Chapter Text
DO YOU WANT TO BE IN A ***BAND*** ?
DO YOU HAVE SOME SORT OF ***MUSICAL TALENT***?
ANY MUSICAL TALENT! FROM ELECTRIC GUITAR TO ELECTRIC KAZOO!
CHICAGO SUMMER BATTLE OF THE BANDS OR BUST
take a number slip
AND
Call Hunter
HUNTER IS STARTING A BAND!!!!!!
Hunter is starting a band.
That’s a thing that’s happening. It’s the dead of winter in the thriving metropolis of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the heat is out in Hunter’s house, and his dad’s too busy fooling around with Angela to do anything about it so, you know, Hunter’s next best bet is to hole up with a few Morrison comics and Wunderbars in the band room at school, which is, statistically, the warmest area on campus not counting the teacher’s lounge. And band kids – barring Andres, the friendly saxophone player and Don Quixote enthusiast – get a little cagey when outsiders loiter around on their turf, but they’re Hunter’s best – only – shot at not freezing to death a month into the new year, so the most logical avenue to pursue, in the name of blending in, is starting his own band.
His cell phone buzzes in the pocket of his green parka twenty minutes after he tacks the first flyer outside the cafeteria. He fumbles with it for a second and almost drops it, but manages a quick save at the last second.
“Hello, hi, this is Hunter,” he says without inhale.
“Oh,” the voice on the other end sighs out, long and self-important. It’s a dude. “How disappointing. I’m actually trying to reach the President of the United States on his landline; you wouldn’t happen to know that, would you?”
Hunter blinks, scratching his head.
“Um,” he says intelligently.
“Is this the idiot who put up the signs about starting a band?” A rustling sound. “I’m calling to let you know that I don’t think your flyer has enough exclamation marks”
“You--oh. So what you’re saying is…” Hunter makes a face, wiping at his running nose. “You’re actually not trying to call the U.S. President and you want to be in my band?”
“Add that punctuation we discussed and you have yourself a deal.”
“Okay, and, uh, who are you?” Hunter asks. “Wait, do you even go to school here?”
“Excuse me, yes, I do, and I’m offended you never noticed.” There’s a sniff. “Whatever. I’ll deign to remind you of my name; it’s Ike. Ike—”
An enormous roar takes up the speaker. Hunter yanks the phone away from his ear, staring at it with wide eyes until the noise subsides after a couple of seconds.
“I may or may not be near an area with heavy commercial vehicle traffic,” Ike says. “Anyway, now onto who you are, which I’m well aware of; you’re one of the AV Club poindexters, right?”
“My name is Hunter,” Hunter snaps, scowling at the phone before bringing it back to his ear. “But… yes, I’m in the AV Club. And the Chess Club. So listen, what do you play?”
“Everyone,” Ike replies lasciviously. “Only kidding. Or only saying I’m kidding for the benefit of your no doubt profoundly virginal mind. I play the bass, and occasionally Scopa, and the women like fiddles. Electric bass, mind you; none of that stand-up garbage. I made my peace with that foul instrument when I was still pre-pubescent.”
Hunter’s been steadily wrinkling his nose more and more as this guy’s talking has gone on, and now he’s pretty sure he must look like he swallowed a whole peeled lemon with, like, some vinegar as a chaser.
He bites his lip. Ike plays the bass. That might be a one-time deal of happenstance and fate.
“Okay, whatever, you’re in,” he blurts out, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Just… please shut up.”
“Amazing.” Ike gives a theatrical gasp. “I knew I was talented. How exactly do you plan to execute this, by the way? Because I would like to make it clear right now that I will not be playing in any garages, secret stages, barns, or lumber mills; that’s non-negotiable. And you’ll need to speak with my agent—”
“Seriously?” Hunter pales. Starting a band had not seemed this convoluted, in theory.
Ike snorts pointedly into the receiver. “No, idiot. I’m just fucking with you. It’s my preferred pastime, fucking with people. Where should I bring my bass and my smiling face along with it?”
“Uhhhhhh,” Hunter replies.
There’s a pause. “You know, I’m not sure if that will show up on Google Maps. Do you actually have anyone else for this band, or did you print a bunch of brightly-colored flyers in a compulsory fit of poor planning?”
“I, well, um,” Hunter says. “Y’know, I might not have… drawn out a flow chart for it, or anything; I just figured it would happen. That’s what bands do, right? They just sorta happen. Like Nirvana. Or Weird Al.”
“Weird Al is a solo artist, you—my God,” Ike mutters. “Our frontman and founder is a musical ignoramus. Incredible.”
“I am not!” Hunter protests hotly. “I’ve been playing guitar for like five years, dude, and I played the recorder in fourth grade.”
“My goldfish played the recorder in fourth grade; it’s practically national law,” Ike retorts. “Get off the goddamn phone and find us some other members, Hunter-boy; the window of opportunity is closing!”
“You can’t tell me what to do!” Hunter yells, but the other side of the line has already hit a dial tone.
“This band of yours, Hunter, my friend,” Andres chimes in from his spot by the piano, “Is there space for players of the castanets or saxophone?”
Andres is an exchange student from Spain and vice president of the AV Club. He decided to be Hunter’s friend on the second day Hunter hid out in the band room. Hunter admires his crustache and eloquent way of talking, even if he is kind of… odd. But good odd. Like, Doc Brown odd. Wait, no. Like Starfire from Teen Titans odd. Except not an alien (probably).
“At this point, anything goes,” Hunter answers with a sigh. He straightens after a second, inspiration dawning swiftly. “Andres… we are going to be the weirdest, most poorly constructed band in the entire Ontario province, and it’s gonna be fucking awesome.”
That’s when his cell phone rings again.
“Hello?” he yelps.
“Drums,” a voice grunts. “I play the drums. Do you need a drummer?”
“Yes!” Hunter replies brightly, turning over his shoulder to give Andres a thumbs-up. “Hey, question; what’s your stance on exclamation marks?”
Progress is made. Arguably. Hunter considers having a roster of seven newfound musicians in his improvised band to be progress, even if he does have to personally interview all of them on principle. Even if Ike insists on being present for all of these, as a self-proclaimed co-leader – “The John to your Paul, if you will, because if anyone’s going to bring around a Yoko Ono, it’s going to be me” – and apparently great judge of human character. Even if each one of his dozens of flyers did get at least three penises drawn on it.
“Where did you even find this one?” Ike asks while examining their latest recruit. He’s stretched across two chairs, one of them next to Hunter’s, and is in the middle of draining a can of Coca-Cola. His aviators, pushing back sandy hair, glint in the artificial light. Hunter would like to mention that he could not imagine the voice he’d first heard on his cell phone two days ago belonging to anyone else except this guy – he’s laconic, smug, snide, and only ever wears polo shirts.
Said recruit – who’s going out for keyboard, hopefully – is seated on the piano bench with his hands clasped tightly and hugged between his knees. His white shirt is buttoned all the way to the collar and tucked into his gray pants.
“He plays the organ at this church my grandma used to go to,” Hunter explains with a lot of active gesticulations. “I’ve heard he’s super good. You are super good, right?”
The boy gives a start and lets out a couple of evasive mumbling noises, scratching his now-bowed head.
“I ran in this morning during mass and grabbed him,” Hunter continues. “I don’t think he minded.”
“I don’t suppose he has a name?” Ike swallows the last of the soda and flings the can over his shoulder. The boy looks nothing short of mortally wounded by this.
Hunter scowls over at Ike. “Dude, he’s right there, and yes, he has a name.” He turns. “So, uh, about your name…”
“Fortunato Medeiros.” The introduction comes out quickly and a little self-conscious. He’s got an accent – Spanish maybe? Portuguese? Fuck if Hunter knows.
“Though outrageously amazing, it’s a bit of a mouthful. Can we call you ‘Tuna’ for short?” Ike proposes. “Much easier on the tongue.”
“Nobody’s calling anybody any fish names,” Hunter snaps.
Ike snorts. “How disappointing.”
Hunter rolls his eyes pointedly at Ike, shooting Fortunato the most helpless and apologetic look he can muster.
“I’m… really sorry about him; he’s a giant asshole with possible sociopathic tendencies,” he explains. “But he’s sick on the bass, so… you don’t get used to him, but you learn to exist around him.”
Fortunato looks the opposite of convinced.
“Not much of a talker, is he?” Ike stage-whispers.
Hunter elbows him, hard, in the side. It barely dents him. Ike is probably some kind of robot hell-bent on the extermination of the human race, but that’s just a guess.
“Fortunato,” Hunter says as gravely as he can after deciding to tear his attention away from Ike. He scoots his chair forward, each movement deliberate, until he and Fortunato are sitting face-to-face and Fortunato has leaned as far away as he can without tipping over. “Are you prepared to kill, die, and/or rock out until the sun rises in the name of this band we still don’t have a name for?”
Fortunato blinks.
“Y...es?”
Hunter lets out a “Woo!” of triumph and pumps his fist. “Nailed it.”
Everybody else just sort of falls into place. Jun Fukayama, the guy who had called about the drums, doesn’t so much play them as hit them really, really hard, but Hunter can work with that kind of sound. It’s alternative. And anyway, Jun Fukayama’s a big name at school, if only because he’s captain of the wrestling team and his twin brother, Hisao, is everyone’s best friend. Which is weird, because Jun manages to strike mortal fear into the hearts of everyone he meets, but maybe that will deter sleazy record labels who want to screw them over, or something.
Weirdly, Hisao’s boyfriend, Guillaume Sorel, who Hunter knows literally nothing about except that he moved from Quebec a couple of years ago (possibly) and makes out with Hisao a lot, signs up, too, on second guitar. He has good hair. For being in a band, that is. He doesn’t really talk much, though, except to Ike, and it’s usually to tell him to shut the fuck up and stop making lewd comments about any activities he may or may not undertake with Hisao in assorted campus broom closets and empty classrooms. Hunter doesn’t know how he can play so well if he’s so buff. He could almost definitely break his guitar if the situation called for it. They could probably use that.
Ian Simon comes out of virtually nowhere. Well, kind of. Hunter knows him from the AV Club but Hunter also knows that Ian Simon has no useful skills at anything except sneering and acting like he’s better than everyone else (and knowing a lot of Monty Python and old school Doctor Who trivia, like a lot), so Ian Simon signing up for the band comes out of virtually nowhere.
“No, of course I don’t play anything,” he scoffs like it’s the most obvious thing in the world and Hunter’s an idiot for even asking (a tone that Hunter is very familiar with). “Thought you lot could use a manager.”
“And you expect us to put our fate as a band in the hands of a guy who has clearly never had the foresight to visit an orthodontist?” Ike asks with a raised eyebrow. “How droll.”
“Wow, incredible; never heard any variation of that one before,” Ian mutters under his breath, moving a hand up to pinch his forehead. “And that’s why you need me to be your manager. No originality.”
“Hey!” Hunter bristles, trying to point indignantly at Ian, but failing because of the guitar slung over his torso, so he just tilts the neck at him slightly. “We’ve got plenty of originality.”
“You’ve been playing a cover of the Beatles’ ‘Yellow Submarine’ for the past two hours,” Ian deadpans. “Badly, by the way. Fortunato looks like he’s about to succumb to fatigue.”
All heads turn to Fortunato, who is standing behind the school’s ancient keyboard and blinking owlishly back at them as though startled to hear his own name. He looks fine.
“I am fine,” he says, giving a vague thumbs-up.
“Don’t let them win, Fortunato,” Ian whispers before turning his attention back to Hunter. “You need my help, Band Guy. Face it.”
“Do you even actually know my name?” Hunter demands in loud exasperation. “Because it’s not a noun or adjective followed by ‘Guy,’ okay, it’s—”
“Take a vote or something,” Ian interrupts, and Hunter clamps his mouth shut with a huff of fury. “All in favor of me being your manager, raise your hands.”
Everyone looks at each other. Slowly, hesitantly, Fortunato raises his hand.
Nobody else does. Hunter grins.
“Okay, all in favor of Ian going away forever, raise your hands!” he yells, shooting his own arm into the air.
No other hands are raised. Jun and Guillaume are both scowling at him and Ike is examining his fingernails. Hunter wilts, crestfallen.
“Guys, what the hell, you can’t not vote.”
“None of this is worth the effort it would take to lift my arm,” Guillaume grumbles. “Can we go back to playing now? Please? I told Hisao I’d be done by six for a movie—”
Hunter perks up. “Ooh, what movie?”
“Oh, what’s that? It’s the sound of no one caring,” Ike interjects, putting his hand up by his ear and everything like he’s actually hearing something. “Let the idiot think he’s a manager if he wants to, just so long as he doesn’t impose any curfews or force us to wear spandex.”
“I object to this,” Hunter sputters.
Fortunato cautiously mumbles, “I think I need to go to the restroom—”
“Fuck this. ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR!” Jun bellows before attacking the drums again, and that’s how Ian Simon becomes their manager.
It’s April and their band is so weird and it still doesn’t have a name.
“I propose that we go the easy route and bastardize the names of other successful bands to create a new, ridiculous whole,” Ike opens on Wednesday.
Hunter blinks up at him, halfway through tuning his guitar, and Guillaume, who’s doing the same thing to his, glares flatly. Fortunato lowers his rabeca (because, yeah, other than being great on the keys, he’s also been playing rabeca since he was seven; who knew; not Hunter, that’s who). Andres continues polishing his saxophone – he’s not actually in the band, but there’s a distinct possibility that he lives in the band room, so he’s there for a lot of the practices, and sometimes he jams with them; whatever, whatever. Jun isn’t there yet, but he’s always late.
“That’s really stupid,” Hunter says.
“I concur,” Ian agrees from his spot propped up against the amp by his elbows. “Seriously, man. Just give it up. I’m gonna get another migraine.”
“I will give nothing up,” Ike retorts, and Hunter has to admit he’s impressed at how good the guy is at pretending he actually gives a single shit. “If this inane Band Battle in July is really what we’re aiming for, I’m fairly certain we’ll need something to put on the sign-up sheet and all ensuing paperwork. And by the way, just throwing out a question for the group – how do we plan to get there, exactly?”
“It’s ‘Battle of the Bands,’” Hunter snaps testily. “Dude, why are you even here? Like, seriously? All you do is make dumb suggestions and act obnoxious.” He pauses. “Except the… travel logistics thing. You had a point with that.”
“I take offense.” Ike sniffs as though wounded. “I have shown nothing but the utmost concern for the welfare of this group. If anything, Hunter, you’re the one whose motives for sticking around should be questioned, since all you’ve done ever since you stuck up those fliers is show a lot of blank looks and consistently remind everyone that you have no clue what you’re doing. How serious are you about this endeavor, really?”
Hunter opens his mouth to spout back an instant answer, but, to his shock, it doesn’t come. Ike gives him a blatant And-There-You-Have-It look that frankly pisses him off.
“I just,” Hunter sputters out, glaring, but the expression weakens as he goes on. “I just want it to be… a thing.” Another part of his brain, the more honest one, whispers, I just want some friends.
“A thing,” Ike repeats, deadpan. “My God, Hunter. That was a very simple question. I don’t know whether I should be amused or insulted by the answer.”
Hunter is about to retort, but then it hits him. In a fit of surging excitement, he leaps to his feet, knocking into Jun’s cymbal and almost tripping over his own shoelace. Somehow.
“Holy shit,” he yells. “That’s it. That’s the band name. Ike, you’re a genius.”
“True, true,” Ike says airily. “But I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
Hunter grins. “That’s the band name. The Answer. We’re The Answer.”
“Ah,” Ike replies, tone unreadable. He folds his arms and raises his eyebrows as though Hunter has just rendered him slightly surprised. “And what was the question?”
“No, you don’t get it; the band will be called The Answer!” Hunter repeats, now babbling excitedly. “And everyone will want to know what the question was, but there was never any question, so people will talk about us because they’ll want to know what the band name means and that’s good for publicity!” He turns to the other guys before Ike can make another smartass remark. “All in favor?”
“If it’ll get you to shut up about figuring out a name for the band, fuck yeah,” Ian says, raising a hand.
“Agreed,” Guillaume and Jun grunt in unison. Fortunato, swayed by Ian’s vote, nods his approval.
“In your face, Ike!” Hunter crows, jabbing triumphant fingers in Ike’s direction. “None of that… Rolling Sabbath crap here.”
He freezes. “Wait, shit, that’s actually really good.”
APPLICATION FORM FOR THE 15TH ANNUAL BATTLE OF THE BANDS
July 18 – Chicago, Illinois, USA
Aragon Entertainment Center
1106 W. Lawrence Avenue
ATTN: MANAGER
PLEASE LIST ALL PARTICIPATING MEMBERS ON THE LINES BELOW
- Hunter ???—lead guitar, backing vocals
- Ike Something—bass, lead vocals
- Jun Fukayama—drums/percussion, second kazoo
- Guillaume Sorel—second/rhythm guitar, accordion
- Fortunato Medeiros—keyboard, rabeca
- Andres—saxophone, harmonica, castanets, kazoo
MANAGER: Ian Simon
BAND NAME: The Answer
CITY FOUNDED: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
PLEASE FILL OUT ADDITIONAL CONTACT & LEGAL INFORMATION IN THE PAGES ATTACHED
Ike’s dad has a minivan, so they use that to get to the airport.
Hunter doesn’t know why he never saw it coming, but it is unsurprisingly impossible to figure out what songs to play in a car full of musicians. He gets shotgun, which is great, but that means he has to try to negotiate the GPS on Ike’s stupidly expensive smartphone, and he just winds up accidentally playing his playlist of Barry White really loudly over the speakers, and Ike never lets him touch that phone again.
Hisao decided to tag along with them, for moral support (he’s weirdly good at making colorful, supportive signs, with glitter and everything), which definitely boosts Guillaume's morale and makes Hunter sincerely pity whoever is going to be rooming next door to them at the hotel. It's nice, though, having Hisao around – he's like the calming salve to everyone else's raucous insanity. Plus, he is very good at carrying bags, which is good, because Ian almost kills himself trying to lift his suitcase into the back of the minivan.
Tickets to Chicago had been pretty cheap, although Ike had paid for everyone’s before they could do it themselves (and it is freaky how rich he is; like, honestly, this is starting to border on the insane), but no amount of reasonable prices can make up for how all of them nearly die trying to haul their instrument cases through security, or how they have to hold Jun back when the baggage checker says that he’ll have to check his drumset like it’s a normal piece of luggage, or how Hunter gets sandwiched between Andres and a woman with loudly crying twins who pull on his hair whenever they’re agitated, or how loudly Andres snores.
At least he gets free peanuts. And the flight is short, anyway, but they all almost die again when Fortunato climbs up onto the baggage claim to try to chase after his keyboard when it gets caught underneath a duffel bag. They almost miss the shuttle to the hotel, too, because Fortunato has to stand at the exit and hold the door open for about two hundred people just off a flight from San Francisco, and he only moves when Hunter physically drags him by the shirt collar.
“Ah, look at that,” Ike says brightly when they’re all crowded around the hotel register. “I get to fight over the shower with Hunter-boy.”
Hunter hopes that their first visit to Chicago will not end in jail time and a murder trial.
Guillaume waggles his eyebrows at Hisao when he sees that they’re rooming together, making nearly all of them roll their eyes except for Fortunato, who doesn’t get it, until Hisao puts a commiserating hand on Guillaume’s shoulder.
“It has two single beds, Guillaume,” he says with a fake sigh of sadness. Guillaume wilts.
“I’m with…” Jun squints. “‘Na?’ Who’s Na?”
“I think that’s supposed to be me,” Ian mutters, and when Jun gives him an incredulous look, he barks, “The ‘I’ key on my laptop sticks, okay?!”
"This is the guy we're trusting with our official documents," Ike drawls. "Incredible."
The rest of the rooms are completely filled up – probably by other bands – except for the penthouse suite, and since all seven of them were guaranteed a room, the hotel lets Andres and Fortunato take it for the regular rate.
“Of course,” Hunter and Ike say in unison, and Hunter figures that if he’s starting to speak in time with Ike, his life really is over.
He’s too tired to walk around town with the rest of them afterwards, so he just tells Ike to buy him some candy bars and a toothbrush because he forgot his, and he is not at all surprised when Fortunato calls him desperately about two hours later from a payphone saying that Ike forgot to charge his phone and they are lost and there are no churches nearby and come help us, Hunter, please.
“Psych!” Ike exclaims when Hunter finds them all at a pizza joint six blocks away. “Fortunato lied to you; my phone is in top form, but I realized a while after we left that leaving you alone in the hotel room would mean giving you a free ticket to the booze fridge, and I simply could not allow you to clean out all of our supplies before I got the chance to take advantage of them.”
“I – I did not lie!” Fortunato splutters out, standing swiftly and rattling the table. “He tricked me!”
“Enjoy the Chicago culture with us, Hunter!” Andres says jovially, raising his bottle of Coke in cheers.
“I was enjoying it just fine,” Hunter growls, “sleeping.”
“Watching Star Trek reruns,” Ike corrects. Hunter flushes.
“Ha, ha, they – they’re marathoning them on SyFy,” he mumbles, and then points accusatorially at all of them. “If you all seriously conspired to drag me out here just so you could sit there and listen to Ike mock me, I swear to God—”
“It wasn’t the same without you,” Hisao explains with a shrug.
Hunter flounders into silence. In sequence, Jun and Guillaume nod, Andres grins at him, Ian pushes his glasses up onto his nose and tries to look like he doesn’t care, and Ike takes a swig of orange soda from his rainbow bendy straw.
“Oh,” Hunter replies, blinking. “Thanks, guys.”
“Ugh, shoot me before I do it myself,” Ike sneers before the moment can get too sentimental. Hunter rolls his eyes and pulls up a chair, turning it backwards and plopping down in it next to Andres. “All right, idiots. Orientation is tomorrow at eight o’clock sharp. That means that we can stay up until four o’clock aiming for drunk and disorderly. Sound like a plan?”
They stay out until two o’clock at an arcade. Same thing.