What the...Huh?

It was a regular hot, sunny day in Orange County, California. Outside, birds were singing and people were enjoying their free time at the beach. Children were running around laughing and couples were holding hands as they walked through the sand. The air of summer was palpable, urging everyone to relax and enjoy themselves. However, inside a lovely air-conditioned recording studio, Brian couldn’t find the peace to do such a trivial thing. It might as well have been storming outside and flooding for all her knew. He and his friends were taking a well-deserved break from recording, and Brian had decided to pass the downtime by searching for what others were saying about him and his band-mates, hoping for amusement, only to stumble upon several trash talkers and something that deeply upset him.

“What the fuck?!” he barked, staring disgustedly at the computer screen.

“What?” asked Shadows from the couch, eyes half open from sleep.

“This…story,” Brian explained.

“Ooookay….” Shadows rolled his eyes, closing them to go back to sleep.

“No, it’s not okay,” he pressed.

“What are you yelling about?” asked Zacky, who had walked into the room, nibbling on a donut.

“This story,” repeated Brian. He didn’t have much else to say about it. He figured his grand words spoke for themselves.

“Since when do you read?” Zacky snickered, grabbing a chair and sitting beside his friend.

“I read sometimes,” scowled Brian, not approving of the obvious jab at his relative intelligence.

“Hustler magazines, maybe,” added Jimmy.

Brian made a face and rolled his eyes. It would be practically impossible to describe this particular facial contortion as anything other than annoyed. It was never easy to describe his expression anyway; he simply had too many of them. “They make me out to be a complete manwhore.”

Zacky shrugged, looking as if this wasn’t such a bad thing. “So?” he asked.

“It’s just…I, not me but the Me in the story, keeps cheating on this chick then running back to her begging for forgiveness only to cheat again and run back again,” Brian said, enlightening the others to his dire situation, eyes wide from the insanity of the concept.

“So…” started Shadows, “not only are you a whore…but you’re a pussy about it?”

The others laughed while Brian sat there looking exasperated. He then snatched Zacky’s donut and threw it and Johnny, hitting him in the face.

“Hey! I was eating that!” Zacky shouted.

“Maybe you should just stop eating for a day or two. Maybe three,” Brian suggested, turning back to the computer screen.

“Maybe you should be introduced to a good hair cut. You’re starting to look like Sonic-the-fucking-Hedgehog,” Zacky countered.

“Everyone loves my hair.”

“Michelle won’t when you end up stabbing her eyes out.”

They glared at each other for a few seconds before shrugging off their dispute; a silent, meager truce.

“What are you reading anyway?” Johnny asked, wiping donut powder off of his face.

“This fuckin’ story someone wrote about us, well…mainly me, but still. It’s on some site called…myy-bah? Mib-bah?”

“You would read a story about yourself.”

“Shut your face, Christ!”

“Are there any others?” asked Jimmy.

“Any other what? Christs?”

“No, dumbass,” Zacky hissed. “Stories.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess so.”

“Click the search button.”

Brian did as instructed, searching for Avenged Sevenfold under story tags. The screen took a few seconds to load; not surprising due to the thousand results that turned up.

“Holy fuck! Narrow the search,” Zacky said, staring at the screen with wide eyes. “Type in my name.”

“Why your name?” Brian taunted.

“Why not my name?” Zacky countered haughtily.

Shrugging, Brian once again did as he’d been told. “That’s better. Not a shit ton of results,” he said scanning through the titles.

“Doesn’t surprise me.”

“Johnny…if we’d put your name in there’d be no results. Maybe one if we got lucky.”

“This one has a lot of stars…should I click it?” Brian asked, turning naïve-like brown eyes to look at his friends.

“Sure,” Jimmy shrugged.

Clinking on the link, Brian read the description. “This is my story…I do not own A7X, though I wish I did…winking smiley face.”

“That’s only slightly creepy,” Zacky said flatly.

“Most fourteen year old girls are creepy,” Shadows mumbled into the couch pillow.

“Matt, get over here,” said Jimmy. “Quit being lazy.”

“My throat hurts.”

“Why does that prevent you from walking.”

Shadows sighed. “I will if it gets interesting.”

Shrugging, the rest of the group continued to read in silence, trying to ignore Johnny’s protests when Brian scrolled down too fast or Zacky’s sighs of impatience when the others hadn’t read as fast as he had. From the couch, all Shadows could hear was “Wait! Go back up!”, “Why do you read so damn slow?”, and “Don’t scroll down yet.” He felt like rolling his eyes, but keeping them closed seemed more enjoyable.

“Why am I such a bitch in this story?” Zacky asked incredulously.

“Ugh, so am I!” whined Brian. “Should we go to the next chapter?”

“Eh…sure, why the hell not?”

However, they quickly regretted this unanimous decision to keep reading, for that specific chapter included a less-than-heterosexual sex scene which left the four o them feeling rather ill at ease. Especially Brian and Zacky.

“I…feel…really uncomfortable right now,” Zacky said, a look of horror mixed with disgust playing upon his face and scooting his chair away from Brian.

“Me…too.” Brian’s voice was distant, as if it had gotten lost somewhere while reading the chapter.

“Do me a favor—“

“Don’t even say the word favor.” Brian shuddered.

“—and please don’t touch me for a week or something,” Zacky pleaded.

Brian nodded mutely, clicking the backspace button until he got to the list of stories as if it could take back what they’d all just read. Unfortunately, it did not. Pushing away unwanted mental images, he asked, “Okay…what next?”

“Click that one,” Johnny said. “It sounds like a soap opera.”

“Didn’t know that you had a thing for soap operas,” Brian teased, clinking on the story title.

“Oh, didn’t you? I watch them daily.” It was only the aloof, sarcastic air of his voice that let them know he was joking. Without comment on their friend’s latest statement, they began to read the descriptionless story filled with typos. The group only had to scan through the first chapter before deciding not to read any further. More awkwardness filled the room.

“Great…now I’m a fuckin’ shemale who desperately wants to get pregnant,” Zacky snorted.

After a moment’s silence, Brian whispered, “You want my babies,” resulting in a loud smack to the back of the head. “Hey! They’d be hot babies!”

“There’s something wrong with you,” Zacky grumbled.

“I’m hungover.”

“Not an excuse. You just referred to a baby being hot.”

“What the fuck are you guys talking about?” asked Shadows, finally captivated enough to get off the couch and join his shocked and disgruntled friends.

“Well…basically about how seventy percent of our fanbase consists of girls that want to see Gates get it on with Zack,” Jimmy explained, trying to keep a straight face as he spoke. Shadows mumbled an almost inaudible, “Oh….”

“Can we find something that doesn’t include my tongue down your throat?” Zacky implored, eyebrows furrowed, biting at his lip rings.

“I can try,” Brian huffed, an air of skepticism in his voice. One could suppose that he had reason to be doubtful. Story after story consisted of scene after scene of slash (which Brian had thought referred to the guitarist); Zacky/Brian, Brian/Jimmy, Jimmy/Johnny, Shadows/Brian, Shadows/Jimmy, A7X/various other bands. This went on for about ten minutes until all five men felt unbearable unnerved and quite…violated.

“Why? Just…why?” Zacky murmured hoarsely.

Shadows looked like he had no clue and didn’t want one. Jimmy just scratched his head. Zacky started texting, as if to distract himself from the awkward atmosphere. Johnny was staring blankly into space. Brian was giving the computer a one-eyebrow-raised leer, as it had either offended or disappointed him.

“Maybe because you and Brian are always like ’heyyyy!’ with each other,” Jimmy guessed. “Or because you tried to bite his nipples once…or that you’re always kissing him on the cheek.”

“That’s just normal friendly affection,” Zacky argued, a scandalized look on his face.

“And because Syn doesn’t really care,” Johnny added. “Or that he practically tongued Shadows that one night.”

Matt grumbled the same time Brian mumbled, “I’m not proud of that.”

“Uh huh, sure,” Johnny said loftily.

“Well…fuck you, too, then,” Brian griped.

“Apparently, you’d like that too much.”

Brian slowly turned to look at Johnny, face stone cold, only to slowly turn back to the computer, as if deciding it wasn’t worth it to argue with him. “Whatever. Now what do we do?”

“Here,” said Zacky, reaching for the mouse. Brian smacked his hand away.

“What the fuck, dude?”

“Just tell me what to type.”

“Let me type it.” Zacky proceeded to grasp for the mouse again.

“Why can’t I?” Brian asked, snatching it back.

“Why can’t I?”

Shadows growled in annoyed and pushed Brian away from the computer, who looked a bit dazed and confused as to how his chair had been pushed out of the way. “Zack, what did you want to type?”

“Just type in our band name and look around for higher rated ones.”

“But that’s a shit-ton of stories to go through. And those other ones had ten stars,” Johnny pointed out. “And they were all teeny or written like shit.”

“That’s because their psychos,” Zacky stated, as if this answered the question, or even all of life’s grand questions. Johnny simply shrugged.

While they found a few, it was hard to find a story decent enough for all five of them. Questions and complaints of: “I’m not even in this story”, “They make me out to be a pussy”, “I don’t fucking cuddle”, “Why am I always dying?”, “Why do they make my girlfriend out to be a whiney slut?”, “Why am I always someone’s overprotective older brother?”, “Does Virtual-Me know what a condom is?”, “Urgh, a baby!”, “I could have sworn we just read this”, and “I wish this character-bitch would stop calling me Chub-Monster” abounded among various members of the group. One might categorize their behavior as trying to please a bratty child; never satisfied.

“Ho-ly fuck, there are so many stories,” sighed Brian, resting his chin in the palms of his hands.

“Oooh! Click that one. It has Lynard Skynard lyrics in the title,” Zacky explained.

“Calm the fuck down and I will,” Shadows laughed.

“I like the background image,” Jimmy said, winking at no one in particular, making Johnny laugh.

For the next forty-five minutes, the group read the “Lynard Skynard story”, as Brian called it. All five agreed that, after reading the first chapter, that they should read on because it was “Badass sounding”, as Jimmy put it. Intrigued, the group read on, only to find the relative innocence of the first chapter to spiral wildly out of control to a place so far from innocence that it cannot be named. Despite Jimmy and Johnny’s suggestions to skip to the “sexy parts”, all five ended up reading the story just to see “what fucked up thing” would happen next. Upon their finish, all of them sat in silence for about five minutes, until an uproar of comments broke out.

“I don’t know which makes me more uncomfortable…you being a shemale or you being a psychopathic rapist.”

“You have no room to talk.”

“I was better than you.”

“I told you we should have just read the smut.”

“You fucking shot me…I died.”

“I got stabbed! Stabbed…and you called me a bitch. Not cool, man.”

“Shut the fuck up, my knee caps got wasted before I died. And you are aware that I didn’t really call you a bitch…right?”

“Only you would take fiction as an insult.”

“My knees!”

“I was hoping she’d kill you instead of me. You totally deserved it more.”

“Does anyone else see the similarities between you two fighting over a computer clicker and Fictional-You-Two fighting over a girl? No? Just me?”

“I hope the person writing this doesn’t think my name is actually gay.”

“My fucking knees….”

“And you thought the other ones were psycho.”

“I’m never going to get a threesome ever again….”

“Well…you have me.”

“Shut the fuck up, Brain.”

“We should always do this when we have free time.”

Everyone turned to look at Johnny. “What?!”he babbled innocently.

Shadows shrugged as if to say ”maybe”. The others just laughed and Jimmy pushed him lightly.

“Well, uh…this has been…interesting and enlightening,” Brian said spinning in his chair. More than likely he was comparing this action to a carnival ride.

Just then Fred walked in, knocking on the door frame unnecessarily. “It’s time to get back to work, guys,” he said, looking around at them, their facial expression comparable to that of children being caught doing something they shouldn’t be.

“Okay, we’ll be right there,” Shadows said, smiling slightly. When he walked out, all five men looked at each other.

“What if there’s one of Fred?”

“If there’s not…I’m writing one….”

They continued staring at each other for about ten seconds, a tense, amused anticipation in the air, until they all unanimously dove for the mouse. It would be at least another hour before they went back to work.