Social Norms (Synacky)

Chapter Nine

The unfortunate events continued the next day, when Michelle showed up at Brian’s house.

His parents were out, dad at the studio and Suzy at a friend’s with McKenna, and Brent was hanging out with his friends for once. So Brian lazed around all morning, watching Batman Returns in his pajamas with a Dr. Pepper and a guitar magazine before him. He didn’t have to be at Jimmy’s until three, and he was taking full advantage of the morning to do nothing.

That is, until the doorbell rang.

He groaned, setting down his drink and pausing his film and ambling his way to the door.

He wasn’t expecting to see Michelle there, but he wasn’t surprised either. He sighed, going to close the door, but she said, “Brian, wait!”

Brian huffed, slouching against the doorframe. “What do you want?” he asked.

“I-I wanted to apologize. I want a second chance.”

“Not happening. Go screw your boy toy.” He went to close the door again, but she stopped him.

“Wait, Bri, can’t I come in?”

“No. And don’t call me that.”

“Please, Brian, it was a mistake, and I regret it, I really do.”

“You don’t regret a thing, Michelle. The only thing you regret is getting caught.”

“But don’t you love me? If you really loved me, you’d understand and we could work through this!”

“If you really loved me you wouldn’t have fucked King in the first place.” Brian spat back. “Get off my porch.”

“But Brian I-“

“Get the fuck away from me!” Brian shouted. “I’m not going to get hurt like that again!”

“No, you won't, I swear! Just give me one more chance, Brian, please!”

Brian grumbled to himself as he slammed the door in her face. He locked it. And then he went back to his movie.

~*~

He felt a bit sour as he sat down with Zacky that afternoon. Michelle’s surprise visit had put a damper on his spirits. Zacky seemed to notice this, but tried his best not to say anything, just working on his parts and showing Brian a lick he had written himself. It wasn’t that bad. Zacky said it was going to be on the track “Turn the Other Way.”

It was near the end of practice when Zacky looked up from his tabs he was writing at Brian, who was examining the strings on his guitar carefully. “You alright?” he asked.

“Fine.” Brian replied shortly, “Never been fucking better.”

Zacky was quiet for a while, watching Brian tune his guitar for the twelfth time that day. Normal, to drop D, to open G, to a full step down, then back to normal. “Do you want to go to the park?” he asked, “I can push you on the swings…”

Brian shook his head, twisting a tuning peg so his lowest string came back around to an E. “I’d rather not.”

“We could, um, go get ice cream.”

Brian paused and quirked an eyebrow at the younger boy. “Ice cream?”

“Yeah, why not? It’s hot out, and ice cream always makes me happier.”

Brian sighed, standing up. “Okay.” He turned to the rest of the guys and said, “Zacky and I are gonna go get some ice cream. You guys wanna come?”

It was just Matt and Jimmy, Wendt had quit the band and they had yet to see if Justin could join them. “Sounds great.” Matt said, and Jimmy screamed, “FUCK YEAH!”

The day was sweltering in Huntington Beach. Jimmy tried to walk on his hands alongside the guys, but the asphalt proved too hot for his hands and he had to resort to walking like a normal person.

They went down to an old ice cream shop that had been around since forever, and Brian offered to buy everyone’s cones. He’d just get the money back from his dad that night.

“M Shadows.” Matt said before he took a huge bite of his rocky road ice cream. He winced at the sharp effects of a brain freeze, then said, “Yeah, M Shadows is perfect.”

“For what?” Brian asked, and Matt grinned.

“My stage name. It sounds dark and mysterious, and it still has a bit of my name in it.”

“Matt Shadows.” Brian repeated.

“No, M. Not Matt. I like M a lot better. Yeah, I can see that. M Shadows, vocalist for Avenged Sevenfold.” He turned to Jimmy and asked, “What about you, Jim?”

Jimmy was taking spoonfuls of his ice cream and flinging them at passersby. He paused, spoon pulled back ready to launch another glob of cookie dough. “I don’t know.” He said, “I’ll have to think about that.” He was silent for a moment before he said, “I like Plague. Bartholomew Plague. No, wait, just Tholomew. Yeah, Tholomew Plague, motherfuckers! The Reverend Tholomew Plague, here to remedy your misfortunes! Or wreak havoc on civilization. Whichever comes first.”

The guys all laughed and agreed with him, and Brian thought the name matched Jimmy perfectly. “Zacky?” he asked, “What about you?”

“Um, I was thinking maybe Zacky Vengeance.” He replied, “I’m gonna prove to all those fuckers who hate me that I’m more than they think I am.” He examined a drip of vanilla ice cream dripping down the side of his cone and said, “But I mean, only if that’s alright with you guys…”

“I think that’s fucking genius, Zacky.” Jimmy said, “You will prove all those whiny bitches wrong.”

Brian smiled softly at that. Zacky Vengeance. It was a very good name indeed.

“You guys’ll be just like Guns N Roses.” He laughed, knowing for a fact they were nowhere near that good.

“Well, I don’t think we’ll be as successful as them,” Matt sighed wistfully, “But we sure as hell will have cool names like them.”

“To being successful motherfuckers!” Jimmy cried, holding up what was left of his ice cream, and Zacky and Matt held theirs up too.

“To writing a great solo.” Brian mumbled to himself, toasting to his own success. Then Jimmy shoved his cone in Matt’s face, and Brian scooped the ice cream out of his cone, smearing it on Zacky’s cheek. Zacky’s eyes opened wide, and he looked at Brian in shock.

Brian wanted to kiss him.

The overwhelming need for his lips to be on Zacky’s hit him hard in the gut, and he stared back at Zacky in just as much shock. “I-It’s been fun, I gotta go.” he managed to choke out, standing from his place at their table, eyes still on Zacky’s.

That night, he lay in bed confused, wondering what the hell brought those thoughts into his head. He wondered what it would be like to kiss Zacky. Would his lips be soft? Chapped? Would he be a good kisser? What would it be like to run his tongue over those snakebites, to tug on one gently with his teeth?

Brian shook his head. There was NO way he was thinking about kissing the queer kid. That’s all he was, anyway. A faggot. And Brian wasn’t.

So why couldn’t he stop thinking about it?