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1
After a show, sometimes the band would stick around after packing up to talk, maybe order something to eat, and get drunk. You know, generally fun stuff. And yeah, they did all that, the Chinese food was great and so was the whiskey. Eventually each member would get bored and everyone would slowly trickle back into the tour bus to find their beds. That's exactly what Danny Weinkauf is doing.
Danny walks up to the side of the bus, his eyes heavy and threatening to drift close with each step. Suffice to say, he's very ready to get into bed. He pulls his keys out of his pocket and fumbles with the lock on the side of the vehicle. Eventually Danny gets the door open, nearly tripping as he gets inside and flicks a light on.
He wanders through the bus, stumbling around until he finds water. He nearly empties the bottle before setting it down and searching through a cabinet. He finds the Ibuprofen he was hunting for and grabs it, trudging over to his bed to put it on the floor. For easy access when he has a hangover tomorrow, to lighten the blow. (Other band members who?)
After that he finds his sleeping clothes pre-folded conveniently on the mattress and gets ready to put them on. Danny manages to sit down and take his shirt off, but apparently in his grogginess he had missed the elephant in the room. He was wondering where their main singers had been off too, after all.
John Linnell is in John Flansburgh's bunk, who's in there with him. Linnell is on top of his partner, head on John's chest, arms splayed around his torso with his hands gripping at the sides of the man under him. Flansburgh's strong arms are wrapped around Linnell, legs crossed over and tangled in between his partner's own. They're both sleeping peacefully, each breath steady and slow.
Danny smiles at the sight. This is going to cause major back problems for the both of them tomorrow morning, but that's their issue to deal with, and everyone gets back problems from the bunks already—thin ass mattresses, horrible. Danny wouldn't dare interrupting something this cute, anyway.
Danny shuffles quietly into his sleeping clothes and tucks himself in, quickly succumbing to the sleep he desperately needs.
2
Rehearsal had been very draining today. The band was practicing to perform some songs on Phone Power for live shows, excluding Impossibly New (Flansburgh explained that he wanted to play it just Linnell and him. There was something going on with that.) but Mark Pender was pretty sure they're nearly ready to perform everything planned.
He takes the mouthpiece off his trumpet, dries it off and sticks it in the instrument's case. He takes his trumpet to the nearby sink and empties out the spit valve into the basin as opposed to directly onto the ground—ew. Mark goes back to where the case is sitting on a chair and he puts his trumpet back into the container and carefully closes it, clicking each of its clasps securely closed.
Mark grabs the case by its handle and walks over to one of the nearby instrument storage rooms. The rehearsal room has two smaller rooms along the wall, both have enough space inside for a rack to keep things on and just enough room for about three people to fit standing comfortably in. Pender approaches the one lovingly labeled "horns :)" on printer paper, held up by painters tape to put his trumpet away.
The door to the small room swings open and Mark steps in. Inside the storage room on the floor in the corner is John and John, curled up together. Linnell is leaned slightly against the wall and Flansburgh is almost fully on top of him, his arms haphazardly thrown around his partner and Linnell's the same.
Mark scoffs and shakes his head while grinning. God these fools, you'd just never find them in any normal spots. Both Johns breathing are slow and even, fast asleep. Eventually someone would come in to wake them both up, but hell, why not let em' rest now.
He sets his trumpet onto the middle shelf of the instrument rack. Mark steps quietly out and closes the door, carefully twisting the handle closed to minimize noise. Pender walks back to the area where the rest of the band is and he's shaking his head, his shoulders trembling with laughter.
"What's up, man?" Marty obliviously asks.
Him and the rest of the band are sprawled lazy across the available couches. Marty is laying across Dan's lap while his hair is gently stroked, with his legs over Danny's thighs. See—Marty and Dan and Danny can show affection with each other normally.
"Gah- not much, it's just John and John again. Wanna guess where they are now?"
Danny speaks up, "…In some corner, maybe?"
"Half right! In a storage room. Not even the one where their stuff goes, no, the one for horns."
Dan Levine speaks up for the first time in a while. His reaction is nearly the same as Mark's the first time, poorly suppressed laughter and a smile.
"What idiots!" he says affectionately.
3
Everything's quite stressful and overwhelming, as it usually is before a performance. Dan Miller had been assured by Danny that everything was ready, as it usually is just an hour before they start.
Still, after so many years playing in They Might Be Giants you'd expect Dan to be used to this already, but the amp-up before a show never ceased to be nerveracking. Miller was pacing around, wandering the area designated for artists in the venue. It was honestly a very nice place, good kitchen area, good coffee maker, soft looking couches, spacious dressing rooms all neatly labeled with each of the member's names.
Dan stuck a coffee pod in the machine and stuck his mug underneath. He made a bleary-eyed stare at the liquid pour from the device into his mug. It eventually finished up and Dan retrieved his drink.
Miller went back to wandering, now accompanied with a warm beverage to nurse on. Despite the caffeine, the coffee soothed Dan's nerves. He huffed out a heavy sigh and took a long sip of his drink as he walked into the common area.
Dan dropped down onto a blue-grey couch. He sighed long again and finished off the rest of his beverage. He wasn't entirely calm, but this was probably the best he could get. Dan slouched against the couch cushions and closed his eyes, tuning in on the sounds of the AC.
In the midst of the white noise, Dan heard another one. Someone lightly snoring.
Someone snoring?
He perked up and listened closely for the source of the noise. He tracked it to… behind a couch.
Dan looked over the back of it to see Flansburgh—Linnell wrapped tightly in his arms—the both of them fast asleep.
Why are they like this?? There's plenty of couches in the room? The floor is incredibly dusty and uncomfortable.
He sighs. Dan should probably tell the others. Their antics have been getting slightly obnoxious lately, behind a couch? While there are perfectly good places to snuggle? Shame. If Dan wanted to be with Marty or Danny, they would at least find a more comfortable spot.
Dan wanted to wake John and John up, but Christ—why not let them sleep. Everyone has different ways to cope with the pre-show stress and the performance isn't even going to start for an hour and a half. At least they don't get it on so obviously anymore, the dog days are over.
4
Stan Harrison stretches his arms out above his head for the fourth time tonight, back cracking with the motion. His hands come down to each other, fingers pressing down each knuckle to earn a satisfying pop. Surprised he doesn't have some form of arthritis after this long.
They Might Be Giants had finished a show and all of its merch signing type fluff only thirty minutes ago, and Stan is just about ready to leave. Yet apparently someone had to situate something with the venue, so their stay is just dragged on longer. Everyone's slightly irritated at this point, but the situation looks like it's going to resolve soon, so at least there's that.
Dan Miller interrupts Stan's blank staring and thinking for a moment, leaning over to say something in his ear. "Hey, have you seen Linnell and Flansburgh recently?"
Stan thinks, eventually responding, "Now that I think about it.. no not really. Why?"
"Could you go find them? I think we'll be off soon so it'll be good not to abandon them."
Stan breathes out and closes his eyes. Yeah— yeah, why not.
"Sure." He responds.
Now later and significantly more irritated and tired, Stan's been looking for fifteen minutes at this point. He's been in all of their dressing rooms, around the green room and several other places. Now the only place he can really check is the stage, and why would they be there? Still doesn't hurt to check, he figures.
He wanders out onto the now mostly clean stage, the lights still on. The floor is still vaguely dusty, but someone's wrapped up all the cords and put them into a neat pile. There's still tape on the ground to mark where they would enter or return to.
Anyway, he would have seen John and John already if they were out here, and they're not. Stan sighs again, where are these guys? He's just about to go back inside before he sees what looks like the tip of a Converse shoe sticks out from beneath one of the big heavy red curtains. Well there's his answer!
Stan paces over to the fabric and pulls it back, revealing Linnell softly holding Flansburgh in his arms on top of him, both gently snoring. The floor looks slightly nasty, and honestly so does the curtain. Flansburgh shrinks into Linnell's arms as the makeshift blanket is ripped off of them.
Stan sighs again. They always really have to do this, honestly, God forbid John and John are affectionate out in the open. He shakes his head, bringing his free hand up to his tired eyes to scrub at them. Stan removes his phone from his pocket and taps on the camera app. He steps back to get a better view and he snaps a quick picture.
He sends the image to Dan and drapes the curtain back onto their main singers, then tapping out a quick following message to add to the image.
"Your problem now. :/"
5
Dan Levine let out a prolonged sigh as he set both his tuba and trombone case in the venue's designated instrument lockers. They Might Be Giants got to the place not too long ago, something like forty minutes. All that everyone was doing for that past time was helping set things up, unpacking instruments from the tour bus, starting to get sound stuff ready, and all that jazz.
Their tour and stage managers were talking to the event coordinators, and it seemed that everyone engaging in the conversation were becoming more and more aggravated by the second, most of the group checking their devices, phone to ear, etc. The stage manager, whose name escaped Dan right now—great—caught sight of him. Apparently Dan hadn't noticed that most of the rest of the band left the room already.
"Dan Levine, right?" The man said while he pointed towards Dan. "Do you know where John Mr. Flansburgh is?"
"No? Haven't you tried calling him?" Levine responds.
"Well, no one can get a hold of him, do you think you could search the place a bit to try and find him?"
"Why me?"
"You're the first person I saw. I mean, if you want to make someone else do it that's your problem."
This guy gave off a bit of a bad vibe. Dan sighed, with John and John's last few escapades, Dan expected they were probably together somewhere strange. Majority of the other band members reported on this, Dan guessed it was just his time to shine.
Roaming around the venue was honestly relaxing if Dan pushed the overall stress of the incoming show to the back of his mind. Shows were always a bit stress enducing for everyone involved, and if not stress then just adrenaline. Thinking about it, him and the other horns would probably find a way to cool off before the event similar to the rest of the band—probably food or drink—maybe something else, who knows.
Dan had nearly forgotten about his original task, only reminded by Marty passing by with a sweet smile and quiet wave. Oh yeah, he remembers. Look for John and John, right.
Dan wanders over to the row of green rooms, each with a couch and throw pillows, clothes rack, counter and lighted mirror with storage. Peeking his head into his own assigned room, Levine notices the lack of both of the two throw pillows meant to be there. Odd. He moves on to the next room, Danny Weinkauf's room to notice the same thing.
Eventually he reaches John Flansburgh's room where the door is cracked. Dan slowly pushes the door open to reveal an excessive amount of pillows and blankets on the floor—where'd the blankets even come from? Tucked in the middle of the nest looking structure is Linnell and Flansburgh in each other's arms. There they are.
At this point it felt almost illegal to everyone in the band to wake the lead singers up if you found them whenever they pulled something like this, so Levine just quietly closes the door again. He would get someone else to wake them up eventually.
+1
When They Might Be Giants booked a hotel, the best scenario would be when all of their rooms were together and there were doors in between each—to be unlocked by request. This happens to be that scenario, lucky! The hotel was a fairly good one too, a clean smell and thick comforters donning each bed. The place was recommended to them by this guy working on the venue at their last show, apparently he'd stayed here before. It was really nice to be able to lay around and not do much after the long drive they were just on.
Everyone had their normal room setups—the Horns had the Horns, Marty has Dan and Danny, and of course John and John had each other. Most of the band would usually stick to their own rooms, but why not walk around and talk? The doors were open for a reason.
Marty Beller was doing just that, wandering idly through their rooms. Conversation flows easily, and so do the topics that come with it. From the venues they perform, to the cities they were in, to the possible restaurants or places to visit on later days. Eventually everything slows down as conversation naturally lulls as time marches on. Marty hadn't visited the Johns room yet, rumor of napping apparently—its been a while, they should be awake and active by now.
The drummer knocks lightly on the door to Linnell and Flansburgh's room. After rapping his knuckles on the wood a few more times with no response, he opens it up. A bedside lamp dimly illuminates the room enough for Marty to see the sleeping forms of the main singers on the bed.
Flansburgh is leaning against the pillows and curled in towards Linnell, who's held in his partner's embrace.
He grabs the door handle with the intent to pull it closed and leave. Before he could actually go through with that, Flansburgh perks up, his eyes droopy. He carefully removes his arm from on top of John to run his hand through his messy bed hair.
"Marty.. s' that you?" John says, voice clearly still heavy with sleep. Marty freezes.
"...yeah, it's me. Uh- anything you need, John?"
"Mmh, you know you're always welcome to join us. I'd be better if you were here.."
"Ah- uhh, alright..?" Marty says as he guides the door behind him shut. Flans' offer sounds awfully tempting. And warm—the opposite of the drummer's current state. And he was suddenly awfully sleepy, even though he was planning to actually fall asleep hours later… Honestly, why not? It doesn't take him much convincing to enjoy free cuddles.
After some (absolutely not) tough thinking, he responds, "I'd… really like that, yeah."
Flansburgh smiles, "Ok… My only requests are t' take off pants and slippers. Not very comfortable in bed, y'know?"
"Ah it's fine." Marty complies, carefully removing his shoes and then pants—leaving him in only a black shirt and dark boxers. He goes to the side of the bed and looks to Flans for guidance and John motions to Linnell's side, where there's significantly more unoccupied space. Linnell looks so peaceful and nice curled in Flans' arms, it's entirely too alluring.
Marty climbs into bed, being deliberate about where he lays his arms and legs. Flansburgh chuckles and gently moves the drummer's arm over Linnell who unconsciously hums a bit at the contact. He lets his weight even out as he settles in properly beside John and John. Flans drops his arm around the men beside him and lets his eyes slowly close, Marty swiftly following suit and drifting into a peaceful sleep.
Dan and Danny can survive a night without him.