share with one another?” William helpfully added.
“But, but…which sport do you think is better?” The Butcher was grasping at straws.
“Swimming,” said Bill, “Because Mike did it,” at the exact same moment as Carden said “Baseball, because William played it.”
They then returned to making out.
Butcher skulked back to the main lounge with his head down and his hopes shattered.
___________________________
There was no further time for scheming that day, as The Academy Is… had a show to play.
The show did not, however, distract anyone from worrying about their current predicament. Tony spent a nervous half hour lecturing William and Mike on the importance of not making any split-second decisions that might affect the band.
No one could blame him; they were all feeling it. Three fights down and only one to go-and if that didn’t work, they were out of ideas and out of luck: no more band, no more of the friends they’d loved.
Unsurprisingly, Mike and Bill were the only two people on stage who weren’t off that night.
Normally, how badly everyone else was fucking up would have prompted a chewing out by first Carden and then Tony, followed by a disappointed reprimand by William. As it stood, Mike and Bill didn’t notice anything, and Tony was still too traumatized to care.
The couple that was causing all the problems gloated their way to the bunks, and the rest of the band followed along, despondent. Having to try and ignore the sounds of that-was-a-good-show sex didn’t help.
_______________________
Fortunately, the morning brought new opportunity and renewed enthusiasm.
“We’ve been going about this the wrong way,” Siska said. “Everyone expects us to be devious.” He looked over at Michael. “You! You are doing the next one. No one expects the clueless Australian to be doing any scheming. The accent is too cute.”
Michael glared, utterly befuddled.
“It’s okay, we’ll bring them in here, so we can all help you.”
He kept glaring.
“Do you want them to stay like this forever?”
“What should I do?”
Siska smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll take care of the dirty work. You just have to tell them what I tell you. Butcher! Get over here! We have a couple to lure out of the back lounge and into the main lounge.”
Butcher smirked. “Just wait, Chizzy. The masters are about to demonstrate their craft.”
Michael nodded, and sat down on a couch to wait…and wait, and wait.
Ten minutes later, the two of them returned, without Mike or William.
“I don’t understand! They wouldn’t go for any of it,” Siska lamented. “How unbelievable is it that someone got on the bus and wants to see them?”
“Sisky…It’s been two hours since the last time the bus stopped. Yeah, I’m the clueless one. I bet I’ll get them over here,” Michael said, grinning, before walking into the back lounge.
Two minutes later, he came back to the main lounge, Carden and Beckett in tow.
Siska and Butcher gaped.
Michael smirked. “I’m trying to decide whether or not I should change the pickups on my newest guitar. I asked Mike to come over and help. William came along.”
“Where’s the guitar, wiseguy?” Butcher asked. It was his turn to smirk.
“Ope! You’re right, mate. Must’ve left it in my bunk.” He came back a moment later with the guitar in question, another hollow-body Gretsch. “It has the Duncans in right now, and they sound nice, but I kind of want a different sound out of this one, you know?”
“Do we have an amp in here?” Mike asked, keeping a hand on William’s shoulder. “I wanna hear how it sounds.”
“You know we have an amp in here. Come on, Mike. I know you and Bill have been holed up in the back lounge for a while now, but you can’t have forgotten about guitar.” Michael plugged the Gretsch in and played a few experimental chords before starting in on a My Bloody Valentine song. He stopped after the first chorus. “You wanna try it?”
“You know I do.” He sat down and put the guitar on his knee. “Hey William, what should I play?”
“Something off Adore?”
Carden beamed and said, “For you, anything,” and then began playing the intro of “Tear.” Bill watched him with affectionate eyes.
“Well-played, my man,” Sisky told Chislett, correctly assuming that the happy couple wouldn’t notice.
“What now?” Michael mouthed in response.
Butcher gestured to William’s hand, which was tracing Mike’s shoulder-blade.
Michael nodded his understanding. “So…William, you touch people a lot!”
Butcher rubbed his temples.
“Yeah, I guess I do,” Bill replied, in a sunny (if puzzled) manner.
Butcher pointed to Mike and made an angry face.
Michael looked confused, but soldier on, “So, Mike, does it ever make you angry that…”
Butcher draped himself over Siska in an exaggerated, William-like manner.
“…How much Bill touches Sisky?”
Butcher and Siska frantically shook their heads, and Siska draped himself on Butcher, and then on some imaginary (tall) figure. Carden and William stared at Michael strangely.
“…And The Butcher! And, Gabe? Oh, people who aren’t you!”
“Okay, Chizzy…” Mike said, still playing, “And no, it doesn’t. William’s affectionate nature is one of the many things I love about him.”
The terrible twosome gestured to William next. Siska performed his best imitation of Bill’s upset face, perfected over the years of their friendship.
“Does that make you upset, Bill?”
“Nope! One of the many things I love about Mike is that he trusts me absolutely.”
Carden added some cool flourish to the bit of song he was playing. Siska beat his head against Butcher’s shoulder. It seemed that they’d run out of options; there was only one thing left to do.
___________________________
“Not until after the show,” Siska whispered, once Mike and William had gone. “If it works, they’ll be fighting too much to be on stage together.”
“I agree,” Tony said. “But…we’re sure this is the only way?”
The Butcher sighed. “I know it’s cruel, Tony, but what else can we do?”
“What are you guys even talking about?” Michael asked. “I thought we were out of fights.”
“You thought a lot of things, my innocent friend,” Siska told him. “You won’t think them anymore, after tonight.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Don’t worry about it. Just meet in the front lounge, and be prepared to get the fuck out of the room and put on headphones when the time comes-trust me, you’ll know. And you!” He pointed an accusing finger at Jack. “Stop filming this shit! Yeah, you only thought we wouldn’t find the camera in the back lounge.”
_________________________
“Hey, you guys mind if I put on some music?” Siska asked once everyone was settled in the main lounge, after the after-party.
“Go right ahead, little buddy.” Butcher told him.
Everyone else gave some kind of noncommittal shrug as a response.
Mike and William were sitting in a corner, in the same room as the rest of the band, but in a different world.
Siska scrolled to the correct album and plugged his iPod into the speakers. The opening strains of “I Will Dare” filled the lounge.
Carden perked up. “I love The Replacements!”
Bill nodded his agreement.
“This is your favorite album of theirs, right, Santi?” Siska inquired.
“Of course Let It Be is my favorite,” Mike said, grinning, “It’s the best one.”
William stiffened at that. Sisky bit back a grin as he looked pointedly at Carden and asked, “Are you sure about that, Mike?”
“Of course I am. All their other albums are good, but not this good.”
The track changed. Bill’s mouth was a thin line of disapproval. “I happen to be of the opinion that Pleased to Meet Me is not only ‘this good,’ but better.”
Mike scoffed. “Come on, William, it’s a great album, but even the critics agree that Let It Be is best.”
“Since when do we give a fuck about what the critics say? “Can’t Hardly Wait” is easily The Replacements’ most iconic song, and what album is it on? Pleased to Meet Me. The next most iconic is either “Alex Chilton” or “Skyway,” and what album are both of those on? Pleased to Meet Me. And has any other song ever summed up a band as well as “I Don’t Know” sums up The Replacements?” Bill was standing up now, hands on his hips and fire in his eyes.
Carden stood up, too. “All you’re really arguing here is that Pleased to Meet Me is a more commercially successful album, which it is-but commercial success a best album does not make. Let It Be is way more representative of The Replacements’ sound as a whole, while still featuring a range of influences not found in their earliest albums. And you want an iconic song? How many album openers are as iconic as “I Will Dare?” Besides, Pleased to Meet Me doesn’t even have Bob Stinson on it.”
“Fuck Bob Stinson. Pleased to Meet Me has an even wider range of influences than Let It Be, a much wider range than would have been possible with him still in the band. And the raw emotion of songs like “The Ledge,” “Valentine,” and “Never Mind” is something unmatched on any of their other albums. Yeah, “I.O.U.” might not be the opener that “I Will Dare” is, but who cares about openers when “Can’t Hardly Wait” is your closer?”
“There’s new influences, sure, but there’s also a loss of influences that were there before. And you wanna talk closers? “Answering Machine” ends the album on the kind of note…you want raw emotion? There it is. There it fucking is.”
By this time, everyone else had crept out of the room, though Michael couldn’t help but occasionally look in to watch, feeling like a voyeur every time.
On one such occasion, Siska tapped him on the shoulder and pulled him back into the bunks. “This is what we left out-the greatest pointless argument of them all: the great Replacements debate. They both fucking love The Replacements, but they’ll never agree on which album is best. I was hoping we wouldn’t have to sink this low.”
“Why is it this big of a deal?” Michael wondered. “I mean, The Replacements are a big deal, but it seems kind of like they should’ve been able to agree to disagree a long time ago.”
“Dunno,” Siska shrugged. “But I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with The Replacements.”
“If it’s not about The Replacements, what is it about?”
Siska opened the curtain to Bill’s bunk and snatched his iPod-his own had been temporarily sacrificed to the cause, and he needed to drown out the noise.“I just know the songs. I can’t tell you what they mean.” He put on his headphones and told Michael, “I suggest you do the same,” before turning on the music and heading off into his own bunk.
Michael didn’t put on headphones, and listened as the arguing continued long after the final strains of “Answering Machine” died down.
_____________________
Later (much later), Mike brushed a sweaty strand of hair out of William’s eyes. The bus was dark and very quiet, except for them. “So it’s agreed? The makeup sex is really worth the fighting.”
“Strongly agreed,” William said, kissing his shoulder.
“The sex while we were all-” he made some kind of wavy gesture with his hand, “was…” he trailed off, still cautious, still hesitant.
“Boring. You don’t have to be afraid to say it. It was as really fucking boring as possible for us.” William buried his face in the crook of Mike’s neck. This part was always so easy.
He kissed the top of William’s head and laughed, a little coldly. “They really are both fucking great albums.”
William echoed the laugh. “No, there was never any doubt about that.”
“Think that’ll stop us from having this exact fight a few million more times?”
“It hasn’t yet,” William said, finding Mike’s hand and intertwining their fingers, “It hasn’t yet.” "
PG-13/7,228 words
Mike Carden/William Beckett
Disclaimer: This is fake.
Notes: A big thanks to morganya for being a marvelous beta, and to sleepherealone for playing cheerleader. Title taken from “Valentine” by The Replacements.
Summary: When Mike and William get tired of fighting and make a wish that has some unexpected consequences, it’s up to the rest of the band to get them back to normal-that is, once it stops being hilarious.
“How long’ve they been at it for, now?” Sisky asked with a sigh, trying to sink further into the couch.
“Dunno.” Michael seriously considered the question. “Could be two hours, could be forever.”
The Butcher viciously stabbed at the drawing he’d been working on for the past half hour with his pencil.
“I’m going to kill them, really,” Tony announced, making his entrance and collapsing on the couch next to Siska, “I mean it this time.”
“Please don’t. I don’t want to write songs by myself,” Michael entreated.
“Can’t we just find look-a-likes? Maybe the fans won’t notice.”
The Butcher stabbed at his paper again and laughed. “The fans notice everything, Tony. Everything. Does anyone remember how this one started, anyway?”
“I think,” Sisky screwed his face up in concentration, “It was over whose fault it was the toaster broke. I think. Wait, listen.”
In the bunks, William’s voice reached a broken fever-pitch. “I just wish you cared every once in a while.”
“Oh,” Michael winced, “Mike’s done for. He’s a sucker for lines like that.”
Everyone else nodded in agreement. Lo and behold, the fighting died down.
______________________
Afterwards, lying in the bunk they always somehow managed to cram themselves into, against all odds, Mike pushed a sweaty strand of hair out of William’s face. “Hey, what you rather have: no fights, or no makeup sex?”
William laughed, soft and low in his throat, and then suddenly turned very somber. “I think a lot of it is my fault, you know.”
Mike frowned.
“Really, I do. Too many fairy tales in my head. My expectations for relationships are unrealistic. If I could change, we’d be okay.”
“You shouldn’t have to.” Mike smiled a sad smile; William kissed his shoulder. “I wish I could give that to you, that we could be how you imagine.”
“Yeah, well-you know what they say about wishes.”
Something that cynical coming from Bill brought up questions Mike had no desire to consider, not after everything. “You’re tired and it’s late. Sleep.”
“Yeah.” William’s eyelashes fluttered against his skin, “Sleep.”
________________________
The next morning, Mike and Bill stumbled out of the bunks dead last, hours after everyone else was already awake. All traces of the fighting that had filled up the previous day (and a good chunk of the night) had fallen by the wayside; now, William had an arm draped over Mike’s shoulder, and Mike had a hand on the small of his back. They looked disgustingly like a normal couple-maybe even a cute, normal couple.
“No more fighting today, I hope.” Butcher announced, drinking down his third coffee of the afternoon. He’d had to wake up at nine because of how late they’d kept everyone up the previous night. He mourned those precious, wasted hours.
“Fighting? What would I ever argue with William about?” There wasn’t the slightest hint of sarcasm to Carden’s voice; adoring glances were cast in William’s direction.
“Nice one, Santi.” Sisky laughed, “Seriously, since when can you keep a straight face saying shit like that?”
Mike looked honestly, genuinely confused, as did William, who batted guileless eyes at Siska. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Adam.”
“Seriously, guys? Try this act on someone who hasn’t seen you practically come to blows over which Replacements album is best-multiple times.”
“I love The Replacements!” Mike said, beaming, and then, to William, “But not as much as I love you.”
Bill leaned in close to whisper something that may or may not have been “I love you more.” By this point, no one was in a fit state to properly diagnose the words.
“Was the makeup sex really that good?” Siska regretted the words the moment they were out of his mouth; Carden never needed any motivation to torment him with details of their sex life. He braced himself for the worst.
It never came. Instead, William looked down his nose in that familiar, disapproving way. “What happens within the sacred confines of our bedroom, stays in our bedroom.” He made a face, “Or as it were, our bunks.”
That was a William-enough thing to say to reassure everyone, even if Mike was still smiling that spaced-out smile in Bill’s direction. They settled down on one of the couches, half in each other’s laps and communicating only in the soft murmurs of lovers. Most everyone else in the room decided that the best course of action was to pretend nothing was wrong. Michael, who was not yet entirely capable of the kind of self-deception it took to live comfortably around the tidal wave that was Mike and William, let out a nervous laugh.
__________________________
Much to everyone’s chagrin, the bus ride that day was one that dragged on and on through miles of flat and featureless land-a chore in the best of times. On this particular occasion, it was especially difficult, as everyone in the bus’s lounge had their eyes determinedly glued to the window.
“Another cornfield,” Siska sighed, “Shit. I think I lost count. Was that three hundred and fifty-six or fifty-seven?”
“Fifty-seven,” Michael said, half-heartedly. “At least the Midwest is home for you guys. Puts a positive spin on things…Why is your home boring?”
The Butcher nodded. “It’d be pretty cool if we were driving through your home right now. There would be kangaroos and shit; we could watch them hopping.”
“Kangaroos are definitely more interesting than cornfields,” Siska agreed.
Michael just glared.
Somewhere from behind their backs came the soft strains of “The Rain Song.” The last time anyone had dared look in that direction, Mike and William had been curled up on the couch, heads ducked down low and faces close, silently listening to Robert Plant croon about the seasons of emotion.
William’s voice joined the recording; Butcher twitched, violently.
“I know, Butcher,” Siska lamented, “The worst part is, this isn’t even normally their Zeppelin song. They’re a “What Is and What Should Never Be” couple, through and through.”
Michael and The Butcher stared incredulously.
“What? I hang out with William a lot. He talks about these things.”
They snickered.
“Screw you guys,” he said, standing up to storm out, “I’m-” Siska had been in the process of turning to head towards the bunks, but now swerved violently to once again face the window, and collapsed back into his spot, a stricken look upon his face and his knees pulled to his chest.
A few minutes later, when he was still in the same position, Michael tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, Sisky, man, are you alright?”
There was no response.
“What were they doing?” Butcher asked, a mixture of horror and curiosity painted across his face.
At that, Siska looked up and grabbed his arm.
“Ow, Sisky Biz. You’re hurting me!”
Siska tightened his grip, his eyes manic. “You don’t ever, ever want to know.”
______________________________________________
Necessity was forcing The Butcher away from his sanity-preserving spot facing the window. Every body part that could possibly fall asleep and a few he hadn’t known were capable of it was asleep; there were no comfortable positions left; and most importantly of all, he really, really had to pee.
Butcher braced himself, got to his feet (which was a difficult process, thanks to the aforementioned sleeping body parts), and turned around, hoping against hope to avoid seeing something mind-crushingly sappy. Attempts to avert his eyes were futile; he couldn’t not look.
The afternoon was a slow and quiet one, and both Mike and William were succumbing to its effects. They were on the couch, and Bill was dozing, head on Carden’s chest. Mike was only half-asleep, and watching William with half-lidded eyes.
Butcher found himself frozen like a mouse before a snake.
It took Carden a few moments to notice his presence. “Oh, hello, Andy. How long have you been standing there? I’m sorry. It’s just hard for me to notice anyone else when William is around. Isn’t he beautiful when he sleeps? I’m so lucky.”
Butcher tried and failed to swallow down a desperate, horrified sound. “Santi, buddy, are you even in there?” He attempted to inch towards the bathroom as Carden gave him a confused look.
Just then, William woke up, and Butcher was frozen once more.
He sleepily cuddled closer to Mike, smiling. “I can hear your heartbeat. I want it for my lullaby forever.”
Carden beamed; Butcher whimpered; Bill looked up. “Oh, hello, Andy. How long have you been standing there? I’m sorry. It’s just hard for me to notice anyone else when Mike is around. Isn’t he amazing? I’m so lucky.”
The Butcher ran for the bathroom, screaming.
___________________________________
By the time soundcheck rolled around, everyone had simmered down to a rudimentary level of unease. So, their friends were acting like lovesick zombies-it was actually pretty funny. And Mike and William hadn’t fought about a single thing all day; some things were worth the tradeoff.
“Do you think it’s wrong to leave them like this?” Michael asked Jack when they were grabbing lunch at a vegetarian place not far from the venue.
Jack didn’t take a moment’s pause before answering. “No way, dude. They look happy enough, right? Hell, I can’t remember the last time I saw either of them so happy, and I’ve known them for a while.”
Michael nodded, thoughtful. They had certainly looked happy sneaking off into that supply closet earlier.
“Plus, it’s funny as hell.” He grinned wickedly. “I wish I’d filmed Bill instructing the techs to make sure his mic was ever-so-slightly closer to Carden’s side of the stage. I think I’m going to keep the camera rolling around them for a while.”
Michael was still a bit uneasy about the whole thing; he was pretty sure Mike would resent being a love-zombie, and Mike was his friend…but Jack was right, it had been funny. Besides, it seemed like the sort of thing William would be okay with, and William was his friend, too. He returned Jack’s smile and wondered if it looked as deranged on him.
The deranged smile widened into something reminiscent of the mad scientists Michael had seen in a hundred bad horror movies. “I knew you’d go over to the dark side eventually, Chizzy.”
_____________________________
The crowd roared the way they always did when William sauntered onto the stage-his stage. The mic was, indeed, just a few inches off center, just like he’d asked. William had been very, very insistent.
Sisky was a bit anxious. Soundcheck had been difficult, with Mike and Bill glued to one another, but he knew how to read William’s moods by now, his demeanor. He’d sounded good during his warm-up, and that hunger for the stage, the fans, the music had been in his eyes for hours. Somewhat damaged or not, all signs pointed to William Beckett being on fire that night.
“Hello, Omaha!” he called out; they cheered, “I don’t know if you guys know how much I love being in the Midwest!” They cheered louder. Yeah, Bill was good tonight. It was in his voice. “I also don’t know if you know how much I love my awesome guitarist here, Mike Carden.”
They cheered, but not all of them. Siska’s world stopped, for a moment. It had always amazed him that the same two people that could argue for hours over who’d forgotten to change the coffee filter had been able to sit down, calmly as anything, and decide that they were far too volatile to take the scrutiny of going public, and that the records they sold to girls who cared less for William’s voice than his sharp hipbones were too valuable to give up.
It-this thing-”had been funny, harmless, until this moment. This could ruin them. He scanned both their faces; Mike and Bill were both smiling the same besotted smile, unaware of the world around them. Sidestage, Tony looked like he might explode. Time seemed to be moving at the wrong speed. Had just a few seconds passed, or had it been minutes? Siska realized, with a start, where they were, took a moment to try and will them to San Francisco, New York, home.
Nothing was happening. Why wasn’t anything happening?
Hours or seconds later, Chislett frowned and leaned into his mic. “Hey, what about me?” He threw a pick in Bill’s direction. It landed in his hair, and caught for a moment, before bouncing off his shoulder and on to the stage. A laugh rumbled through the audience.
Both Mike and William seemed to simultaneously realize what had just happened. Bill smiled, bright and apologetic, in Michael’s direction. “And how much I love our other awesome guitarist, Michael Guy Chislett!”
Siska could breathe again. The cheering was back to full-volume.
Everything clicked into place. Bill knew exactly what he was doing. “And our amazing bassist, Adam T. Siska!”
He grinned for the girls who screamed his name, slowly coming back to his senses.
“And who could forget our wonderful drummer, Andy Mrotek, alias The Butcher!”
They went into “Slow Down,” from there, and the rest of the show went off without a hitch, even if Bill hung all over Mike about a thousand times more than everybody else.
It wasn’t until later that night that Siska realized William had said “my guitarist” for Mike, and “our” for everybody else.
____________________________________
Tony groaned when the bus pulled to a stop in front of the hotel where they would be spending the next two days. The debacle the previous night been forgotten by nearly everyone but a few particularly enterprising fan-girls on the internet, so now it was time for a new disaster: the hotel was across the street from a music store.
Michael was already foaming at the mouth. Tony had cancelled the one radio interview they’d had planned for the two days in order to prevent further chaos on the Mike and William front. He had, on his hand, five musicians who were going to have nothing to do but buy up an entire store.
Tony prioritized the risks in his head: Chizzy was always the worst offender-they were going to be lucky to move on to the next town with only one new guitar; Carden was next; Siska wound up buying things like banjos and extremely limited-edition eight-string basses; The Butcher usually kept it to accessories, unless a particularly whimsical instrument of some sort caught his eye; William was actually, for once, the least of Tony’s worries.
He had to get them into the hotel and drunk as soon as possible.
Of course, knowing his luck, there was a problem with their reservations. Midwestern states were unkind to touring musicians, they really were. Tony got back to the bus to tell the guys it would be just fifteen more minutes in time to watch Carden and Chislett leaving. Or rather, in time to see Chislett standing next to the door and impatiently tapping his foot as Bill and Carden exchanged their sappy goodbyes.
“I’ll only be gone a little while, and I promise to think of you every moment I’m away,” Mike said, leaning in for a quick kiss.
“You’ll text me, right?”
“Every time anything happens. Every time I think of you.” He squeezed William’s hand.
Bill took a deep breath, as if gathering his strength. “Go! Enjoy your friend time. Just not as much as you enjoy your with-me time.”
“I promise,” Carden said, moving towards the door, but not letting go of his hand, “I promise.”
He didn’t let go until he was completely out the door, and the very moment their fingertips broke apart and Carden began to turn away; William cried out, “Wait!” and lunged forward for one last, lingering kiss. “Now you can leave. Just don’t be gone long.”
With that, TAI’s Mikes finally crossed the street and headed into the music store.
William watched them go, and then climbed up the stairs and back into the bus. Once there, he sank wearily into a spot on the couch. “Adam, my young friend, you will comfort me in my time of loneliness and despair.”
Siska settled next to him with an incredulous look on his face. “Whatever you need, buddy. I am here to ease your suffering.”
Bill failed to pick up on the sarcasm. “Good. Let’s talk about Mike.”
Siska convulsed a little and tried desperately to find a route of escape, to find someone else to throw in William’s path, but there was a hand on his shoulder and nowhere to go.
“He’s really the best, isn’t he?” William said, beaming. “I have the best boyfriend ever. He’s so talented, and handsome, and funny, and have you seen his eyes? And his shoulders…I really, really like his shoulders…Oh, look! It’s a text! It says he misses me, and that the guitars are pretty!” He paused to text back.
Siska had given up, and was staring blankly over William’s shoulder, trying desperately to float away, beyond his physical body and this terrible situation.
“I’m so in love, Adam. Have you heard the story of how we got together? You’ve heard the story of how we got together, right?”
“William-I was there. I listened to you bitch about Mike for months when you two thought you hated each other. I don’t need to hear the story.”
Bill made an unhappy face. “You make it sound so un-romantic. We were like Romeo and Juliet, but from rival bands instead of rival families! But the connection we felt was strong enough to overcome all that, and we realized we were better together than we could ever be apart. It was meant to be. We’re the perfect team. Another text!”
Sisky had to admit, they were a good team. Mike and William balanced each other out well-normally. Right now, they weren’t balancing each other out at all.
“I miss him already, Adam. Being away from him this long hurts.” The look on his face was one of genuine sorrow. “It’s been almost ten minutes. How will I manage even more?”
“Bill, ten minutes is not a long time,” Siska finally snapped. This was ridiculous.
“It is when you’re away from the other half of your soul!”
Just when Siska was about to lunge at William’s throat, the bus door opened, and Carden burst in, flushed, as though he’d been running. “William! Babe! I couldn’t be away from you a moment longer. It just hurt too bad. I told Michael to text me a picture if he saw something I’d want, but that I needed to be with you.”
They embraced like a newly-returned sailor who’d left a month into his marriage, and the wife who’d pined for him through six months of voyage, clinging to each other as if they’d never let go again.
“Mike, baby, I’m so glad you came back, so glad you came back…I love you so, so, so…”
Siska took that moment to get the fuck out of the bus and away from the sickening spectacle within. It was several hours before his sporadic shuddering subsided.
____________________________
Mike and William had holed up in their hotel room, writing songs and presumably continuing their barrage of disturbing coupley-ness. Everyone around them had long-ago noted that the two of them, both as a couple and as individuals, didn’t do anything in halves. Normally, their relationship careened wildly and unpredictably from moments of intense happiness to the most pointless arguments possible. When they were good, they were great; when they were bad, they were horrible; when they were brainwashed, mindless love-zombies, they were brainwashed, mindless, love-zombies.
They did everything all the way, so what happened next shouldn’t have surprised anyone.
Mike and William made the journey from their room to Michael’s, where everyone was gathered, with twin self-satisfied expressions on their faces and their hands firmly entwined. “We’ve got a song!” Carden announced. “It’s perfect!”
Bill just blushed and smiled. “We’re going to play it now.”
Chislett handed Mike a guitar (newly bought at the music store across the street), and he played the intro. As William came in with the vocals, the looks on the faces of everyone in the room gradually went from amusement to disbelief to horror. Some (long, long) time later, the song ended.
“Well, what do you think?” Bill asked, brightly.
“Carden, man,” Michael began, trying to find a gentle way to voice his criticism, “Isn’t this guitar part a bit…simplistic for you? There were like three chords in that whole thing.”
Mike frowned. “The guitar part is perfect. I let William write it. He’s certainly not capable of anything less than perfection.”
“And um, Bill…do you have the lyrics written down somewhere, so that I can just…double check?” Siska asked, “I need to be sure I heard what I thought I heard.”
William handed over his notebook.
Butcher read over Siska’s shoulder. “Wow, yeah. It really did say that. I could have sworn I misheard.”
“Bill,” Siska said, “I’m not sure how to word this best, but these lyrics…If a crappy romance novel-and no, I don’t mean a romance novelist-could write a song, this would be it.”
“That’s a really good way of putting it, actually,” Butcher agreed, “I think you’ve created a new phenomenon-purple poetry. This stuff is so violet it should be off the visible spectrum.”
Mike and William both looked crestfallen.
“We’ll work on it!” Michael said, smiling his best, most-comforting smile, “It just needs work!”
“We need to talk,” Siska told Chislett and The Butcher. He was wringing his hands and staring to pace, “Someone, find Tony. We meet at our room, in fifteen minutes. You two-stay put.”
___________________________
Fifteen minutes later, everyone milled around Butcher and Siska’s room.
Tony was pacing, occasionally pausing to rub his neck. Siska and Butcher had a whiteboard whose origin was truly puzzling, and were both attacking it with markers. Jack was setting up a camera, because he was pretty sure something interesting was going to happen.
Michael stood in a corner, wringing his hands. Even the new guitar couldn’t make him feel better-he missed his friends. The strange, love-struck creatures inhibiting Mike and William’s bodies were not Mike and William. There was little resemblance. Carden didn’t care about making music or talking about bands, and Bill couldn’t write and didn’t watch movies. It was all wrong.
The Butcher and Sisky stepped away from the whiteboard, and Siska cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention. He gestured to the board, which was split in two sections with a vertical line. On one side, “The Problem” was written on it in huge letters, the words underlined repeatedly. Underneath the heading, Butcher had drawn a rough-yet-remarkably-realistic rendition of Bill and Carden, wrapped in one another’s arms, with everyone else standing around vomiting.
Michael had to admire his artistic talent; it was an accurate rendition of the situation.
On the other half of the board, “The Solution” was scrawled in an equally bombastic manner. The Mike and William drawings on this side were arguing, hands at each other’s throats. Everyone else was watching them, mildly annoyed.
“So,” Siska announced, “As you all know, we are gathered here because our friends, one William Eugene Beckett and one Michael Stephen Carden have been acting-” He pointed to the first drawing with a flourish (and when had he found time to get a pointer, anyway?), “Like this. We would like them to act-” He pointed to the other drawing, “Like this. You know, normal.”
Tony tapped his foot impatiently. Butcher scowled at him and made a threatening gesture with his own pointer. (Seriously, where had they gotten those things?)
“Patience,” Siska said pointedly, giving the Butcher an approving nod. “What we need to do, my friends, is make Mike and Bill fight again. Now, considering their current predicament, this will be no easy task.”
Butcher nudged him with an elbow and whispered something in his ear, and Siska let him take over. “However, we have an advantage here. William and Carden have a variety of ongoing fights.”
As he said this, Siska rotated the board. On the flip side, “Mike and William’s Ongoing Fights” was the heading, and the rest of the massive board was filled up with an equally massive list and the occasional helpful illustration. Chislett figured they’d get to it and decided he felt too lazy to read that much. Seriously, there was like a novel up there.
“The mere mention of anything remotely related to any of these fights is enough to cause the two of them to pick it back up again, if they are in a remotely salty mood. My dear friend Siska and I have taken the liberty of listing all of them for you.”
“We have also taken the liberty of selecting, and underlining-the underlining was all me, by the way-four of the biggest fights Bilvy and Santi have ever had.”
“Yeah, and the drawing was all me,” Butcher said, with a glare, before returning to the planned speech, “My dear friend Siska and I will now present them to you.”
“We’ll start with the ever-popular “why-aren’t-you-jealous-when-I-hang-all-over-other-people?” fight. As all of you know firsthand, our William can get a bit touchy with absolutely everyone. You all know first hand, that Mike, despite his possessive boyfriend schtick, doesn’t kill anyone, or get angry about it. What you all should know, is that every once in a while, Bill decides that means that Santi doesn’t love him, and everything goes to hell.”
Butcher continued. “Most of us kind-of-sort-of remember the nights, and in fact, the approximate twelve month period in which Carden and William turned twenty-one. Now, neither of them remember those nights at all or that year very well. This fact does not stop them from arguing over who got more drunk on their twenty-first birthday. This fight is one to be cautious about, because those who witnessed those nights and have a vague recollection of both of them tend to join in, and that is not our goal.”
“Quite ironically,” Siska said, “They also fight about who has more of a drinking problem. Sometimes, one of these arguments will segue into the other. No, they never see the irony.”
“All you all know, Mike was a swimmer in high school, and Bill played baseball. This is the basis of my person favorite Mike and William argument-”the “whose high school sport was better?” dispute. It’s much more fun than most of them, and everybody joins in.”
Michael frowned. Clearly, swimming was the obvious choice out of those two sports. Americans and their baseball…
Siska left a long, dramatic pause before picking up where Butcher left off. “If these fights fail us, then, God help us all. So let’s not have them fail.”
“And that, my friends, is our course of action,” The Butcher concluded, “Any questions?”
“That is…a surprisingly solid plan,” Tony said, “Get on execution.”
“Why’d you write out all the rest?” Michael wondered aloud.
Siska grinned, “I’m glad you asked, man. Brainstorming. And then we kept it all up, because you need to see some of the fights you missed.”
Chislett walked up to the board, curious, and skimmed over the words. Had they really fought over which Russian revolutionary was the coolest? Why so many fights about baseball? Didn’t they root for the same team? And what was the Days Inn, 2005 Incident?
_______________________
The next ride was a long one, and this time, no one was displeased. It meant more time to try and implement their plan, which seemed destined to succeed. Everyone waited for the perfect opportunity with bated breath; it was time to get their friends back.
It was decided that Siska would take the first stab and fixing the happy couple.
He lurked around the back lounge until the two of them were cuddled up on the couch-their new favorite activity, it seemed. Mike was affectionately stroking the back of William’s hand as they gazed lovingly into one another’s eyes, not really saying anything at all.
Siska fought back the urge to gag and run away, in that order, and plunked down next to them. “Hey, Bill, remember your twenty-first birthday?”
“Not really,” he responded, distracted.
“Yeah, I don’t remember mine either,” Carden chimed in, “There is that video you guys took of me…You were there, though,” he told William meaningfully, “So I must have had a great time.”
Bill smiled that radiant Beckett smile. “I must have had a great time at mine, too.”
Siska stormed out.
_______________________
“Okay, okay,” Tony said. “I’ll take this next one. There is potential for great Beckett anger, and it’s better for him to be angry at me than one of you.”
He walked into the back lounge, where William had his head in Carden’s lap, and was reaching up to play with his hair. Tony was un-phased. He’d known the two of them a long time.
He tapped Mike on the shoulder. “Hey, Santi?” He stage-whispered in Mike’s ear (more than loud enough for William to hear), “How’s Bill’s drinking lately?”
He got a puzzled look from Carden in response.
A moment later, William looked up at him, hand frozen in Mike’s hair. “Oh, we don’t do that anymore...I want to remember every moment I’m with Mike.”
Carden nodded and smiled-it was a genuine smile, not a please-help-he’s-crazy-and-not-letting-me-drink smile.
“Um, okay.” Tony had seen the two of them do a lot of crazy shit, but quit drinking? He wasn’t sure he could deal with that. “That’s very nice for the two of you. I hope you enjoy it very much.”
He began to walk briskly from the room before giving up and breaking into a sprint.
______________________
“So, it’s agreed,” Butcher said, “The sports one next?”
“Yeah, okay, sure,” Tony replied, nervously wringing his hands. He hadn’t been the same since he came back from the back lounge. Everyone else was getting a little worried.
“I am so doing this one. Like, don’t any of you try. Mine!”
“Go right ahead, mate,” Michael told him. “If you’re so eager to go back there, I really don’t think anyone’s competing.”
“You’ll all be sorry you didn’t do it when I’m the one that fixes them.”
He strolled into the back lounge, cocky and nonchalant.
“Hey guys! Aren’t sports awesome?” He’d learned his lesson the last time, so Butcher was being very careful to watch a spot on the wall and avoid looking at the happy couple. It was a wiser choice than he knew.
“Yeah, I love sports!” Carden replied, strangely breathless, “But not as much as-”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve got it, not as much as you love him-say, weren’t the both of you high school athletes?”
“Why yes, we were!” William answered, also breathless, “It’s another one of the reasons we’re perfect for each other!”
There was soft laughter, and wet, smacking sounds.
Butcher made a face. “You guys! Focus! You say perfect for one another, but say-didn’t you play different sports? You, Bill, were a baseball player, and you, Mike, were a swimmer. It’s like you’re from two different worlds, the land and the sea! Your love is doomed.”
“Actually,” Carden said, very solemn, “Our different interests help balance us as a couple.”
“If we shared all the same experiences, what would we have to share with one another?” William helpfully added.
“But, but…which sport do you think is better?” The Butcher was grasping at straws.
“Swimming,” said Bill, “Because Mike did it,” at the exact same moment as Carden said “Baseball, because William played it.”
They then returned to making out.
Butcher skulked back to the main lounge with his head down and his hopes shattered.
___________________________
There was no further time for scheming that day, as The Academy Is… had a show to play.
The show did not, however, distract anyone from worrying about their current predicament. Tony spent a nervous half hour lecturing William and Mike on the importance of not making any split-second decisions that might affect the band.
No one could blame him; they were all feeling it. Three fights down and only one to go-and if that didn’t work, they were out of ideas and out of luck: no more band, no more of the friends they’d loved.
Unsurprisingly, Mike and Bill were the only two people on stage who weren’t off that night.
Normally, how badly everyone else was fucking up would have prompted a chewing out by first Carden and then Tony, followed by a disappointed reprimand by William. As it stood, Mike and Bill didn’t notice anything, and Tony was still too traumatized to care.
The couple that was causing all the problems gloated their way to the bunks, and the rest of the band followed along, despondent. Having to try and ignore the sounds of that-was-a-good-show sex didn’t help.
_______________________
Fortunately, the morning brought new opportunity and renewed enthusiasm.
“We’ve been going about this the wrong way,” Siska said. “Everyone expects us to be devious.” He looked over at Michael. “You! You are doing the next one. No one expects the clueless Australian to be doing any scheming. The accent is too cute.”
Michael glared, utterly befuddled.
“It’s okay, we’ll bring them in here, so we can all help you.”
He kept glaring.
“Do you want them to stay like this forever?”
“What should I do?”
Siska smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll take care of the dirty work. You just have to tell them what I tell you. Butcher! Get over here! We have a couple to lure out of the back lounge and into the main lounge.”
Butcher smirked. “Just wait, Chizzy. The masters are about to demonstrate their craft.”
Michael nodded, and sat down on a couch to wait…and wait, and wait.
Ten minutes later, the two of them returned, without Mike or William.
“I don’t understand! They wouldn’t go for any of it,” Siska lamented. “How unbelievable is it that someone got on the bus and wants to see them?”
“Sisky…It’s been two hours since the last time the bus stopped. Yeah, I’m the clueless one. I bet I’ll get them over here,” Michael said, grinning, before walking into the back lounge.
Two minutes later, he came back to the main lounge, Carden and Beckett in tow.
Siska and Butcher gaped.
Michael smirked. “I’m trying to decide whether or not I should change the pickups on my newest guitar. I asked Mike to come over and help. William came along.”
“Where’s the guitar, wiseguy?” Butcher asked. It was his turn to smirk.
“Ope! You’re right, mate. Must’ve left it in my bunk.” He came back a moment later with the guitar in question, another hollow-body Gretsch. “It has the Duncans in right now, and they sound nice, but I kind of want a different sound out of this one, you know?”
“Do we have an amp in here?” Mike asked, keeping a hand on William’s shoulder. “I wanna hear how it sounds.”
“You know we have an amp in here. Come on, Mike. I know you and Bill have been holed up in the back lounge for a while now, but you can’t have forgotten about guitar.” Michael plugged the Gretsch in and played a few experimental chords before starting in on a My Bloody Valentine song. He stopped after the first chorus. “You wanna try it?”
“You know I do.” He sat down and put the guitar on his knee. “Hey William, what should I play?”
“Something off Adore?”
Carden beamed and said, “For you, anything,” and then began playing the intro of “Tear.” Bill watched him with affectionate eyes.
“Well-played, my man,” Sisky told Chislett, correctly assuming that the happy couple wouldn’t notice.
“What now?” Michael mouthed in response.
Butcher gestured to William’s hand, which was tracing Mike’s shoulder-blade.
Michael nodded his understanding. “So…William, you touch people a lot!”
Butcher rubbed his temples.
“Yeah, I guess I do,” Bill replied, in a sunny (if puzzled) manner.
Butcher pointed to Mike and made an angry face.
Michael looked confused, but soldier on, “So, Mike, does it ever make you angry that…”
Butcher draped himself over Siska in an exaggerated, William-like manner.
“…How much Bill touches Sisky?”
Butcher and Siska frantically shook their heads, and Siska draped himself on Butcher, and then on some imaginary (tall) figure. Carden and William stared at Michael strangely.
“…And The Butcher! And, Gabe? Oh, people who aren’t you!”
“Okay, Chizzy…” Mike said, still playing, “And no, it doesn’t. William’s affectionate nature is one of the many things I love about him.”
The terrible twosome gestured to William next. Siska performed his best imitation of Bill’s upset face, perfected over the years of their friendship.
“Does that make you upset, Bill?”
“Nope! One of the many things I love about Mike is that he trusts me absolutely.”
Carden added some cool flourish to the bit of song he was playing. Siska beat his head against Butcher’s shoulder. It seemed that they’d run out of options; there was only one thing left to do.
___________________________
“Not until after the show,” Siska whispered, once Mike and William had gone. “If it works, they’ll be fighting too much to be on stage together.”
“I agree,” Tony said. “But…we’re sure this is the only way?”
The Butcher sighed. “I know it’s cruel, Tony, but what else can we do?”
“What are you guys even talking about?” Michael asked. “I thought we were out of fights.”
“You thought a lot of things, my innocent friend,” Siska told him. “You won’t think them anymore, after tonight.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Don’t worry about it. Just meet in the front lounge, and be prepared to get the fuck out of the room and put on headphones when the time comes-trust me, you’ll know. And you!” He pointed an accusing finger at Jack. “Stop filming this shit! Yeah, you only thought we wouldn’t find the camera in the back lounge.”
_________________________
“Hey, you guys mind if I put on some music?” Siska asked once everyone was settled in the main lounge, after the after-party.
“Go right ahead, little buddy.” Butcher told him.
Everyone else gave some kind of noncommittal shrug as a response.
Mike and William were sitting in a corner, in the same room as the rest of the band, but in a different world.
Siska scrolled to the correct album and plugged his iPod into the speakers. The opening strains of “I Will Dare” filled the lounge.
Carden perked up. “I love The Replacements!”
Bill nodded his agreement.
“This is your favorite album of theirs, right, Santi?” Siska inquired.
“Of course Let It Be is my favorite,” Mike said, grinning, “It’s the best one.”
William stiffened at that. Sisky bit back a grin as he looked pointedly at Carden and asked, “Are you sure about that, Mike?”
“Of course I am. All their other albums are good, but not this good.”
The track changed. Bill’s mouth was a thin line of disapproval. “I happen to be of the opinion that Pleased to Meet Me is not only ‘this good,’ but better.”
Mike scoffed. “Come on, William, it’s a great album, but even the critics agree that Let It Be is best.”
“Since when do we give a fuck about what the critics say? “Can’t Hardly Wait” is easily The Replacements’ most iconic song, and what album is it on? Pleased to Meet Me. The next most iconic is either “Alex Chilton” or “Skyway,” and what album are both of those on? Pleased to Meet Me. And has any other song ever summed up a band as well as “I Don’t Know” sums up The Replacements?” Bill was standing up now, hands on his hips and fire in his eyes.
Carden stood up, too. “All you’re really arguing here is that Pleased to Meet Me is a more commercially successful album, which it is-but commercial success a best album does not make. Let It Be is way more representative of The Replacements’ sound as a whole, while still featuring a range of influences not found in their earliest albums. And you want an iconic song? How many album openers are as iconic as “I Will Dare?” Besides, Pleased to Meet Me doesn’t even have Bob Stinson on it.”
“Fuck Bob Stinson. Pleased to Meet Me has an even wider range of influences than Let It Be, a much wider range than would have been possible with him still in the band. And the raw emotion of songs like “The Ledge,” “Valentine,” and “Never Mind” is something unmatched on any of their other albums. Yeah, “I.O.U.” might not be the opener that “I Will Dare” is, but who cares about openers when “Can’t Hardly Wait” is your closer?”
“There’s new influences, sure, but there’s also a loss of influences that were there before. And you wanna talk closers? “Answering Machine” ends the album on the kind of note…you want raw emotion? There it is. There it fucking is.”
By this time, everyone else had crept out of the room, though Michael couldn’t help but occasionally look in to watch, feeling like a voyeur every time.
On one such occasion, Siska tapped him on the shoulder and pulled him back into the bunks. “This is what we left out-the greatest pointless argument of them all: the great Replacements debate. They both fucking love The Replacements, but they’ll never agree on which album is best. I was hoping we wouldn’t have to sink this low.”
“Why is it this big of a deal?” Michael wondered. “I mean, The Replacements are a big deal, but it seems kind of like they should’ve been able to agree to disagree a long time ago.”
“Dunno,” Siska shrugged. “But I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with The Replacements.”
“If it’s not about The Replacements, what is it about?”
Siska opened the curtain to Bill’s bunk and snatched his iPod-his own had been temporarily sacrificed to the cause, and he needed to drown out the noise.“I just know the songs. I can’t tell you what they mean.” He put on his headphones and told Michael, “I suggest you do the same,” before turning on the music and heading off into his own bunk.
Michael didn’t put on headphones, and listened as the arguing continued long after the final strains of “Answering Machine” died down.
_____________________
Later (much later), Mike brushed a sweaty strand of hair out of William’s eyes. The bus was dark and very quiet, except for them. “So it’s agreed? The makeup sex is really worth the fighting.”
“Strongly agreed,” William said, kissing his shoulder.
“The sex while we were all-” he made some kind of wavy gesture with his hand, “was…” he trailed off, still cautious, still hesitant.
“Boring. You don’t have to be afraid to say it. It was as really fucking boring as possible for us.” William buried his face in the crook of Mike’s neck. This part was always so easy.
He kissed the top of William’s head and laughed, a little coldly. “They really are both fucking great albums.”
William echoed the laugh. “No, there was never any doubt about that.”
“Think that’ll stop us from having this exact fight a few million more times?”
“It hasn’t yet,” William said, finding Mike’s hand and intertwining their fingers, “It hasn’t yet.” "