Suicide Doors
Chapter Seven
By: Jondy Macmillan
A/N: THIS. This is my new favorite link- (here goes the httpcolonslashslash)notalwaysright(dotcom)/another-blow-to-the-disney-slave-trade/1933 Everyone should go check it out, 'cause it made me laugh. Also- I've had a couple reviewers tell me they hate Penny. I just wanted to let everyone know I'm not exactly a fan myself- I don't hate her, but I actually don't like any of the girls on the show other than Stella and Macy. 'Cause…well, there's just not enough character to like. But I also don't like putting OC's in fanfics unless it's a fanfic completely made of OC's. So….there's my explanation of Penny's presence.
He found a bar with gigantic wooden doors propped open like welcoming arms. They kind of resembled the entrance to a barn. The outside walls were painted red, just to add to the illusion.
It was called 'Off The Chain' or 'Off the Hook' or some three word title starting with 'off' that Joe would be too drunk to remember by the time he left.
It was too early in the evening for the place to be filled, but there was a smattering of older men staring at the large plasma screen TVs with rabid eyes. There was a Yankees game on. Joe ignored it. He'd never liked sports much, and right now getting blitzed was infinitely more important than watching men run back and forth across a field miles and miles away.
Outside the air smelled damp with the promise of rain. Joe sat nearest to the doors, where he could people watch. It seemed like a better alternative to sulking in the dark shadows of the booths in back.
He ordered a beer from a bartender who couldn't have been taller than five foot two; she could barely see over the bar top. Still, she smiled at Joe in a pretty, being-polite-for-tips way that made him instantly like her. Somewhere during the course of the night, they'd strike up a conversation and talk about her majoring in philosophy and then dropping out of school three credits short of graduation to find herself, but that would be many drinks later.
Joe sipped his beer, tongue rolling around notes of sweetness and bitterness, tickled by carbonation and cold. There was a break in the game, and a commercial advertising JONAS's upcoming concerts a couple months from now aired. There was a flash of Nick's face, and Joe downed the rest of his drink, missing the closing list he knew by heart. PNC Bank Arts Center, the Bowery Ballroom, etc, etc, etc. Places he'd been a thousand times before, to play, or even better, to watch other people do the same.
Once, when he was small, he'd heard his parents fighting. His dad, goofball that he was, had gone out and gotten trashed with a group of his fraternity brothers from college. His mom had yelled and yelled that alcohol wasn't the solution to life's problems. Yeah, Joe was going to prove that was so not true.
In fact, he decided halfway through his second drink, alcohol was doing a damned good job of making him forget he'd had a problem at all. He began eavesdropping on some of the old men's conversations, listening to them pander on about what it had been like to be young and go to their first baseball games. Listening to them relive glory days that Joe was still living, only they didn't feel so glorious anymore.
After he'd polished off his third drink and the sky began to burgeon with clouds in a gunmetal gray color that was rarely seen outside of skyscraper windows and designer shoes, Joe gave into his pressing need to pee. The bathrooms were in the back, past the foosball table and the cracked leather booths.
The restroom had a rickety wooden door plastered with band stickers, although none of them were for JONAS. They advertised indie rock that Joe had barely heard of in whiffs and snatches of conversation from the school hallways, and some bands that he'd never heard of at all.
Inside, a figure caught his eye. Then he realized it was his reflection. There was his face in the mirror. He half smirked, hoping it would make him look anything but pale and wan. It didn't work. He glanced around to make sure there weren't any guerilla paparazzo hanging out by the urinals with the bane of the modern world; a camera phone.
"Rockstar," Joe whispered, touching his finger to the surface of the mirror, almost surprised when the glass didn't ripple away like water in a pond.
This night wasn't like the other one, when the whole world felt like it held promise. This night was air settling heavy on his arms, forecasting a monsoon about to pour from the pregnant sky and thoughts tucked back in the recesses of his mind, popping up at intervals like some kind of whack-a-mole game.
When Joe got back to the bar, he found his seat had been stolen by a mildly attractive girl with black hair and thick rimmed glasses. She didn't even look up when he leaned over her to ask the bartender for another beer.
After he gulped it down he realized she wasn't so attractive after all. He like dark hair, but it had to be curly. He liked doe eyes, but they had to have this spark of intelligence, this sly sense of humor lurking in the depths. This girl's eyes were flat, despite all the kohl around the edges, clumping together with her mascara.
His phone buzzed, but he ignored it, launching into a conversation with one of the old-timers. Staring at the sky only passed so much time, and really, really involved too much thinking.
The man was a vet from the Korean war, only he pronounced it Kor-an, and at first Joe thought he was talking about the Islamic holy book. Only Joe doubted he would talk about that at all, because this man was the kind of person who said A-rabs, like some kind of redneck. The man would only talk to him on commercial breaks, so Joe turned to the bartender next. That's when she told him all about 'finding herself', like it was some kind of intramural sport you perfected with real world experience. Joe wasn't sure about that; he had a lot of real world experience, but he didn't really seem to know who he was any better than he had when he was five.
His phone vibrated again. This time he deigned to check the caller ID. It was Nick, and that just meant he desperately needed another drink, and was it time for hard liquor yet? What was that rhyme? Beer before liquor, never been sicker?
Hmm…
Really, who listened to stupid rhymes anyway? When had Twinkle Twinkle Little Star helped anybody with anything?
Exactly.
Joe ordered a Long Island Iced Tea if only because it was the only drink he'd ever seen his mom drink other than a Bloody Mary, which had entirely too many vegetables in it for a proper drink. He'd always wanted a sip, but Sandy Lucas wasn't about to advocate of underage drinking to her sons.
It tasted kind of like spiked soda, which was alright, but not as good as straight whiskey. It didn't burn the same way going down.
The third time Joe's phone rang, he picked up. He wasn't sure why; nothing had changed. Not the reason he was here, not his state of inebriation, and not his feeling that he might-maybe-possibly have been feeling something with someone he seriously shouldn't be even thinking about that way.
It helped that it was Kevin calling this time.
"Dude, where are you?" Kevin's voice sounded tinny and faraway, "You need to get home, like, now."
"Um," Joe murmured, "Do I have to?"
"Yes!" Kevin was getting all high and squeaky, the way he did when he lied, or when he was seriously freaked out.
"I don't think I should," Joe told the phone in his most serious business voice, his Nick Lucas voice.
"Joe, what the hell's all that noise in the background? Where are you?"
"Out."
"Out where?" Kevin asked suspiciously, "Please don't be where I think you are. Joe, you can't do this."
For some reason Joe found that hilarious; of course he couldn't do this. He couldn't do anything, not even be normal. Maybe that's why, he thought. Maybe all his suppressed rage at not being able to control shit in his life recently somehow spiraled into taboo lust. Oh, yeah, this was getting funnier by the second. Joe was laughing and laughing and Kevin was saying something, but it sounded more like Pig Latin than actual English.
"Joe, come home!" his big brother pleaded, and maybe it struck a chord; the idea of someone being brotherly. If Kevin could be all fraternal and loving, Kevin who'd barely been smart enough to graduate high school, there was no way Joe couldn't do it. He could be big brotherly too. He could not have bad, dirty, disgusting thoughts about wanting Nick to make out with him instead of stupid, whorish Penny…and wow, maybe Joe hadn't actually thought about Nick's lips on his until that moment, but he definitely was now.
"Okay," he whispered to Kevin, hating himself for caving, but hating himself even more for not knowing what else to do. Maybe he could talk to Kevin about this. Maybe Kevin would offer him an arm and 'big brotherly advice', and Joe would take it and say- what, exactly? There was no way he could tell Kevin about this. He'd end up getting electroshock therapy at the local madhouse.
Yeah, time for one more drink. Just for the road.
Joe ran to his car, stumbling over his own feet in a drunken stupor. The sky was falling down, water pouring from a scar in the heavens.
Rain was never the same in New York City as it was back home. Here the pavement grew gray, water pooling in ancient dents and curves on sidewalks that probably hadn't seen repairs since the city had been called New Amsterdam. The puddles were oily black, and it was conceivable they were filled with floating trash and homeless-man-piss.
Even the raindrops felt like they were making him filthier instead of washing away his sins.
Then again, Joe was beginning to think he had the kind of sins that took more than a good downpour to erase.
Joe slammed the door of his car wide open, diving inside without caring that his leather seats were being soaked through. His keys lay at the bottom of his jacket pocket, but his fingers fumbled around them, unable to find a grip.
They fell to the floor, and when Joe glanced down the stupid removable rug looked a million miles away. He banged his head against the steering wheel in frustration.
Joe squeezed his eyes shut, at first because he was annoyed that he let himself get this fucked up. Then because he remembered why he'd done it, and it turned out being in love with your baby brother wasn't something you could erase with rain or liquor.
By the time Joe made it home it was hours after Kevin had called. He'd tried to be responsible and drive really slow, but Joe doubted Kevin would count drunk driving as being responsible at all.
His parents were already in bed; it was well past midnight. But when Joe made it up to the loft at the top of the firehouse, he found all the lights switched on.
Nick and Kevin were sitting on his bed. They hadn't noticed him yet, standing in the stairwell looking like a wet rat. Joe watched them, heads bent close together.
Brothers, consummately.
He shivered, a violent cough wracking through his body from the cold. It was enough to draw their attention.
They turned twinned looks of disappointment on him, and his heart caught in his chest.
Kevin did a once over on him, taking in the way Joe's jeans stuck to his thighs, the heavy, wet weight of his jacket. He got up from the bed and said quietly, "Mom just did a fresh load of laundry. I think there're some warm pajamas still in the dryer."
He went to fetch them, and when he passed by the stairwell Joe thought he'd never seen his older brother look so very old.
Then he was left alone, staring at the one person he'd been trying to avoid all night. It was weird; how comfortable he could feel on stage in front of thousands of screaming fans, but here, in his own bedroom, in front of a single person, his heart was beating out a samba.
"Hey," he said, but the word came out cracked. Broken.
Nick just stared at him, like he was trying to evaluate whether or not Joe was actually a stranger that had walked into his house by mistake. Joe grimaced and walked over to the bed.
"Honey, I'm home," Joe muttered a little louder than his initial 'hey', wishing Nick would just stop with the games already. Joe had never done well with the silent treatment.
"I can't even look at you right now," Nick finally said, and that's when Joe noticed the glowing computer screen next to him. Kevin hadn't been able to keep the pictures from him. Joe wondered if there would be more from tonight, or if hanging out with a bunch of old men watching baseball had bought him tabloid anonymity.
"Fine," Joe snarled, unable to help the rush of hurt that filled his chest, "Get the fuck off my bed."
Nick did, but he was a liar. He stood there, watching, while Joe stripped down to his boxers. By the time Kevin had returned with clean clothes, Joe was already pretending to be fast asleep.
But he could still feel Nick's eyes boring through his skull.
A/N: Aw, guys! I really appreciate the reviews!!! I know I'm slow at updating, and even slower at getting to the romance-bromance due to my affinity for long multi-chapter fics, but you've all been so supportive!!! So thank you, and please continue to review!!!
