An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
“You found me,” Alex says. A small crinkle by his eyes gives away the beginning of his smile before it dawns. “Now what?”
“Now I bother you until you make me go away.”
“Oh, please,” Alex says, nudging Jack's thigh with his toes. His fingers return to their task, but his voice stays in conversation with Jack. “If it were possible for you to bother me that much, I'd have kicked you out of the band years ago.”
hello everyone. i am back and i am back with jalex.
some ssf boys (mostly boy. like this is more an alex fic than a jalex fic tbh) inspired by this post on Alex’s insta a few weeks ago
been a min since i wanted to write so it was fun to give this a shot :)
here on ao3 if that’s more ur jam x
Alex is the last one back on the bus after the show.
They played rock-paper-scissors to decide shower order and luck had not been on his side. The last of the cars in the lot outside the venue have left by the time he’s headed across the grounds to the buses. It’s a strange feeling, Alex thinks, walking across the ground that was filled with so many smiling, singing faces just a couple hours earlier. There’s still a buzz in the air, something like static, that hums into his ears as he passes the stage he spent the evening running across. He would stick around for longer and just let himself soak it all in, but he knows that the floodlights shining above him are likely being turned off soon and the phone weighing down the pocket of his sweatpants died an hour ago.
He walks down the line of buses and smiles at the muffled sounds of laughter and conversation he picks up on when he passes each one. He’d forgotten just how much he loved the makeshift community that forms so quickly on a tour like this. His mind wanders back to their earlier Warped Tour years and the insanity that was their traveling musical circus. John had joked at some point that Sad Summer felt like a vaguely more grown up version of their wild, reckless days on Warped Tour. It’s still only the first night so he’s not quite sure about that comparison yet, but the prospect of taking part in something that he holds such a nostalgic fondness for, especially after the last eighteen months, makes his heart flutter.
The first thing Alex hears when he opens the door to the All Time Low bus is Jack’s bright (and probably tipsy) laughter. He climbs the steps and is greeted by Zack and Jack sitting on couches facing each other. Zack’s phone being held out toward Jack, whatever was on the screen likely being the cause for the laughter. The door closing behind Alex causes them to look up, and their smiles widen ever so slightly. Jack makes grabby hands out toward Alex, and he rolls his eyes playfully in response before dropping the gym bag that’s been resting on his shoulder and taking up the seat beside Jack. Arms immediately lock around Alex’s waist and a sigh leaves his lips as he leans most of his weight back against Jack’s chest.
“Hello, boy,” Jack says with a laugh. He turns to press his lips against Alex’s shoulder. “Welcome to the party bus.”
“Aren’t we getting a little old to be the party bus?” Alex asks. He’s mostly joking but then Zack yawns and Alex can’t help but repeat the action himself.
“See, Rian said the same thing before he disappeared to call his lady,” Jack says, shaking his head. “We haven’t been on tour in forever, I want to celebrate.”
“Maybe after Anaheim?” Alex suggests. “We’ve got guests coming to that show, you’ll have more people to entertain.”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought about that.”
Zack laughs from where he sits across from them before standing. “I need to call my house sitter back, gonna go steal the back lounge for a bit before I call it a night. Sleep well, boys.”
He leans down to press a kiss against the top of each of their heads before heading toward the opposite end of the bus. Alex pulls his legs up onto the couch and over Jack’s lap as they fall into a comfortable silence for a few moments once it’s just the two of them. The electric excitement Alex had felt in the air outside no longer buzzes like a fly in his ear but something else still tingles under his skin. It’s only heightened when Jack starts tracing patterns with his fingertip up and down Alex’s arm.
The ground starts rumbling underneath where they sit and when Alex turns and glances toward the front of the bus, he sees the headlights are on now. The line of buses start their journey out of the lot and toward Anaheim for the next show. For a moment he closes his eyes, his head still resting against Jack’s shoulder and he takes a deep breath.
“Didn’t realize how much I missed being on a bus,” he mumbles against Jack’s t-shirt. He still smells like home, like laundry detergent and the candle he keeps beside his bed. It’s a strange sensation, Alex thinks, the gentle movements of the bus accompanied by the scents of being stuck inside the tiny space he locked himself up in with Jack the last year and change. He’s not sure what to make of it right now.
“I’m sorry,” Jack says, his tone all teasing. “Do you not remember when I had to stop you from drunk-ordering a tour bus to be dropped off in front of my apartment in the spring? I have a really funny video if you want a reminder.”
“I’m good, thank you,” Alex replies. He pats a hand against Jack’s chest before he sits up and untangles himself from Jack’s arms. His legs cross below him and he takes a look around the space.
“I really missed this,” he repeats with a nod. “I missed doing our job and meeting all those kids and having them all sing back at me and having all three of you with me.”
Alex’s vision goes blurry and he feels tears hang onto the edge of his lashes. Likely by instinct, Jack’s hand reaches for Alex’s, their fingers intertwining and palms pressing together. “It’s really nice to be back on the road.”
“Feels right, yeah.”
They sit in silence again for a moment, the buzz now replaced by the sound of tires against the road as they merge onto the interstate. Alex feels Jack’s lips press below his ear. “I love you a lot, but I am going to be a grumpy and achy old boy in the morning so I’m gonna take my own bunk tonight if that’s okay with you?”
“Of course,” Alex replies, his head shaking quickly to break him out of his daze. “Take some Advil before you fall asleep.”
Jack hums in agreement before moving to stand. “Think Rian is done on the phone in his bunk, I’m gonna call it a night,” Jack announces. He kisses Alex’s knuckles before releasing his hand. “Don’t stay up too late, rock star.”
Alex laughs. “I won’t, I promise. Love you.”
“Love you,” Jack sings back, and then he’s gone from the room.
The room settles again, and Alex realizes that it’s moments like these that he missed too. Alone on the tour bus couch is where he’s written some of their best lyrics, the stillness caught in the middle of movement providing a strange sense of inspiration. He wonders what he’ll write about on this tour, what precious moments from the last year will get a new poetic meaning and life.
It’s been so long since being on the road felt like something new, and it both excites and scares him. He stays stuck on that idea for another several minutes before the passing headlights of other cars on the highway begin to feel like hypnosis. Time for bed, he decides.
Quiet and careful so he doesn’t wake his boys, Alex slides the door to the bunks open and gently closes it behind him. He slips into his normal bunk (bottom on the right - he likes being close to the ground) and pulls his quilt up over his chest.
The real exhaustion hits him the moment his head drops to his pillow, but for a moment before his eyes flutter shut, Alex is taken back to a moment practically a lifetime ago now. On their first bus tour (he almost cringes thinking about the constant state of chaos that that bus was) he was the only one who could manage to fall asleep immediately in the bunks. The boys complained of tiny spaces and the constant noise of the road and the way the bus stopping and moving never failed to wake them up. It was never a problem for Alex. He remembers that it provided him a lot of solace, made him feel like they were making the right choice to let this be the path they chose to go down. It only took the rest of them a few days into tour for their exhaustion after shows to settle in and help them sleep through the night.
And now, as he lets himself fall toward sleep, surrounded by his favorite people in the world, Alex feels peace. After so long cooped up inside, he finally feels like they’ve arrived home.
this is my first ever (?) attempt at writing fluffy jalex and my first time writing jalex since 2014 i believe so please bear that in mind when you are reading this if you decide to brave it. however i think this is my magnum opus simply because i managed to keep it under 3k. CAN YOU FUCKING BELIEVE because quite frankly i can’t
big thank u to @clumsyclifford for letting me yell about this as i was writing and for slyly being the inspiration behind me even attempting to write jalex again i love u <3
-
Train journeys are usually one of Jack’s least favourite things on the planet.
In fairness, he probably wouldn’t mind them so much if they weren’t so expensive. Zack always goes on about how dirty the seats are, Jack, they’ve definitely not been cleaned since before we were born, and get your fucking feet off them, that’s exactly why, but Jack would be lying to everyone and himself if he tried to claim that he cared about the amount of years-old tracked-in mud his ass was coming into contact with. He doesn’t even particularly care that they’re noisy, because it gives him an excuse to turn his music up until it’s in the red-warning part of the volume bar on his phone, and disobeying his phone is pretty much the only adrenaline rush he gets these days. It’s pretty much just the fact that he’s got to fork out at least forty of his hard-earned dollars to get himself from A to B at a comfort level so minimal that it probably counts as an infringement on some human right or other.
Said comfort level is greatly improved, however, when there’s a hot guy across the aisle from him.
The guy had got on at Baltimore with Jack, eyes glued to his phone, and thrown himself down in a seat like this journey is practiced for him. Jack had had no choice but to sit diagonally across the aisle from him, next to a lady who threw him a dirty look before glancing pointedly over at all the other empty seats in the carriage.
(“I need the air,” he’d told her sincerely, gesturing at the (closed) window next to them.)
Somewhere between Philadelphia and Trenton the guy had sighed, slipped his phone into his pocket, crossed his arms, and fallen asleep. Jack had been a little put out at that, because he’d been enjoying watching the guy out of the corner of his eye as he frowned and smiled and snorted and scoffed at whatever was on his phone, but after a few unsuccessful attempts at waking him up via telepathy and maybe trying to scan his brain to see whether he was hiding any kinks for gangly Lebanese men Jack had given up, picked up his phone, and headed to Twitter.
He’s still been throwing glances at the hot guy, though - surreptitiously, of course - and he’s midway through debating with himself whether he should just cut the creepiness, wake the guy up and ask if he wants his dick sucked when the guy’s eyes fly open, and he looks directly at Jack. Jack’s been wondering whether he’s as hot with his eyes open - not that he’s into, like, corpses, or anything - and just as he’s processing that yes, the guy’s eyes are actually prettier than his imagination had calculated, and that all that time he’d spent staring at his phone earlier was time he could have spent staring at Jack - the guy speaks.
“Where are we?” he asks, eyes flitting wildly around the carriage, like he’ll maybe be able to identify precisely what part of rural Connecticut they’re in by the species of the trees flying past the window. Which, actually, maybe he can. Maybe he’s a tree surgeon, or something. Jack was bound to meet a hot tree surgeon at some point in his life, right?
“Uh,” Jack says, because he’s not entirely sure. Have they passed New Haven yet? Or was Stamford the last stop? “Connecticut.” It’s probably the truth, and that’s good enough for Jack.
“Oh my God,” the guy says, apparently to Jack, who just raises an eyebrow. “I slept through my stop.”
“Sucks, dude,” Jack says, as sympathetically as he can. The guy frowns. Jack makes a mental note to work on his sympathetic voice.
“‘Sucks, dude’?” the guy echoes. Jack shrugs.
“What d’you want me to do?” he says. “Turn the train around?”
“Yeah, actually.”
“Too bad.” The guy looks at Jack for a moment, like he’s committed a grievous offence against the guy for not being in control of the train, and then groans, tipping his head back and slouching down in his seat.
“I can’t believe I missed my fucking stop,” he mumbles. Jack’s not entirely sure whether the guy’s addressing him or the ceiling, but decides he’s probably got fairly decent odds against an inanimate object, so asks:
“What was your stop?”
“New York.” There’s a pause.
“New York?” Jack says, a little incredulously. “You missed New York?”
“What?” the guy says defensively, tipping his head forward again just to throw Jack a glare. Jack’ll take it, though. Glares are intimate, right?
“How’d you miss that? Fucking everyone got off at New York, dude,” Jack says. “Pretty sure someone hit you with a briefcase on their way out.” The guy scowls.
“That wasn’t just a dream?” he says, words coloured with indignance.
“You dream about people hitting you with briefcases?”
“I’m clearly aware of my surroundings,” the guy says, and Jack nods sagely.
“It’s good to stay alert,” he tells the guy. “I’m Jack, by the way,” he adds, when the guy doesn’t say anything back after three milliseconds, and the guy blinks at him for a moment, and then tips his head back again and sighs dramatically. It’s the worst reaction Jack’s ever had to telling someone his name - is it that bad, really? - but then the guy rolls his head in Jack’s direction and says:
“Alex.”
“Alex,” Jack says, testing it out on his tongue, and nods when he finds it passes the test of him being able to pronounce it. Two syllables is about as much as he can take most days. “Nice name.” Alex snorts.
“It’s just a name,” he says.
“But it’s a nice one,” Jack points out.
“Is it?”
“I just said it was.”
“That doesn’t make it a nice name, though, does it?”
“Why not?” Jack says, affronted.
“What, are you the arbiter of nice names?” Alex asks, raising an eyebrow.
“There’s no need for that kind of language,” Jack says haughtily, because he has no idea what the fuck an ‘arbiter’ is. Alex just stares at him for a moment, before shaking his head and grinning. Pretty as his eyes are when blinking at Jack in moderate panic tinged with the remnants of sleepiness, they’re something else when lit up with quiet amusement, warm and dark and kind. He’s got the kind of eyes that betray his jovial exterior, the kind of eyes that hold wisdom and heartache and heaviness while shining with light, and Jack thinks if he’d paid a little more attention in English he might be able to come up with a metaphor that would verbalise the feeling of comfort this stranger’s eyes give him. It’s something like breathlessness, but in his heart. Or maybe Jack’s just in need of an ECG.
“Where are you headed?” Alex asks, completely oblivious to the fact that Jack’s trying to salvage the remnants of his high school English education while also trying to figure out whether he needs a pacemaker fitted.
“Boston,” Jack says. “I’ve got work there.”
“What d’you do?”
“I work for a record label,” Jack says. “Involves a lot of travelling from Baltimore to Boston to sign new bands.” Alex looks suitably impressed.
“That’s pretty cool,” he says. He sounds suitably impressed, too. It’s not really helping Jack’s severe case of want-to-suck-dick-itis.
“What about you?” Jack says, and Alex throws him an are you stupid kind of look.
“I was travelling to New York,” Alex says, and Jack takes great pleasure in returning the are you stupid look.
“Yeah, I know that bit,” Jack says impatiently. “What for?”
“I was meant to be going to a gig,” Alex says, with a sigh. Jack raises an eyebrow.
“Oh?” he says, interest piqued. “What gig?”
“Uh,” Alex says, and lifts his hips off the seat, fumbling in his back pocket for a moment. Jack politely doesn’t stare, which is as chivalrous as he gets, and then Alex sits up straight and smooths out a very crumpled ticket. “Some band called Seven Times Ill-Meaning.” Jack blinks.
“Seven Times Ill-Meaning?” he asks, just to make sure, and Alex nods. “What the fuck does that mean?” Alex shrugs as he folds the paper up again and shoves it back in his pocket.
“Search me, dude,” he says.
“Are they any good?”
“I dunno, man,” Alex says. “I didn’t get to see them.”
“But you’ve heard their music.” Alex shakes his head. “You were travelling from Baltimore to New York for a band you’ve never even listened to?” Jack asks, a little incredulously.
“Don’t you do that every day?” Alex shoots back.
“No,” Jack says. “I travel from Baltimore to Boston.” Alex rolls his eyes. “And I get paid for it,” Jack points out, and Alex scrunches his nose up. It shouldn’t be cute, really - who the fuck does that beyond the age of, like, fourteen - but it is. Pretty much everything Alex does is cute, when Jack thinks about it. He’s fairly sure even the way Alex is sitting is cute.
“Fair point,” Alex says, with a sigh. “Fuck. I can’t believe I missed my stop.”
“You wouldn’t have if you hadn’t gone to sleep,” Jack says, and Alex throws him a look.
“Wow,” he deadpans. “Who’d’ve known if I hadn’t fallen asleep I wouldn’t have slept through my stop?”
“You’re kind of an asshole,” Jack tells him, but there’s no heat behind the words and Alex jut grins, that young sparkle in his old eyes again.
“Part of the day job, dude,” Alex says contentedly.
“What’s the day job?”
“I just told you,” Alex says. “Being an asshole.”
“You said that was part of it,” Jack counters, and Alex rolls his eyes.
“I’m a teacher,” he says.
“Oh,” Jack says. “Right. Yeah, no. Day job is definitely being an asshole.” Alex laughs.
“Fuck you, dude,” he says, and Jack has to bite down the yes, please, you good to go now? that dances up his throat to the tip of his tongue. “I’m a great teacher. The kids love me.”
“Kids love anyone who doesn’t set homework,” Jack says dismissively.
“Who said I don’t set homework?”
“You’d be grading it instead of being on your way to a gig two hours away right now if you did,” Jack says, and Alex grins sheepishly.
“Look, they don’t want to do it, I don’t want to grade it, and school should stay at school,” he says. “But mostly I don’t want to grade it.” Jack snorts.
“What d’you teach?” he asks, and then is struck by inspiration and hurriedly adds: “Wait, no, no. Let me guess.” Alex arches an eyebrow at him, but his lips quirk up in an amused smile.
“Go on,” he says. Jack squints at Alex, really gets him into focus - the fringe that’s definitely still an emo fringe, no matter how hard it’s trying; the small smile playing at his lips; the richness of his eyes, with that slight mischievous glitter darting in and out of frame - and then sits back with a satisfied nod.
“English,” he says, and Alex’s eyes widen almost comically.
“How the fuck did you know that?” he says, and Jack shrugs.
“I’ve never met a math teacher that would miss an opportunity to set homework,” Jack says.
“There are other teachers besides English and math, y’know,” Alex tells him. “I could be a PE teacher.” Jack snorts, and Alex scowls, but his eyes are still twinkling. “Fuck off,” he says, and Jack laughs this time.
“You called me a fucking arbitrator or something earlier,” Jack says. “Those are English teacher vibes.”
“Arbiter,” Alex corrects instantly, like it’s a reflex action, and Jack just raises his eyebrows pointedly. Alex holds his gaze for a moment, and then scowls, crosses his arms, and sits back in his seat. “I don’t give off English teacher vibes.”
“Then how did I know you’re an English teacher?”
“Lucky guess.” Jack snorts, and shakes his head.
“I don’t have any luck,” he says.
“Better than me,” Alex says, with a groan. “I can’t believe I missed my fucking stop. And now I’m going to have to get off in Stamf- or is it New Ha- or- in Connecticut.”
“That wasn’t bad luck,” Jack points out. “That was poor planning.” Alex scowls, and looks like he’s about to say something that might involve another long word that Jack doesn’t understand, so to placate him, Jack adds: “And you don’t have to get off in Connecticut.”
“What, you think I should stay on the train ‘til Massachusetts?” Alex says, like the very idea is ridiculous. “It’ll take me, like, eight hours to get home.”
“I mean,” Jack says. “I have a hotel room, y’know.”
“Yeah, fucking hell, rub it in,” Alex groans.
“No,” Jack says. “I mean.” How the fuck is he supposed to say this? If you want, hot-guy-Alex-that-I-literally-just-met-on-a-train-who-could-still-possibly-be-a-serial-killer, you can sleep with me. In both senses of the word, preferably, but I will respect it if you only want one of the two. I hope you’re not a murderer. Oh, fuck it. Jack’s not exactly known for his subtlety. “You can stay with me.” Alex blinks at him. And then he blinks again. And then he narrows his eyes, and says, incredibly suspiciously:
“Are you asking to fuck me?” Jack shrugs.
“You can fuck me,” he offers. “Or we can switch, I’m not fussed. Or we can just- y’know. You can just have a place to spend the night that isn’t a train back to Baltimore.” Alex cocks his head, considering, eyes still narrowed, and then his face clears, and he shrugs.
“Alright,” he says. “Yeah.”
“Yeah?” Jack says.
“Yeah,” Alex repeats.
“Yeah to what?”
“To all of it,” Alex says. Jack blinks in surprise. He hadn’t really been expecting Alex to take him up on it. After all, who would take up the offer to fuck a stranger they’ve just met on a train in a city hundreds of miles from home?
(Then again, who would make the offer to fuck a stranger they’ve just met on a train in a city hundreds of miles from home?)
“You want to fuck me?”
“I thought you said you were flexible on that?”
“Oh, right,” Jack says. He is flexible. “I am flexible.” He pauses. “But not like that. Don’t- I’m not able to contort myself into, like, pretzel-shapes.”
“Well,” Alex says, with a shrug and a wicked grin, “I am.” Oh, Jesus.
“Oh, that’s right,” Jack says, slapping a hand to his forehead. “PE teacher, I forgot.”
“Fuck you,” Alex says, and Jack grins.
“Give it another two hours,” he says, and Alex grins back.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
“Who’s flirting?” Rian asks from the couch, where he's holding Zack’s acoustic guitar and attempting a B minor chord.
Before Alex can jump in, Jack says, “Harry Styles, with Alex.”
“Harry Styles?”
“Is this because of those DMs?” Zack rolls his eyes. “You’re still talking about that?”
“Shut up, this is a big deal,” Alex insists. “It’s Harry fucking Styles!”
hello everyone. you remember that crack pairing i kept talking about? here it is. this was completed for the @harryrarepairfest lol thank you for motivating me to get it done
pairing: jack barakat/alex gaskarth
rating: T
total word count: 40.5k
important tags: amnesia, memory loss, head injury, angst, hurt/comfort, alcohol
“What year’s it?”
The relief slides off Jack’s face. “What year do you think it is?”
Alex closes his eyes. The incongruous foreignness of this man who is apparently Jack Barakat is starting to give him a headache. What year is it? Alex racks his brain, grasping for a recent memory.
“2009?”
~
Or: Alex wakes up in 2019, and the last thing he remembers is 2009.
hello!!!!!! here’s my latest thing!!!!!! thank you x1000 to @glitterblazercalum (iba) for validating my writing/checking my science/making this amazing moodboard i love you so much
this fic is complete i’ll be updating it pretty much weekly ‘til it’s all posted and am gonna reblog this post every time there’s a chapter update so keep an eye out <3
Hi! Are you still taking prompts? Would you do one where Alex is stressed out on tour and Jack comforts him?
hi anon this is sorta kinda what you asked for but also not really. but mostly yes. and it kicked my writer's block so i should thank you. even though i really just took advantage of this existing prompt to write some emo bullshit. enjoy
read here on ao3
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No one can find Alex.
He’s not in the tour bus and not in the venue, and he’s not answering his phone or any of his texts, which pretty much covers all of everyone’s guesses. They bring the problem to Jack, and Jack says, “Did you check the roof?”
“What?” says Flyzik, who looks like he’s mentally filling out his resignation form.
“Let me look,” Jack says. He doesn’t know why they insist on levying a whole search party before asking him; he always knows where Alex is. Jack calls it his spidey-sense. Alex calls it “fucking creepy.”
“If he’s on the roof, don’t tell me,” Flyzik says as he goes. “I need plausible deniability!”
It’s windy out, enough that Jack draws up the hood of his hoodie and pulls the strings as tight as they’ll go. Even brief exposure to the world puts a chill in his fingers. Only an insane person would be sitting unprotected on the roof of the tour bus in this weather.
Jack sighs and starts the climb.
As expected, the silhouette of Alex’s profile comes into view as Jack reaches the top. His fingers are close to numb and he’s a little worried he’ll fall; the bus has convenient ridges for climbing but they’re definitely not designed for that purpose, and he’s sure he’s not supposed to be climbing it. But he’s already gotten this far, and Alex is here, unmoving enough that he might have frozen into a block of ice, which means Jack is officially a witness anyway, so he may as well figure out what’s going on.
He clambers onto the roof and hastily pulls his hands back into his sleeves. Careful, he crosses to the middle of the roof, where Alex is sitting like a statue.
“Lovely weather we’re having,” Jack says.
Alex remains unresponsive. Arms securing his knees to his chest like a seatbelt, chin resting atop them, he gazes out into the middle distance, stare as vacant as the parking lot around them.
“Don’t be surprised if Flyzik tries to quit later,” Jack says. “He’s just jealous I can always find you with my spidey-sense.”
Alex says nothing.
Jack bites his lip. It’s unfortunately chilly out, more and more the longer they stay here. How long did Alex spend up here before they realized he was missing? How long has he been sitting in the biting cold?
“Alex,” says Jack, a little lower. “Talk to me.”
Alex slow-blinks, so at least he’s alive. He opens his mouth. “I can’t—” His voice is hoarse; he clears his throat. “I don’t think I can do it. This. It’s too much.”
“Oh,” Jack says. “This is more serious than I anticipated.”
None of his jokes are landing right; Alex just shakes his head, barely. He doesn’t even have a hood on. He must be fucking freezing. Jack is tempted to reach out and touch his hand, just to gauge the temperature, but he’s getting the sense that one wrong move will shut Alex down for real.
“Sorry. I’m listening.”
Alex stares a little more. The look in his eyes is unfocused at best; Jack could set off fireworks right in his line of sight and he doubts Alex would notice, or care.
“Everything is stressing me out,” Alex says. “Everything. Even playing shows feels more like a job now. It’s not fun when I’m exhausted all the time, every day. Like, I drag myself out of bed and go answer the same fucking questions about the same fucking songs and then every night I have to go play the same fucking set over and over and tell every damn city they’re the best show we’ve played. I spend so much of my day just. Lying. That sucks, man.” He shakes his head again. “I thought when I got to be like all the musicians I admired that I could do it like them, like blink always did, and just be authentic and be myself and that we could be a cool band who’s real, not like all those cheesy media-trained cookie-cutter boy bands, but. We’re not. We’re just cookie-cutter in a different way.” The set of his shoulders doesn’t change, but his words come out faster, worked up, intense. “I’m not real. Blink wasn’t real. Nothing about this is real. None of this is real, Jack, I’m singing songs about people who don’t exist and relationships I haven’t had and stuff I haven’t done, and if I can’t be real about it then what the fuck is the point of doing it at all?”
Jack swallows. He could so easily fuck this up, can feel how delicate it is, and yet he’s completely at a loss. What is he supposed to say to that, exactly? Agreeing with Alex won’t help, but disagreeing won’t help, either.
“Yeah,” he says, stalling.
Alex isn’t done. “And,” he says, with a renewed dejection, “I can’t sleep, and it’s fucking freezing cold out here, and I just wish we could have more than one night in the same bed. Real bed. I want to sleep in a real bed for more than a couple hours at a time. I’m so fucking tired.”
Jack hums. He’d like that, too, for both of them, for all of them. Alex’s pseudo-insomnia isn’t news, but he’d always given the impression he was fine in spite of it. Or “dealing with it.” In retrospect, they should have checked in with him.
It’s just, Alex doesn’t like being checked on. He’s stubborn when he wants to be, and he’s too proud for his own good. His problems are locked in a safe behind a shiny brass door and a keypad whose code changes every day. Sometimes Jack guesses it by pure chance. Sometimes he’s as pitifully locked out as everyone else.
“I talked to my mom and she told me to see a doctor,” Alex says hollowly. “I thought she meant for, fuckin’, melatonin or whatever. So I said I didn’t think that would fix the brain problems and she was like, ‘Not that kind of doctor, honey.’” He breathes sharply out. “Told me to get therapy, basically.”
“Irony, thy name is Izzy.”
“Yeah.”
Finally. Jack can’t help but feel relieved; if Alex is acknowledging his attempts to lighten the mood, there’s hope yet.
“I don’t know,” Alex says quietly. “It’s like…fuck, I probably do need therapy, but…only if I don’t just. Quit right now. If I quit right now, all of these problems will go away. And I can go home, wherever that is, and I can— like, sleep, and I won’t have to talk to annoying interviewers or pretend to be happy when I’m not and I could just. You know?”
“And you would do that?” Jack chews his lip. “Quit right now?” He clenches his jaw, swallows. “Leave us high and dry?”
“I don’t know,” Alex says. “I don’t wanna feel like this all the time, every day, so.”
“Well, these feelings and problems might disappear if you left, but rest assured you would have a new set of feelings and problems,” Jack says. “You would miss me, for one. And that would be debilitating.”
Alex exhales. “I guess.”
“You guess?”
“No, I—” Alex sighs. “Come on, Jack, I’m not…I’m not gonna just quit and leave. I’m not.”
Jack can’t help the sigh of relief. “You promise?”
“No,” Alex mutters.
“That’s fair.”
“It’s just…like…how do I know what to choose? At what point am I putting the band over myself?”
The only answer Jack has is when the band starts making you miserable, but that just sounds like what Alex has been describing. They’re not out of the woods yet; Alex is still very much teetering at the edge of this cliff.
“Would you be happier if you weren’t in it?” Jack asks. As soon as he says it he wants to take it back. It’s too easy to imagine Alex nodding his head in response, maybe ushering in a brand-new realization. Maybe Jack has just sealed their fate in a bad way.
“No,” Alex says. His gaze travels down to his beat-up Converse. Jack watches his eyes move without seeing.
“Are you happy now?” he asks quietly.
Alex turns his head, locking his impassive stare onto Jack for the first time. It changes as he does, melting like ice, watery droplets of distress streaking the glacial exterior. Like wiping away condensation to see through glass, the dull disguise dissipates, and Alex watches Jack with sad eyes.
“Not really,” he says. “But I don’t think it’s the band. I think it’s my fault.”
“How so?”
“Attitude problems?” Alex lifts a shoulder, looks back at his shoes. “I don’t know. I could try. Instead of giving up. I contemplate running away at least once a day. That can’t be normal. Even for this job. Especially for this job.”
“I don’t know, Zack’s snoring does things to a man,” Jack says. Alex huffs. “Well, look. Can I say something as someone who’s known you for years? And been your best friend and seen you grow up and blah blah blah?”
“Sure,” Alex says. “I’m most interested in the blah blah blah part.”
Jack rolls his eyes. “I just mean, not as your bandmate who’s trying to get you to stay. Not even as your friend who’s trying to get you to stay. Just honesty, right? Just being real.” Alex inclines his head. “Um, okay, well…you love this job.” Alex sighs, and Jack says, “I know, and maybe you don’t feel like it right now, but you do. Trust me, okay? I know you think you would know best because you’re the one who’s inside your brain but your brain is lying to you, about this and a lot of things, and it always has, but I never lie to you. I don’t lie to you. You’re like the only person I never lie to. Everyone has one person like that and you’re mine.”
It's hard to tell, but Alex might be smiling. Imperceptibly. Jack takes a breath.
“And, so, obviously I want you to stay in the band because I’d lose my job and/or be fucking miserable if you left, but I want you to be happy too, and I know you won’t be happy if you leave. ‘Cause you’ll miss me, maybe, but eventually you’ll miss the shows and the music and even the annoying interviews. And Alex, honestly, not a single person in those crowds believes you when you say it’s the best show of the tour. You’re not lying to them, and you’re not being any less yourself just because sometimes you put on a front. Everyone does that. Every person in the goddamn world pretends to be someone else sometimes, how do you think people get jobs? You think people go into job interviews and say ‘By the way, I know every word to ‘Rap God’ by Eminem and I play for both teams but I prefer dudes’? Of course not, man. Stuff like that is personal, and just because you aren’t saying it doesn’t mean you’re being fake. You’re still you. I promise you, on my life, you are real. Some of this” — he gestures around them— “is staged, but some of real life is also staged, like my mom would always make us clean our house before we’d have guests so they wouldn’t know that we live in filth every other day of the week. But you are real, Alexander William Gaskarth. You are as real as they come. Okay?” He swallows. “Am I making sense?”
“I hate to admit it,” Alex mumbles, “but yes.”
“Thank God,” Jack says under his breath. He presses his lips together. “It’s not perfect, obviously, none of this is perfect, nothing is perfect. But the solution isn’t to run away or quit. I’m sorry, but it’s not. You’ll fucking hate yourself.”
“I know.”
“But we can fix it,” Jack says. “Some of it, at least, like you could see a real doctor and maybe they could give you the good drugs so you could at least get a normal amount of sleep, and maybe that would help. I don’t know, I can only do so much, but it’s not hopeless, you know?”
“Okay, okay,” Alex says. “You’ve convinced me.”
“Are you just saying that so I’ll stop talking?”
“No,” Alex says, shooting him a look. “I get it. I love my job.”
“You believe me.”
“Yeah, I know you’re right.” Alex breathes out, and it sounds suspiciously like a laugh. “You’re right. My brain lies to me, but you really never do.”
“Yeah,” Jack says. “Gotta be good for something.”
“You’re good for a couple things,” Alex says. “Not too shabby on guitar.”
“Pretty sure if you check my resume, the first thing right at the top is ‘Alex Gaskarth’s Best Friend.’ It’s, like, my full-time job. The band thing is just to pay the bills.”
“Barely.”
“Yeah, barely.”
This time they both laugh. Relief settles in Jack’s chest, light and airy.
“It is so fucking cold out here,” he says. “You think we could maybe get on the bus?”
“Yeah,” Alex says. “I’m completely numb. Literally cannot feel any of my limbs. Not sure I still have them.”
“No wonder you’re miserable, you self-sabotaging asshole,” Jack says, and reaches for Alex’s hand.
It’s icy in Jack’s, but even as they both shiver themselves upright, Jack can feel the barest hint of warmth steal between their palms, like thawing Alex out is as simple as holding on.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
“I’m Jack, by the way.”
“Alex,” says baseball guy. His orange shirt reads Orioles in curly black script. Orange, Jack thinks with contempt. Of course his home team has the worst colors. “So you really don’t know anything about baseball?”
OR: Five times Jack and Alex watch the Orioles game on TV, and one time they see it in person.
