Dork

‘Jack is such a dork.’ I thought to myself with a small smile on my face; watching him run in-between tour busses, screaming something about mutant killer butterflies that were apparently going to kill us all.

‘An adorable dork, though.’ I giggled, rubbing my hand up and down my arm - which Jack had taken upon himself to smack earlier on because I wasn’t listening to him - trying to stop it from stinging.

Although he had apparently forgotten all about talking to me now, and screaming about mutant killer butterflies also, as he was now trying with all of his might to get Grieco’s attention by jumping up and down and flailing his arms around wildly, yelling his name like a banshee. I rolled my eyes as I thought about just how much of a kid he was; a kid who was like he was on a constant sugar rush. Actually, scratch that. It was like he was on Speed 24/7; constantly running around and fucking up everything around him; talking a million miles a minute and having the attention span of a spoon.

And then I frowned, thinking about it, folding my arms across my chest and staring at him; he was just a kid. He wasn’t even old enough to drink, never mind tour the country with three of his very irresponsible friends that encouraged him to drink daily, and nightly. He may be nineteen years of age, but he was still a kid. He was still growing and developing. I don’t even think his balls had dropped yet; that annoying high-pitched voice of his infiltrating my ears again as he wailed for Grieco from the other side of the parking lot being a tell-tale sign that, no, his balls had not dropped yet.

And he always seemed to be hurting himself. Falling over, walking into things, dropping things on his feet, smacking his head on the kitchen counters on the bus, play-fighting with people a little too rough and getting his ass kicked. It was surprising that Matt - and myself, I thought solemnly - hadn’t had a heart attack over worrying about him so much. But that was Jack, always making people worry.

I shook those thoughts from my head as quick as they came, realising that I wasn’t much older than him myself, and that I probably sounded like an overbearing mother worrying about their child. I was just a kid too; I shouldn’t worry about things like whether or not Jack drank too much, or whether he did actually give himself brain damage one of these days thanks to his clowning around. The guy had been drinking and falling over himself since he was like, ten or something anyway. He’d be fine. Although I couldn’t help but fuss about him sometimes, I cared about him a God-damned lot, no matter how much I made fun of him. And his dorky face, and his dorky smile, and his stupid skunk hair.

I smiled again as he had finally attracted the attention of the drum techie, talking hurriedly about something I couldn’t quite catch, gesturing excitedly with his hands, eyes wide and a huge smile on his face. Sometimes I really did wonder if he actually was on Speed. I sniggered to myself; the thought of Jack on drugs was enough to make me eat my own beanie.

I stood up and walked over to the man of the hour, giving him a sideways grin and punching him on the arm as I passed him. He turned to me with a pout on his face, but still with an excited twinkle in his eye, still gibbering on to Grieco about something or other that probably made no sense and probably wasn’t important enough to listen to anyway. I sighed, walking onto our bus and through to the bunks, flopping myself down on my own bed.

I stared at the ceiling of my bunk, just now realising how tired I was; exhaustion taking over my whole body. This tour was really taking a lot out of me; I was drinking every day to get wasted, doing an hour and a half set every afternoon still half-wasted, and partying every night and getting even more wasted. Rinse and repeat. But hey, that’s the All Time Low lifestyle for you.

I was just so tired. I wanted to curl up into a ball and sleep for a year. But with our stupid hectic schedule, we had no time for anything else but playing shows and doing half-assed interviews with people who weren’t even bothered about our band and who couldn’t even remember our names properly when doing said interviews.

And then my mind wandered back to the younger man outside, whom I could still faintly hear discussing something ridiculous with Grieco, with Matt’s voice chipping in every now and then to shout at Jack to calm down before he hurt himself, or, God forbid, someone else.

Matt always was like the mother of our band; he always made sure that we were on time to things, to make sure that we ate and slept properly, and that we didn’t overdo it with the alcohol; which was a bit of a farce really because he drank until he dropped as well. I imagined Jack floundering around like an idiot, with Matt fluttering after him like an overprotective mother at a playground when their child first tried to climb on the monkey bars.

I could feel a smile tugging at my lips, and before I could stop it, it developed into a full-on grin and I was rolling all over my bunk, giggling like a schoolgirl. Jack always knew how to cheer me up, even if half the time he didn’t even know he was doing it, like right now.

My mind dawdled back to tenth grade; of Jack dressed up like Jessie from Pokémon (I had gone as James, naturally), wasted at Ashton Poland’s Halloween party, throwing plastic toy Pokéballs at Ashton’s dog screaming, ‘Get in the ball you mutt! I want to train you to win the Pokémon League!’. I remember rolling around on the kitchen floor, laughing my ass off to the extent that I couldn’t breathe and had to go outside to catch my breath. I still hadn’t let him live that one down. He was such a dork.

And then there was that one time when we were all playing drunken spin the bottle a year or-so back when it was Zack’s birthday, and it had landed on me and Jack. Jack was brash, as usual, and had landed one on me before I could even realise what was happening. We must have gotten into it a bit too much though, because he had suddenly jumped up, going the colour of a tomato and bolting it up the stairs. I still don’t know what had happened clearly; I had never asked him about it. I assumed he probably had a bit too much to drink and popped a boner. I could feel my cheeks heat up slightly at the thought of him getting a boner because of me.

Butterflies erupted in my tummy and I grinned to myself, twirling a strand of my hair around my finger; slowly growing more and more drained as I lay here and thought about the younger boy and how happy he made me, and how much he made me smile.

Jack. That giant dork. I loved him, I really did.

I loved him, and his big brown eyes, his awkward, lanky frame, his dorky face, his dorky smile, and that stupid skunk hair of his that he refused to change, no matter how much the rest of us begged him to. I loved the way he was always in the mood to party; always up for a good time. He was always the one that come hell or high water had a copious amount of alcohol on him at all times; sometimes I liked to think that he just magicked it in front of him. I swear it just came out of the woodwork.

He was never serious, which sometimes could be annoying when Flyzik was kicking all of our asses over something or other which probably wasn’t our fault in the first place and all you could hear was that stupid dork giggling to himself and causing havoc right where he sat. Jack always had a talent for causing mischief wherever he went. I should know well enough, I’ve been on the receiving end of a fair few ‘pranks’ of his over the years that he had been my best friend.

I let out a shaky breath and smiled again; still twirling my hair around my finger, thinking about Jack and, for some reason, mutant killer butterflies, before closing my eyes and covering them with my arm, letting myself fall into much appreciated blackness.



I awoke with a jolt later on; images and vague memories of giant, colourful butterflies with huge, dripping fangs swirling around my mind. I blinked a couple of times - trying to come back to planet Earth which I suppose I hadn’t been on for whatever length of time I’d been asleep for – and attempted to stretch. When I couldn’t move my legs, panic set in and my eyes flew open, thinking that I’d spontaneously became a paraplegic while I’d been dreaming of those creepy-ass butterflies that I expect were Jack’s fault and- oh, there was Jack, sitting on my legs with that dorky smile on his face.

I relaxed then, inwardly thanking whatever God that was out there that I still had control over the lower half of my body and that it was just this giant dork that was rendering me immobile. I gave him what I hoped was a puzzled look and I rubbed my eyes with the pads of my hands, yawning and giving him a sleepy smile.

He smiled sheepishly at me, almost looking like a little kid, and removed himself from my legs – thank the Gods, they were starting to go numb – and crawled up the bed, closing the curtains along the way and settled his head on my pillow, laying on his side so that he was facing towards me. I turned myself so that I was facing him too and he giggled a bit, nuzzling himself into the crook of my neck and kissing it softly, so soft that I almost never felt it. I smiled lopsidedly and closed my eyes, wrapping my arms around him and sighing happily, burying my face in that stupid skunk hair of his and kissing it gently. He let out a small, content sound and wrapped his arm around my waist.

I knew he was fretting over something; I could tell that much. He only ever cuddled with me when he was worrying or panicking about something. I ran my hands through that stupid skunk hair gently, singing his favourite Blink-182 song to him softly; I knew how much that calmed him down. He sniggered a bit when I came to a swear word in the song and I smacked his shoulder lightly, feeling his hands twist in the material of the back of my t-shirt; I knew that was because it made him feel safe, it made him feel like he was anchored to something and that there was no chance of him floating away into nothingness.

Jack was the baby of the band, even only by a couple of months, but he was still the baby. I’d took it upon myself when I was younger to look after Jack no matter what, no matter how stressful this life could be, no matter what was going on in both of our lives, I would always be there for him. I would always be a shoulder to cry on, always be there to protect him from this unforgiving world. He had been my first real friend, my first best friend, and I swore to myself that I would do everything in my power to keep him in my life.

Sometimes when I looked at him, I’d still see this gangly, thirteen year old kid wearing a Blink shirt and a voice that was much too high-pitched for him to be considered a male that was going through puberty. I smiled down at his head and kissed his hair again, still whispering his favourite songs to him like they were secrets that no one else could know about.

I briefly wondered when it was that I fell in love with him, and I wondered how he didn’t know yet. He was such a dork sometimes.

I heard him sigh again and felt him mouth something against my neck, like he couldn’t get out what he was trying to say.

He felt like he had to explain himself.

I shushed him and continued playing with his hair, the sound of his soft breathing lulling me into a kind of reverie; pictures of me and Jack being like- like this all the time, and not just when he was scared about something, flashing behind my eyelids. I opened my eyes and smiled sadly at the curtains behind his head, forcing my emotions down like they were some kind of rabid dog. And maybe at times they were. I’d never been very good at controlling my feelings, especially in front of Jack.

He had never felt the need to explain himself to me, about anything. And even if he did try one day, I would just shush him and hug him; be the shoulder to cry on if you will. I understood Jack; I understood how this whole lifestyle was hectic and scary and that he just needed a bit of comforting from time to time. I understood that he got homesick sometimes and that he needed me – a small part of his home – to cling onto so that he wouldn’t just give this whole thing up altogether and crawl back home to his parents with his tail tucked safely between his legs.

One thing that I didn’t understand though was why he always felt the need to come to me. I mean, I’m not complaining; I would never miss the opportunity to hold Jack against me and pretend for those sweet, sweet ten minutes that this was us; that he was mine and that reality didn’t really exist. That we did this all the time, and that we always share kisses and hugs and sleep together curled up and go out on dates and-

I felt tears prick at my eyes and I blinked them away furiously; I had never once cried over Jack, and now wasn’t the time to start.

He lifted his head up at the sudden movement and stared at me curiously, like he was trying to hack his way into my brain to see what I was thinking about. I rolled my eyes and nudged his nose with mine; my way of telling him that I was alright and that he was just being a dork. He mirrored my actions and rolled his eyes too, then smiled and put his head back down, kissing my neck softly again. I laughed quietly and ran my fingers through his hair almost absentmindedly, thinking that this would have to come to an end soon, as it always did.

My stomach panged and my mouth twisted as I tried not to get emotional about the whole thing. After all, this was about Jack, not me. It had always been about Jack, the huge dork.

He sighed and moved his body away from mine, untangling our limbs and smiling big and bright up at me. He giggled and nudged his nose against mine; his way of saying thank you and you’re the best friend in the whole world. I smiled back and ruffled his hair, flicking my head towards the curtains. He nodded and gave me one last smile before climbing out of my bunk and closing the curtains behind him.

I swallowed thickly and stared at the space that he had been not ten seconds ago. I closed my eyes and buried my face in my pillow, breathing in deeply; my lungs filling up with the scent that was pure…

And I smiled.

Jack, you dork.



I was drunk. Again.

I haphazardly manoeuvred my way around the crush of people that had taken it upon themselves to party – ‘like it’s 1999, motherfuckers!’, according to Vinny - on our bus. I was unsteady on my feet, as I kept getting pushed backwards and forwards between drunk and even drunker people. I grumbled something that even I didn’t understand myself and pushed back against everyone who was trying to turn me into a pizza and plopped myself down onto the nearest person’s lap, which with my supreme fortune and good luck, was Jack’s, who was currently having a shouting match with someone from across the room about which brand of beer was the best.

He looked startled for a second and jumped (‘Lexy!’), forgetting about the fact he was arguing about beer with someone and gave me a lazy smile, knocking back the last of his beer and throwing the can across the room in the general direction of whom he was shouting at. I shot him a playful look and got myself comfortable on his lap, wrapping my arm around his shoulders and playing with the hair on the back of his head. He clumsily nudged his nose against mine, ‘are you okay?’. I smiled back and nodded. He beamed back at me and turned his head back to the person, who was apparently pissed that a beer can had smacked them in the face out of nowhere, and continued gibbering on that, ‘Coors Light is obviously the best beer in the world, dude, you can suck your Budweiser off’.

I grinned, still seven sheets to the wind drunk, and buried my face in Jack’s neck, who had curled his arm around my waist to make himself more comfortable. I could tell he was plastered, but not yet at the point where he was practically foaming at the mouth with trying to get his point across that, ‘COORS LIGHT IS THE KING OF ALL BEERS’. I slapped his shoulder, rather girlishly, and told him to calm down before a war broke out. He smirked back at me briefly and went back to snapping ‘your mom’ jokes at who I now recognised as Kara. Now she looked like she was already foaming at the mouth. She looked about five seconds away from letting out a battle cry and pouncing on him, actually.

Thankfully, he was saved by Rian, who very hurriedly swooped in and put his arm around Kara’s shoulders, shouting at Jack to stop being a douche to his girlfriend. I watched him flinch slightly as Kara hissed that he should have defended her honour and told Jack that, ‘AT LEAST BUDWEISER DOESN’T TASTE LIKE PISS WARMED UP!’. Me and Jack promptly burst into laughter and Rian shot us a warning glance, steering his very drunk and very uncompromising girlfriend in the opposite direction and disappearing into the crowd of people.

Jack turned to me and grinned wolfishly, asking me did I want another beer. I shook my head and hurriedly told him that I’d had enough, explaining that everything already looked like it was on a ninety degree angle and I didn’t want that to turn into one hundred and eighty. He nodded and pushed me off of his lap gently, snaking his way through the bustle of people to get to the crates of beer.

I sat with my head propped up against my fists, staring after him, and his dorky face, and his dorky smile, and that stupid skunk hair of his, with a goofy smile on my face. I then shook my head and let my whole body go lax, falling back against the couch and looking up at the ceiling.

Christ, I needed to get my head together. And soon, preferably.

I needed to get out of the frame of mind that Jack was suddenly going to wake up one morning and promptly decide that he was in love with me. I needed to stop pretending that this was a two Way Street, which it very painfully wasn’t.

I jumped a bit as Jack fell down next to me, dropping a can of beer in my lap. I lifted my head up and looked at him incredulously, deciding to overlook the fact that he had ignored me and had gotten me a beer anyway. I rolled my eyes and opened the beer, nodding my head in his direction as a silent thanks; bringing the beer up to his, both of us shouting, ‘cheers!’. I didn’t exactly know what we were celebrating, but then again, when have we ever needed a reason to celebrate?

He looked at me with that dorky smile of his, throwing his arm around my shoulder and shouting something along the lines of, ‘here, here! Bow down to the mighty Kings Jalex!’. I just rolled my eyes again and sipped my beer, inwardly cheering that he had used that dorky little nickname that the fans always used for us. I had always thought that it was quite cute. A couple of people shouted back, ‘here, here!’ and that seemed to satisfy Jack, as he slumped back against my chest and put his legs over the arm of the couch.

About half an hour later, I confidently told myself that Jack was completely wasted. Flailing about everywhere from his position on the couch (as he was too drunk to actually stand up), and slurring complete nonsense to anyone who was actually stupid enough to go near him. I had given up my quest to stop drinking for the night as soon as Jack had handed me that beer a while ago, and I wasn’t far behind him with the flailing and slurring.

He still lay against me on the couch, waving his arms around wildly as he tried to explain to an equally drunk Kara (who was hanging onto his every word like he was the next Messiah or something) that, ‘I don’t know, but I do know. Do you know? Of course you know! You know?’. And Kara had nodded enthusiastically, like what he had just said made absolute perfect sense and rambled on about how she got it, but Rian was stupid and he never got it. She then stood up, swaying slightly, and pulled Jack up, crushing him into a hug and telling him that they were best friends and that they would always get it.

I furrowed my eyebrows and tried to wrap my head around just what they were trying to say to each other, but only making myself even dizzier in the process. It must be some sort of special language that you could only speak when drunk as Jack Barakat and Kara Diakoulas.

Jack nodded solemnly, then abruptly burst into tears and buried his face in Kara’s neck. I jumped back a bit and felt my eyes widen, staring at the younger man like he had grown another head. Kara, who had apparently been expecting this small outburst because she didn’t seem fazed by it whatsoever, just shushed him and rubbed his back comfortingly, grinning at me from over his shoulder.

I still stared wide eyed at them, but managed a small smile and nodded curtly, taking Jack (who was still sobbing for no apparent reason, the big dork) off of her and sitting him down on the couch next to me again. As soon as he sat down, he suddenly stopped crying and looked at me with that stupid dorky smile, then proceeded to pass out against the back of the couch.

I petted his head awkwardly and stood up, making my way over to Matt and shakily telling him that Jack had knocked himself unconscious due to excessive alcohol consumption. Matt rolled his eyes, but then raised his voice to full volume and ordered everyone out of the bus, and anyone who didn’t comply would lose their genitals.

The bus cleared out pretty fast after that.

It took Matt, Rian (Kara had apparently disappeared into thin air), and Grieco to lift Jack up safely (and by safely, I mean that there was no chance of dropping the poor guy on his head. I had offered to help, but I was at that stage of intoxication where I could barely hold myself up, never mind Jack) and carry him to his bunk.

When Jack was securely tucked into his bed (with his mouth hanging open, looking a bit like a human flycatcher), that’s when the Almighty Mother Matthew Flyzik came down on me like a ton of bricks.

He rounded up on me, cornering me in the kitchen (where I was giggling to myself that Jack was a dork and I was in love with him, a complete dork) and started shrieking that I was the eldest and that I should have been the responsible one and told Jack no when he had suggested they break into the whiskey. I giggled again and slapped Matt on the cheek, telling him to stop being such a mom. He looked mildly offended and then stormed off to go and shout at someone else, seeing as he was already in ‘mother Matt’ mode.

I stumbled into the bunk area, still giggling to myself, tripping over something that appeared to be a body and catching myself on the frame of one of the bunks. Rian was already in there, looking at me as if I were crazy. He mumbled a half-assed, ‘goodnight, bro’ and climbed into his own bunk, shutting the curtain with unnecessary force. I grunted in response and fell into my own bed (but not before smacking my head against the roof of it a couple of times).

I went to shut my curtain, but then I caught sight of Jack again, whose bunk was right next to mine, and stopped; butterflies filling my stomach and threatening to burst out of my mouth if I opened it.

His mouth was still hanging open, but now he was snoring softly; which sounded more like quiet purrs. I put my hand up to my mouth to stifle my giggles (and I was also afraid that butterflies might spill out if I wasn’t careful).

He looked adorable. In a dorky sort of way. Adorkable, I decided on, cackling manically like I belonged in a psych ward.

And then I abruptly became absolutely exhausted. I rubbed my eyes with the pads of my hands and had to fight to keep them open. I wanted to watch Jack for a little longer, no matter how creepy it sounded. I liked watching him when he slept; it was the only time when he was quiet. But even then, he snored so you couldn’t really call it quiet, but he never spoke, which was a miracle in itself because the guy never shut up. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day he just started talking in his sleep. Because, after all, not all is right with the world when Jack Barakat is silent and not asleep or unconscious.

I closed my eyes briefly and turned over so that I was facing him. I opened my eyes and my breath caught in my throat; because even though I already knew, of course I already knew I had been looking at him since I was fourteen years of age, the guy was beautiful. He was stunning. With his big brown eyes, his awkward, lanky frame, his dorky face, his dorky smile, and that stupid skunk hair of his.

I cursed at his parents fleetingly for making such a beautiful child and then I smirked to myself, the effects of the alcohol still making everything seem a hundred times funnier as I thought of Jack’s parents having sex. How could Joyce do that to me? She was my one true love.

I snorted; poor Joyce. If only she knew.

I reached over and brushed Jack’s bangs out of his eyes, tucking them behind his ear, only for them to fall back into place because of the angle he was laying.

Beautiful. I love you, you dork.

And as I lay here, staring over at him in his bunk; with his mouth hanging open, drooling slightly, snoring softly, that stupid skunk hair of his matted to his forehead; I smiled again; big and bright like a Christmas tree, because I know that I will dream about him, and his dorky face, and his dorky smile, and his stupid skunk hair tonight, in all of his dorky glory.