Sort of a Ficlet, But Not Really
So, lissa_bear says to me, about eighty times, "I want Alex/Greta." I, being me, roll my eyes and ignore her.
But apparently I'm her bitch, because here we are.
I Never Said I Wasn't a Disaster. (And if I Did, I Lied)
Two days later, Greta had a Plan. It was a stupid plan, but it was a plan.
Alex/Greta, PG/PG-13ish, 2,187 words, Un-beta'd, because I decided I was too lazy to get it beta read.
This is so dumb, seriously. I wish I had an excuse for how dumb it is.
Greta had slept with exactly three boys in her life. None of them had especially rocked her world, either. She kind of thought maybe it was her fault, maybe she was too inexperienced or something, or was just plain bad in bed.
She said as much to Brendon one night when they were laying on top of Panic’s bus, trying to get away from the sea of pot smoke that had taken over the insides of both of their buses, and Brendon laughed.
“Greta, seriously,” Brendon reasoned, “there’s no way. Look, if you’re not having a good time in bed, that’s his fault, not yours.” There was a pause, then, “Well, maybe it’s a little bit your fault.”
Greta looked at him, dismayed, and Brendon rolled his eyes. “Stop picking the wrong guys to have sex with, dummy.”
Sighing, she agreed with him. “Yeah, well, it’s not like I have a lot of options these days. I’m on the road constantly.”
Brendon made a noise of assent, his eyes closing, and Greta studied him for a long moment. “I could have sex with you,” she said consideringly, watching as his eyes popped open and he stared at her with something akin to horror.
Swallowing, he bit his lip and replied, “Yeah, and I’d totally go for it, except you know.”
Greta nodded glumly. “Yeah, you’re scared of breasts.”
Brendon drew himself up into a sitting position, wrapping his arms around his knees and shuddering. “Audrey scarred me for life, dude.”
Greta absently patted his knee. “There, there.”
*
Two days later, Greta had a Plan. It was a stupid plan, but it was a plan. She was tired of calling her girlfriends and listening to them talk about having all this great sex that she was starting to believe was just a myth.
So. She was going to find someone to seduce and have awesome, mind-blowing sex with.
She just had to figure out who.
She immediately ruled out anyone in her band, for obvious reasons. She considered the Motion City guys for about thirty seconds, then realized she was kind of grossed out by all of them and dismissed them from her mind.
That left Panic and Phantom Planet. Well, and the roadies, but they were all kind of old, so.
And Panic wasn’t really an option, since the only single member was afraid of breasts, which meant she was left with Phantom Planet.
Ideally, she’d try to sex it up with Alex, as she’d had a ridiculously inappropriate crush on him since the tour had began over a month ago, but she didn’t think that was an option, since Alex was both significantly older than her, and could pretty much get anyone he wanted.
So Alex was out. She pouted about that to herself for about five minutes, then decided to move on. Darren was clearly the next best option.
Greta nodded to herself, resolute.
*
“So, Darren,” she said, leaning against the bar in what she imagined was a seductive position, “how did you get into music?”
Darren grinned and started talking. And talking. And wow, he just didn’t shut up, did he? Greta didn’t know how she’d never noticed his tendency to ramble, but now he wouldn’t shut up about guitar lessons and marching band, what the hell, he played guitar, there was no guitar in any marching bands Greta had ever known of.
She made what she hoped were appropriate conversational noises and let her eyes wander, lighting on where Alex was bent over the pool table in the corner, taking a shot. He stood and examined the table, grabbing his beer and draining it, the muscles in his throat working, and Greta really, really hated the fact that she was so young, because seriously, they were in a bar, and she couldn't even buy him another one and bring it to him in hopes that he’d grab her and throw her down on the table and ravish her in gratitude.
Suddenly she realized that Darren had stopped talking and jerked her eyes back to him. He was watching her with amusement and she blushed.
Grinning, he tapped her glass (of Diet Coke, God) with his beer bottle and said, “Go get him, tiger.”
Disgusted, Greta rolled her eyes and walked away.
*
“So,” she said to Brendon later that night, sitting in the parking lot of the venue between their buses, “that could have gone better.”
Brendon nodded seriously. “Just because you lost the battle, Salpeter, doesn’t mean you’ve lost the war.”
“Right.” She bit her lip. “I guess that means I have to try with Sam.”
“Get out those wiles and work ‘em, girl.”
Greta stared at him and he shrugged. “I’m trying to do the girlfriend thing.”
Greta patted him on the hand. “You’re the best girlfriend ever, Brendon,” and he beamed.
*
Things with Sam went even worse with Darren, because Sam kind of maybe was a little weird.
Also, he had creepy eyes. And when he turned said creepy eyes on her and stared at her intensely, she pretty much forgot the Plan and just smiled weakly and walked on by.
*
“Well, shit,” she said to Brendon.
Brendon just nodded sadly.
“Now there’s only Jeff.”
Brendon placed his hand on top of hers. “Sacrifices have to be made sometimes for the greater good.”
She nodded, biting her lip. “I don’t think I want to have sex with Jeff, Brendon. He has really bad hair.”
“We’ve all had bad hair once in a while. Should that keep us from having good sex?”
Greta considered it seriously for a moment, then sighed. “I guess not.”
“Godspeed and good luck.”
Greta rolled her eyes.
*
“So, hey, guess what?”
Brendon was standing in the tiny kitchen of the Panic bus, making a peanut butter sandwich when she ambushed him, and he looked up at her questioningly.
“Jeff totally has a girlfriend.”
Brendon frowned. “Really? How did you not know that? You’ve been living with the guy for a month.”
She threw her hands up in the air. “He doesn’t talk! He just sits around drumming on things! It’s weird!”
Brendon nodded knowingly. “Spencer does that, too. It’s a drummer thing.”
“So I’m totally screwed,” she said sadly, throwing herself down in one of the chairs at the tiny table mounted to the wall of the bus, slumping down. “No one on this tour will have sex with me, and I’ll never tour with even semi-attractive guys that aren’t in my own band again, and I’ll never even know what good sex is like.”
Brendon looked like he wanted to laugh, but managed to keep from actually doing it as he sat down across from her with his sandwich.
“I think maybe you’re exaggerating a little.”
She snorted. “Shut up, what do you know? You’ve had good sex.”
Brendon looked thoughtful. “I’ve had decent sex, not necessarily good sex. There’s a difference.”
“Well,” she said reasonably, “one day you’ll get over your great fear of the breast, and then you’ll have good sex.”
Brendon sighed. “Yeah, you know, I think maybe girls aren’t my thing.”
Greta studied him. “Are you about to have a gay crisis?”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” he answered cheerfully, taking a bite of his sandwich.
“Awesome. So I was thinking,” she said, watching his face carefully, “about hiring someone.”
“For what?”
“Sex.”
Five minutes and a glass of water later, Brendon was done choking.
“Greta,” he sputtered, “You can’t hire someone to have sex with you.”
“Why not? Guys do it all the time,” she reasoned.
“Yeah, but. It’s just. It’s just so sordid.”
Rolling her eyes, she grabbed his empty glass and made her way over to the small refrigerator, grabbing a bottle of water to refill his glass. “It makes sense, seriously, Brendon. I want to have sex with someone who knows what they’re doing, and a professional seems like the way to go.”
She heard the sound of someone who wasn’t Brendon choking from behind her and felt her stomach drop to her toes. Oh, God, oh, God.
She swallowed hard and turned around.
Ryan and Alex were standing in the doorway, looking bored and amused, respectively.
Fucking Ryan, she thought viciously, always with the faked boredom, God.
Alex just looked like he was trying not to laugh as he stared at her, and Greta really kind of wanted to die. She forced her gaze over to Brendon, who was observing the scene with a deer in the headlights look on his face. No help from that quarter, obviously.
“Wow, this is awkward,” Ryan said dryly, and Greta really did kind of hate him.
Alex didn’t say anything, just looked at her.
Her face felt like it was on fire, and she turned around, carefully setting the glass down. “So!” she said brightly, “I’m gonna go.”
But when she turned back around, Alex was right there, inches away, looking down at her.
She bit her lip and looked up at him, swallowing.
Alex leaned in, his mouth close to her ear and whispered, “I know what I’m doing.”
Pulling back, he smirked at her as she stared at him.
“Come on, Ross,” he said without taking his eyes off her, “I want to show the guys that riff we came up with.”
And then they were gone, leaving Greta alone with Brendon again. She turned to him and they looked at each other.
“Oh, my God,” she said breathlessly, and Brendon grinned, sharp and bright.
“Looks like you’ve still got options, after all.”
*
When Greta returned to her own bus after Brendon kicked her out of Panic’s, claiming he wanted a nap, Alex and Ryan were sitting in the front lounge with their guitars, paying no attention to anything around them. Greta bit her lip and tried to go by unnoticed, wanting to make it to her bunk and hide there for a while, but Alex looked up as she passed and grinned at her.
Blushing, she tried to smile back, and kept walking.
Thirty minutes later, she was staring at the ceiling of her bunk when the curtain was pulled back and Alex was smirking at her. She swallowed nervously and didn’t say anything.
“So,” he began, “apparently you’ve been missing some things around here.”
She frowned a little. “What are you talking about?”
“See, I’ve been giving out these signals?”
Greta shook her head, confused, and repeated, “Signals?”
Alex sighed and reached in, shoving her legs aside and hoisting himself into her bunk. She pulled her legs back and sat up so they could both fit semi-comfortably, and Alex settled in cross-legged.
“Yep,” Alex confirmed. “Signals.”
“Um. What kind of signals?”
Rolling his eyes a little, he grabbed her hand and started playing with her fingers. “You know, the kind of signals you give when you really kind of want to hook up with someone.”
“Oh,” she said faintly.
“Yeah. And I was pretty much about to let the whole subtle thing go and just grab you, but then I heard you were planning to pay someone to have sex with you, and Greta, seriously, I’ll do it for free.” His index finger was tracing her palm, and she felt a shiver dance up her spine.
“I’d,” she cleared her throat, “I’d be okay with that.”
Alex grinned and used her hand to tug her closer. “Good to hear,” he whispered, just as their lips started to touch. “And later,” the words were said against her mouth, “you can tell me why you tried to fuck my entire band, but left me out.”
Greta broke the kiss and stared at him, horrified. “You guys knew?
Alex just laughed and pulled her back to him, sliding them both so that they were laying down and she was on top of him. “Later,” he whispered. “We’ll talk about it later.”
Turns out, it was a lot later. And Greta really didn’t need to pay anyone to teach her the joys of sex.
*
The near future.
Brendon will realize he definitely is not into girls, after a distressing incident involving a groupie’s breasts and will have to be rescued by Zack.
He’ll be comforted by Spencer, who will soon come to his own conclusions that he too, is not into breasts. They’ll live in a house in Las Vegas, populated by many musical instruments and ties.
Ryan will write a song called It’s So Hard to be a Disaffected Youth, and it will go straight to the top of the charts, only to have his follow-up song, I Was Kidding About that Last One, You Were Just Too Stupid to Realize It, fail spectacularly.
Greta will realize that Sam is not actually creepy, just intense, and they will bond over Jeff’s disastrous hair.
The Motion City guys will never stop being gross.
Alex and Greta will have lots of sex in public restrooms. Eventually they’ll get married and have pretty, musically inclined babies, but also have lots of sex in public restrooms.
And they’ll all live happily ever after.
But apparently I'm her bitch, because here we are.
I Never Said I Wasn't a Disaster. (And if I Did, I Lied)
Two days later, Greta had a Plan. It was a stupid plan, but it was a plan.
Alex/Greta, PG/PG-13ish, 2,187 words, Un-beta'd, because I decided I was too lazy to get it beta read.
This is so dumb, seriously. I wish I had an excuse for how dumb it is.
Greta had slept with exactly three boys in her life. None of them had especially rocked her world, either. She kind of thought maybe it was her fault, maybe she was too inexperienced or something, or was just plain bad in bed.
She said as much to Brendon one night when they were laying on top of Panic’s bus, trying to get away from the sea of pot smoke that had taken over the insides of both of their buses, and Brendon laughed.
“Greta, seriously,” Brendon reasoned, “there’s no way. Look, if you’re not having a good time in bed, that’s his fault, not yours.” There was a pause, then, “Well, maybe it’s a little bit your fault.”
Greta looked at him, dismayed, and Brendon rolled his eyes. “Stop picking the wrong guys to have sex with, dummy.”
Sighing, she agreed with him. “Yeah, well, it’s not like I have a lot of options these days. I’m on the road constantly.”
Brendon made a noise of assent, his eyes closing, and Greta studied him for a long moment. “I could have sex with you,” she said consideringly, watching as his eyes popped open and he stared at her with something akin to horror.
Swallowing, he bit his lip and replied, “Yeah, and I’d totally go for it, except you know.”
Greta nodded glumly. “Yeah, you’re scared of breasts.”
Brendon drew himself up into a sitting position, wrapping his arms around his knees and shuddering. “Audrey scarred me for life, dude.”
Greta absently patted his knee. “There, there.”
*
Two days later, Greta had a Plan. It was a stupid plan, but it was a plan. She was tired of calling her girlfriends and listening to them talk about having all this great sex that she was starting to believe was just a myth.
So. She was going to find someone to seduce and have awesome, mind-blowing sex with.
She just had to figure out who.
She immediately ruled out anyone in her band, for obvious reasons. She considered the Motion City guys for about thirty seconds, then realized she was kind of grossed out by all of them and dismissed them from her mind.
That left Panic and Phantom Planet. Well, and the roadies, but they were all kind of old, so.
And Panic wasn’t really an option, since the only single member was afraid of breasts, which meant she was left with Phantom Planet.
Ideally, she’d try to sex it up with Alex, as she’d had a ridiculously inappropriate crush on him since the tour had began over a month ago, but she didn’t think that was an option, since Alex was both significantly older than her, and could pretty much get anyone he wanted.
So Alex was out. She pouted about that to herself for about five minutes, then decided to move on. Darren was clearly the next best option.
Greta nodded to herself, resolute.
*
“So, Darren,” she said, leaning against the bar in what she imagined was a seductive position, “how did you get into music?”
Darren grinned and started talking. And talking. And wow, he just didn’t shut up, did he? Greta didn’t know how she’d never noticed his tendency to ramble, but now he wouldn’t shut up about guitar lessons and marching band, what the hell, he played guitar, there was no guitar in any marching bands Greta had ever known of.
She made what she hoped were appropriate conversational noises and let her eyes wander, lighting on where Alex was bent over the pool table in the corner, taking a shot. He stood and examined the table, grabbing his beer and draining it, the muscles in his throat working, and Greta really, really hated the fact that she was so young, because seriously, they were in a bar, and she couldn't even buy him another one and bring it to him in hopes that he’d grab her and throw her down on the table and ravish her in gratitude.
Suddenly she realized that Darren had stopped talking and jerked her eyes back to him. He was watching her with amusement and she blushed.
Grinning, he tapped her glass (of Diet Coke, God) with his beer bottle and said, “Go get him, tiger.”
Disgusted, Greta rolled her eyes and walked away.
*
“So,” she said to Brendon later that night, sitting in the parking lot of the venue between their buses, “that could have gone better.”
Brendon nodded seriously. “Just because you lost the battle, Salpeter, doesn’t mean you’ve lost the war.”
“Right.” She bit her lip. “I guess that means I have to try with Sam.”
“Get out those wiles and work ‘em, girl.”
Greta stared at him and he shrugged. “I’m trying to do the girlfriend thing.”
Greta patted him on the hand. “You’re the best girlfriend ever, Brendon,” and he beamed.
*
Things with Sam went even worse with Darren, because Sam kind of maybe was a little weird.
Also, he had creepy eyes. And when he turned said creepy eyes on her and stared at her intensely, she pretty much forgot the Plan and just smiled weakly and walked on by.
*
“Well, shit,” she said to Brendon.
Brendon just nodded sadly.
“Now there’s only Jeff.”
Brendon placed his hand on top of hers. “Sacrifices have to be made sometimes for the greater good.”
She nodded, biting her lip. “I don’t think I want to have sex with Jeff, Brendon. He has really bad hair.”
“We’ve all had bad hair once in a while. Should that keep us from having good sex?”
Greta considered it seriously for a moment, then sighed. “I guess not.”
“Godspeed and good luck.”
Greta rolled her eyes.
*
“So, hey, guess what?”
Brendon was standing in the tiny kitchen of the Panic bus, making a peanut butter sandwich when she ambushed him, and he looked up at her questioningly.
“Jeff totally has a girlfriend.”
Brendon frowned. “Really? How did you not know that? You’ve been living with the guy for a month.”
She threw her hands up in the air. “He doesn’t talk! He just sits around drumming on things! It’s weird!”
Brendon nodded knowingly. “Spencer does that, too. It’s a drummer thing.”
“So I’m totally screwed,” she said sadly, throwing herself down in one of the chairs at the tiny table mounted to the wall of the bus, slumping down. “No one on this tour will have sex with me, and I’ll never tour with even semi-attractive guys that aren’t in my own band again, and I’ll never even know what good sex is like.”
Brendon looked like he wanted to laugh, but managed to keep from actually doing it as he sat down across from her with his sandwich.
“I think maybe you’re exaggerating a little.”
She snorted. “Shut up, what do you know? You’ve had good sex.”
Brendon looked thoughtful. “I’ve had decent sex, not necessarily good sex. There’s a difference.”
“Well,” she said reasonably, “one day you’ll get over your great fear of the breast, and then you’ll have good sex.”
Brendon sighed. “Yeah, you know, I think maybe girls aren’t my thing.”
Greta studied him. “Are you about to have a gay crisis?”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” he answered cheerfully, taking a bite of his sandwich.
“Awesome. So I was thinking,” she said, watching his face carefully, “about hiring someone.”
“For what?”
“Sex.”
Five minutes and a glass of water later, Brendon was done choking.
“Greta,” he sputtered, “You can’t hire someone to have sex with you.”
“Why not? Guys do it all the time,” she reasoned.
“Yeah, but. It’s just. It’s just so sordid.”
Rolling her eyes, she grabbed his empty glass and made her way over to the small refrigerator, grabbing a bottle of water to refill his glass. “It makes sense, seriously, Brendon. I want to have sex with someone who knows what they’re doing, and a professional seems like the way to go.”
She heard the sound of someone who wasn’t Brendon choking from behind her and felt her stomach drop to her toes. Oh, God, oh, God.
She swallowed hard and turned around.
Ryan and Alex were standing in the doorway, looking bored and amused, respectively.
Fucking Ryan, she thought viciously, always with the faked boredom, God.
Alex just looked like he was trying not to laugh as he stared at her, and Greta really kind of wanted to die. She forced her gaze over to Brendon, who was observing the scene with a deer in the headlights look on his face. No help from that quarter, obviously.
“Wow, this is awkward,” Ryan said dryly, and Greta really did kind of hate him.
Alex didn’t say anything, just looked at her.
Her face felt like it was on fire, and she turned around, carefully setting the glass down. “So!” she said brightly, “I’m gonna go.”
But when she turned back around, Alex was right there, inches away, looking down at her.
She bit her lip and looked up at him, swallowing.
Alex leaned in, his mouth close to her ear and whispered, “I know what I’m doing.”
Pulling back, he smirked at her as she stared at him.
“Come on, Ross,” he said without taking his eyes off her, “I want to show the guys that riff we came up with.”
And then they were gone, leaving Greta alone with Brendon again. She turned to him and they looked at each other.
“Oh, my God,” she said breathlessly, and Brendon grinned, sharp and bright.
“Looks like you’ve still got options, after all.”
*
When Greta returned to her own bus after Brendon kicked her out of Panic’s, claiming he wanted a nap, Alex and Ryan were sitting in the front lounge with their guitars, paying no attention to anything around them. Greta bit her lip and tried to go by unnoticed, wanting to make it to her bunk and hide there for a while, but Alex looked up as she passed and grinned at her.
Blushing, she tried to smile back, and kept walking.
Thirty minutes later, she was staring at the ceiling of her bunk when the curtain was pulled back and Alex was smirking at her. She swallowed nervously and didn’t say anything.
“So,” he began, “apparently you’ve been missing some things around here.”
She frowned a little. “What are you talking about?”
“See, I’ve been giving out these signals?”
Greta shook her head, confused, and repeated, “Signals?”
Alex sighed and reached in, shoving her legs aside and hoisting himself into her bunk. She pulled her legs back and sat up so they could both fit semi-comfortably, and Alex settled in cross-legged.
“Yep,” Alex confirmed. “Signals.”
“Um. What kind of signals?”
Rolling his eyes a little, he grabbed her hand and started playing with her fingers. “You know, the kind of signals you give when you really kind of want to hook up with someone.”
“Oh,” she said faintly.
“Yeah. And I was pretty much about to let the whole subtle thing go and just grab you, but then I heard you were planning to pay someone to have sex with you, and Greta, seriously, I’ll do it for free.” His index finger was tracing her palm, and she felt a shiver dance up her spine.
“I’d,” she cleared her throat, “I’d be okay with that.”
Alex grinned and used her hand to tug her closer. “Good to hear,” he whispered, just as their lips started to touch. “And later,” the words were said against her mouth, “you can tell me why you tried to fuck my entire band, but left me out.”
Greta broke the kiss and stared at him, horrified. “You guys knew?
Alex just laughed and pulled her back to him, sliding them both so that they were laying down and she was on top of him. “Later,” he whispered. “We’ll talk about it later.”
Turns out, it was a lot later. And Greta really didn’t need to pay anyone to teach her the joys of sex.
*
The near future.
Brendon will realize he definitely is not into girls, after a distressing incident involving a groupie’s breasts and will have to be rescued by Zack.
He’ll be comforted by Spencer, who will soon come to his own conclusions that he too, is not into breasts. They’ll live in a house in Las Vegas, populated by many musical instruments and ties.
Ryan will write a song called It’s So Hard to be a Disaffected Youth, and it will go straight to the top of the charts, only to have his follow-up song, I Was Kidding About that Last One, You Were Just Too Stupid to Realize It, fail spectacularly.
Greta will realize that Sam is not actually creepy, just intense, and they will bond over Jeff’s disastrous hair.
The Motion City guys will never stop being gross.
Alex and Greta will have lots of sex in public restrooms. Eventually they’ll get married and have pretty, musically inclined babies, but also have lots of sex in public restrooms.
And they’ll all live happily ever after.