Title: Wanna Be’s
Genre: Rock Band, humor/drama
Rating: PG14 (might make an Mature rating eventually)
Pairings/Characters: Kit, Sam/Taro, Gretchen/Steve, Raian/the female population
Summary: When you’re in a band, nothing is quite as easy as it seems.

--

Album: "M ss ng P eces"
Artist: The Wanna Be's
Songs:
•“Smile That Cheshire Cat Moon”
•“Mrs Pacman is Bulimic”
•“Gangs of Lobsters and Grannies”
•“Please Tell Me Why (Hate Me)”
•“Professional Cat-Walker”
•“Red Strings Across Oceans (Pinky)”
•“What’s Your Crack?”

--

Hour Before Gig: The Band

The bassist swept onto the bus, her dyed hair frizzy and poofing out in odd ways.  “Where the fricking hell is my hoodie!?” She squeaked, diving into a nearby pile of clothes to shift through it.

“Which hoodie are you looking for, Kat?” The rather large techy-and-sometimes-drummer asked sedately from his position as acting chair for a tiny green-haired girl, who was the resident vocalist.

“The striped one!” Kat, the bassist, called from beneath the piles of ragged clothes.

“Which striped one?” The large man with dark dreadlocks replied, regardless of the glare from his fellow bandmate.

“The purple and black one, Steve, c’mon, I was just wearing it.” Kat muttered and grumbled to herself as she collapsed dramatically on one of the foldable chairs in the tour bus.

The guitarist stomped onto the bus, plopped into the only comfortable-looking chair and audibly growled. “Forget your hoodie, where the fuck is that goddamn, good for nothing, brother of mine. Our gig is in an hour and we need to rehearse.”

The tiny vocalist snorted rather loudly, “We all know where Raian is, Sam.”

“Or at least, what he’s doing.” Steve hummed.

“You mean who he’s doing.” The vocalist scoffed.

“Be nice, Gretch.” Steve murmured into her green hair.

Sam, the long, reddish-brown haired guitarist, frowned at them, “The day that brother of mine gets aids, I’m going to laugh.”

Kat peered over the back of the chair, eying another pile of clothes (the band, in general, was a bit sloppy with the process of actually doing laundry), “No you wouldn’t.  Although,” She looked thoughtful, “I might laugh.” Then she dove into the clothes, still searching and squeaking to herself.

The doll-like vocalist, named Gretchen, snickered.  Steve looked as disapproving as he could from his placement as Gretchen’s chair.

“Goddamnit, Gretchen.” Sam adjusted the silver, diamond ring on her left hand, rolling her pale blue eyes. “Give her back her fucking hoodie.”

Kat’s purple-haired head popped up from under one of Steve’s large green vests, “What?  Where?”

Gretchen squirmed and crossed her needle-thin arms, “You’re wearing plaid pants.  Stripes don’t go with plaid.” She grumbled, but Steve prodded her lightly with a small frown and she sighed, “Fine.”  The vocalist dropped down from her boyfriend’s lap and bounced off to retrieve the stolen hoodie.

--

Second Grade: Kat Jelica

“Have you seen the new girl?”
“She’s weird.”
“Did you hear?  She’s from Japan.”
“Where’s Ja-jaaah-gee-pan?”
“Somewhere across the ocean, I think.”
“I heard she was raised by dragons.”
“—doesn’t know how to use a spoon.”
“By dragons?  Does she eat people?”

“Eat… people?” A small brown-haired girl frowned at the ceiling tiles, her sandaled feet kicking far above the floor.  “Do dragons eat people, too?” Well there went her dreams of having a pet dragon.

The small girl was distracted by the sudden hush that fell over the classroom.

A girl with proper clothes—what the brown-haired girl would refer to as ‘church clothes’—and a stiff and straight stance was practically dragged to the front of the class by the teacher.  She looked smaller than normal kids her age, but probably only because she was dressed so neatly in her tiny dress and stood like her grandmother was lecturing her about breaking the table again—not that the brown-haired girl had that happen, of course.

The teacher was lecturing about new students and being nice.  The brown-haired girl didn’t pay it any attention. The teacher sounded like the adults on her video-tapes of Charlie Brown, which she watched whenever her mother let her near the new VCR.  Instead of listening, she spent the time scrabbling down from the big-person chair before her teacher saw her so high up.

The only part of the lecture the brown-haired girl paid attention to was the part where the new girl spoke.

“Hello, My name is Samantha.” Her voice was strange, like the words were hard for her—which was silly, she wasn’t a preschooler like the brown-haired girl’s little brother, who was still having trouble with the alphabet.

But, the strangest part was when the new girl bowed.  She tilted her whole upper body forward, her neat ponytail of curly red-brown hair sweeping over her shoulders and into her face.

None of the other second-graders knew quite what to do for that, but they did intone their usual “Welcome to Boston Charter Ellie-men-tary school, Samantha.”

The brown-haired girl had finally freed herself from the chair, and said her welcome a bit behind the others, adding a bob of her head, like she’d seen her dad do with his military friends sometimes.

With a few words from the teacher, Samantha was unleashed from the adult’s side.  The curly red-brown-haired girl scurried towards—and nearly crashed into—the brown-haired girl.  When both recovered their balance, the new girl stood awkwardly again.

The brown-haired girl frowned at this, “My name’s Kat.  Like a KitKat Bar!” She squealed happily in the way most eight year-olds will when announcing obvious facts.

The new girl looked puzzled, and almost seemed to struggle with moving her mouth, “Kit… Kit… KIT.” The pronunciation of ‘Kat’ seemed to be impossible so a resolution has been made, “Hi Kit! I am Samantha,” she said enthusiastically.

“Well… I guess that is easier,” The newly named Kit said with shrug, “But, Samansa… well, that is just too long, SAMMIE!”

The young girl blinked a couple times, taking in this new nickname, “Sammie?” she said, not exactly voicing it the same way Kit had said it. She still had that weird struggle to her pronunciation of apparently the whole English language.

And that was the start of a little band called the Wanna Be’s.

--

Half-Hour Before the Gig: The Band

It was after three warm-up songs (mostly Sam’s favored Chili Pepper songs, and Gretchen’s beloved Paramore covers, their philosophy was that their own songs were for the crowd, not for warmups), that a dark haired, pale blue-eyed man strutted in, looped around the stage and plucked the drumsticks from Steve’s rather meatloaf-sized hands.

“Y’ello.” The new drummer announced, ignoring everyone else’s glares and Steve’s shake of his head as the large ex-drummer wandered over to Gretchen’s side.

Kat growled something inaudible, but Sam took up her best friend’s sediment as she stomped over to the still-not-caring drummer.  “Bastard! You know when practice starts, Raian!”

Raian hummed to himself, “No bastards here, unless mom was in the practice of bedding strange men.”  He sighed dramatically and looped an arm around his younger sister, “Plus, I happened across a couple six packs of Mike’s Hard Lemonade and left them in the fridge on the bus.” He said in an undertone, his smile wide and devilish.

The fire in Sam’s mind seemed to immediately soften as her eyes seemed to glaze over. It would obviously be another night of Sam-Passing-Out-On-Somebody-Or-Something. The frost melted from her pale blue eyes and she glared over at her brother, “I swear to god, if you are late one more goddamn time…”

“Yeah, yeah, love you too, baby sis,” Raian said before giving Sam a quick kiss with a obnoxious wet smack of his lips on her forehead before he skipped back to the drum set.

Steve murmured something in undertone to his tiny green-haired girlfriend and wandered off the stage, probably to do what he normally did whenever Raian actually showed up and Steve didn’t have to play the drums for the band—probably helping out one of the techies or using his large presence to block the doors from overanxious fans.

“So who’s up for playing B.Y.O.B?” Raian grinned widely, spinning the wooden sticks in his hands, even as everyone else groaned and threatened his life.

--

Fifteen Minutes After the Gig: The Band

Sam was the first one to get on the bus. Although, she didn’t so much climb the steps as she did scamper; quickly and swiftly. Her target: the tiny black fridge, secured into one of the walls. Sure enough, there was her prize, and she had one of the lemonades open and to her mouth before any of the other members had made it through the door.

“Aaaaanndddd… ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, the show now ends with another night of Sam-Passing-Out-On-Someone-Or-Something,” Gretchen exclaimed, her voice a little hoarse, as she dragged Steve onto the bus. He barely had time to close the doors behind everyone before she had him in a seat and was then seated on him.

A long elegant finger on Sam’s left hand, not the one with the ring but the nice long one right next to it, greeted Gretchen’s words with a mouthed ‘F.U.’ She couldn’t say it out loud. She had her cell phone pinched between her shoulder and cheek, waiting for the call to go through. And sure enough: “Aaaa… Koishii!” Sam squealed lovingly, disappearing into the back of the bus to continue the (usually at least an hour long) conversation with her fiancé.

Raian glared after Sam, lounging across one of the not so comfortable benches against the wall and apparently trying to listen in on the conversation as he stretched himself towards the back of the bus, muttering to himself.

Kat took her seat in the folded chair, her eyes seemingly distant as she listened to the music that was still coming from the stadium they just left. They had been opening for this band for a month now, and the songs tended to get a little boring after a while, “Why are you still so over protective over Sam. She’s a big girl now. And Taro is a good guy,” Kat muttered, still not directly looking at anyone. Whether or not her mind was on the conversation or just off in space was questionable. The band had gotten used to this. “I think I’m going to take Yuki for a walk,” she continued from some unmentioned tangent, bouncing over the back of her chair, a light blue leash somehow already in her hand. Now to find the cat.

“That guy isn’t good enough for Sam. I mean, he’s an actor. He’s always going to be working, he’s always going to be too busy. He will never understand Sam like me…” Raian’s rambling was disappearing into thin air as no one was listening. Gretchen had turned around in her seat and was now distracted by her man-chair’s lips, and Kat was already closing the bus doors behind her.

“Oiiii…” Raian mumbled dully, “Too much P.D.A.”

“And hearing about who you have banged recently is T.M.I.,” Steve replied smoothly, separating his lips temporarily from Gretchen’s, a frown stretched across his square jaw, regardless of his little green-colored girl on his lap.  “Sam’s a big girl and it’s a bit late to be complaining.”

Gretchen sighed at the interruption.  There was only one time Steve would use that mouth of his for talking—and that was when it was to ‘correct’ Raian.  She sat back on Steve’s knees to wait for her boyfriend to run out of arguments.

“Not to mention, she’s a musician so she has been just as busy as any actor. But they love each other, and cherish the time they have together no matter what seems to happen, and guess what Raian?  There is absolutely nothing you can do about it.” Steve’s square face blank but his green eyes were fired up.  “Are we going to go through all of the usual arguments,” Steve shot Raian with a narrow glare, “Or are you going to go take poor Jake for a walk?”

“Anything to get away from the disgusting sound of you two’s lips slapping against each other,” Raian growled, grabbing the other leash and hooking it onto the collar of the half conscious yellow lab puppy that was laying beside him, “Come on Jake, let’s find a different route than that crazy old cat lady, shall we?” He cooed, half dragging the dog off the bus and into the night air.

“Babe, when did you take your balls back?” Gretchen teased—but only after making sure the bus door was actually closed.

Steve straightened up, attempting to force a frown, “Now, you know that that is only a figurative expression. You don’t actually have my…”

“Steve, Shut it.”

“Okay,” Steve smiled, letting Gretchen take back control of their make-out session.

--

Eighth Grade, Fifteen Minutes into Lunch: Gretchen Johns

They were the stars of any school dance, but that didn’t give them the right to have egos the size of small airships.  This was something that a small blonde-haired girl was currently working on correcting.

“Excuse me, you bastards are the ones who cut in line!”

The girl with curly hair scowled down at the blonde, “Don’t call me a bastard, bitch.”

The rest of the little troop—a girl with brown hair, a guy that looked like he could eat all three of the girls and still have room for cake—were just staring at the argument (it was mostly name-calling, really) looking dumbfounded at the tiny blonde’s vicious nature.

“Don’t call me a bitch, you goddamn freakshow.”

“Try that again, squirt.  Isn’t it time for your bottle?”

This had been going on for several minutes.

“You fucking asshole!” The blonde couldn’t take it any longer, and her hand whipped out as quick as a rattlesnake and caught the other girl on the cheek.

The curly-haired girl stared at the doll-sized pre-teen, unconsciously rubbing the red mark on the side of her face, “Oh no you didn’t?!” Then she barred her teeth and curled her hands into fists, “TEMERA!!!”

And then Sam punched Gretchen… hard.

--

Eighth Grade, Sixteen Minutes into Lunch: Sam Carlton

There was blood… lots of it. It was pouring from the broken nose of the stuck up bitch that had started the fight.  There was even a little bit on Sam’s fist.

Of course, then their big burly guy-friend—too much of a saint to let a girl (even if she was a bitch to his friends) bleed all over the floor—was helping Gretchen pinch her nose and trying to help calm her down.

Arms grabbed Sam around her stomach as her elder brother’s tight grip kept her from attacking again, “Calm down Sam. Damn, I come to visit for lunch and you start a fight. There’s no doubt now, you are definitely my sister. Now calm down,” he whispered in his ear. It was obvious by the tone of his voice, that he was almost willing to let her go and see what happened. But at the same time, their principal was already strutting over to the bloody scene.

“Shit!” Kat hissed through her teeth, making Sam glance up to meet the narrowed eyes of their middle school’s one and only principal.

“My office.  Now.” The hawk-like man’s semi-permanent scowl had increased at the scene before him, which only meant bad things.  His sharp eyes skidded over to rest on Kat, Steve, and the blond bitch.  “All of you… You as well, Mr. Carlton.”

“Fucking… Aw shit.” Raian paused from his attempt to escape, and slumped slightly, rubbing the back of his neck as he followed the similarly reluctant pre-teens.

--

Three Hours After the Gig: The Band

Sam stormed out from the back room of the bus, slamming the door behind her.

Kat peered up from her laptop, a small grey kitten looked up from Kat’s lap as well, probably only there for the heat from the computer’s fan.  The cat, Yuki, was named for her snow-like white socked feet and the little white tip of her tail.  “What’re you up to, Sammie?”

Sam was already inside the fridge, grabbing another lemonade from the orderly line inside.  “Can’t come to see me he said. Has another movie lined up. Needs to get ready even though shooting doesn’t start for at least a month…” she mumbled, insistent on drinking the lemonade as fast as she could. She slid down the wall next to fridge, its door still open. It was obvious the moment the bottle in her hand was empty she was going to head right for another one. The downward spiral had begun.

“I told you!! I told you he isn’t good enough for…” a pillow thrown hard at his head interrupted Raian’s tirade. The fluffy object was immediately thrown back at Steve but it was a feeble attempt and it only landed at his feet.

“Sammie… isn’t that your phone?” Kit asked, staring towards the back room that Sam had just left. A muffled ring chime was coming from behind the door, echoing slightly in the awkward silence. “Must be the telemarketers again…” Kit said, shrugging it off and returning to her computer screen.

--

Japan, Third Semester of College: Sam Carlton

“ANIKI!! Urusai! We lived in Japan most of our lives, I know how to handle myself here. And Kit is with me so she is fine as well.”

“One, I don’t care about Kat. Two, don’t tell me to shut up. And if a single guy makes a move on you while you’re there, I want to know their name, number and address.” Raian had the usual loud and whiney voice he usually got when he got protective.

“Um… I’m going to have to say no to that. I’m hanging up now.”

“No… wait…” *CLICK*

Sam pressed the power button on her docomo and watched it till the screen went black.

“Why did you give Raian your number here in Japan?” Kat asked, chewing on a piece of pocky as she stared out at the people passing them by. They were sitting in the middle of Hibiya Park, Sam with a laptop in her lap and Kat with a manga in one hand and a box of pocky in the other.

“I didn’t give it to him; he took it before I left. I didn’t know he had it. I will be changing it,” Sam said, sighing as she continued writing the essay due to her international business professor in two hours. She had only just started the introduction.

“Sumimasen… Amerika-jin desu ka”  <Excuse me, are you American?>

Sam looked up into the face of a very curious and interested face standing above them. She also couldn’t help but notice how very pretty it was, “Hai, sou desu” <That’s right>

“Ano… you… help… ano... eigo no shukadai… please?” <Can you help with English homework> He said nervously. From what was coming out of his mouth, it was obvious he really needed it.

Kat looked between the two, still nawing on a piece of pocky, “What are you two saying?” she grumbled, obviously a little annoyed.

“Here, write my essay for me…” Sam said, dumping the laptop in her lap and smiling sweetly at the man standing above them, “Ii desu. Nani o wakarimasen ka?” <Sure, what don’t you understand> She asked, standing up and leaning in close to look at the papers in his hand.

Kat sort of glared up at them before returning to her snack and book, mumbling curses in French, “Why did I agree to come here? I could have gone to France… but nooooo… Let’s go to Japan, Kat, it will be so much fun… bloody hell…” The curses continued.

“Ja… wakarismasu ka?” <Then… do you understand?>
“Un… honto ni arigatou gozaimasu” <Yes, really, thank you very much>
“Iie” <Sort of a “no problem”>
“Ano… namae wa?” <Um… what’s your name?>
“Samansa desu demo Samu wa ii desu.” <Samantha, but Sam is okay>
“Hajimemashite. Ore was Takahashi Koutaro. Demo, Taro wa ii desu” <Nice to meet you. I am Koutaro Takahashi. But, Taro is good>
“Hajimemashite Taro-san.” <Nice to meet you Taro>
“Ano… Samu-chan mo Sophia Daigaku no gakusei desu ka?” <Um… is Sam also a Sophia Universiy student?>
“Un… sou desu…”  <That’s right>
“Denwa bango wa?” <Phone number?>

Sam paused at this question as she just sort of stared at him, “Um… uh…” This was the first time she had ever actually been asked for her number, so she wasn’t sure how to react, none the less what language to speak, “Um… sure… I mean… um… iiyo.” Sam took his pen and wrote her number across the top of his notebook, writing her name in katakana below it.

“Samansa Ca…ru...ton…” he said, struggling a bit with her last name, “Samu...” He said, looking up and smiling. “Ja… matta ne?” <Then… see you later> He waved before walking away.

Sam couldn’t help but let her eyes follow him, especially concentrated on his very nice ass.

“Sammie… Excusem wa… do I not exist?” Kat said, poking Sam’s cheek with a corner of her book.

Sam seemed to come out of a trance as her pale blue eyes flicked back to her impatient friend’s face, “Huh… oh… hi.”

“Hi Sammie. Long time no see. Are you enjoying playing around with the pretty Asian men?”

“Huh… no… I wasn’t playing. He was just asking for help with his English homework down at the university,” Sam said quickly, although it was sort of difficult for her to hide the bright red that was flushing across her ears.

“Uh huh, and I don’t think that last part was a question about English homework, unless your name is somehow an answer. Here, do your bloody homework,” Kat said, shoving the laptop back into her hands.

“AH Shit… I have an hour left… fuck fuck fuck fuck…” Sam said, quickly typing away with whatever nonsense she could get to make sense with the barely formed thesis. This was going to be another one of those usual essays that the teacher had learned to just ignore unless he wanted to experience the pain he usually did when he slammed his head against his desk.

--

[to be continued]