Okay so I just finished reading Every Word You Never Said by Jordon Greene and every other chapter these boys were like "that OLD BAND Mayday Parade" and "Who is My Chemical Romance?" and I felt very attacked. So. Here is Jacob and Sky meeting some of *my* characters - one of whom mirrors my horror that a self-proclaimed "eboy" has canonically never heard of MCR.
(Ethan, Alek, and Joss are from my original novel wip - you know, the thing that has been keeping me from finishing lthms or any of the other 8k projects I've kept y'all waiting for so long for... heh... pls forgive...)
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"What do you mean you’ve never heard of Simple Plan?” Ethan looked from Sky to Jacob, sure he’d misunderstood - but both the other boys wore blank expressions. He might as well have asked if either of them had ever listened to ‘that one band from Colorado, you know the one, right?’
“Good Charlotte?” he tried again.
“What’s so good about Charlotte?” Jacob asked with a teasing grin, nudging his boyfriend with his elbow. Sky’s responding giggle was silent, but wouldn’t have been any more revealing if the expression had a sound. Whatever inside joke just passed between the two of them was completely lost on Ethan. Much like most of this conversation was lost on his two new friends.
See, maybe if this were just at, y’know, school or something - Ethan could have understood the other two not having any knowledge of decent music. But this was a literal music festival. A literal music festival where Jacob’s band had opened for an act on one of the smaller stages! Jacob, with his black skinny jeans, black t-shirt, black nail polish, and frick-frackin winged eyeliner had never heard of Simple Plan?
Sus. Very sus.
Not that how you dressed had to dictate the music you listened to or anything. Skylar was dressed in an adorable little white skirt and a lavender crop top, and for all Ethan knew he routinely listened to death metal or something - but still!
“Heh, you’re uh… joking right?” He tried to sound chill and nice about it. “You’ve actually heard of Good Charlotte, and your favorite album is The Young and The Hopeless and you’re just pulling my leg because I’m tiny and look like I’m twelve and you think you can get away with it.” Which, okay - shitty but fair? Drew, Ethan’s brother, used that as a regular excuse. At seventeen, Drew was barely a year older and he was almost six feet tall. He even had the beginnings of a patchy goatee! Meanwhile, Ethan’s voice hadn’t even dropped yet.
(Not that it was going to do that anytime soon, anyway. He wouldn’t be allowed to start taking hormones until he was eighteen, so there were another two years to go yet. It was gonna be one hell of an eighteenth birthday though.)
Skylar and Jacob exchanged a look that Ethan couldn’t quite read, then Sky shook his head and mouthed, “No, sorry. Should we?” Skylar, Ethan had learned upon meeting them several hours ago, couldn’t talk. He went back and forth between using his phone to talk for him or just mouthing the words. A few times he and Jacob would go back and forth in what Ethan was pretty sure was American Sign Language, but having never known another person that used ASL Ethan didn’t know for sure. It hadn’t been a lot, but from what Ethan had seen it seemed a lot more organized than just gesturing though.
“I think I can forgive you,” Ethan said solemnly to Sky, but then frowned up at Jacob. “You, however, should definitely know better. What about Silverstein? Aidan? Death Cab For Cutie? MCR?”
More blank stares. Oh dear.
Ethan looked between them one more time, then threw up his hands. “That’s it! Come with me!”
Whirling on his toes, he took off through the crowd, heading for the path that would lead from the large field where the bulk of the festival was taking place down to the beach where his uncles had set up their home base. It didn’t take long to find them. When they’d arrived this morning, it had taken all three of them to install the enormous rainbow beach umbrella that claimed the spot. The thing was at least the size of a trampoline and easily visible from the path. Honestly, on a clear day it might even be visible from space.
Behind him, Ethan heard a quiet ‘whoa’ as the other boys apparently realized they were heading for the literal gay moon that had paused in it’s celestial orbit to spend a day at the beach.
“Sorry, my uncles can be a little extra,” Ethan said over his shoulder without an ounce of actual apology. Maybe some kids would be embarrassed, but it was thanks to his Uncle Alek that Ethan had been able to come out as trans back the summer before eighth grade. Uncle Alek and Uncle Joss both! Well, he hadn’t been Uncle Joss back then - he’d just been Uncle Alek’s roommate-slash-best-friend and they’d been caught in this adorably awful cycle of pining - but the point still stood.
It was thanks to them being so open that Ethan had been able to really, well, find himself. So maybe they were a little bit extra sometimes? They’d earned it and Ethan was proud of them. Moreover he was proud to have them as his family.
“Uncle Alek! Uncle Joss! We have a problem!” Ethan announced as they approached the umbrella. This may have been the wrong thing to open with, because both men went from being lazily sprawled to instantly on their feet, Uncle Alek suddenly wielding a bottle of sunscreen like a grenade he’d just pulled the tab on.
“Ethan? What’s wrong? Did something happen? Are you okay?” Uncle Joss was just as protective, but instead of a “Fight Mode” he just had a “Fuss Mode”. It was cute, usually.
Pointedly ignoring the heat rushing to his cheeks, Ethan rolled his eyes and placed his hands on his hips, coming to a stop at the edge of their makeshift little patio – a patchwork of more than eight beach blankets of every possible color semi-woven together to create a mostly sand-free lounge area. Uncle Alek and Uncle Joss took their beach time very seriously.
“I’m fine! Gosh, you guys are too much sometimes.” He shook his head on a sigh, gesturing for Jacob and Sky to come forward. “Jacob, Sky, this is my Uncle Alek and his husband, my Uncle Joss.”
It took a moment, but Ethan could see his Uncle Alek’s posture relax as he realized these were new friends that Ethan was bringing over to meet them - not… stalkers or lizard people or whatever he must have thought at first. He lowered the sunscreen and offered both boys a smile. “Nice to meet you.”
“What’s your big problem?” Uncle Joss asked then. He was generally calmer and more softly spoken than Uncle Alek. Something between that, the dimples, and all his curly hair kinda gave this embodiment of sunshine that always gave Ethan a warm feeling whenever Joss was around. He was glad that Uncle Alek had finally gotten his big head out of his ass so they could get together.
“These heathens have never heard of literally any of the best bands ever!”
“Hey,” Jacob protested. It was accompanied by a huff from Sky that Ethan could guess was conveying a similar affront.
Ethan wasn’t having any of it.
“Simple Plan, Good Charlotte, Silverstein, My Chemical Romance! Jacob’s band just opened for My Own Everything, which is basically an indie Set It Off, and they’ve never even heard of MCR!” It was just..! Not! Right!
“My Chemical Romance?” Jacob asked, and when Ethan looked back over at him the other boy was frowning in thought. Then he looked to Skylar and asked, “Wasn’t that the one band from that shirt?”
Skylar nodded and pulled out his phone, typing into it for a moment before Siri’s British tones loftily confirmed, “Yes! The cool one with the spider.”
Ethan frowned. “So you… do know MCR? I mean there’s that at least…” Any hope that might have welled up at this revelation was quickly dashed because Jacob was giving this sheepish grin and Skylar was smothering another silent giggle behind his hand, both of them shaking their heads. “What? What am I missing…?”
It was Alek who figured it out, and he did a really shitty job hiding his amusement as he said, “I think your friend just has a shirt from the band, without actually having listened to them.”
Ethan gasped. “Blasphemy!” Okay, so, maybe he was a little bit extra too sometimes. Sometimes! But like, really? Come on! If you’re going to get a band t-shirt, at least look up the band!
“That’s it. I cannot stand for this. Both of you sit. We are going to get you two some edumacation.” Ethan flapped his hands imperiously toward the towel-patio.
Jacob and Sky shared another adorable-couple-telepathy-looks, then simultaneously shrugged and moved forward to take a seat.
Appeased, Ethan followed them over and plopped down next to Uncle Alek’s bluetooth speaker, fussing with the volume for a moment before pairing his phone to it as Uncle Joss offered the pair snacks. Ethan permitted this show of hospitality, but once his new friends had their chosen morsels in hand he called their attention back to him with a sharp clearing of his throat.
“Alright you poor, sweet, neglected darlings. It is time.”
And with triumph he pressed play and the first notes of Helena rang out like a siren’s song.
