Further

By a.j.

It was amazing how natural some things were. You didn't really learn how to move your toes and your fingers and your head. You just Knew. You didn't really learn how to feel. You just did. You didn't learn what you liked and what you didn't. You just knew.

You didn't really learn how to love. You just did.

Freddy didn't really learn to come back to where he should be, where he felt the safest. He just did.

Even though that meant facing Zack.

Facing your problems was definitely not one of those Natural attributes people have on default. It is something people have to learn. Something Freddie hadn't yet learned. Instead, he liked to sit back and let things work themselves out. Though that would probably explain his piss-poor relationships with most people. And his less-than-his-best grades.

But who the hell cared?

Well, sometimes Freddy cared. Not that it was that much of a big deal. It was just that sometimes he thought that it would be nice if life were simple like things were in fifth and sixth grade.

Now he was almost an adult. Alright, he admitted it. He was almost an adult. That means he had real responsibilities and there were real consequences for his actions. It wasn't like in Elementary school where all you had to do was say "I'm sorry, want a cookie?" Now he had to think and apologize and basically just hope and pray that the other person would forgive him and that things could sort of kind of return to some sort of normal.

That was hard. Especially the day after. Especially when the other person refused to even look at you, even when you were at his house.

The moment he arrived at The Band's band practice, things began to quiet down. It wasn't that everybody was particularly mad at him. Admittingly, Summer was still very pissed off at him, though that was just for Zack's sake.

"Glad you could make it," she sneered as he walked through the door. Freddy rolled his eyes, and Zack just kept his eyes staring straight forward as he went to pick up his guitar once more.

"Whatever," he whispered under his breath. While he usually would have made some snide comment back, Summer's hero-worship of Zack was just damned annoying right now.

He knew why, of course.

"Alright, let's, uh, take it from 'He didn't know.'" Zack said, his voice just barely loud enough to hear. Nobody said anything about the silence, about the tension, about the constant downward looks, though Freddy heard the distinct sounds of whispering amongst the backup singers.

He had to smile at the choice of song, though. The song they had written six months ago. Even when he wanted to, Zack could never escape him.

The Band played for another hour. Their sound was very strained, for their minds were very strained. When somebody was off, the whole group was thrown off with them. Freddy felt horrible that, because of him, the whole band sounded as horrifying as it did. But he knew there was little he could do about it.

Fuck that. He couldn't do anything about it. Not when Zack wanted to be a drama queen about everything.

"Alright, uh, let's just. Um." Zack paused to run his fingers through his hair, sifting the black strands out of his eyes. "Let's take a break."

The whole band murmured in agreement. All Freddy could do was bang his drumsticks on his knees to try to distract himself.

Your fault, he berated himself. Your fault your fault your fault your fault

"Freddy?"

He opened his eyes to find himself looking in a pair of deep, brown eyes. Not His brown eyes, though.

"What?"

"We're starting practice again," Katie explained. She turned around and started to walk away, then turned around and looked at him.

"You know we're all here."

Freddy smiled and nodded before turning his eyes back down to his drumset. He knew every single inch of it, from the shining metal of the cymbals to the fuzzy head that beat the pulse of the bass drum.

He remembered the day he had finally completed his "Dream Set." Zack was there. They were twelve. His mother had to specially order the crowning glory, the custom snare. It was red, his favorite color as well as Zack's, with black glitter coating it, just man enough to be forgivable but showy enough to be Freddy. The pad was black, and the pieces that held it together were made of real silver, not metal. He knew it would shine on stage better than anything, and he knew it would go perfectly with the rest of his set. They had driven three hours out away just to pick it up, a journey that caused him to lose the rest of his allowance for the whole month just to pay for the gas money. Not that that mattered much to him.

The day that they got it, he had entered the shop with his mother and Zack, who had insisted that he come along. He had thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life. He was wrong. The most beautiful vision was seeing it with the rest of his drum set.

He had stared and looked at it for almost fifteen minutes, Zack standing just close enough and yet still far away, before the other boy got restless. Suddenly, a hand on his shoulder. Zack. He turned around and smiled.

"Isn't it perfect?"

Zack had sighed and looked at it. "I guess, if you're a loser." He looked up at Freddy and smiled his mischievous smile, the one where one of his eyes grew squinty. Freddy had playfully punched him in the arm.

"Whatever, Mr. 'Ohmygawd I got the 1999 Gibson Les Paul guitar!'" Zack only smiled in return.

"It's missing something, Jones."

Freddy had laughed. "Yeah, me sitting behind it."

Zack's eyes had gotten that mischievous look into them again. "Yeah, yeah that's it." He had turned around and fingered the strings on his guitar for a second, smiling to himself, before turning back around. "You know, I think I saw something underneath your seat when I helped set it up."

Freddy stared at him, curiosity laced throughout his features. He turned and went to his stool, picked it up and moved it. Underneath it was a long, crudely-wrapped package of shiny gold wrapping paper and an orange bow on top. The colors completely clashed. He had looked up and smirked.

"What is this, Mooney?"

Zack had said nothing, just smiled and given him that piercing, daring look. Freddy bent down, picked it up, and literally tore the wrapping away.

Drumsticks. Black drumsticks with gold tips and smooth, fine handles. Extra long. And his initials on them.

Freddy had looked up and grinned, his grin meeting the same one five feet away from him. The one where he smiled out of the side of his mouth and his eyes shone like diamonds.

Freddy looked down at the same pair of drumsticks in his hands, three years later. The handles were bent out of shape, no longer sleek black but black with specks of light brown here and there from where the twigs were coming loose. The gold had long since chipped away, and his initials were faded. But the one thing that did stand out was the carving of Zack's initials that Freddy insisted just had to be there.

He smiled sadly, lost in his own thought, and earned himself another verbal berating from Summer when he had finally returned to Planet Earth.

"Come on, Freddy, we need a drummer in the here and now, not somewhere in your own little dream world."

Freddy only smiled a sad smile and twirled the drumsticks between his fingers. Summer smiled back, her protective side overshadowing her business side. She crossed her thin arms over her chest, her usual stance, the bossy side taking its place.

"Oh yeah, Freddy, it's time for you to pick what we're eating when we're done. What do you want?"

"He doesn't know," came an angry, hissing whisper from the other side of the room. All heads turned to Zack, who was looking at Freddy through thick bangs, his guitar clutched in his fists. His knuckled were turning white.

"Zack-" Summer began.

"He doesn't know what he wants. Or he won't say it. He's a coward."

"That's it!"

All eyes turned this time to face Lawrence, surprise written on all of their faces.

"I can. Not. Take. This. Shit. Anymore. If there's a problem between you two, any of you, you leave it out of this room, huh? What happens out there stays out there."

Everybody looked around at each other, too surprised to move or say anything. They watched at Lawrence silently picked up his backpack and put on his sunglasses.

"I'm leaving. We can't do this when you two are fighting." He waved dismissively at the group, one foot already out the door. "Work it out."

And with that, Lawrence had exited the building. Under and other circumstance, Freddy would have given him a medal, or at least a standing ovation, for fucking talking for once.

However, it wasn't any other circumstance. It was this circumstance.

An immense silence filled the room, followed by the shuffling of feet. Freddy looked down, watching through the space between his bass and his food pedal as Converse after Converse trampled out of Zack's garage. He picked up his drumsticks and began beating against his knees nervously.

He barely noticed as one final pair of Converse – plain black, scuffed in the front, a hole on the right side, size 10 – filed past him, opened and closed the door, and was gone.

Well, Freddy. What about now?

He knew about now. Enough bullshitting. He stood up, and followed Zack, determined.