Synopsis: The Dodgeball Conspiracy

Chapter One:

“So, what—what—what do you think?"

He looked so hopeful sitting there with his stupid frizzed up hair looking like he’d tried to lose his virginity to a toaster. Ezra wasn’t sure how to tell him that this was probably one of the stupidest ideas Corin had ever had.

But, he was Ezra’s best friend, and he was having a shit time in college, so why not humour him. “When you say ‘band’, I’m going to assume you’re talking about a music group that plays something people would actually listen to, not that weird Yiddish crap you make me listen to when you think I can’t tell you’re pissed at me. Or when we all decide to mess with the ‘Star Wars’ theme until Matt and Andy are ready to throw us under the next dump truck.”

Corin rolled his eyes. One day Ezra would tell him that it just made him look like a prissy fairy. No really, he would. Someday. “You’re so—so supportive of me. Asshole. I just, I just think we could, we could have some—some fun with it. It’s not like, it’s not like I think we could—could make a living.”

Except Ezra hadn’t known him since the seventh grade for nothing, never mind the slightly less nostalgic and more frustrated timeline of events that started in tenth grade and meant that Ezra maybe paid a little more attention to his best friend’s facial expressions than was necessary. Corin’s ears were pink and his eye contact kept sliding away. If he wanted to be a rock star he should probably work on getting at least a half decent poker face.

“Right.” Ezra snorted, but then let it go. “That’s good, because I don’t know how famous you think we’d get, with your hair taking up the entire stage. People would be too scared to come near you.”

Corin just rolled his eyes again, slower and with more emphasis. “You really—really need to get some new material, you know.” He flopped backwards on the bed, probably leaving bruises on Ezra’s thighs with his hard skull. Ezra stiffened a little, but years of practice of Corin and his random denials of personal space at least meant that Ezra didn’t need to shove him off.

“I honestly, I honestly don’t care if nobody ever, nobody ever comes to—to hear us play.” Corin tilted his head back and looked up at Ezra, all sincere all over again. “I just… I miss you—you guys. Doing stuff with you. It’d be cool to—to have something to do. When we’re—we’re home, I mean. And we used to, used to play in high school, so it’s not, it’s not like this is new.”

Oh, Ezra remembered that, all right. Corin had gone through a phase where he decided he couldn’t sing unless he was paying homage to the eighties by wearing too-tight jeans and fortunately vomit-inducing garish shirts. And he could focus on singing like nothing else, until his curls were plastered to his forehead and his shirt sticking to his back and his grin was big enough to sell toothpaste on television.

“Just like old times, huh?” Ezra shifted his position just slightly, feigning that his leg had fallen asleep. Corin didn’t notice, of course, and just flopped over the other way, chin digging into Ezra’s knee. “You sentimental bastard.”

“Plus, there’s—there’s this. Uh. This guy.” The ears were really red now, and suddenly Ezra didn’t want to have this conversation anymore. But apparently he was a masochist, so he just raised his eyebrows and waited for the universe to swallow him before Corin could grow a set of balls big enough to let him finish his sentence.

“Kyle,” Corin continued, words tumbling over themselves even more than usual. “He’s in my—in some of my classes, and—and he’s, I don’t know. I didn’t even, I didn’t even know I liked—anyway. Not the, not the point. The point is, he… I don’t know, I thought, I thought, I mean, bands are—are cool, right? So if I could, I could tell him I was—was in a band, then. I don’t know.”

One of these days Ezra would find himself with a video camera in his face and a studio audience laughing from behind an invisible wall. It was the only way that Corin could possibly be this stupid all the time. He tried for nonchalant and ended up somewhere between ‘drugged and ‘constipated’. “I’m not going to get on stage just to be your pimp. Try, I don’t know, asking him out or something. Charm him with your stunning personality. If all else fails, strangle him with your hair until he screams for mercy and agrees to be your bitch.”

“I’m going to, going to make a new rule.” Corin sat up and grabbed Ezra’s pillow – actually hugged it, like he was the twelve-year-old girl Ezra constantly accused him of being. “Any time you—you make fun of my—my hair, you have to, have to give me a dollar. Should let me, let me pay off my—my tuition by Hanukkah.”

“Whatever you say, princess, but I’m still not going to suffer public humiliation just because you can’t get it up to confess your undying love to this tool.” Anyone else would have figured it out by now. At this point, Ezra could have both their jeans around their ankles and Corin would probably ask him if he’d spilled something on them. “And I don’t think you’re going to convince Matt with that logic, either.”

Corin scowled. “I wasn’t, I wasn’t kidding when I said, when I said I missed you. You guys. This—Kyle—this guy, he’s not even. He’s just some—some guy in my class. Yeah, it’d be, it’d be cool if—I mean, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t complain if—but that’s not, that’s not the point. I mean, it is, but. Not the, not the whole thing? I don’t know. I just think, I just think… a band. With—with you guys. I think it’d be, it’d be good. I think we’d be good.”

Ezra fixed him with a flat stare and shook his head. “And when this pathetically roundabout attempt at a booty call fails, you’re really saying you’re not going to bail on us?”

Corin was giving him that look again, the one that meant Ezra was being obvious to anyone else in the universe. “Why—why would… you know what, whatever. It was just—just an idea.” He hefted the pillow at Ezra’s head and rolled off the bed, heading for the door. Which was a total bluff, since his room was an hour’s bus ride away from here, but Corin was all for dramatic gestures. And since his parents wouldn’t pay for his education if he’d attended theatre school, he had to get those urges out somehow.

Ezra sighed through his nose. “Don’t have the vapours, you stupid girl. I didn’t say no.”

Corin spun around on his heel, grinning hugely. His stupid teeth were crooked. “Excellent! Because I already, I already asked Charlie and—and she said, she said she’s on board, and she—she talked to Andy, and he said, he said as long as—as we let him play the—the cello and not have to, have to sing, then he’s fine, and Matt just sort of shrugged, which means, which means yes, so—“

“Yeah, and I’m sure we’re all going to regret giving into your womanly wiles in about a week,” Ezra retorted.

Corin screeched like a harpy and threatened to stop being friends with him right then and there; Ezra reminded him calmly that his hypothetical nookie-garnering band would be short a guitarist and trumpeter if he did so; Corin wisely agreed to put their differences aside and go out for ice cream; and Ezra couldn’t figure out whether this was the best or the worst idea Corin had ever had.

It figured, that Corin was actually a pretty damn good singer once he got the words down right. Charlie could sing okay, well enough for backup anyway, and better than Ezra (who sounded like anyone’s favourite euphemism, be it cats fighting or drunk gorillas mating), but she wasn’t good like Corin was. Corin could take an ordinary, stupid song and make it sound like something you’d never heard before. Like the words were profound, or something. He could probably make someone cry just by singing “happy birthday” at them.

It figured, because he still didn’t get that yet. Ezra sure wasn’t going to tell him, not when his pants were obviously exploding every time Corin’s voice went husky at the bottom of his range, and Charlie was the sort of person who sounded sarcastic even when she really wasn’t trying to be. Corin obviously didn’t think he was bad or anything – he wasn’t a masochist, so if he thought he sucked he wouldn’t have come up with the idea to perform in public in the first place – but he didn’t think he was that good.

Charlie’s original plan was to leave him alone and let him figure it out when audiences at the crap gigs they got actually stopped making out or toking up or flinging empties at each other. Except that, because Corin didn’t know how good he was, he got nervous. When he got nervous, he forgot the words, and when he forgot the words, the stutter wasn’t far behind.

Charlie and Corin had been playing together since they were fourteen or fifteen, and Charlie liked to think she knew him pretty well. When it was just them, Corin never got nervous enough to stammer, even when he screwed up the lyrics; he’d just laugh, hit himself on the forehead, and ask Charlie to count them in again. Even if it was all of them practicing, and Ezra joked about how Corin should go back to singing ‘Mary had a little lamb’ or ‘hava nagila’, Corin would just call him an asshole and keep going.

This was their first big gig, one that actually might matter because a guy who knew a girl who’d slept with a guy who knew someone in the business (whatever that meant) had heard that some record label people would be here. They hadn’t even thought of a name for their band yet (Corin had wanted ‘Vagina Connoisseurs’ after an badly-phrased outraged outburst of Andy’s, but Andy said the irony would probably be a bit too much for everyone), but that didn’t really matter because once you were signed you had people who were in charge of marketing and stuff, right?

All of them knew the stakes – assuming that this guy’s girl’s guy’s whatever’s dog’s mother’s aunt wasn’t bullshitting them – and were trying not to let it get to them. Charlie and Matt were probably the only ones who were managing (even if Ezra said he didn’t care). That was just because Charlie had been drumming since she was twelve, and it would take a lot more than record label executives to freak her into skipping a beat, and because Matt probably wouldn’t even be fazed by the apocalypse as long as it let him finish his nap.

They were covering for some other band after a last-minute cancellation and a ‘thank god I paid my phone bill this month’ moment from Corin. The crowd was a little pissed at the change but not hostile, at least it looked like they were willing to give the replacement band the chance.

Corin, up at the front of the stage with his hands wrapped around the mic stand like it was some guy who’d just killed his puppy, wasn’t singing. Charlie guessed that, rather than open his mouth and show everyone just how much of his speech impediment he hadn’t gotten rid of, he’d opted for standing in a panic.

“Shit,” she muttered, and slid her drumsticks under her stool. The others were just standing around awkwardly, because with Corin, if you brought it up it just made it worse.

“Hey, Rin.” Charlie came up behind him and slid her arms around his chest. Reflexively, Corin’s hands came up to cover hers. When they were younger, she used to try to coach him, get him to relax enough that he could talk a little more normal. If they stood close and he focused on the way the words rumbled in her chest, sometimes it helped. “Hey. Relax, okay? It’s good.”

She had to keep her voice low so the mic wouldn’t pick it up and broadcast her little pep talk to the hypothetical execs out there. Charlie dipped her head and kept her mouth close to Corin’s ear. “Just like the garage, right? We’re just having fun. Just calm down.”

Corin’s shoulders hitched against her chest, and he nodded. Charlie kissed his neck – hey, they’d fooled around some in high school and it hadn’t killed them or made their friendship weird or anything, she was allowed now and then – and stepped back.

It wasn’t until she was back at the drums and she caught Andy’s bemused expression as he glanced behind him, heard the catcalls from the audience, that Charlie clued in as to what that must’ve looked like. But Corin was laughing now, and spun around to point at Charlie for the count-in with a showy arm flick, so Charlie decided she didn’t care.

Turned out there weren’t any record anything there that night, but they did get booked for almost two months worth of shows at nearly one a week. Somehow in that time, it became the custom that Charlie would get Corin to relax at the beginning of every show. By the end of their first solid run, people had started to expect it. By the beginning of the third, they were known for it. Around then Ezra started joining in, just for the hell of it, since when else did you get to grind with the oblivious subject of your frustrated nightly fantasies without repercussions.

Despite misgivings, Andy had actually come to discover that he really didn’t mind the band. He had initially agreed for a few reasons: one being that he enjoyed playing the cello but actually found classical music boring; another that Corin had a way of being both supremely pitiful looking and insurmountably annoying when he wanted something; third, that pre-med was turning into his biggest mistake to date; and finally, possibly the lynchpin decision, Corin and Charlie had burned him a copy of the original Star Wars trilogy – the ORIGINAL original, without Greedo firing a single shot, thank you very much – that they’d ripped from VHS and bribed some poor soul on Corin’s campus to clean up with video editing software. After that, Andy couldn’t really say no.

And once they got going, he found he didn’t want to. His friends were unspeakably crude, and the first generation of songs penned by Ezra and Charlie with a bottle of convenience-store liquor and shrieking laughter left much to be desired, but then Matt had shown up to one practice session and tossed down a notebook full of lyrics that didn’t belong either on a bathroom stall door or in a high school art student’s magazine, and things started changing.

They weren’t amazing, by any means, but Andy liked to think they weren’t terrible. And they got shows now and then, just enough that he thought maybe other people agreed with him. Of course, they weren’t big enough that when they played out of town they could afford more than two motel rooms, but one shouldn’t be picky. Gift horses were sensitive and prone to running away, and all that.

“I have to say, this has proven to be an incredible source of bonding for us.” Andy and Matt were sharing the double bed in this month’s cheap inner city motel, in what had become the group’s custom. It would have been horribly unfair to ask Ezra to share with Corin alone, and Charlie had been voted by the other two as the one to suck it up and bunk with them to avert a murder-suicide.

Matt was by far the most agreeable as far as roommates went, as he had no sinus problems and did not share Corin’s lamentable trait of full-body cuddling whoever happened to be in reach. Now he merely snorted good-naturedly at Andy’s weak attempt at late-night humour and rolled over onto his back to glance at Andy sidelong. “Highlight of my day,” he agreed.

“We haven’t been inundated by ‘bitches’, as the others promised us, but that’s probably for the best.” Andy was babbling, and as possibly the only person in their group of friends who understood and appreciated Matt’s love of silence, this was particularly telling. “I wouldn’t have the least idea what to do with them, and the cello is too large to be a proper defensive weapon. I would need to hire you as my bodyguard.”

Matt quirked an eyebrow at him and propped himself up on one elbow. “You okay?”

Andy blew out his breath. “Yes, of course. I’m just – I’ve been thinking that I don’t think I’m going to apply to medical school. I’ll finish my degree and everything, but I’m not going to take the MCAT. And then either my parents will murder me because they want me to be happy and successful and in the company of as many daily vaginas as can have babies pushed through them in a twenty-four hour period, or they’ll agree that my happiness is paramount and I will be left with no one to oppose this decision and conversely strengthen my resolve, leading to another mid-youth crisis one year from now.”

Matt’s mouth twitched, but they’d been friends since kindergarten, so Andy hoped he could make headway through the nonsense. “Take a deep breath. Your parents’ll kill me if I let you hysteric yourself to death.”

Andy nodded and pressed his hands to his eyes. “What am I doing? Is this a subconscious attempt on my part to provide myself with a legitimate excuse to avoid admitting that I’m not the medical genius my father is? Am I rebelling at the fact that I somehow managed to skip adolescence as far as hormones go and attempting to find a career where this should, by all rights, be remedied?”

“I know what you’re not doing—listening to yourself.” Matt had a wonderful way of being mocking and yet completely understanding at the same time. “Screw freshman psych.”

Andy peered at him between his fingers. “If you’re about to tell me to ‘do what makes me happy’, I can honestly say I don’t know whether to thank you or brain you with this lovely 1950s alarm clock.”

Matt snorted. “I was saying, med school isn’t going anywhere. If it helps, tell yourself you’re taking a break between degrees. You can always go back.”

“Hm.” Andy finally followed Matt’s initial advice and inhaled slowly. “That makes it sound less terrifying, doesn’t it.”

“See?” Matt patted him on the shoulder with only a little bit of loving condescension. “Now go to sleep.”

Andy laughed a little. “Yes, sir.”

Matt reached over to turn off the bedside light, but paused halfway through the motion. “You want me to keep quiet to the others till you’re sure?”

“I would, actually.” Andy breathed naturally this time. “Thank you.”

“Someone has to look after you.” Matt rolled his eyes with what Andy assumed was affection and flicked off the lamp.

Corin was in hell, and hell had outsourced to Andy Reed in exchange for giving him the ability to avoid hangovers no matter how much he drank the night before by transferring them to Corin instead. Darned clever of them. They’d also thrown in the lovely bonus of making Andy head-stabbingly perky about it.

“You knew we had to perform tonight,” Andy said cheerily, turning on all the lights and ripping open the curtains with unnecessary vigour. Corin hated him. “We cautioned you to cut your drinks with juice like any sane person would do, but no. So don’t start crying now.”

“Traitor.” Corin tried to bury his face in the pillow right when Andy pranced over and whipped it away from him. “We—we—we played, we played ‘I Never’. You’ve never—never done anything. How are you, how are you less drunk than me?”

“I cheated. I had grape juice in my bottle.” Andy’s smile made Corin’s head hurt. He would throw something, but that would mean moving, and moving was death. “You, on the other hand, despite repeated proof that you are the biggest lightweight on the planet, imbibed enough to unbalance an elephant, and had to be carried back to your room by Charlotte.”

“’m gonna, I’m gonna tell her you said—said Charlotte,” Corin said mulishly.

“If it means getting out of bed, by all means.” Andy patted Corin on the head on his way past. “I’ve been instructed to drag you into the shower and turn on the cold water if you aren’t present in half an hour, by the way. I suggest you hurry.”

“I hate you,” Corin pointed out helpfully. The door was already shut, but he hadn’t stuttered, and that would have to be enough as far as moral victories went.

Last night was definitely fuzzy. He remembered rounding up both bands and declaring the night to be a ‘get smashed and forget there are assholes all over the place’ event. Ezra had been the most enthusiastic about it, and everyone else, including the Bendy Angles people, had sort of shrugged and gone along with it.

Corin did remember bragging that he was the only one in the room to get his hands up Charlie’s shirt (high school – ahh, innocence) and Ezra choking on his red wine (in a wineglass with a bendy straw, because Ezra Openowski was a classy bitch), only to have Matt surprise him by pointedly not taking a drink with everyone else. He vaguely recalled Charlie throwing something at them after that.

At some point Charlie had retaliated by announcing she had never had solo happy fun time thinking about anyone in this room, at which nearly everyone had to take a drink. The scandalized and actually horrified looks she’d shot Andy when he did take a sip of his grape juice (Corin would fix him for cheating – he’d better watch his morning coffee) were enough to make the entire thing worth it.

After that, though, Corin had no idea. He only hoped everyone else was feeling as terrible as he was, though he doubted it.

He made it downstairs for breakfast, which was thankfully buffet style at this hotel so he didn’t need to worry about ordering anything. Corin piled a plate high with scrambled eggs and green tabasco sauce, hoping the disgust would help shake his brains back right again. Turns out it didn’t, but it at least gave him something else to think about for a few minutes.

He was gagging his way through the second plate when someone tapped him on the shoulder. Corin moved his head the least amount possible – saw nobody – tried again and looked down. This time he finally saw Robbie, perched on his knees on the chair next to him. Corin mustered a small wave.

“Daddy said you have a headache,” Robbie signed. He pointed across the room at Paul, who was peeling an orange. Paul caught Corin’s eye and winked. He, like Andy, had avoided alcohol last night, but at least he’d been honest about it. “Daddy said I should give you some medicine. This one is for the head hurt. This one is for the stomach hurt.”

Corin snerked and took the bottles that Robbie had placed on the table in front of him. “Thanks, kiddo. “ He knocked back a few pills, grimaced, then stood up and spun around to face Robbie. “C’mon, let’s play hide and seek while we wait for the others.”

“Okay!” Robbie beamed. “I know a good one! Don’t look!”

Corin signed to Paul what they were doing so the other could keep an eye on Robbie while Corin was counting, then he dutifully covered his eyes. He felt a little better already. Playing with cute kids wasn’t such a bad way to start the day, hangover notwithstanding; maybe today wouldn’t suck too many monkey balls after all. He knocked the tabletop with his knuckles while he finished counting to ten.

Andy didn’t like to believe in omens; he left superstition to Corin and Charlie and their before-show rituals. (Charlie kissed each drumstick before sitting down, after which no one was allowed to touch them for any reason; Corin always touched the bracelet his high school girlfriend had made for him after they broke up and swore, successfully, to stay friends. Ezra had made fun of each of them for it only once – Charlie punched him in the face, and Corin just sat there and stared at him without reacting until he got bored.)

Given this, Andy was about as far from superstitious as one could get, provided that one did not include a belief in a benevolent (if occasionally suffering from an excess of free time) higher power. This did not, however, stop him from occasionally getting the feeling that something – be it said higher power or something more earthly and as a result probably more dangerous – was out to get them.

Their skinny, non-antagonizing, entirely harmless tech helper staggering into their dressing room, bruises purpling his face and fury doing the same to his boyfriend’s, was one such occasion.

“What the shit?” Charlie demanded, jumping up and sliding her arm around his waist. Drake murmured something soothing and pushed Edward’s hair off his forehead. “What happened?”

“Got jumped.” Edward rasped out, and winced; Andy wondered if he’d been punched in the throat. Matt had already slipped out, probably to find the security guard or someone who could get them some ice. “Assholes in the parking lot while I was unloading the gear. Thought they might be after the instruments, but they didn’t take anything, so. I mean, I might’ve missed a pick or something, but.” He shrugged. “Looks like it was just some losers who wanted to bash some faggots but were too chicken to try it with the real band.”

Ezra shot Corin a dark look, and both of them left the room together. Andy wanted to tell them not to do anything stupid, but it was years too late for that. He just hoped that whatever they did end up doing didn’t get them stuck with any permanent charges.

Andy narrowed his eyes and studied Edward, who kept alternating between squinting and staring wide-eyed, like he was having trouble focusing. “Did you pass out?” he asked suddenly.

Edward blinked a few times. “Uh. I think. Maybe? Just for a few minutes, if I did.”

“If he did, he’d woken up by the time I found him. He was already setting everything up.” Drake’s voice was tight, devoid of the usual teasing lilt that characterized him. He gripped Edward’s arm tightly enough that he would probably leave a few bruises of his own, not that it mattered.

Charlie sucked in her breath, obviously getting where Andy was going with this. “We’ve got to get you to a doctor. James or Rose can drive you.”

“I feel fine,” Edward insisted. “I set up the instruments and everything. Got them all tuned for you.”

“If you passed out, you should be checked for a concussion whether you feel well or not.” Andy looked at Drake, knowing that even if he couldn’t get through to Edward, the other’s protective streak was bound to kick in.

“I can’t believe you actually went and started setting up, you moron,” Charlie said, but her tone had a small bit of pride in it that came from growing up with older brothers in a house where every broken bone was considered a trophy. “You’re either the best or the worst roadie ever, and I don’t know how to tell which.”

Matt poked his head back inside the door. “James is ready,” he said, and disappeared again.

Andy admired his best friend for his efficacy, among other things. “Well, there you have it; everything’s already settled. Are you all right to get him to the car?” He asked Drake, who nodded and hefted Edward’s weight against his shoulder with more ease than Andy would have assumed from someone who was barely five foot two.

“I’ll call the nearest clinic, let them know you’re coming,” Charlie said, already pulling out her cell phone. “When you hear what it is, text me and leave me a message. I don’t care if we’re onstage already.”

Edward nodded. “Okay. Thanks. Sorry I wasn’t more careful, or something.”

Drake made a soft growl in his throat and dragged him off, albeit gently.

“What’s the word you’d use for that?” Charlie asked once they’d gone, flopping back onto the couch and dragging a hand across her face. “Inauspicious, or whatever. Starting a show with the help getting mugged.”

“I was going to say cowardly and downright pusillanimous of them.” Andy joined her, suddenly exhausted. “But I do know what you mean. We’ve started a show after people protested, sure, but this is an extra level. And I’d make a joke about the price of fame, except --”

“We aren’t the ones paying for it, yeah.” Charlie cursed filthily under her breath. If nothing else, their Charlotte was certainly creative when it came to expletives regarding the use of foreign objects to penetrate various orifices.

“We aren’t going to cancel, though, I assume,” Andy said after a while. Rhetorical question -- of course they weren’t -- but it was about all his brain could handle at the moment. Sometimes the human race made him very, very tired.

Charlie recognized this and didn’t bother answering. “Sometimes I wish I could just bring my brothers on tour with us. Remember that time -- what’s his face, Craig ... whatever, eleventh grade, anyway ... followed Ezra after school and gave him that black eye?”

Andy did remember. He’d made a mental note on the 'do not erase’ board of his mind at the time never to do anything that might ever, even slightly or peripherally, arouse the MacKendrick brothers’ ire. “I believe the saying is, the tooth fairy will be giving him quarters until he dies.”

Charlie snickered and spun sideways, dropping her legs over Andy’s thighs. “Nobody has ever said that. Nobody but you will ever say that, you old-fashioned tool. Sometimes you’re like reading those books about aliens or Canadians who come to America and comically misuse slang.”

“I love you too, dearest, as, I’m sure, do the Canadians who consistently find themselves at the wrong end of your ascerbity.” Andy tugged one sock down and dug his thumbs into the bottom of Charlie’s foot, feeling the tense muscles crunch beneath his fingertips. “Shall we collect our wayward vigilantes before they set the parking lot on fire?”

“Oh, probably.” Charlie sighed and stood up, reaching down to give Andy a hand. “By the way, I don’t care what Will and Brooke say about repercussions -- I vote that each of us has to snog somebody tonight.”

Andy was about to request that Charlie do him the honour, until he remembered that he had a girlfriend now -- how long would it be before his brain remembered this fact without prompting, after so many years of singlehood? -- and while Adela would most likely not mind if Andy hammed it up with Matt (or, horror, Ezra, dear god, the man could never keep his hands to himself onstage), Andy sharing a kiss with Charlie might not be so copasetic.

He was glad to get on stage later. Andy was not as crowd-happy as his friends tended to be -- often Corin’s mood depended as much on the reception of the audience as the actual musical performance itself -- but he did enjoy it, and he loved the cello. Much like Charlie and her drums, Andy could lose himself in playing and look up to find his perceived five minutes had actually been hours. He enjoyed the backaches and stiff fingers as much as any athlete who gloried in the post-workout burn.

Edward had done a good job of tuning the cello even while possibly concussed, and Andy decided to mention this to the managers, see if he could get the boy a raise. Andy ghosted the bow over the strings quickly, just to check, but everything was set. The only thing was the D string, which hummed tinnily in the way that meant he should probably get it replaced soon, but that could wait until after the first set.

They played. Corin sang with perhaps a rougher edge than usual, thanks to his anger, but it only served to drive the fans even more enthusiastically. Matt leaned down between songs to give Andy a quick kiss (they’d found that they could get away with less outrageous shows of affection than Corin or Ezra, because the fans seemed to think this indicated some real-life corollary) and was jumped by Charlie on the way back. Everything was going well.

He didn’t really register what had happened until after, when the pain arced through his brain and his hand came away wet and red. Andy had stopped during one of Ezra’s guitar solos to tighten the D string, when suddenly it snapped. The recoil flung the broken string upward, where Andy -- leaning forward to listen to the note -- felt it slash across his face.

Andy’s first hysterical thought was that he didn’t know if it had hit his eye. He couldn’t see out of it, but blood was running down his face and into his eye so that might be the cause.

Corin hadn’t noticed -- he was in front, playing to the crowd -- and Ezra was finishing up his solo. Andy pressed his hand to his forehead and wondered what, if anything, he could possibly say. His eye stung and the lids gummed shut. He wasn’t sure if the others would notice he’d stopped playing, or if the reverb was too loud.

Beside him, the bass stopped, and Matt dropped to his knees next to him. “What happened?” he demanded.

It was really hurting now; some of the shock must be wearing off. Andy gasped for breath and shook his head. “String snapped,” he bit out. “Don’t know. Should be --” he stopped, hissed a breath, and continued -- “Should be fine --”

Ezra, turning to flash them a triumphant grin at the end of his solo, nearly dropped his guitar. As it was, the entire audience could not miss his reference to some random person’s parentage. Corin turned around as well. It was hard to see his expression, but Andy could guess.

Charlie was next to them as well, now, kneeling in front of the cello and examining the bridge. Was her face pale, or was Andy imagining it? He couldn’t tell. “Someone’s filed the strings,” she said, sounding like she couldn’t believe it. Or maybe she just didn’t want to. “Look at the A string -- it’s been cut halfway, under the bridge so we wouldn’t see it unless we looked really close. Mother of fuck!”

At that moment, both Corin and Ezra -- in the middle of joining them in the centre of the stage -- were hit by bottles. Corin in the side of the head -- lucky shot -- and Ezra twice, once in the shoulder, once in the knee. Another bottle barely missed Charlie, smashing against the front of Andy’s cello instead.

Charlie swore viciously and jumped up to catch Corin, who looked stunned, but otherwise all right. Ezra was cursing fit to shock a sailor, as he’d been playing barefoot and stepped on a shard of glass.

“Off-stage. Now.” Matt got his arm hooked under both of Andy’s and lifted him as the noise of the crowd grew to a shocked roar. Andy started to protest about his cello, but for once Matt wouldn’t listen to him and dragged him offstage. Halfway there, the security guards showed up. One helped Matt get Andy away while the rest ran out onto the stage, probably to stop Charlie from leaping off of it and pummeling whoever was responsible.

“I can’t believe they touched my cello,” Andy said faintly. Someone had brought a wet cloth, procured from god knew where, and Matt was using it to sponge the blood from his face. Andy couldn’t remember the last time something hurt this much. He still could only see out his right eye.

Matt shook his head and said something in a low, angry voice, but Andy didn’t catch it. “It’s too bad they can’t see us,” Andy said. He felt dizzy. “You nursing me. Very touching. We’d get lots of ratings.”

He thought Matt looked scared, but that couldn’t be right. Matt could barely manage perturbed. Andy tried to sit up, but Matt pressed a hand to his shoulder and kept him down. “Why Mr. Costello--” Andy thought he might be hysterical -- “I didn’t know you felt that way.”

After that, things got even fuzzier, like Andy was trying to see and hear with a blanket over his head. He closed his eyes -- or, well, eye; the other one didn’t have much of a choice about it -- and sank back on the couch. The last thing he remembered was that Matt’s hands felt cold on his forehead.

Chapter Two:

Paul didn’t like hospitals. It wasn’t like he had a problem with them or anything, like he thought they were the blights of society or whatever and shouldn’t exist. Because hospitals were good places, if you just looked at them logically -- they helped people, they treated diseases, all that. So it wasn’t like Paul thought they were a bad thing.

It’s just, he’d spent too much time in them. His mother was a tiny lady who’d had seven children really young. Two of them had been late term, one premature, and two more had had other complications. Paul had only been a little kid for the first few babies, but he remembered almost all of the births. They couldn’t afford a babysitter and he hadn’t started watching his siblings on his own until he was around eight years old, so they’d all come to the hospital to wait.

Years later, Paul had spent over a month in the hospital with Michael, who had attempted suicide. A year after that, they’d gone again, this time after a group of idiots after prom came after them with baseball bats because they’d dared to go together in a small rural town. The most recent bout had been about a year ago, when Robbie suddenly came down with a nasty ear infection in the middle of the night.

He’d never lost anyone at a hospital, though once or twice it had been a close thing, but Paul really didn’t like spending time in them. Everyone was always very nice and professional, but he could never shake knowing that in the next room over, someone could be dying. One floor above him, a whole ward of people were actually dying. There was someone sleeping in a waiting room right now, waiting for a loved one to take their last breaths.

It was creepy and depressing, and even happy occasions like Robbie’s birth, which had actually been fast and miraculously uncomplicated, given that his mother had only been eighteen, didn’t help shake the feeling. Michael was about as bad off as he was, since his memories of hospitals included both the gay-bashing and his suicide attempt, as well as a few occasions when his father’s alcohol problem had landed either him or his mother there with broken bones and hasty excuses.

Robbie, for whatever reason, didn’t mind them, though. He liked to stop and chat with people, even if they couldn’t sign, and he made it his policy to give free hugs to anyone who looked sad. There were always plenty of people who fit the description, so unless it was an emergency, it always took Paul a long time to get anywhere. Robbie was a good kid and he wasn’t fussy, but he did get upset if they had to pass by a room with a silent, depressed-looking old man staring out the window without at least stopping to say hello.

The thing with Andy was serious enough, though, that Paul opted to leave Robbie with Michael at the hotel when he went to visit. Robbie wasn’t happy about it, but Michael brought out a pack of crayons and suggested that he draw a get well picture for Paul to take to Andy next time. The boy had brightened at that, and as Paul left he was lying on his stomach on the floor, surrounded by coloured paper and scattered crayons.

“I don’t know why anybody would be mean to Andy.” Scott frowned as he and Paul signed in at the front desk. He’d insisted on coming, even though one too many doctor’s visits as a child himself meant that he would be jumpy the entire time. Already Paul had to stop him from announcing that if anyone came anywhere near him with a needle, he would jump out the nearest window and then they’d be sorry.

“It isn’t just Andy.” Paul hooked a hand under Scott’s elbow and led him to the elevator. “Looking at the band makes people think about things they don’t want to think about. Andy’s just one of the people in the band, that’s all. You remember that parade we went to a few years ago?”

Scott bounced on his heels and reached for the elevator buttons; Paul tugged his hand back before he could press every single one. “The one with the people in all those costumes? I liked that. Everybody was so happy.”

“You remember those people who weren’t happy,who came with those signs?”

Scott paused a moment to think about that, wrinkling his forehead, and finally he scowled. “Yeah, I remember. One of them called you a name. Like those people who were outside with signs when we came to play that one time.”

Paul nodded. “Like that. They didn’t know me, but they thought they did,and they thought it gave them the right to act like that. The people at the concert were probably the same.”

Scott made a ‘hmph’ sound and crossed his arms. “I heard Rose say that the other people in the crowd beat them up. The security guys had to come to save the stupid people from getting hurt before they kicked them out. I’m glad.”

Paul hadn’t heard that, but he believed it. Just because one gay teenager might be a pushover in a fight didn’t mean that a whole crowd of them in a concert-induced endorphin high would be when their idol was threatened.

“Andy will probably be tired,” Paul pointed out as they left the elevator and walked to the right room. “So try not to ask him too many questions, okay?”

Scott nodded. “I won’t. I mean, I will. Try. Won’t ask. I’ll sit in the corner and be quiet and you won’t even know I’m there. And if I’m good maybe when he feels better he’ll let me touch his scar!”

It took effort, but Paul resisted the urge to smack his forehead or sigh gustily. Instead he just laughed. “I don’t think it’s going to scar. They’ll probably just stitch it up and it will heal just fine. But maybe he’ll let you stick around when it’s time to change the bandage, so you can see all the blood.”

“That’s good too!” In suitably high spirits, Scott skipped inside the room and obediently sat down on the chair nearest the door.

Andy was awake and Matt was the only member of Dodgeball with him, since the others were having a meeting about what to do and what to tell everyone before the internet started spreading rumours that Andy was blind and deformed and would never play again. Matt and Andy were talking quietly, and it struck Paul just how much of a friendship there was between them; how much of it was eclipsed by the more boisterous affection of the other three.

He hesitated to interrupt, but they’d already seen him. Matt sat back, folding his arms while keeping what Paul could only assume was a protective watch on Andy in case blood started spontaneously gushing again.

“Oh, hello.” Andy lifted his hand in a small wave. He had a bandage wrapped around his head and obscuring most of the left side of his face; a bit of blood had soaked through, but it seemed like the worst was over (at least as far as Paul could tell, with no medical training other than the sort of natural knowledge that came from raising kids). “How are things back at the hotel?”

“A little murderous.” There were only two chairs; Matt stood up and offered Paul his with a gesture, sitting on the end of the bed himself. “When I left, it looked like Charlie wanted to track down the people who’d done it and feed them to some kind of Star Wars monster.”

Andy’s lips quirked. “She would. I don’t suppose you know if my cello is all right...”

Paul had actually thought of that, and made sure to check before he left. “Your tech person, Edward, is going to buy some new strings tomorrow -- no concussion by the way, but he’s going to take it easy tonight because I think his boyfriend threatened to give him one if that’s what it would take to keep him in bed. Other than that, one of the bottles took some of the varnish off the front and there’s a small scratch, but nothing bad. Nothing that would change the sound.”

Andy nodded and settled back againt his pillow with the same sort of visual relief that Paul would expect from a mother told that her child wasn’t seriously injured after a tumble from a tree. “Good. If they’d hurt it, I think I might have gone and fed someone to a rancor.”

“What about you?”

He and Matt shared a look, and Andy’s lips thinned. “Everything should be fine. Turns out it only caught the corner of my eye, so as long as nothing gets infected, I should be back to normal soon. There’s just some danger with scabbing and a few other things, but I’ve got quite the novel of after-care instructions, so I’ll be fine.” Matt snorted but didn’t comment.

Paul grimaced in sympathy. “Do you think you’ll be coming back tonight?”

“Should be.” Andy closed his eyes. “There isn’t any need to hold me overnight. I’ll call when I’m done, and Matt and I will take a taxi back to the hotel. If the others are worried, tell them it’s fine.”

“So I told Mom and Dad I want to learn the cello, and they said they’d think about it.” Andy had been trying to figure out how to bring this up all day, and finally decided just to do it. He didn’t know too much about musical instruments, but he did know that other people probablywouldn’t think the cello as cool as he did. And from experience, a lot of people got cranky if you told them you had something fun to tell them and then they thought it was boring.

Matt just sort of made a grunting noise and dug himself deeper under the covers. Hewas sleeping over at Andy’s and didn’t agree with Andy’s dad’s policy about the thermostat. Sometimes Andy wondered if Matt was secretly a cold-blooded mammal, because he sure slept a lot.

“C’mon, other people don’t have to care, but you’re my best friend so you have to pretend.” Andy threw a pencil at the direction of the Matt-blanket-monster. “I think it would be fun. There’s nobody around here who gives lessons so I’d have to get a book and teach myself, but I think that should be fine. I made that trebuchet out of a book and that worked great.”

“Says you,” Matt said, poking his nose out from the blanket nest. “Your window didn’t think so.”

Andy coughed in embarrassment. “Miscaculated a little, that’s all. And now I know how to fix it if I ever try again, so see? It’s all good. And it’s not like the cello is going to break anything.”

“Might,” Matt pointed out, sounding dubious, and sniffed like he thought the cello was secretly some sort of weapon that Andy was holding out on him. “They’re pretty big.”

Andy rolled his eyes. He abandoned his desk and sat on the end of his bed, after fishing around to make sure he wouldn’t be plopping down on Matt’s feet or anything. “I just want something that isn’t, I dunno, anything to do with doctors or medicine or stuff. Plus cellos are expensive so I could tell my sisters they’re not allowed to touch it. That’s almost good enough right there. If I wanted a piano I’d have to let them all play it and that would just be annoying.”

“I guess.” Matt extended an arm and for a second Andy thought he was going to emerge, but it was just to snag a cookie from the plate besides Andy’s bed and drag it back down into his blankety abyss.

“And I was thinking...” this was where it got tricky. Matt was the most easygoing person Andy knew, and Andy didn’t think he would care if Andy wanted to learn the hurdygurdy, never mind something respectable like the cello. That wasn’t the worry. “I was thinking maybe, if you learned something too, then we could practice together and it could be kinda fun. And since it would be productive, maybe your mom and dad wouldn’t think it was a waste of time, and stuff.”

The look Matt gave him showed Andy that he didn’t believe any of this for a second. Andy mustered up the arguments he’d spent the whole afternoon writing and went through them in his head. “You could tell your parents that learning an instrument activates a part of the brain that just goes unused otherwise. And so maybe they wouldn’t mind the video games so much if you were using your brain at other times.”

Matt’s eyebrow crept higher, and he stuck his head all the way out of the blankets. “You want me to learn the cello?”

“Noooo.” Andy wrinkled his nose. “No, that’s no fun. You should learn something that sounds good with the cello. Then we could play together and stuff and it wouldn’t be so bad to have to practice when it got hard, is all.”

Matt made a noncommital noise that meant he would think about it but don’t expect any promises, which was good enough for Andy.

A week later, Andy had his cello, a huge, gorgeous instrument about the same height as he was, and that he had to sit on a barstool from the kitchen, lugged upstairs into his room, to be able to play. Three days after that, Matt showed up with an amp and a bass guitar.

“I don’t think those go together,” Andy said after a short silence. He’d pictured maybe a violin or an oboe or something, not a guitar. Though they both had strings? Maybe that would do well enough.

Matt just smiled at him, or at least, the corner of his mouth twitched a little bit, and that was as good as a grin on other people. He didn’t say anything, just plugged in the amp and started hooking things together. Andy watched him uncertainly, but it was too late now.

They actually sounded really awful for almost a year, which was good because it kept Andy’s sisters away and was kind of fun because it turned out that purposely making dischords was way more interesting than the boring classical stuff that Andy found in the books from the store. After that, though, they started figuring out what sounds actually sounded neat together, even if they weren’t the usual stuff that you heard on those tapes with women and windows and falling rain on the covers.

The thing with Matt’s parents and the video games didn’t actually work, but by then Andy had gotten his parents to let him set up a television and a Nintendo in his room, so it didn’t matter. They’d play their instruments for a while and then play video games, and it was pretty cool. And when the kids at school made fun of Andy for being short and smart and for having all those sisters and for having to rely on Matt for protection, he just thought to himself that it didn’t matter, because he could play the cello and they probably didn’t even know how to spell it. So there.

[scene-with-James-and-Tobias-showing-up-goes-here]

[to-use-maybe-but-probably-not]

“Hey, coffee bitch!” Ezra grinned at Edward and slung an arm over his shoulders “Time for a career change.”

Edward was tired and just wanted to go back to his room to sleep, or maybe get one of Drake’s ‘yeah sure it’s relaxing just hold still’ back-cracking massages. He didn’t want to deal with the band and their most likely stupid and impossible to fulfil at eleven at night demands. Not after all the protests and asshattery. This last show, even he’d been heckled because he was a skinny guy lugging heavy equipment around.

But, it was his job, so he just smiled, albeit a little tightly. “You’re going to let me do your laundry?”

“Ooh, bitch boy’s feeling catty.” Ezra clapped him on the back in approval. “Nice work; we’ll have you cussing us out someday. Nah, we need you to fetch us alcohol. Get us some peach schnapps for Princess Melody over there, some red wine and a bendy straw for me, and just go nuts for everybody else I guess. You’ve seen our empties.” He fished out a handful of bills. “Keep the change, sugar.”

“Thanks, daddy,” Edward said automatically, which earned him a wink.

It was probably a good thing that he wasn’t a front man or anything for the band, because with all the hype surrounding them and everything, the amount of booze Edward and Drake picked up at the liquor store would’ve made for some good gossip. As it was, the guy behind the counter looked at the two of them – combined body weight of maybe two hundred pounds between the both of them – and asked if they’d heard of alcohol poisoning.

“He probably thinks we’re going to get trashed and do each other with household objects,” Edward said grumpily. “We get no respect, you know. Sometimes it pisses me off.”

Drake nodded sagely. “You could be teaching five year olds how to count to ten right now,” he said, all mock sincerity.