(no subject)
Author: indie
Rating: PG
Challenges: Hazelnut #20 (waste not), Marmalade #14 (seat belt) and vinegar #6 (do not operate machinery)
Extra: (Malt: This is your last warning.) Mild (pre)slashy themes?
WC: 1,574
Story: The Band AU. (Zia, Nolan, Noble, Romulus, mentions of Rylie) NEW INDEX :)
Notes: This was really hard, for some reason. :/ But I really, really like the end result. :) Fairly self contained, if you know Rom and Zia are siblings.
Nolan hadn’t eaten in three stops, or maybe four. Noble Walsh knew this for two reasons. For one, on tour they practically lived in each other’s pockets, and keeping tabs on each other is easier here than it is on Facebook, and two, he was (embarrassingly) particularly tuned into Nolan.
When he’d gone through the McD’s drive through in the morning, Nol had shrugged with a, “no thanks; I’m not hungry.” Of course, Noble been driving all night, because he quite liked the night shift - it was quiet, and dark, and half of the bus was asleep, except usually Nol, who liked to keep him company - so after that he crawled over the first row and sat next to him.
The second stop, he was playing Sudoku, seat belt readjusted, and Nolan was at the wheel, discussing the pros and cons of getting a new keyboardist. Romulus couldn’t articulate the real pros to him, like the fact that a new keyboardist could keep him from thinking of gorgeous, manic Rylie, or the fact that they’d have someone to fill her spot that wouldn’t ever come to practice hung-over, or disappear with groupies for hours at a time, and Nolan could mention the real cons, like the fact that whoever it was wouldn’t be Rylie, and thus wouldn’t keep him in a state of the constant agony he’d become accustomed to calling a relationship.
“I may die in the next ten minutes if we don’t stop for food,” Zia announced suddenly.
Zia occasionally made drop-of-the-hat stops or requests for them. Noble didn’t mind, and in fact was usually amused by them.
When Rylie made sudden demands, all melodrama faux-emergencies, they’d never come with Zia’s self-deprecating grin, or questioning lilt. She demanded and expected them to comply because it was her due. With Rylie, they sighed and pulled over, and sometimes rolled their eyes, and insulted her when she hopped out to pick up snacks or use the bathroom. At least, Rom and Noble (the only sane men on the bus when it came to Rylie) did.
With Zee, they asked her if she wanted them to go in for them, or if they could do anything for her, and she’s usually articulating a desire they all have, but don’t want to be the first to suggest.
“There’s a Burger King about three miles from here,” Nolan said, peering at his GPS.
“Road!” Rom interjected.
Nolan looked back up and turned back into his own lane. “Sorry. Anyways, we’ve also got a … uh, I dunno. It’s got a fast food icon, but it’s not labeled -”
“Nolan! Eyes front!”
“Sorry!”
He drove them through the unlabelled restaurant. (Zia was perhaps a factor in this decision. She’d immediately made the “this sounds like adventure!” assessment, and had spent three minutes chanting “Adventure! Adventure! Adventure!” like the overgrown child she was. It was a hard argument to smack down. )
He repeated everyone’s orders into the fuzzy speaker but nothing for himself. Noble kept frowning.
After the show, Noble mentioned that he’d been awake since the night before, and Nolan told them all that they don’t have time to stop for food until they made some actual headway and crossed the state line, which meant something that’s open past three in the morning. Usually this is either a Taco Bell or an IHOP.
He’s crazy if he thinks that Rom and Zia will stand for it, because they’re all always famished on a show, but Romulus just shrugged, and Zia dug through her Mary Poppins bag until she found half a dozen granola bars to “hold them over until pancake hour.”
Nolan looked faintly victorious and patted the seat next to him. Noble crawled over the middle row to curl up on the seat next to him, closing his eyes and breathing finally evening out.
Years of being mute by choice had ingrained in him the ability to be very, very quiet, so people usually assume he’s asleep before he is actually unconscious. Noble didn’t mind. It kept him in the know if people were ever talking about something they didn’t want him to know, or even about him directly. (Hadn’t happened yet, but maybe one day…)
People were also more inclined to touch him if he was sleeping. And by people he meant Nolan. Not like a creeper - he didn’t do anything her wouldn’t do with any of them, or even with him if he wasn’t awake; it just seemed like as soon as he was “asleep,” Nolan’s hands found his hair or curled around his elbow, or rested on his back, drumming lightly with his fingers.
So, with Noble curled up on his side of the bench, Nolan’s hands gently stroking through his hair as he leaned back himself, settled into the soft upholstery of the van’s cushions, he was very aware of Nolan’s state of consciousness when Romulus looked back and whispered “Either of you guys hungry? Because seriously, screw granola bars and waiting until Jersey,” and then after a few beats, “Guess both of them are sleeping, Zee. You want to just stop at the next gas station with fifty cent hot dogs?”
He would have called him a faker if he wasn’t the pot. (But seriously, Rom, how could anyone sleep with Zia at the wheel?)
Near seven in the morning, Noble pried one eye open, and found himself staring at denim. Turning his head slowly, he realized that his face was pillowed on his hand, which was palm-down on Nolan’s leg. Nolan was practically bent sideways over the armrest to his right.
Noble stretched, thanking whatever deity was listening that he hadn’t drooled on Nolan’s thigh. Talk about awkward.
“Hey,” he whispered. Romulus was sprawled awkwardly in the passenger’s seat, and Zee had stretched out on her stomach on the first row of the van, legs bent at the knee and socked feet resting againt the window, ankle against the glass. Her arm was crooked around her precious guitar case, laying on the floor directly in front of the row.
“Shhh,” Zee mumbled, sounding mostly asleep, “go back to sleep; we’ll get you ice cream in the morning.”
Noble laughed at her, bringing his fingers through his hair to try to get it to behave. “No, you shh,” he teased her prone form, crawling over her gingerly to get into the driver’s seat. Looking around, they were apparently parked in an abandoned strip mall’s parking lot. He turned on the GPS to get an idea of where they were.
An hour later, he was listening to Bon Iver, Rom’s dangling hand tapping against his seat even in his sleep because he’s always keeping beat, and Nolan stretched out carefully. Noble watched him in the rear-view on accident before turning his eyes back to the shrinking road ahead of him.
Nolan made a vaguely disappointed noise.
“Oh, was that your stomach?” Noble mocked lightly. “It’s probably protesting the fact that no one’s paid it any attention in days.”
Nolan colored. “No. And I just haven’t been hungry.”
“That sucks,” Noble grinned, throwing a folded over fast food bag over his shoulder.
Nolan caught it in one hand.
And promptly set it down on the seat next to him.
“This is your last warning,” Noble growled.
“Bossy,” Nolan mumbled, but half of his mouth was crooked up, and he reached into the bag without looking.
Noble felt something tight in his chest unwind. Nolan peered at a sleeping Zia and a lightly dozing Rom. “I can’t stop thinking about the stupid brat,” he whispered, voce like he’s purging his sins at confessional.
“You’d been with her for a year,” Noble told him, matter-of-factly, and can’t quite bring himself to care that he’s being a total girl. “Stupid brat or not, if you could just cut someone out of your heart like that, I’d be scared to call you a friend.”
Nolan looked doubtful. He directs this look at his burger (mushroom and Swiss, his favorite) instead of Noble.
“And having killer hipbones isn’t going to bring the idiot back.”
Noble grinned to himself.
After the show that night, when he was near-trembling with exhaustion from the show, he climbed onto the bench beside Nolan while Zia took the wheel and Romulus took a shift sleeping on the second bench seat. They seemed to be pairing up a lot, recently, and closing his eyes and breathing long, deep, even breaths, he made a resolution to spend a few hours sitting next to both of them when he woke up the next day.
After only four breaths, Nolan reaches out to rest his hand in the middle of Noble’s back.
He feels himself relax below his hand, like he did when he was a child and his mother flipped on the hallway light outside the nursery.
Nolan leaned down until Noble could feel his lips moving against his ear as he whispered, so soft he would have missed it had it not been poured directly into him, “You’re only quiet when you’re awake, Nob. We know you’re finally asleep when you start talking.”
Something heavy and soft the way sleep is when it isn’t full of nightmares filled his chest in a warm rush. Nolan’s hand on his back took on a new weight.
He kept his eyes closed, but he couldn’t keep from smiling against the bench that was beginning to feel like home.