All Growed-Up
As you probably know, I don't own Four Brothers or the characters used. I'll return them to their rightful owner soon enough. As for now, on with the show:
one/one.
The bar is crowded. Most of the people, however, have congregated up front, by the stage.
Bobby Mercer is leaning against the bar, sipping at his drink. He makes small talk with the bartender until he comes out. Even after that he pretends as if he's interested in her just so he doesn't have to admit that Jack's actually pretty good.
Of course, if you're into that indie shit that Bobby would never listen to..
They're all relatively handsome. He looks the youngest. Lance looks the oldest (which is fitting because he is). And Ben looks indifferent. He smirks every once in awhile. Other than that, he seems indifferent and rather apathetic to everything.
He must say, that Jack is a good performer.
He seems so outside of himself.
He shakes and shimmies and twirls and stomps and Bobby imagines that this is all second-nature to him now. Jack looks good up there. He teases the words. Rolls them over his tongue, pulls them backwards, and feeds them to his audience very slowly. Sometimes he'll whisper. Sweetly. Usually when they start off a song.
The best part?
Jack's not the singer.
He plays guitar. He does it well. He makes atrocious faces and every girl in that audience swoons. Randomly he'll come up to the front and shake around a little more. He'll sing backup for Lance, who's always been a little shy.
Lance'll give him this look. This look that says that they have some kind of inside joke. He isn't bitter. No. Jack gets all the attention and he isn't even lead singer. All the girl's ask for Jack to sign their asses and all of the waitresses bend over just-conveniently-enough when they take his order. Lance isn't jealous though. He doesn't want to fuck a new girl every night, forgetting their names by the morning and fumbling for them awkwardly when trying to decide how to sneak out of the room without being noticed. Lance won't have a girl in his room every night and yet he will never be as lonely as Jack.
Jack likes the attention though.
He likes the attention because he's never been able to get it off stage. Not in the way he wants. Secretly, Jack wants to be seen. He wants to be wanted. He likes when they're in a restaurant and a girl will give him 'the look' just because she knows that he's in a band. Doesn't even matter that he messed up a million times during his set. Doesn't matter if they played shitty.
Albeit, Jack's good tonight.
He's on the ball. He knows what he's doing because he's done it so many times before. And Bobby wonders what's going through Jack's mind. What he's really thinking about when he get's close to Lance and rolls his eyes dramatically. When Lance smiles at him before he gives his audience his attention once more, taking one more glance over at Jack Mercer.
Bobby feels a twinge of jealousy. He can't help but to feel like the stage dad, checking up on his son to make sure he's being taken care of.
Jack had told him that he would need a ride and Bobby decided to stop in early. Because he didn't have anything better to do and because he wanted to see the crowd Jack associated with.
Either way, Bobby doesn't fit in.
Not into Jack's life-style. Not into his scene.
Bobby doesn't see Jack leave but when he gets out there Jack's smoking something, leaning against some blonde and laughing.
Bobby wonders if what they're laughing at is really funny.
And when Jack notices him and calls him over and introduces him to all of his friends who are already drunk– or at least slightly buzzed– he realizes that he doesn't really know his little brother. Bobby wants to grab him and tell him that this isn't for him. But he's never seen Jack happier. He's never seen Jack more at ease. More comfortable with his peers. Jack wraps his arm around Bobby and pulls him over and Bobby shakes all of their hands.
Jack's accepted.
He's accepted in a way that he's never been before. They look at him in a way that Bobby never could.
He could never separate that little kid from who he is now. Nineteen and so grown up.
"You ready?" Bobby whispers, kind of surprised with his own voice.
They don't talk on the way home.
One of them is content. Happy, in a way. He's happy because he's sort-of making it as a 'rock star' and because he's finally found a crowd of people that may just be their first fan base. He's happy because this is for him. His life is, in a way, just beginning.
The other one is slightly disheartened because he's just realized that his little brother is growing up. He isn't growing, in fact, he's grown. And he realizes that he's probably never going to have kids of his own and that this is the closest he'll get to raising a child and that saddens him because, in a way, his importance... his life, has ended.
And he doesn't know how to handle that.
An: Wowzers. I took a LONG time before posting this. I kept re-reading it, over and over and over. I'm still a little shaky but I'm sure, now, that this is as good as it's getting /
Hope you enjoyed it. Review and tell me what you think? No? Yes?