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“And thank you so much!”
The cheers of the audience flooded the stage, hands rising up to brush the air they danced in like starving leeches. John grinned at the world, Bruce could see it even from behind him. Always trying to outdo every single one of them. Bruce’s eyes briefly wandered towards his brother’s hands, the way he was fighting to stop their violent tremors.
Bruce gave the audience a simple flying kiss, a few of his more crazed fans even pretending to catch it for the sake of the game - before the brothers all followed John’s lead to leave the stage after the sound crew gave them their signals through their ear pieces.
They kept up the facades of their personalities, Clay’s arms over the back of his head as he sauntered out with a casual stride, Floyd giving as many polite waving goodbyes as he could, Branch not giving them the time of day, Bruce offering one last wink, before his attention shifted to John as the two pretended to talk.
Had to make it look casual and friendly, when it really, really wasn’t.
Making it backstage their personalities couldn’t drift away just yet, makeup artists rushing in to wipe away at their faces with cleaning products, a few staff coming in with water that Bruce accepted, but understood why the others didn’t.
He could be seen eating in public, but the others? Not so much. Even if this wasn’t really public.
“Awe man,” Clay grinned from ear to ear as he looked at his brothers. “Great show, huh? Can’t wait to head home and read the reviews~”
In other words, Clay couldn’t wait to go home and crash in his bed.
“Look alive, guys,” John laughed breathlessly as he leaned down for a shorter troll to clean up his face. “We nailed the performance in the end, all that practice sure was worth it, huh?”
Bruce hummed, sipping a little more of his drink before he set it aside on a waiting tray, the brothers walking further down towards their ‘vehicle’, a rare critter by the name of Rhonda. She was dressed in a large, ornamental bow over her head, waiting for the brothers with a pleased expression. She’d obviously gotten a deep cleaning bath recently and was rather happy with her shine.
Going inside one by one, Bruce could see a few fans screaming for their attention and scrambling to get closer- stopped only by their hired bodyguards keeping them all back.
John patted Rhonda’s side, grinning at her. “You look beautiful tonight, girl!”
The warble she let out was one that belonged to a pretty princess’ pride.
As soon as they were all safely inside Rhonda, curtains drawn for privacy and then moving across the road to leave the venue, Clay’s grin dropped from his face and Floyd’s sweet smile shrank into his usual nervous expression.
“That was so bad!” Clay exclaimed suddenly, yanking off his sharp sunglasses and tossing them to the nearest couch before storming towards their meek brother. “What the hell was that, Floyd!? We made it easier and you still almost broke formation!”
“Hey-” Bruce narrowed his eyes and shoved Clay back, stepping between them. “Cool it, Clay, the fans were happy, that’s all that matters.”
“Just isn’t though, is it?” Clay snarled, glaring daggers at Floyd past Bruce’s arm. “We have to pull all these damn maneuvers just to make it work for Floyd, and in the end he can’t even give his best performance!”
Floyd hunched in on himself, his face twisting into his usual distress - Branch just sat atop the couch, already pulling out his sketchbook and being completely unhelpful. Bruce huffed through his nose.
“Nothing’s gonna come from you running your mouth at him, Clay - maybe focus on yourself instead of Floyd.”
“M-” Clay’s face looked struck for a moment, and Bruce immediately regretted his words as he watched Clay’s face contort into utter rage. “ME?! I’m not the one sitting on my ass and forcing our entire choreo to change cause I can’t keep up, am I!? I go out there, grin on my face, and give them my all! If JD wasn’t here, I’d be the best damned dancer in this group!”
“Clay-” John moved forward then, holding his hands up. “Come on, no need to start yelling-”
“Don’t you start switching sides now,” Clay spun around and snarled at their oldest brother. “You’re the one always telling him to practice, you know he’s bad!”
Bruce bristled and shoved Clay back further. “Okay, I don’t know what’s with your attitude today, Clay, but you need to cool it - we succeeded! The fans were happy! It doesn’t matter if it wasn’t a perfect performance-!”
“Clay’s right.”
They froze as Singe’s voice suddenly welcomed itself - their manager appearing from the front of the bus as he flipped through pages on his clipboard. How long he’d been there, Bruce didn’t wanna know.
“Dedicated fans will watch any miniscule detail they can find to either obsess over because it’s charming, or clown on because it’s a mistake,” He said sternly, eyes sharply focusing on Floyd’s already withdrawn stature. “And I counted at least six mistakes out there, four of them from Floyd.”
John’s smile looked more tense then, rubbing at the back of his head as he began to nod along. “Well- that’s fair, yeah, it was a pretty hard choreo for that song - guess we can try and maybe reduce the amount of times we do that one? Y’know, just to-”
“Great idea, Dory,” Singe spoke with a high tone, before the clipboard rammed into John’s gut, causing him to curl forward with a grunt - Bruce fought every part of him to not reach over and yank Singe away. “Except we can’t do that, can we? No, you know why? Because the song is a hit, and playing it less after fans catch those mistakes would mean admitting it’s difficult. And if we admit it’s difficult, what does that mean?” His brows lifted, glancing to the rest of the brothers. “Any guesses?”
At their silence, Singe continued; talking more slowly, emphasising the words like they were toddlers.
“It means you are no longer untouchable, yes! Good job everyone.” Singe held the clipboard up and waved it lazily. “And that means other groups, more determined groups, will try to pull off what we did but even better, mistakes means room for others to knock you all off the number one spot. It means they’ll think you aren’t working hard enough to deserve your position. That’s why mistakes are costly, and that’s why Clay is right.”
Bruce could already see Clay’s expression shift to being more… satisfied. Bruce couldn’t exactly counter Singe’s points - sure, Bruce was pleased with their performance after all the work that went into it, but number one meant ‘better than everyone else’.
Unfortunately, Floyd’s ability to dance had only deteriorated over time. It was a miracle his voice was relatively unaffected.
“So,” Singe flipped a page over on the clipboard and read through. “We have five more shows to do this month, I’m gonna need everyone in tip top shape. Rest if you want, but I suggest getting yourselves ready. Long few weeks ahead of us.”
That was that, then. Singe turned with his chin turned up and moved to the front of the bus again.
The brothers stood in silence just for a moment, before John grunted again and offered a tight smile to the rest. “Well, you heard him - guess we’re practising even more then, huh? Don’t worry Floyd, I can help you get the steps right.”
Bruce could see that didn’t really make Floyd feel any better, if his face falling even further was any indicator, though who knew what their sensitive brother wanted to hear from anyone these days.
Clay stormed to his own seat, grabbing his headphones and switching on something to listen to on his player as he sank deeper into the seat and closed his eyes - whatever it was, Bruce knew it wasn’t music.
Bruce’s eyes wandered to John, noting how he still rubbed at his stomach, then at Branch, who hadn’t said a word or even looked at anyone since they got in Rhonda.
In his professional opinion, no amount of practice would fix how frayed their connection to each other had gotten over the years.