Happy Holidays, shoemaster!
To: shoemaster
From: lordessrenegade

Title: Five Tired Boys and a Broken Down Manager
Rating: NC17
Characters: Brian Schechter/Bob Bryar
Word Count: 3142
Warnings: Crack!
Disclaimer: Didn't happen. Don't google yourself.
Summary: Ten things Brian Schechter learned while babysitting My Chemical Romance.
Notes: Thanks to I. for letting me flail at her, and to E. for the beta and general handholding.


1) Don't panic. Putting your fist through a wall is not going to change the fact that your band has been turned into small children.

"Ow."

"Don't do that," Bob said mildly behind him. Brian banged his head against the wall instead. "C'mere," Bob said, steering him away from the wall and shoving him down onto the bed. He disappeared into the bathroom for a minute, then emerged with a wet towel and some band-aids.

"My band has been turned into preschoolers," Brian told him, in case Bob hadn't noticed.

Bob nodded and picked up Brian's hand, wiping away the plaster and blood. "Yeah," he agreed. "And they're finally sleeping, right on the other side of that wall. If you wake them up, it's going to be your job to sing Frank back to sleep this time."

Brian smiled a little. "You're really pretty awful, you know."

"Shut up," Bob told him, pressing a band-aid to one of his knuckles. "I'd have had Gerard do it, but he was already passed out."

Brian was quiet for a minute, watching Bob finish patching up his hand. "What are we going to do with them?" he asked. "I mean…" he flailed his other arm around, "they're kids. What do you even do with kids? What if they don't get fixed? I got off the road for them! I paid for this tour out of my own pocket! If they're stuck like this…"

Bob clamped a hand over his mouth. "Did you not hear the shut up? Just…go to sleep, ok? Maybe they'll be back to normal in the morning."

"And if they're not?"

"If they're not, we'll deal with it then." Bob pushed him back onto the bed, then got up to turn off the light. Brian listened to him shuffling around in the dark, then crawling into the other bed.

"You know," Bob said a few minutes later into the silence, "when I offered to come to Europe with you to help babysit the band, this wasn't exactly what I had in mind."

"Shut up, Bob," Brian said, but he fell asleep with a tiny smile on his face.

2) When you're five years old, Bob Bryar looks like the coolest jungle gym in the world.

The next morning, when Brian came in from shopping for kid sized clothes, he found Bob standing in the middle of the room with Matt and Ray attached to his legs, a Way brother hanging off each arm, and Frank perched on top of his shoulders.

"We're a Transformer!" Frank yelled at Brian, waving his arms over his head. "Charge!" he added, tugging on Bob's hair and steering him in Brian's direction.

"Help?" Bob suggested.

Brian chose to double over laughing instead. It seemed like a better idea at the time.

3) Arguing with My Chem about clothes is kind of hopeless. Unless you're Bob.

"They're ugly," Matt said, hands on his hips.

Brian looked down at the pile of clothes. "They're clothes, Matt. Look, the other guys are wearing them."

That was more or less true. At the moment, Frank and Gerard were engaged in a wrestling match over a particular pair of pants, but Mikey had pulled on the first things he found, then curled up inside his MIKEY sweatshirt again, and Ray was trying to get all of his hair through the neckhole of a kid sized t-shirt.

"I like my old clothes," Matt said, sulking.

"Your old clothes are too big for me," Brian reminded him. "I don't think they're going to stay on you."

"Who needs clothes anyway?" Matt asked, sprawling back on the bed.

"Dude," Bob spoke up from the corner. "I know the naked drummer thing is kind of a cliché and all? But this really isn't the time for it. You stay naked, you get sick. You get sick like this, and we're going to have to bring you to a doctor. A pediatrician. Do you remember going to the doctor when you were a kid, Matt?"

Matt gaped at him for a moment or two, then scrambled around, pulling on the nearest clothes he could grab.

Brian raised an eyebrow at Bob.

"What?" Bob asked. "I have nephews." He proceeded to prove this by scooping Frank and Gerard up under his arms and holding them apart from each other until they stopped wiggling.

Sometimes, Bob Bryar was an astonishingly impressive guy.

4) Frank Iero is Frank Iero, no matter how old he is.

Frank likes piggyback rides.

He likes cuddling and poking people and sprawling out on everyone's laps while they're trying to do other things.

Basically, being five years old hasn't changed Frank at all, except that now it's a little easier for Bob to pick him up and put him somewhere else when he's being particularly annoying.

5) Trying to get five members of My Chem to take a bath is kind of like trying to get five cats into a box. Except they're wet. And angry. And they're willing to insult your mother.

Frank was the first one into the bath, and had to be dragged out by Bob once the water had gone cold. "But I was having fun!" he was still protesting when Bob emerged from the bathroom and dumped him onto the bed in a towel-covered heap. "There's a sea monster in there!" he told the other boys. Mikey's eyes widened and he clung to Brian's arm. "Just a small one!" Frank added quickly. "And he's friendly! He just got back from the Bahamas, and swam up the drain into the bathtub, and he has the best stories—" He broke off into a fit of giggles as Bob started vigorously drying him down.

"Next!" Brian called, looking at the four boys huddled on the other bed, and they all bunched closer together, staring at him as if he was about to eat them. "I will Febreeze you all down," he warned them. "And it won't be pleasant."

"You should hose them all down," Frank suggested, still giggling, which was how Brian ended up, fifteen minutes later, standing in the bathroom pointing the showerhead at four hysterical boys in their underwear while Bob ran between them, trying to get them to actually use some soap.

Frank sat on the toilet seat, wrapped in towels, and laughed uproariously at all of them.

6) Sometimes the only thing scarier than nightmare monsters is a tired and cranky manager.

Brian woke to someone small and heavy sitting on his chest.

"Hi?" he said into the darkness.

"Brian, there are monsters."

He blinked up at the ceiling for a minute or two. "Gee?"

"There are monsters." Gerard's voice got more insistent over the sound of Bob's quiet snoring across the room. "They're in our room and they won't let me sleep. They keep moving around on the other bed."

Brian stifled a sigh. "Those are shadows, Gee. There's a tree outside the window, and it's making shadows on the blankets."

He felt Gerard shift and knew even without being able to see him that he was putting his hands on his hips. "It's not a tree. It's monsters. And you're the only person who can scare them away."

Brian laughed, startled. "Me? Why not Bob?"

Gerard was quiet for a long moment. "You're scarier," he finally said.

"Scarier than Bob?"

"When you get mad? Yeah." Gerard climbed off of Brian and tugged at his sheets. "Can I stay in here tonight?"

"What about the others? Aren't you afraid the monsters will get them?"

Gerard burrowed under Brian's covers and peered up at him reproachfully. "Monsters can't get you when you're sleeping," he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and he curled in against Brian's side.

Brian sighed and wrapped an arm around Gerard's back. "Ok," he said. "You sleep. I'll keep the monsters away."

"You always do," Gerard mumbled against Brian's shirt, and then he was asleep.

7) Brian really really sucks at the guitar.

Ray spent hours bent over his guitar, trying to get his tiny arms and hands to make music, and getting increasingly frustrated when it wouldn't work.

"You need to help me," he finally decided, dragging the guitar across the room and propping it up against Brian's leg.

"Me?" Brian looked up, startled. "I can't play."

"You can play better than I can right now." Ray tipped the guitar toward him and looked up at him with huge pleading eyes. "Please?"

Somewhere, there existed a man strong enough to resist the puppy dog eyes of a tiny Ray Toro. Brian was not that man.

"Fine," he sighed, picking it up. He ran his thumb over the strings tunelessly. "What do you want me to do?"

It was hours later that Bob opened the door between the rooms and walked in to find Ray perched on the end of the bed, leaning over Brian's hands and positioning them, then turning to scribble notes down into a notebook. He stood in the doorway and watched them for a long time, and when Brian looked up to grin sheepishly at him, Bob was already smiling back.

8) Give Gerard a marker and a blank canvas, and he'll keep himself occupied for hours.

"I miss my tattoos," Frank whispered to Gerard, wrapping himself around Gerard's back. He had the same kind of whisper all little kids did, the kind that carried across a room, and Brian couldn't help but overhear.

It only took a few minutes to run downstairs to a convenience store and pick up a package of markers.

"They're washable," he told Bob, seeing the way Bob was eyeing Frank and Gerard warily, and he nodded.

Gerard spread Frank out on a towel on the floor, then stood over him for a long time, just looking. "C'mon," Frank said, squirming, but Gerard frowned at him.

"I'm remembering," he said, and stared some more.

Finally he knelt down by Frank's side, uncapped the black marker, and started tracing out the doves on his stomach. Frank giggled and his skin leapt under the touch, but he stayed still and let Gerard work.

They stayed at it for hours, Frank twisting whichever way Gerard asked him to, Gerard biting his lip as he concentrated on each word, each line, reproducing them perfectly on Frank's skin.

Finally, he pulled away and put the markers back in their box, and Frank leapt to his feet, tackling Gerard and pinning him down to the floor in a many-limbed hug. "You guys!" he yelled, jumping up again. "Look! Look what Gee did!"

Gerard smiled up at him from the floor. "You look like you again," he said, looking pleased with himself.

"You're my very favorite," Frank told him, and leaned over to plant a big kiss on Gerard's cheek before running across the room and jumping on Bob, demanding that he look at each tattoo.

Brian kept his eyes on Gerard, so he was the only one who saw a tiny pink blush creep across his cheeks.

9) Bob Bryar is secretly kind of awesome with children. And he's not so secretly awesome in a lot of other ways too.

Brian had been banished from the boys' room shortly before bedtime. "Bob tells better stories than you do," Mikey told him very seriously while Ray pushed him out the door. He used the time to make the calls to cancel their next show, and spent the next half hour wondering whether he'd still want to be in the managing business in twenty years when My Chem was finally old enough to be a band again.

"You're freaking out again, aren't you?" asked Bob from the doorway.

"They asleep?" Brian asked, setting his phone aside and rolling over.

"Mostly. Gerard's watching Frank sleep, I think, but he'll be there soon. And Ray woke up a little when I climbed out from under him, but…yeah. They're fine. And you're…" he peered at Brian. "Not."

"Am too," Brian said, then made a face. "And we've definitely been spending too much time with preschoolers lately."

Bob smiled a little, then shook his head. "No, you're freaking out. I can tell." He crossed the room and sat on the edge of Brian's bed. "You need to stop that."

Brian rolled his eyes. "Yes, because it's that easy."

"It is. Just…think about something else."

"Hi, no, I'm sorry, I'm pretty sure there's nothing that's going to be able to distract me from the fact that I no longer have a career because something utterly impossible has happened."

Bob smiled a little at him.

"What?" Brian looked down at himself, then back up at Bob. "What?" He felt his cheeks heating up, and was reminded suddenly of Gerard, gazing up at Frank with cartoon hearts in his eyes. "Um," he said, utterly unhelpfully.

"People tell me I can be pretty distracting," Bob said conversationally, shifting to sit with his back against the headboard. "Just, you know. As a general rule." He stared ahead at the tv, looking at their reflections with a tiny little smirk on his face.

"Distracting, huh?" Brian asked, meeting his eyes in the glass. "You? I hadn't noticed."

Bob grinned. "You're a liar," he said, and then he was kissing Brian.

Brian's hands flailed around for a second, unsure of what to hold onto, until Bob's hands settled on his waist, tugging him closer until he was kneeling over Bob, legs on either side of him. Then it was easy to rest his fingers against Bob's shoulders, bracing himself and feeling the way Bob shivered when Brian lightly bit his lower lip.

"This is really kind of incredibly stupid," Brian said as he pulled Bob's shirt up and over his head, running his fingers back down over his chest.

"Mm, maybe," Bob agreed, but that didn't keep him from tucking his hands into the back pockets of Brian's jeans, tugging him forward so their cocks rubbed together through their pants. Brian hissed in a breath and leaned down to kiss Bob again, and he forgot to talk any more.

Bob's hands were warm and rough against his ass, pulling him forward in a steady rhythm, making Brian gasp into his mouth when his hips came up off the bed to press his cock harder against Brian's. "You have got to get out of these pants," he said finally, tipping Brian easily off his lap and spreading him out on the bed. Brian lifted his hips to let Bob pull off his jeans and boxers, then watched as Bob got himself naked, his fingers aching to touch every inch of his pale skin.

But he was too desperate for that right now, just wanting to feel Bob's cock against his again, so when Bob knelt onto the bed beside him, Brian reached out to wrap his fingers around Bob's hip, pulling him down over him. Bob leaned down to suck at Brian's collarbone, grinning against his skin. "Impatient little fucker, aren't you?" he said, then rocked his hips down against Brian.

Brian's noise of agreement was more of a moan than a word, and Bob laughed, reaching down to wrap his hand around both of them, his cock sliding slick and hot against Brian's.

Brian tilted his hips up, fucking into Bob's hand and watching the way Bob's eyes closed at the sensation. He grinned, then reached between them and tangled his fingers with Bob's, moving their hands faster, sliding his thumb up over the head of Bob's cock, and then it was all over, Bob shaking and coming above him, burying his face in Brian's neck to muffle his moans. Brian tightened his fist around his own cock, moving slick and wet with Bob's come, feeling the way Bob's lips were pressing lazy kisses to his collarbone and neck, and then Bob's hand was back, pushing his away as he whispered "here, let me" against Brian's skin.

"Fuck," Brian gasped out, and came into Bob's hand, hips jerking up off the bed, head flung back against the pillows.

They lay like that for a long time, breathing slowing from panted gasps to the deep and even breaths that come right before sleep, until Bob rolled out of bed and came back with a cloth, kneeling on the bed beside Brian to wipe them both clean. He stayed there for a minute, as if debating whether to go back to his own bed, then seemed to come to a decision and crawled between Brian's sheets, pulling Brian against his side.

"Was that distracting enough for you?" he asked, and Brian grinned.

"Distracting from what?" he asked, before burying his face against Bob's shoulder and falling instantly asleep.

10) There are times when Brian actually doesn't mind being the smallest one in the room.

"Well. This is awkward," was the first thing he heard when he woke in the morning, which isn't exactly the kind of thing that inspires guy to pull the covers down from over his head. So he didn't. Instead he rolled over, pressed his face into Bob's side, and hoped that the world was going to disappear.

It didn't.

"Um." Bob's chest rumbled with his reply, and Brian took a minute to grin to himself before sighing and peeking up out of the bed. There at the foot of it was the entirety of My Chemical Romance, all of them trying very hard not to look him in the eye.

A full-sized adult version of My Chemical Romance.

He blinked. They didn't disappear.

"I have a band," he said to them. Ray grinned back. Mikey looked down at his shoes. "I have a band!" he told Bob, pointing at them in case he'd missed them. "I have a career."

"You have a—" Frank began, before Gerard clamped a hand over his mouth.

Brian looked down. And blushed.

"…a Bob," Gerard finished. "And we're leaving." He ushered the other guys to the door, and Brian tried very hard not to notice the big cheesy thumbs-up Matt shot in his direction before closing the door behind them.

"I have a band," he told Bob again, beaming.

Bob smiled back. "Yeah," he agreed. "You do. And you also have what Frank was going to say you had, which, you know, is a little more interesting to me at this particular moment."

"I don't actually need to be distracted anymore," Brian reminded him, just in case he hadn't realized that.

"Good," Bob said. "Last night was to distract you. This morning?" He smiled, tiny and dirty. "This morning is for me."

As he ducked under the covers, Brian decided then and there that his newest priority as a manager was going to be to find a way to bring Bob Bryar on every tour My Chem ever went on.