Work Text:
It was no different to any other morning on the tour bus. Joe didn’t even notice at first. He’d rubbed his sleepy eyes on his sleeves and climbed out of his bunk, plodding past his sleeping band members to the fridge where the gallon of milk he’d bought a few days ago was waiting, ready to be consumed. It wasn’t until he reached out to open the fridge door that he realised something was wrong.
Instead of the soft, fleshy, slightly sweaty and pinkish limb with four fingers and an apposable thumb that he was used to, a fabulously greasy leg of ham sat where his hand once did.
Joe screamed.
Fall Out Boy had mostly learned to sleep through screams, thanks to Pete constantly screaming whenever the bus had run out of hot sauce, but a Joe scream was not something that they were used to. Instantly, Pete, Patrick and Andy shot up, with Patrick hitting his head on the top of the bunk, and ran to the buses kitchenette to discover what was wrong.
Joe sat curled against the table leg, his shock having thrown him to the floor. He stared at his hands, eyes wide and terror shaking him to his very core. Actually, hands was the wrong word for what sat on the end of his arms. Joe didn’t have hands anymore. Joe had hams.
“What’s wrong?!” Andy asked, surveying the scene.
“H-Ham!” Joe cried, shoving his ham-hands out in front of him, displaying them for his band to see.
“Ham?” Patrick questioned, reaching out to touch the ham-hands, before sniffing in the deep aroma. “Ham.” He concluded.
“Ham.” Pete raised an eyebrow.
“Ham!” Joe cried. “Hands!”
“Ham hands.” Andy frowned. “Strange.”
“Can you still play?” Pete asked.
“Play?!”
“Well, I mean, we’ve still got like, a show tonight.” Pete ran to the other end of the bus and fetched the guitar, before placing it between the two hams. “Try?”
Much to Joe’s relief, his ham hands did play. And well. Probably better than his other hands did. But the hams still weren’t ideal. He wanted his other hands back.
“Perfect.” Pete smiled. “You’re fine.”
“Hams!” Patrick quickly shoved Pete in the side. “he’s got hams, Pete!”
“They’re cool!” Pete grinned. “Girls are gonna love them.”
Joe wasn’t so sure about that.
--------------
With a bit of help from Patrick, a set of extra-stretchy kitchen gloves and some socks, Joe had successfully managed to hide the hams for the show. The ‘fingers’ were very floppy, and it looked a little weird that his hands were bright blue, but it was far better that the world saw floppy hands rather than ham hands.
But it was not to be. The show was going great, and Joe had almost forgotten about the predicament at hand when the gloves began to grow heavy and slip off. He couldn’t stop playing, not while the crowd was getting so into it.
With 2 quiet thuds that were deafening to Joe’s ears, the ham hands were exposed. And when the camera man in charge of the giant screen behind them decided to focus on them, the crowd went wild.
“What’s going on?” He asked, face pale and eyes wide as he faced the crowd, clutching the guitar between his two hams.
Pete walked over and patted him on the shoulder with a wide grin on his face. “They love them, Joe. They love your hams.”
-----------
Despite the positive reaction they’d gotten at the show, Joe still went to bed with a heavy heart and feeling of isolation. Sure, people had cheered, and it was nice, but up on stage he was untouchable. What would happen when he was in the street, and everyone noticed how different his ham hands were?
He found out for himself the next day, walking through the grocery with his hams buried in his hoodie pockets as he walked around with Andy. Getting snacks for the bus was going relatively well, and Joe was pushing the shopping cart with his elbows and occasionally asking Andy to grab some things.
He didn’t top up the bus’s ham supplies. Was it cannibalism if he ate ham now? Joe didn’t really need to experience that existential crisis while on tour. There was plenty of time for that when he got back to Chicago.
He was telling Andy to grab more bags of marshmallows when a girl ran up to them, about their age. And though Joe didn’t really think of himself as much of a lady’s man, he couldn’t help but notice the beauty of this lady.
“Fall Out Boy?” She asked, her eyes wide with excitement.
“At your service.” Joe grinned.
“You’re Joe Troham.” She giggled. “C-Can I see them?”
“See them?” He was confused a moment, before noticing her staring directly at his pockets. Oh god. She wants to see the hams. Why does she want to see the hams?
Hesitantly, he presented them, watching her face light up with nothing but pure awe. She ran a manicured finger over them, before smiling at Joe, and pressing a kiss to his right ham, leaving a red lipstick stain and butterflies in Joe’s stomach.
Maybe Pete was right. Maybe girls did like the hams.
----------
For the first few months, Joe was shy about his hams. He couldn’t find the confidence to show them off to the world, despite the fact that the world loved him. But as more love was directed his way, Joe found his feet and the confidence to show the hams off.
He was on the cover of magazines, he was the star of photoshoot after photoshoot, and was nominated for Sexiest Man Alive, and won. The world couldn’t get enough of Joe Troham, and Joe Troham finally found the confidence to love himself, hams and all.