FIC: Half A Jonas - PG-13 - Kevin/Mike, others
This is completely not what I meant to be working on this week.
And before anyone asks or says anything, yes there will be more.
TITLE: Half a Jonas
AUTHOR: Melanie
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: Kevin Jonas/Mike Carden, Joe Jonas/Taylor Lautner, Nick/Miley
SUMMARY: Where Kevin is only half a son, Nick has got Miley pregnant, Joe has chosen the wrong Taylor and Frankie is two years shy of a teen-age rebellion that will put everyone else’s to shame.
DISCLAIMER: If you recognize your own name or names of your siblings / bandmates you need to hit the back button.
Half a Jonas
He should never answer his own phone, Kevin decides. That’s supposedly why he has Mia and he really needs to remember that.
Though she’s human, she needs to use the bathroom like normal people and step away to not lose her mind, and if the phone is ringing Kevin should be able to answer it. Except Kevin doesn’t seem to have the sixth sense that Mia has for when Nick or Joe or even his parents (if they were still talking to him) are going to say something that is going to drive him to insanity.
Or under his desk. He prefers under his desk because there’s less doctors bills, and straightjackets and drugs involved.
Mia comes in and he can see her shoes standing on the other side, she doesn’t say anything, she’s warned him about answering his own phone, reminded him that they have voice mail and she can always call people back.
Someday he’ll remember that.
“Nick’s decided to ruin his life,” he says.
Mia doesn’t say anything; she probably knew why Nick was calling before Nick had even picked up the phone.
Mia’s psychic, she has to be, someday Kevin will trick her into revealing this, but that day hasn’t happened yet.
He’s tried to tell her that he won’t turn her over to evil scientists or use her powers for the wrong things but he doesn’t think she believes him.
“He’s marrying Miley,” he says. He puts a hand over his eyes.
“I thought they broke up.”
“Apparently they got back together? And now she’s pregnant, and it’s his and now they’re getting married. There was maybe a mention of guns and Billy Ray yelling, I don’t know. I tuned out after pregnant and married.”
“How the hell did she manage to get pregnant if they’re not sleeping together?” Mia asks. Kevin had asked that question as well, because when Kevin had seen Nick that weekend he’d still had on his ring and had still had the option of talking to their parents.
“Apparently they’ve been sleeping together for a while now and now they’re pregnant and now Joe is going to be the only one that our parents our speaking to,” Kevin says. “Besides you know, Frankie.”
He’s not sure that Frankie counts; Frankie is still living with their parents, they kind of have to talk to him.
He rubs his nose and sighs heavily. He’d expected Joe to get some random girl pregnant; he’d never expected it from Nick who besides Kevin had been the ones who their parents trusted to ‘do the right thing always’.
Joe was the one that had acted out all their teenage angst and rebellion and Nick and Kevin had lived vicariously through him.
Now Joe is going to be the only one of them that their parents is still talking to, besides Frankie, there is something very wrong with the universe and Kevin has a feeling that maybe the world is ending and just no one has told him yet.
“That reminds me, Joe called while you were in that meeting downstairs, he wants to meet for dinner and talk about Taylor,” Mia says.
“Which one?” Kevin asks suspiciously, he might just never be able to come out from under his desk. Hopefully the Taylor that Joe wants to discuss is the one that will keep their parents still talking to him, and not the one that will cause Joe to be cut off in much the same manner that Nick will be and Kevin sort of has.
He’s only been partially disowned; he still gets birthday cards at least. And he shouldn’t even be partially, his parents are just mad that Kevin had broke the engagement once he found out his fiancé had been after his money, instead of just tightening up the prenup as a precaution like they’d wanted him to.
He couldn’t get them to listen to him when he talked about lack of love and trust, and he tried not to listen to them when they talked about image and changing demographics.
They’re his parents; they’re supposed to be worried about more then images and demographics.
Nick’s going to be completely disowned, Nick has got Miley Cyrus pregnant while still wearing his purity ring, their parents are down to 2 and a half sons (he’s pretty sure he doesn’t count as a full one, because he only gets cards but he hasn’t actually talked to his parents in over two years) instead of four, if Joe decides that he’s going to be gay they’ll be down to 1 and a half and he just doesn’t think that him and Frankie can carry the entire burden of the Jonas clan.
Especially since he’s only half a person.
Besides Frankie’s about two years away from his own rebellion, he has a feeling that Frankie’s been learning at the knees of the masters and it’s going to be like the terrible two’s all over again.
Frankie had thrown the most epic of temper tantrums; he’ll figure out a way to get a guy pregnant out of wedlock just to one-up both Nick and Joe.
“He didn’t say,” Mia says. Her tone says that she knows which one Joe wants to talk about. “It could be nothing, now why don’t you come out from under your desk before your two o’clock thinks you’re completely nuts.”
“Too late dear Mia,” William Beckett sounds amused. Kevin hits his head on the underside of his desk and he’s rubbing at it when he crawls out from under the desk, William Beckett is grinning at him and Gabe Saporta is smirking, Mike Carden is standing at Bill’s shoulder just staring.
No one’s laughing at him.
Not yet anyway.
******************************************************************************
He designs stages; it wasn’t something he’d ever intended to do, not seriously anyway.
But his parents had said that he couldn’t be a Jonas Brother anymore and they’d said stuff like ‘age’ and ‘image’ and he’d tuned them out and let Joe fill him in on the important stuff later.
Like they were going to be a duo instead of a trio and Kevin had apparently been kicked out his own band because a focus group and his parents had decided that he wasn’t hitting their key demographic anymore.
The crew that he works with is the one that built the stage for their big headlining tour; they’d maybe told him that if the singing thing didn’t work out that they would be more then happy to put him to work.
He’d completely taken them up on it; it’s a paycheck after all.
Now he’s sitting in a chair and Bill is talking about ‘vision’s’ and Gabe keeps talking about ‘Cobra’s’ and he’s not quite sure but he’s hoping that they don’t want a stage that’s in the shape of a giant Cobra.
He could do it, he’s sure of that; he just doesn’t see how everyone could fit on it at the same time.
Though maybe they could have it be kind of like the Cobra is coiled up, poised to attack and the drum kit could maybe be on the end of the tail and the stage itself could be the curled body and maybe they could use an animatronics Cobra head and there could be a tongue that darts out periodically…
He starts sketching something out on the sketchbook in his lap while he lets Bill keep talking, hands still waving. When it gets quiet he glances up and everyone is staring at him, his pencil stops on the paper.
“Um…” he says and he looks at all of them with wide eyes. Bill’s eyes are faintly indulgent, Gabe is smirking at him. Mike is leaning back in his chair, eyes closed, feet kicked up on the short table that’s spaced evenly between all the seats.
He lays the sketchpad down on the table, it’s not done yet but it’ll give them a rough idea of what he was thinking of, Bill turns it in his direction using one finger and he stares at it then looks over at Gabe with a little smile.
“We could put Cobra Starship going up one side of the hood, then The Academy Is on the other, maybe switch them around depending on whoever’s on stage at the time,” Kevin says.
“Ryan Ross did not lie,” Gabe says, his grin is wide and showing perfect white teeth.
Kevin blinks at him, he’d been particularly proud of the Panic! At The Disco / The Young Veins, It’s All About the Music, Sort Of reunion tour stage.
It had actually been three different stages, 1/3 of it of it a disco-ish club with bright, flashing lights another 1/3 a bluesy nightclub.
It had taken talking to them all alone and separately and Ryan Ross had never seemed, to him anyway, to feel any particular emotion about The Young Vein’s 1/3 of the stage, though almost all of what he’d designed had come from listening to Ryan talk about how he’d imagined touring to support the album would be like, if The Young Veins had toured to support their album.
Panic’s 1/3 on the other hand had been easy; their music had told him what they needed and what it didn’t Brendon’s voice and enthusiasm when they talked about the music had.
The other 1/3 had been a morphing of the two stages and he knows, because both of them told him, that Jon and Spencer had loved that stage in particular. Kevin kind of thought it was because that 1/3 showed them that they could all make music together and have their different voices and different sounds and still be one band and friends.
Mike’s hand reaches out and when Kevin turns he sees his eyes are open and he’s taking the pad that Bill is holding out.
He stares at the pad and Kevin twines his hands together in his lap and waits for the verdict.
Mike looks up and their eyes meet and Kevin flushes and looks away.
Yeah his parents aren’t talking to him right now, but he still gets birthday cards and there’s a hope that maybe they’ll talk to him again in the near future.
Taking Mike up on the invitation in his eyes, he’ll lose the birthday cards and what he gets in return won’t be worth it.
He knows this.
******************************************************************************
He meets Joe at the restaurant that Mia had noted in his planner. Joe is already sitting at a table and Kevin is only ten minutes late so he doesn’t look really upset yet.
He’s alone which Kevin is taking as both a blessing, and also a sign that the Taylor they’ll be discussing is not the one that mom and dad want him to settle down and have two kids, one boy and one girl, with.
He’s pretty sure that Joe can still have kids, a boy and a girl with the other Taylor. But he’s also pretty sure that they’ll have to be adopted from another country and he’s almost positive that Angelina Jolie has already adopted everyone.
“I’m only half a son,” Kevin reminds him. “I can’t fulfill all duties of an actual son if you choose to relinquish your crown as well.”
“Nick’s talked to you already,” Joe says. He nods and opens his menu. Kevin thinks it’s because he wants something to hide behind, he notes that there’s a half a hickey peaking out over the collar of Joe’s shirt before Joe’s menu hides him from view.
“Also you didn’t bring the Taylor that’s not going to get you disowned with you,” Kevin says. “You would have brought the other one with you.”
Joe makes a noise behind his menu. Kevin reaches out a hand and pushes it down.
“Maybe I want to talk about both Taylor’s,” Joe says. Kevin looks at him hopefully, at least there’d be a girl in that arrangement, Joe would probably only end up half a son, like Kevin. Together they would make a full Jonas again.
“Do you?”
“Not really,” Joe says.
“Plus, you know you have a hickey, right?” Kevin narrows his eyes and stares at it; Joe fidgets in his chair and touches it with his fingertips. “Or a half a one anyway, your collar hides part of it.”
“He’s a nice guy,” Joe says, it sounds defensive. Kevin knows that Taylor is a nice guy, he’s met him, he’s polite and sweet and he’d looked at Joe like Joe had been the only person in the room. Kevin’s not sure how they met, but he’s pretty sure that it was through the other Taylor, the one who’s probably put a hit out on Joe by now for stealing her boyfriend.
They should probably look at putting Joe into protective custody, for his own safety.
“I know, just, do you have to come out right now?” Kevin says. “Can’t it wait like a year, until after mom and dad are at least talking to me or Miley’s had her baby and they’re talking to Nick again because there’s a grandbaby? You know they won’t leave him cut off once there’s a baby involved.”
“I’m tired of hiding,” Joe says. “Besides Nick’s little indiscretion will take some of the heat off me.”
“Nick just got Miley pregnant, he’s marrying her. You on the other hand are planning on announcing to our parents that you’re gay, it’s kind of not exactly the same thing.”
“Bi,” Joe says absently. “And is that why you haven’t told them yet?” Joe asks. Kevin gapes at him and when he doesn’t respond Joe narrows his eyes at him.
“You’ve never been what one would call discreet, Kevin. You wear your heart on your sleeve and your subterfuge sucks. You ended things with Danielle, you let mom and dad kick you out of the band, you moved out of the house, moved here, then took up with Zac for about three months. The only reason mom and dad don’t know is because they’re bound and determined to not know.”
“Are you a spy?” Kevin asks, he knows his eyes are wide, but really, maybe Joe has him bugged or maybe he hired a private detective. Though he doesn’t know why Joe would do that.
Mia doesn’t even know that much. She certainly doesn’t know about Zac. Nobody knows about Zac, except for him and Zac.
And Vanessa, but that was only because Zac was always completely honest with her. And Corbin, but only because he walked in on them that one time.
“I’m telling them about Taylor, Taylor’s already told his management that we’re doing it and they’re going to have to figure out a way to deal, I’ve got money set aside so if mom and dad try to cut me out like they tried to cut you out I have something to fall back on.”
“You’ve thought about this,” Kevin says. “You’ve planned this.”
“I’ve run the scenarios a couple of times, Taylor and I talked about how we wanted to do this; we thought incriminating photos or a sex tape leak or something but I kind of don’t want mom or dad to have a heart attack so I nixed those pretty early on. I’ve even talked about this with Nick a handful of times though I haven’t told him any specifics.”
“Sex tape,” Kevin moans, he plants his elbows on his table and hides his face in his hands. “You’ve made a sex tape with Taylor and were planning on leaking it.”
Joe laughs at him. “Don’t be an idiot, we talked about that one for like two seconds, but sex tapes are private viewing things. Just telling mom and dad is the easiest way and has the least amount of fall out that we’ll have to deal with.”
“I’m never answering my phone again,” Kevin says. He doesn’t lift his hands.
“I want to know that you’ll be okay with this,” Joe says. He reaches across the table and touches his arm, Kevin looks up and Joe looks serious and young and sort of scared. “You’re my big brother Kevin; I need to know that you’ll be okay with this.”
Kevin squeezes his hand and smiles at him. Joe relaxes a bit so it’s obviously not as stiff and fake as Kevin feared.
“I just want you to be happy, Joe. If he makes you happy…”
Joe smiles at him. “He does, and I know mom and dad are going to be pissed, I know they’re not going to talk to me and that you might be the only family I have for a while, but… I’m tired, Kevin. I’m tired of hiding and I’m tired of him thinking I’m ashamed of him.”
Kevin smiles at him, picks up his menu.
He wishes sometimes that he was as brave as Joe.
******************************************************************************
He can’t sleep so he goes to his office. He’s particularly proud of it, it’s in the same building that the contractors he works with are set up and when he’d called in a throwaway comment and asked for a job, they took him on even though he really has no training and set him up in his own little office area and gave him Mia.
Mia’s the daughter of one of the guys that owns part of the company. Kevin had thought she’d spend most of her time filing her nails or flirting with the workers that come filtering through.
She doesn’t, she’s managed to get him completely organized, and she keeps him from losing his mind.
So he has to wonder why he has a sticky note with a phone number and the initials M.C. smack in the middle of his desk. He looks at and still can’t make sense of it; normally Mia leaves a little more information with his messages. Like a name, not initials.
M.C. could be anyone, it could be Miley or Mike Carden and there’s no reason he sees that he should be getting calls from either one of them.
He moves the sticky so he doesn’t lose it in the middle of a file or something and sticks it to his computer monitor instead.
Mia comes in at seven and she looks bright eyed and awake, she’s also holding two cups of coffee and staring at him with expectant eyes.
“What?” Kevin asks, even as he makes gimme hands at the coffee. She rolls her eyes at him and hands it over.
“Did you call him yet?” she asks, he holds the coffee up to his nose and sniffs. She got the good stuff and he takes a careful sip.
“Call who?” Kevin asks, he leans back in his chair and keeps his coffee close. She’s taken it away before if she didn’t like the answers she was getting to her questions. She’ll have to fight him for this cup; he’s operating on about three hours of sleep.
“I left a number for Mike Carden on your desk,” Mia looks down at the desktop, Kevin looks as well even though he knows he moved the sticky to his computer. His desktop is covered in sketches and folders; he’s got three other stage designs that he’s working on besides the Cobra/Academy one.
“Why?”
Mia stares at him.
“Stop trying to set me up with people,” Kevin says, he tries to say it sternly but it more comes across as pleading.
“He’s a nice guy,” Mia says. Kevin looks at her and she looks back. “I know him, not you know, well or anything. But well enough that he called after you left and we got to talking and…”
“We talked about this Mia, you’re not allowed to try and set me up with people. You have bad taste in guys.”
“For myself, yeah. I do okay with other people.”
“Plus once Joe leaps out of the closet and Nick tells our parents that Miley’s pregnant we’re down to me and Frankie, and I’m only half a Jonas; don’t make Frankie carry the burden of our family on his shoulders. He’s just a baby.”
“Just have coffee with him, you don’t have to sleep with him, or even publicly announce that you like guys. Just you know, live a little, your life depresses me. You keep living it like you’re waiting for your parents to come to their senses and see that the reasons that they cut you off were stupid.”
“They just want me to be happy.”
“They wanted you to marry a girl that told you, to your face, and then gave an interview to a major news network telling them the same exact thing, that the only reason that she was with you and marrying you was so she could take you for every penny you had. Tell me what you did wrong there,” Mia says. Kevin looks down at his desk. Mia’s already made her opinion on everything perfectly clear.
It’s just they’re his parents.
He just wants to be able to pick up the phone and talk to his parents, he wants to be able to talk to Frankie without having to resort to IM’s and a cellphone that his parents don’t know Frankie has.
He’s an adult, but he thinks he’s always going to want his mom and dad, to be his mom and dad.
******************************************************************************
They go for coffee. Mia bullies him into it and he finally gives in because he has a feeling that she’ll sit perched at the end of his desk all day and they’ll neither one of them get anything done.
So he calls Mike and sets it up and Mike sounds gruff and like he’s only half listening to whatever Kevin is saying.
He can hope that Mike just won’t show up, but the call at least gets Mia beaming at him and back out at her own desk in front of her own computer and he thinks she turns off the ringer on his phone because it doesn’t ring once in his office, but he hears it out at her desk a couple of times.
He wonders why she didn’t do that before.
******************************************************************************
His hope that Mike hadn’t been paying attention during their short five minute phone call to set up the coffee thing is dashed when he walks into the little bakery around the corner and Mike is already sitting at a table.
He looks freshly showered and put together. Kevin wonders if Bill dressed him because there’s been a handful of times that Kevin has actually seen Mike Carden in person besides the meeting the day before and he normally looks like he just rolled out of bed or is completely drunk, sometimes both.
Mike’s got two cups in front of him; he doesn’t seem that heavy a coffee drinker so Kevin assumes that Mia has given Mike the scoop on his likes and dislikes.
He gets pushed inside and shoves his hands in his pockets as he walks over.
Mike looks up when he stands there and he doesn’t smile at him, doesn’t acknowledge him in any way other then the raising of an eyebrow and a slight quirk to his mouth.
“You gonna sit down?” Mike asks, he’s got one hand wrapped around his coffee, there’s a plate with an assortment of Kevin’s favorite pastries sitting on the table in front of him.
Kevin should turn around and walk right out the door because really, nothing good can come from this.
“I shouldn’t be here,” Kevin says, even as he slides into the chair, Mike pushes a cup over his way and his mouth quirks a little more into something that could maybe pass for a smile if you were overly generous.
“It’s just coffee, not marriage.”
******************************************************************************
Mia’s waiting for him when he gets back and Kevin is sort of bewildered when he walks in the door.
It had been nice, after he got past the fact that Mike had looked at him like he was trying to eat him with his eyes. Kevin makes a mental note to check and make sure that Mike isn’t a cannibal or something. He can probably have Mia call Bill and find out.
But the coffee had been good, and Kevin had relaxed and Mike had relaxed enough that Kevin realized that he hadn’t been relaxed when he first walked up. They talked about bands that they knew and favorite tours and favorite movies.
The favorite movies was probably where Kevin got into trouble, he should have kept it all on a superficial level, just information that any teenie could find out by Googling him or reading a BOP magazine or visiting the Jonas Brothers website.
But instead they got into private stuff.
“Well?” Mia asks, she’s already perched on the corner of his desk. He wonders if she realizes how closely she resembled a gargoyle sometimes with the way she does that.
“We’re going to the movies Friday?” Kevin says, he rubs his head. He’s still not quite sure how that happened.
Mia squeals and Kevin takes a step back, eyes widening in alarm.
“Oh my god,” she says, she’s already got her phone out. Kevin doesn’t know what she needs her phone for unless she’s planning on taking a picture of his face to send to Mike and say ‘you got him good’.
“You have a date,” she says and he realizes that she’s texting someone and he takes a step forward in alarm.
“No I don’t,” Kevin shakes his head, he reaches out a hand to take her phone away but she twists and shields it with her body. “Who are you texting?” he asks suspiciously.
“Joe called while you were out on your coffee date,” she says.
“It wasn’t a date, it was two guys, getting coffee,” Kevin says. Mia ignores him.
“When I told him where you were he wanted me to let him know when you got back so he could find out how it went.”
His phone rings then and Kevin rounds the desk. It’s Joe’s number on the caller ID and he frowns as he picks it up.
“Mike Carden?” Joe asks and Kevin frowns at Mia, she grins at him unrepentantly and bounces out of the room, closing the door behind her.
“It’s all Mia’s fault, she said that my life was depressing her, and it was just coffee.”
“A coffee date,” there’s a pause and he can hear Joe tapping on something on the other end. “And you’re going out with him on Friday.”
“Oh my god, is she still texting you?”
“No?”
“Oh my god, lets change the subject from my not dating of Mike Carden to when you’re planning on talking to mom and dad. I’d like to be on the moon when that happens, I think that’ll be a far enough distance away to survive the impact.”
Joe laughs at him, “Nick and Miley are talking to mom and dad this weekend, I figured I’d do it next week, after they’ve had a chance to settle down a bit.”
“Hmm,” Kevin picks a pen up, taps it on the sketchbook open on his desk then drops it. “I should probably be on the moon for Nick and Miley as well.”
“Can I go with you?”
******************************************************************************
Their not!date goes well, though Kevin has to concede by the end of the night that it might actually have been a date.
There’s kissing at the end, Frankie informs him on Sunday when he calls that kissing means that it’s a date.
His date with Mike goes well, mom and dad’s meeting with Nick and Miley (and a surprise appearance by Billy Ray) does not.
“Mom called her a harlot and a slut and Miley was crying and Nick was yelling and I think the only reason that dad and Billy Ray didn’t get into a fistfight was because Billy Ray was pissed and dad knew that he’d lose.”
“So it didn’t go well then?” Kevin asks, he bites his lip and tries not to worry. Nick hasn’t called him, he’ll have to call Joe after he gets off the phone with Frankie to make sure that Nick is at least talking to Joe.
“No, it’s down to just me and Joe and you, sort of,” Frankie sighs. It’s the long suffering sigh of a teenager that believes he’s smarter then every adult that he has contact with.
In Frankie’s case it’s probably true.
“Do you think I can start my teenage rebellion phase now, and get disowned before Joe gets caught making out with somebody on camera?”
“No?” Kevin says.
“You know something I don’t know about Joe, don’t you?” Frankie says. He sounds suspicious and Kevin has a feeling that it’ll be the fastest fingers win to get through to Joe after they hang up.
******************************************************************************
Joe is still determined to come out to their parents, even after the blow up with Nick and Miley and the two of them going to ground at an undisclosed location.
Nick won’t tell him where they are, even after Kevin reminds him that he’s only half a son himself and that he wouldn’t sell their location to a newspaper.
If anything Joe is even more determined to get it over with, he calls as he’s packing on Friday night and Kevin himself is getting ready for his fifth date with Mike.
Kevin thinks he’s more nervous then Joe is, Joe is just sort of resigned to the fact that he’s going to get disowned. Kevin thinks that mom and dad are probably still mad about Nick and he’s hoping that Joe isn’t going to bear the brunt of it plus Joe’s decision to announce that he’s gay.
Joe hangs up when the car shows up to take him to the airport and Kevin is a nervous wreck when Mike picks him up.
“Maybe we should…” he starts when he opens the door to let him in, he’s pretty sure that he’s not going to be good company, he doesn’t want to ruin their date worrying about Joe.
Mike narrows his eyes at him; he shuts the door and herds Kevin towards the couch, turns on the TV and wraps him up in strong arms and just sits there with him.
“Joe is talking to our parents this weekend,” Kevin says, he doesn’t tell him why but Mike hears the gossip, he’s got to have heard about Joe and Taylor. And he wants Mike to know this isn’t about him, though maybe it is.
He wants to be brave like Joe, wants to be able to go to his mom and dad and hold Mike’s hand and say, ‘look, we’re just people and I love him and we’re together’. He’s not that brave though, not yet, maybe not ever.
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Joe calls on Sunday, Mike has stayed with him through the weekend and when Kevin’s phone rings and its Joe he watches with blank eyes as Kevin answers it.
“Joe?” Kevin asks and he knows Joe’s there, on the other end, can hear him breathing those hard, heavy breaths that means that he’s fighting to not just break down into a thousand pieces.
They sit there, Joe breathing into the phone, Kevin gripping his own tight in his hand, the fingers of the other digging into his leg. Mike comes to sit next to him, pulls him close and presses his lips against his temple.
“It’s done, I don’t…” Joe says finally, his voice sounds like he’s broken and lost and Kevin’s heart breaks for him.
“Come here, you can stay with me until…”
“They told me that I was an abomination; that I was going to go to hell. They told me I couldn’t see Frankie and that if you knew what was good for you that you would cut me off as well,” Joe says, his voice breaks, cracks on the words and Kevin sees red.
Joe is his brother, his baby brother and…
“I’m not going anywhere, come here. Get on the plane and come here, I’ll,” Mike grips his shoulder. “We’ll meet you at the airport.”
******************************************************************************
Joe has his brave face on when he steps past security, Kevin has known him forever, Kevin can see through his brave face and he pulls Joe into a tight hug. Squeezes him until Joe sobs out a “Kev.”
Beside him he can feel Mike’s quiet strength and support.
Mike might not have any idea what’s going on, but Mike’s supporting them nonetheless.
******************************************************************************
Kevin situates Joe on the couch with the remote control, a blanket and all the comfort food that Kevin could get into the apartment before Joe’s arrival.
He stands with Mike at his front door and Mike’s eyes keep going over to where Joe is still shattering into a thousand pieces on the couch. Kevin doesn’t see that changing, not until Taylor shows up, not until Joe is sure that he didn’t just lose his parents and his littlest brother for someone that’s not going to stay.
Kevin doesn’t know how Taylor is going to prove that he’s not going anywhere.
Of course in Joe’s frame of mind, Taylor showing up might be enough to convince him that he didn’t go through hell for nothing.
Mike kisses him at the door, a gentle press of lips, a hand brushing over his cheek. Then he’s left alone with a brother who’s a shadow of his former self.
******************************************************************************
Kevin goes to work; Mia is quiet at her desk. Doesn’t push or prod and at lunch time he goes on the Internet and Googles Joe’s name.
His parents have given an interview, Mike called him that morning and Nick sent an e-mail and Mia has turned off the ringer on his phone again because reporters kept calling him to get either confirmation or a reaction.
He closes his eyes for a second, sends up a prayer that Taylor has maybe arrived, is maybe with Joe right now so that he’s not alone.
Because right there in big bold print on MSN’s homepage is Joe Jonas Comes Out, his parents exclusive interview…
And right below it, is the interview that his parents had phoned in, Kevin notes that they out Taylor as well in the first paragraph.
He reads the article twice and his parents sound scornful and mean, even to him, to someone that was one day hoping that maybe his parents would be his parents again.
He doesn’t think that day is going to come.
******************************************************************************
He goes home and Taylor is sitting next to Joe on the couch, arm over his shoulder, Joe pulled in close to his side. They’re watching a movie and they’re not doing anything but sitting there but Kevin still feels like he’s intruding on something private.
He should say something, should tell them about the decision he made at lunch, instead he closes the door, puts his bag down. Shrugs out of his coat and hangs it on the hook by the door.
He walks across the room and stops beside the couch.
“Hey,” Kevin says softly. He touches Joe’s head, presses a kiss to his forehead, smiles at Taylor who looks pale but steadier then Joe does.
“Mike called, said he was on his way over,” Joe says. Joe’s eyes are red and sort of puffy, they don’t waver from the screen. Kevin glances at it and something explodes on the screen.
Kevin smiles despite himself.
******************************************************************************
Mike brings his band with him. Bill is wearing glasses and perches on the couch next to Joe and Taylor talking quietly.
The Butcher and Chislett have a stack of DVD’s between them and apparently they’re going to arm wrestle for which ones they’re going to watch.
Mike tugs him into the kitchen to put the beer and soda into the fridge, Adam is apparently bringing pizza and Gabe with him.
“They saw the interview,” Mike says, once he has the refreshments put away and has backed Kevin up against the refrigerator. “They thought maybe you guys could use some distraction.” He touches Kevin’s cheek, fingertips gentle against his skin and Kevin leans into the touch.
It’s kind of surprising how easily Kevin has become accustomed to the touching. He and Zac hadn’t really been touchers, not like he is with Mike, he likes touching Mike. Likes the feel of his skin under his fingers. Someday they’ll have sex, but probably not before Mike leaves for tour.
He’s going to miss this when Mike’s tour starts and he’s back to having only his job as a distraction and only his brothers touching him.
“Say the word and I can clear them out,” Mike says.
Kevin looks over Mike’s shoulder and can see a little grin on Joe’s face at the sight of Butcher and Chislett’s arm wrestling. Taylor’s face looks a little more open as well, relaxing as Joe relaxes.
“No, it’s good,” Kevin says.
“It’s going to be okay you know,” Mike says, he leans forward, foreheads touching. Kevin closes his eyes. “They’re going to be okay.”
“I know.”
“You’ll be okay too.”
Kevin smiles, just a little one. Because he’s got a phone call scheduled in the morning and maybe he’s as brave as Joe is, as Taylor is, as Nick and Miley are.
Maybe he’s got the family he needs, the one that supports him and while they’re not all the family he wants, maybe they’re all the family he needs in order to survive.
Kevin puts his hands on Mike’s hips, fingers looping through belt loops and leans up to press a kiss to his lips.
“I know.”
******************************************************************************
And before anyone asks or says anything, yes there will be more.
TITLE: Half a Jonas
AUTHOR: Melanie
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: Kevin Jonas/Mike Carden, Joe Jonas/Taylor Lautner, Nick/Miley
SUMMARY: Where Kevin is only half a son, Nick has got Miley pregnant, Joe has chosen the wrong Taylor and Frankie is two years shy of a teen-age rebellion that will put everyone else’s to shame.
DISCLAIMER: If you recognize your own name or names of your siblings / bandmates you need to hit the back button.
Half a Jonas
He should never answer his own phone, Kevin decides. That’s supposedly why he has Mia and he really needs to remember that.
Though she’s human, she needs to use the bathroom like normal people and step away to not lose her mind, and if the phone is ringing Kevin should be able to answer it. Except Kevin doesn’t seem to have the sixth sense that Mia has for when Nick or Joe or even his parents (if they were still talking to him) are going to say something that is going to drive him to insanity.
Or under his desk. He prefers under his desk because there’s less doctors bills, and straightjackets and drugs involved.
Mia comes in and he can see her shoes standing on the other side, she doesn’t say anything, she’s warned him about answering his own phone, reminded him that they have voice mail and she can always call people back.
Someday he’ll remember that.
“Nick’s decided to ruin his life,” he says.
Mia doesn’t say anything; she probably knew why Nick was calling before Nick had even picked up the phone.
Mia’s psychic, she has to be, someday Kevin will trick her into revealing this, but that day hasn’t happened yet.
He’s tried to tell her that he won’t turn her over to evil scientists or use her powers for the wrong things but he doesn’t think she believes him.
“He’s marrying Miley,” he says. He puts a hand over his eyes.
“I thought they broke up.”
“Apparently they got back together? And now she’s pregnant, and it’s his and now they’re getting married. There was maybe a mention of guns and Billy Ray yelling, I don’t know. I tuned out after pregnant and married.”
“How the hell did she manage to get pregnant if they’re not sleeping together?” Mia asks. Kevin had asked that question as well, because when Kevin had seen Nick that weekend he’d still had on his ring and had still had the option of talking to their parents.
“Apparently they’ve been sleeping together for a while now and now they’re pregnant and now Joe is going to be the only one that our parents our speaking to,” Kevin says. “Besides you know, Frankie.”
He’s not sure that Frankie counts; Frankie is still living with their parents, they kind of have to talk to him.
He rubs his nose and sighs heavily. He’d expected Joe to get some random girl pregnant; he’d never expected it from Nick who besides Kevin had been the ones who their parents trusted to ‘do the right thing always’.
Joe was the one that had acted out all their teenage angst and rebellion and Nick and Kevin had lived vicariously through him.
Now Joe is going to be the only one of them that their parents is still talking to, besides Frankie, there is something very wrong with the universe and Kevin has a feeling that maybe the world is ending and just no one has told him yet.
“That reminds me, Joe called while you were in that meeting downstairs, he wants to meet for dinner and talk about Taylor,” Mia says.
“Which one?” Kevin asks suspiciously, he might just never be able to come out from under his desk. Hopefully the Taylor that Joe wants to discuss is the one that will keep their parents still talking to him, and not the one that will cause Joe to be cut off in much the same manner that Nick will be and Kevin sort of has.
He’s only been partially disowned; he still gets birthday cards at least. And he shouldn’t even be partially, his parents are just mad that Kevin had broke the engagement once he found out his fiancé had been after his money, instead of just tightening up the prenup as a precaution like they’d wanted him to.
He couldn’t get them to listen to him when he talked about lack of love and trust, and he tried not to listen to them when they talked about image and changing demographics.
They’re his parents; they’re supposed to be worried about more then images and demographics.
Nick’s going to be completely disowned, Nick has got Miley Cyrus pregnant while still wearing his purity ring, their parents are down to 2 and a half sons (he’s pretty sure he doesn’t count as a full one, because he only gets cards but he hasn’t actually talked to his parents in over two years) instead of four, if Joe decides that he’s going to be gay they’ll be down to 1 and a half and he just doesn’t think that him and Frankie can carry the entire burden of the Jonas clan.
Especially since he’s only half a person.
Besides Frankie’s about two years away from his own rebellion, he has a feeling that Frankie’s been learning at the knees of the masters and it’s going to be like the terrible two’s all over again.
Frankie had thrown the most epic of temper tantrums; he’ll figure out a way to get a guy pregnant out of wedlock just to one-up both Nick and Joe.
“He didn’t say,” Mia says. Her tone says that she knows which one Joe wants to talk about. “It could be nothing, now why don’t you come out from under your desk before your two o’clock thinks you’re completely nuts.”
“Too late dear Mia,” William Beckett sounds amused. Kevin hits his head on the underside of his desk and he’s rubbing at it when he crawls out from under the desk, William Beckett is grinning at him and Gabe Saporta is smirking, Mike Carden is standing at Bill’s shoulder just staring.
No one’s laughing at him.
Not yet anyway.
******************************************************************************
He designs stages; it wasn’t something he’d ever intended to do, not seriously anyway.
But his parents had said that he couldn’t be a Jonas Brother anymore and they’d said stuff like ‘age’ and ‘image’ and he’d tuned them out and let Joe fill him in on the important stuff later.
Like they were going to be a duo instead of a trio and Kevin had apparently been kicked out his own band because a focus group and his parents had decided that he wasn’t hitting their key demographic anymore.
The crew that he works with is the one that built the stage for their big headlining tour; they’d maybe told him that if the singing thing didn’t work out that they would be more then happy to put him to work.
He’d completely taken them up on it; it’s a paycheck after all.
Now he’s sitting in a chair and Bill is talking about ‘vision’s’ and Gabe keeps talking about ‘Cobra’s’ and he’s not quite sure but he’s hoping that they don’t want a stage that’s in the shape of a giant Cobra.
He could do it, he’s sure of that; he just doesn’t see how everyone could fit on it at the same time.
Though maybe they could have it be kind of like the Cobra is coiled up, poised to attack and the drum kit could maybe be on the end of the tail and the stage itself could be the curled body and maybe they could use an animatronics Cobra head and there could be a tongue that darts out periodically…
He starts sketching something out on the sketchbook in his lap while he lets Bill keep talking, hands still waving. When it gets quiet he glances up and everyone is staring at him, his pencil stops on the paper.
“Um…” he says and he looks at all of them with wide eyes. Bill’s eyes are faintly indulgent, Gabe is smirking at him. Mike is leaning back in his chair, eyes closed, feet kicked up on the short table that’s spaced evenly between all the seats.
He lays the sketchpad down on the table, it’s not done yet but it’ll give them a rough idea of what he was thinking of, Bill turns it in his direction using one finger and he stares at it then looks over at Gabe with a little smile.
“We could put Cobra Starship going up one side of the hood, then The Academy Is on the other, maybe switch them around depending on whoever’s on stage at the time,” Kevin says.
“Ryan Ross did not lie,” Gabe says, his grin is wide and showing perfect white teeth.
Kevin blinks at him, he’d been particularly proud of the Panic! At The Disco / The Young Veins, It’s All About the Music, Sort Of reunion tour stage.
It had actually been three different stages, 1/3 of it of it a disco-ish club with bright, flashing lights another 1/3 a bluesy nightclub.
It had taken talking to them all alone and separately and Ryan Ross had never seemed, to him anyway, to feel any particular emotion about The Young Vein’s 1/3 of the stage, though almost all of what he’d designed had come from listening to Ryan talk about how he’d imagined touring to support the album would be like, if The Young Veins had toured to support their album.
Panic’s 1/3 on the other hand had been easy; their music had told him what they needed and what it didn’t Brendon’s voice and enthusiasm when they talked about the music had.
The other 1/3 had been a morphing of the two stages and he knows, because both of them told him, that Jon and Spencer had loved that stage in particular. Kevin kind of thought it was because that 1/3 showed them that they could all make music together and have their different voices and different sounds and still be one band and friends.
Mike’s hand reaches out and when Kevin turns he sees his eyes are open and he’s taking the pad that Bill is holding out.
He stares at the pad and Kevin twines his hands together in his lap and waits for the verdict.
Mike looks up and their eyes meet and Kevin flushes and looks away.
Yeah his parents aren’t talking to him right now, but he still gets birthday cards and there’s a hope that maybe they’ll talk to him again in the near future.
Taking Mike up on the invitation in his eyes, he’ll lose the birthday cards and what he gets in return won’t be worth it.
He knows this.
******************************************************************************
He meets Joe at the restaurant that Mia had noted in his planner. Joe is already sitting at a table and Kevin is only ten minutes late so he doesn’t look really upset yet.
He’s alone which Kevin is taking as both a blessing, and also a sign that the Taylor they’ll be discussing is not the one that mom and dad want him to settle down and have two kids, one boy and one girl, with.
He’s pretty sure that Joe can still have kids, a boy and a girl with the other Taylor. But he’s also pretty sure that they’ll have to be adopted from another country and he’s almost positive that Angelina Jolie has already adopted everyone.
“I’m only half a son,” Kevin reminds him. “I can’t fulfill all duties of an actual son if you choose to relinquish your crown as well.”
“Nick’s talked to you already,” Joe says. He nods and opens his menu. Kevin thinks it’s because he wants something to hide behind, he notes that there’s a half a hickey peaking out over the collar of Joe’s shirt before Joe’s menu hides him from view.
“Also you didn’t bring the Taylor that’s not going to get you disowned with you,” Kevin says. “You would have brought the other one with you.”
Joe makes a noise behind his menu. Kevin reaches out a hand and pushes it down.
“Maybe I want to talk about both Taylor’s,” Joe says. Kevin looks at him hopefully, at least there’d be a girl in that arrangement, Joe would probably only end up half a son, like Kevin. Together they would make a full Jonas again.
“Do you?”
“Not really,” Joe says.
“Plus, you know you have a hickey, right?” Kevin narrows his eyes and stares at it; Joe fidgets in his chair and touches it with his fingertips. “Or a half a one anyway, your collar hides part of it.”
“He’s a nice guy,” Joe says, it sounds defensive. Kevin knows that Taylor is a nice guy, he’s met him, he’s polite and sweet and he’d looked at Joe like Joe had been the only person in the room. Kevin’s not sure how they met, but he’s pretty sure that it was through the other Taylor, the one who’s probably put a hit out on Joe by now for stealing her boyfriend.
They should probably look at putting Joe into protective custody, for his own safety.
“I know, just, do you have to come out right now?” Kevin says. “Can’t it wait like a year, until after mom and dad are at least talking to me or Miley’s had her baby and they’re talking to Nick again because there’s a grandbaby? You know they won’t leave him cut off once there’s a baby involved.”
“I’m tired of hiding,” Joe says. “Besides Nick’s little indiscretion will take some of the heat off me.”
“Nick just got Miley pregnant, he’s marrying her. You on the other hand are planning on announcing to our parents that you’re gay, it’s kind of not exactly the same thing.”
“Bi,” Joe says absently. “And is that why you haven’t told them yet?” Joe asks. Kevin gapes at him and when he doesn’t respond Joe narrows his eyes at him.
“You’ve never been what one would call discreet, Kevin. You wear your heart on your sleeve and your subterfuge sucks. You ended things with Danielle, you let mom and dad kick you out of the band, you moved out of the house, moved here, then took up with Zac for about three months. The only reason mom and dad don’t know is because they’re bound and determined to not know.”
“Are you a spy?” Kevin asks, he knows his eyes are wide, but really, maybe Joe has him bugged or maybe he hired a private detective. Though he doesn’t know why Joe would do that.
Mia doesn’t even know that much. She certainly doesn’t know about Zac. Nobody knows about Zac, except for him and Zac.
And Vanessa, but that was only because Zac was always completely honest with her. And Corbin, but only because he walked in on them that one time.
“I’m telling them about Taylor, Taylor’s already told his management that we’re doing it and they’re going to have to figure out a way to deal, I’ve got money set aside so if mom and dad try to cut me out like they tried to cut you out I have something to fall back on.”
“You’ve thought about this,” Kevin says. “You’ve planned this.”
“I’ve run the scenarios a couple of times, Taylor and I talked about how we wanted to do this; we thought incriminating photos or a sex tape leak or something but I kind of don’t want mom or dad to have a heart attack so I nixed those pretty early on. I’ve even talked about this with Nick a handful of times though I haven’t told him any specifics.”
“Sex tape,” Kevin moans, he plants his elbows on his table and hides his face in his hands. “You’ve made a sex tape with Taylor and were planning on leaking it.”
Joe laughs at him. “Don’t be an idiot, we talked about that one for like two seconds, but sex tapes are private viewing things. Just telling mom and dad is the easiest way and has the least amount of fall out that we’ll have to deal with.”
“I’m never answering my phone again,” Kevin says. He doesn’t lift his hands.
“I want to know that you’ll be okay with this,” Joe says. He reaches across the table and touches his arm, Kevin looks up and Joe looks serious and young and sort of scared. “You’re my big brother Kevin; I need to know that you’ll be okay with this.”
Kevin squeezes his hand and smiles at him. Joe relaxes a bit so it’s obviously not as stiff and fake as Kevin feared.
“I just want you to be happy, Joe. If he makes you happy…”
Joe smiles at him. “He does, and I know mom and dad are going to be pissed, I know they’re not going to talk to me and that you might be the only family I have for a while, but… I’m tired, Kevin. I’m tired of hiding and I’m tired of him thinking I’m ashamed of him.”
Kevin smiles at him, picks up his menu.
He wishes sometimes that he was as brave as Joe.
******************************************************************************
He can’t sleep so he goes to his office. He’s particularly proud of it, it’s in the same building that the contractors he works with are set up and when he’d called in a throwaway comment and asked for a job, they took him on even though he really has no training and set him up in his own little office area and gave him Mia.
Mia’s the daughter of one of the guys that owns part of the company. Kevin had thought she’d spend most of her time filing her nails or flirting with the workers that come filtering through.
She doesn’t, she’s managed to get him completely organized, and she keeps him from losing his mind.
So he has to wonder why he has a sticky note with a phone number and the initials M.C. smack in the middle of his desk. He looks at and still can’t make sense of it; normally Mia leaves a little more information with his messages. Like a name, not initials.
M.C. could be anyone, it could be Miley or Mike Carden and there’s no reason he sees that he should be getting calls from either one of them.
He moves the sticky so he doesn’t lose it in the middle of a file or something and sticks it to his computer monitor instead.
Mia comes in at seven and she looks bright eyed and awake, she’s also holding two cups of coffee and staring at him with expectant eyes.
“What?” Kevin asks, even as he makes gimme hands at the coffee. She rolls her eyes at him and hands it over.
“Did you call him yet?” she asks, he holds the coffee up to his nose and sniffs. She got the good stuff and he takes a careful sip.
“Call who?” Kevin asks, he leans back in his chair and keeps his coffee close. She’s taken it away before if she didn’t like the answers she was getting to her questions. She’ll have to fight him for this cup; he’s operating on about three hours of sleep.
“I left a number for Mike Carden on your desk,” Mia looks down at the desktop, Kevin looks as well even though he knows he moved the sticky to his computer. His desktop is covered in sketches and folders; he’s got three other stage designs that he’s working on besides the Cobra/Academy one.
“Why?”
Mia stares at him.
“Stop trying to set me up with people,” Kevin says, he tries to say it sternly but it more comes across as pleading.
“He’s a nice guy,” Mia says. Kevin looks at her and she looks back. “I know him, not you know, well or anything. But well enough that he called after you left and we got to talking and…”
“We talked about this Mia, you’re not allowed to try and set me up with people. You have bad taste in guys.”
“For myself, yeah. I do okay with other people.”
“Plus once Joe leaps out of the closet and Nick tells our parents that Miley’s pregnant we’re down to me and Frankie, and I’m only half a Jonas; don’t make Frankie carry the burden of our family on his shoulders. He’s just a baby.”
“Just have coffee with him, you don’t have to sleep with him, or even publicly announce that you like guys. Just you know, live a little, your life depresses me. You keep living it like you’re waiting for your parents to come to their senses and see that the reasons that they cut you off were stupid.”
“They just want me to be happy.”
“They wanted you to marry a girl that told you, to your face, and then gave an interview to a major news network telling them the same exact thing, that the only reason that she was with you and marrying you was so she could take you for every penny you had. Tell me what you did wrong there,” Mia says. Kevin looks down at his desk. Mia’s already made her opinion on everything perfectly clear.
It’s just they’re his parents.
He just wants to be able to pick up the phone and talk to his parents, he wants to be able to talk to Frankie without having to resort to IM’s and a cellphone that his parents don’t know Frankie has.
He’s an adult, but he thinks he’s always going to want his mom and dad, to be his mom and dad.
******************************************************************************
They go for coffee. Mia bullies him into it and he finally gives in because he has a feeling that she’ll sit perched at the end of his desk all day and they’ll neither one of them get anything done.
So he calls Mike and sets it up and Mike sounds gruff and like he’s only half listening to whatever Kevin is saying.
He can hope that Mike just won’t show up, but the call at least gets Mia beaming at him and back out at her own desk in front of her own computer and he thinks she turns off the ringer on his phone because it doesn’t ring once in his office, but he hears it out at her desk a couple of times.
He wonders why she didn’t do that before.
******************************************************************************
His hope that Mike hadn’t been paying attention during their short five minute phone call to set up the coffee thing is dashed when he walks into the little bakery around the corner and Mike is already sitting at a table.
He looks freshly showered and put together. Kevin wonders if Bill dressed him because there’s been a handful of times that Kevin has actually seen Mike Carden in person besides the meeting the day before and he normally looks like he just rolled out of bed or is completely drunk, sometimes both.
Mike’s got two cups in front of him; he doesn’t seem that heavy a coffee drinker so Kevin assumes that Mia has given Mike the scoop on his likes and dislikes.
He gets pushed inside and shoves his hands in his pockets as he walks over.
Mike looks up when he stands there and he doesn’t smile at him, doesn’t acknowledge him in any way other then the raising of an eyebrow and a slight quirk to his mouth.
“You gonna sit down?” Mike asks, he’s got one hand wrapped around his coffee, there’s a plate with an assortment of Kevin’s favorite pastries sitting on the table in front of him.
Kevin should turn around and walk right out the door because really, nothing good can come from this.
“I shouldn’t be here,” Kevin says, even as he slides into the chair, Mike pushes a cup over his way and his mouth quirks a little more into something that could maybe pass for a smile if you were overly generous.
“It’s just coffee, not marriage.”
******************************************************************************
Mia’s waiting for him when he gets back and Kevin is sort of bewildered when he walks in the door.
It had been nice, after he got past the fact that Mike had looked at him like he was trying to eat him with his eyes. Kevin makes a mental note to check and make sure that Mike isn’t a cannibal or something. He can probably have Mia call Bill and find out.
But the coffee had been good, and Kevin had relaxed and Mike had relaxed enough that Kevin realized that he hadn’t been relaxed when he first walked up. They talked about bands that they knew and favorite tours and favorite movies.
The favorite movies was probably where Kevin got into trouble, he should have kept it all on a superficial level, just information that any teenie could find out by Googling him or reading a BOP magazine or visiting the Jonas Brothers website.
But instead they got into private stuff.
“Well?” Mia asks, she’s already perched on the corner of his desk. He wonders if she realizes how closely she resembled a gargoyle sometimes with the way she does that.
“We’re going to the movies Friday?” Kevin says, he rubs his head. He’s still not quite sure how that happened.
Mia squeals and Kevin takes a step back, eyes widening in alarm.
“Oh my god,” she says, she’s already got her phone out. Kevin doesn’t know what she needs her phone for unless she’s planning on taking a picture of his face to send to Mike and say ‘you got him good’.
“You have a date,” she says and he realizes that she’s texting someone and he takes a step forward in alarm.
“No I don’t,” Kevin shakes his head, he reaches out a hand to take her phone away but she twists and shields it with her body. “Who are you texting?” he asks suspiciously.
“Joe called while you were out on your coffee date,” she says.
“It wasn’t a date, it was two guys, getting coffee,” Kevin says. Mia ignores him.
“When I told him where you were he wanted me to let him know when you got back so he could find out how it went.”
His phone rings then and Kevin rounds the desk. It’s Joe’s number on the caller ID and he frowns as he picks it up.
“Mike Carden?” Joe asks and Kevin frowns at Mia, she grins at him unrepentantly and bounces out of the room, closing the door behind her.
“It’s all Mia’s fault, she said that my life was depressing her, and it was just coffee.”
“A coffee date,” there’s a pause and he can hear Joe tapping on something on the other end. “And you’re going out with him on Friday.”
“Oh my god, is she still texting you?”
“No?”
“Oh my god, lets change the subject from my not dating of Mike Carden to when you’re planning on talking to mom and dad. I’d like to be on the moon when that happens, I think that’ll be a far enough distance away to survive the impact.”
Joe laughs at him, “Nick and Miley are talking to mom and dad this weekend, I figured I’d do it next week, after they’ve had a chance to settle down a bit.”
“Hmm,” Kevin picks a pen up, taps it on the sketchbook open on his desk then drops it. “I should probably be on the moon for Nick and Miley as well.”
“Can I go with you?”
******************************************************************************
Their not!date goes well, though Kevin has to concede by the end of the night that it might actually have been a date.
There’s kissing at the end, Frankie informs him on Sunday when he calls that kissing means that it’s a date.
His date with Mike goes well, mom and dad’s meeting with Nick and Miley (and a surprise appearance by Billy Ray) does not.
“Mom called her a harlot and a slut and Miley was crying and Nick was yelling and I think the only reason that dad and Billy Ray didn’t get into a fistfight was because Billy Ray was pissed and dad knew that he’d lose.”
“So it didn’t go well then?” Kevin asks, he bites his lip and tries not to worry. Nick hasn’t called him, he’ll have to call Joe after he gets off the phone with Frankie to make sure that Nick is at least talking to Joe.
“No, it’s down to just me and Joe and you, sort of,” Frankie sighs. It’s the long suffering sigh of a teenager that believes he’s smarter then every adult that he has contact with.
In Frankie’s case it’s probably true.
“Do you think I can start my teenage rebellion phase now, and get disowned before Joe gets caught making out with somebody on camera?”
“No?” Kevin says.
“You know something I don’t know about Joe, don’t you?” Frankie says. He sounds suspicious and Kevin has a feeling that it’ll be the fastest fingers win to get through to Joe after they hang up.
******************************************************************************
Joe is still determined to come out to their parents, even after the blow up with Nick and Miley and the two of them going to ground at an undisclosed location.
Nick won’t tell him where they are, even after Kevin reminds him that he’s only half a son himself and that he wouldn’t sell their location to a newspaper.
If anything Joe is even more determined to get it over with, he calls as he’s packing on Friday night and Kevin himself is getting ready for his fifth date with Mike.
Kevin thinks he’s more nervous then Joe is, Joe is just sort of resigned to the fact that he’s going to get disowned. Kevin thinks that mom and dad are probably still mad about Nick and he’s hoping that Joe isn’t going to bear the brunt of it plus Joe’s decision to announce that he’s gay.
Joe hangs up when the car shows up to take him to the airport and Kevin is a nervous wreck when Mike picks him up.
“Maybe we should…” he starts when he opens the door to let him in, he’s pretty sure that he’s not going to be good company, he doesn’t want to ruin their date worrying about Joe.
Mike narrows his eyes at him; he shuts the door and herds Kevin towards the couch, turns on the TV and wraps him up in strong arms and just sits there with him.
“Joe is talking to our parents this weekend,” Kevin says, he doesn’t tell him why but Mike hears the gossip, he’s got to have heard about Joe and Taylor. And he wants Mike to know this isn’t about him, though maybe it is.
He wants to be brave like Joe, wants to be able to go to his mom and dad and hold Mike’s hand and say, ‘look, we’re just people and I love him and we’re together’. He’s not that brave though, not yet, maybe not ever.
******************************************************************************
Joe calls on Sunday, Mike has stayed with him through the weekend and when Kevin’s phone rings and its Joe he watches with blank eyes as Kevin answers it.
“Joe?” Kevin asks and he knows Joe’s there, on the other end, can hear him breathing those hard, heavy breaths that means that he’s fighting to not just break down into a thousand pieces.
They sit there, Joe breathing into the phone, Kevin gripping his own tight in his hand, the fingers of the other digging into his leg. Mike comes to sit next to him, pulls him close and presses his lips against his temple.
“It’s done, I don’t…” Joe says finally, his voice sounds like he’s broken and lost and Kevin’s heart breaks for him.
“Come here, you can stay with me until…”
“They told me that I was an abomination; that I was going to go to hell. They told me I couldn’t see Frankie and that if you knew what was good for you that you would cut me off as well,” Joe says, his voice breaks, cracks on the words and Kevin sees red.
Joe is his brother, his baby brother and…
“I’m not going anywhere, come here. Get on the plane and come here, I’ll,” Mike grips his shoulder. “We’ll meet you at the airport.”
******************************************************************************
Joe has his brave face on when he steps past security, Kevin has known him forever, Kevin can see through his brave face and he pulls Joe into a tight hug. Squeezes him until Joe sobs out a “Kev.”
Beside him he can feel Mike’s quiet strength and support.
Mike might not have any idea what’s going on, but Mike’s supporting them nonetheless.
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Kevin situates Joe on the couch with the remote control, a blanket and all the comfort food that Kevin could get into the apartment before Joe’s arrival.
He stands with Mike at his front door and Mike’s eyes keep going over to where Joe is still shattering into a thousand pieces on the couch. Kevin doesn’t see that changing, not until Taylor shows up, not until Joe is sure that he didn’t just lose his parents and his littlest brother for someone that’s not going to stay.
Kevin doesn’t know how Taylor is going to prove that he’s not going anywhere.
Of course in Joe’s frame of mind, Taylor showing up might be enough to convince him that he didn’t go through hell for nothing.
Mike kisses him at the door, a gentle press of lips, a hand brushing over his cheek. Then he’s left alone with a brother who’s a shadow of his former self.
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Kevin goes to work; Mia is quiet at her desk. Doesn’t push or prod and at lunch time he goes on the Internet and Googles Joe’s name.
His parents have given an interview, Mike called him that morning and Nick sent an e-mail and Mia has turned off the ringer on his phone again because reporters kept calling him to get either confirmation or a reaction.
He closes his eyes for a second, sends up a prayer that Taylor has maybe arrived, is maybe with Joe right now so that he’s not alone.
Because right there in big bold print on MSN’s homepage is Joe Jonas Comes Out, his parents exclusive interview…
And right below it, is the interview that his parents had phoned in, Kevin notes that they out Taylor as well in the first paragraph.
He reads the article twice and his parents sound scornful and mean, even to him, to someone that was one day hoping that maybe his parents would be his parents again.
He doesn’t think that day is going to come.
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He goes home and Taylor is sitting next to Joe on the couch, arm over his shoulder, Joe pulled in close to his side. They’re watching a movie and they’re not doing anything but sitting there but Kevin still feels like he’s intruding on something private.
He should say something, should tell them about the decision he made at lunch, instead he closes the door, puts his bag down. Shrugs out of his coat and hangs it on the hook by the door.
He walks across the room and stops beside the couch.
“Hey,” Kevin says softly. He touches Joe’s head, presses a kiss to his forehead, smiles at Taylor who looks pale but steadier then Joe does.
“Mike called, said he was on his way over,” Joe says. Joe’s eyes are red and sort of puffy, they don’t waver from the screen. Kevin glances at it and something explodes on the screen.
Kevin smiles despite himself.
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Mike brings his band with him. Bill is wearing glasses and perches on the couch next to Joe and Taylor talking quietly.
The Butcher and Chislett have a stack of DVD’s between them and apparently they’re going to arm wrestle for which ones they’re going to watch.
Mike tugs him into the kitchen to put the beer and soda into the fridge, Adam is apparently bringing pizza and Gabe with him.
“They saw the interview,” Mike says, once he has the refreshments put away and has backed Kevin up against the refrigerator. “They thought maybe you guys could use some distraction.” He touches Kevin’s cheek, fingertips gentle against his skin and Kevin leans into the touch.
It’s kind of surprising how easily Kevin has become accustomed to the touching. He and Zac hadn’t really been touchers, not like he is with Mike, he likes touching Mike. Likes the feel of his skin under his fingers. Someday they’ll have sex, but probably not before Mike leaves for tour.
He’s going to miss this when Mike’s tour starts and he’s back to having only his job as a distraction and only his brothers touching him.
“Say the word and I can clear them out,” Mike says.
Kevin looks over Mike’s shoulder and can see a little grin on Joe’s face at the sight of Butcher and Chislett’s arm wrestling. Taylor’s face looks a little more open as well, relaxing as Joe relaxes.
“No, it’s good,” Kevin says.
“It’s going to be okay you know,” Mike says, he leans forward, foreheads touching. Kevin closes his eyes. “They’re going to be okay.”
“I know.”
“You’ll be okay too.”
Kevin smiles, just a little one. Because he’s got a phone call scheduled in the morning and maybe he’s as brave as Joe is, as Taylor is, as Nick and Miley are.
Maybe he’s got the family he needs, the one that supports him and while they’re not all the family he wants, maybe they’re all the family he needs in order to survive.
Kevin puts his hands on Mike’s hips, fingers looping through belt loops and leans up to press a kiss to his lips.
“I know.”
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