If Only Until Morning

Whether by serendipity or the amazing skill of our bus driver, our bus was parked in the perfect place... for us all to get incredibly fast internet access. So in the morning before our set, all five of us-- I disincline to include Ali because she's a psychotic fuckhead-- were sitting on the lounge couches, clacking away on our laptops in complete silence.

Well, not really silence, because we'd all agreed to turn on some Muse and had it playing at fully volume. Occasionally one or two of us would sing along and maybe do a little air guitar or drums.

Personally, I was using my time to be social, by answering emails from friends, updating fans on our adventures on tour, and talking online with the few people not on tour that I actually wanted to talk to. This, sadly, consisted of about three people: my oldest brother, my mom, and my friend Beth from Chicago. The last was the most entertaining, with her demanding pictures of tour mates and generally just amusing me.

At one point she sent me a link, and when I asked what it was, she said, "Just read it." So I opened up the link and to my curiosity popped up a lot of text done up with a lot of pretty colours... and pictures of the band spliced together.

My eyes widened as I read, soon realising what this was. There was no mistaking the flowery language and explicit detail of emotions and... actions.

PenelopeDreadful: What the FUCK are people doing writing fan fiction about us?!
innocentsubterfuge: XD
innocentsubterfuge: You have to admit it's sexy.
PenelopeDreadful: Not between Sean and me, it's not! I will not stand for bandcest!

"Ange, you look like a bunch of hardcore fetish porn just popped up on your screen," Aromi observed from beside me. The other three snickered while I continued staring at the screen. Never before had I understood the comparison of watching a train wreck. Let me tell you: now I did. I wanted to scratch my eyes out, but I couldn't stop reading.

Aero leaned over my shoulder and, unfortunately, read the incredibly... graphic... part. "Oh my god!" he exclaimed, voice jumping an octave. "You guys are officially on the map!"

Jesse glanced up from his laptop. "Why's that?" he asked disinterestedly.

Our manager began laughing hysterically. "You guys have fanfics about you!" Matt , Jesse, and Sean all simultaneously flinched and immersed themselves in their laptops. Although still mortified, I couldn't help but laugh. Their fear of the fictionalisation of their lives, I found hilarious.

This discovery, after a long six minutes of silence, led to a conversation about whether this actually meant something incredible for our popularity or there were just a select few obsessed girls out there. So we had to look. Oh yeah, once Beth sent me that one story, curiosity got the better of us (mainly Aromi) and we found more.

Frighteningly more. In a variety of shapes and flavours.

Some of it was pretty terrible, but most was just mediocre or borderline pornographic. Some of the things people had us doing had me in stitches, though, and after I read a few paragraphs aloud to the guys, they crowded around to read as well. Which is how we were almost late for our set, the four of them reading over my shoulder and all of us laughing hysterically, blushing, and thoroughly freaked out.

But we tried to forget about it, since sprinting to the stage and not being late kind of occupied our whole thought process. We got there in enough time to set up our shit without rushing around too much and went on right on time to play.

As per the trend I'd noticed becoming a common occurrence, a few of our tour mates who had nothing else to do were sitting on the sides, out of view of the crowd, and watching our set. Today we had Spencer Smith, Ryland Blackinton, Alexander Gaskarth, and Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz the Third. Label convention much? Well, except Alex, but he didn't count. Half of Escape the Fate also watched for a little, but they ran off to play.

I nodded at one of the tech crew, telling me we had time for one more song, and turned to the crowd. "So before our last song," I began, fiddling around with my bass, and people booed in disapproval. "Yes, it sucks, but I have a question. How many of you know what fanfiction is?" I raised my hand and scanned the people, raising their hands, cheering, and or laughing. "Alright, well, it has come to our attention that it exists with us as protagonists." My eyes darted to the side of the stage to see Pete trying not to laugh.

"Creepy? A little. Well, I don't want to preach, but every musician had one cause they're against... and for me," I declared, tilting my head at Jesse grinning, "That's a little thing I call bandcest." Matt's laughter could be heard over the crowd all the way from behind his drumset. "I have no problem with people writing alternative realities, but the sanctity of a band should never be tainted by the insinuation that they're screwing each other senseless the minute they're done playing. Especially since all members of our band are straight."

Now the whole crowd was laughing and cheering, including our famous friends over on the side watching. Well, except Alex. Alex was giving me an insinuating look, and I understood in a second what he meant. "You wipe that smirk off your face, Gaskarth," I order, pointing at him. "You know there's shit about you."

Cue fawning fangirls at the mention of Alex. I rolled my eyes. "But like I said, this is our last song, and you've been a phenomenal audience."

Spencer and the others were still laughing by the time we'd come offstage. Ryland wiped away a tear from his eye and hugged me with one arm. "You are my favourite person," he told me jovially.

"So who was it?" Alex asked, grinning at me.

"Who was what?" Jesse asked, wiping sweat off his forehead.

Alex's smirk widened. "Who was Penelope banging in the fic?" I rolled my eyes and put my bass away in its case. "Bet it was hot; she's blushing."

I narrowed my eyes at him and put on my own little smirk. "You know what slash is, Alex?" I asked sweetly. He nodded slowly. I winked and started to stroll away. "You and Jack and Zack would have a hot three-way, sweetheart."

He voiced his disgust so loudly I think a flock of birds on the other side of the venue were unsettled and took to the air.

I don't blame him. Guy on guy action when they're both as attractive as they are confuses and makes me sad. It further supports my theory that all the good ones are gay, taken, short, or twenty-five. Plus if two guys are making out, or two girls, they're not interested in you. So why should you be interested in them? Obviously most guys haven't thought about this.

During my ponderings, I ran across the rest of Cobra Starship, probably going to collect their guitarist, and joined their squad in walking. "D'you know who that was yelling?" Gabe asked.

"Gaskarth," I replied casually. "I informed him of the existence of graphic slash fiction involving him and several other people."

Alex shuddered, Nate made a face, Victoria laughed, and Gabe only nodded. "Yeah, that's pretty sick," he said. "It's never cool to hear about you and another dude, even in fantasy land."

I eyed him. "You're taking this not as I imagined."

"He reads fanfiction," Vicky informed me helpfully.

"Only about myself though," Saporta added when I blinked in surprise. "It's pretty hilarious, actually. Bill does it, too."

"I do what now?"

How is it that whenever you're talking about someone, they immediately appear and enter the conversation? Usually this is a bad thing, but in this scenario, I could use it to my advantage. "You read fanfiction about yourself?" I asked, laughing.

Bill nodded, with absolutely no shame. "Yeah. It's amusing."

I shook my head and split off from the group as Ryland sauntered up. "This group is getting much too bizarre for my tastes at the moment," I decided, heading towards our merch booth. "But call me when Patrick shows up riding a unicycle and I'll bring the camera to post a video on YouTube."