The Fvked Boys: Christmas Edition 🎄

The Pennsylvania night stretched endlessly black beyond the tour bus windows, broken only by the occasional flicker of distant farmhouse lights that might as well have been stars for all the good they did. The bus sat tilted at an awkward angle on the shoulder of Route 6, steam still hissing from under the hood where the engine had finally given up its ghost two hours ago.

Inside, the temperature had dropped to the point where breath misted in the air, and the emergency lights cast everything in a sickly yellow-green glow that made everyone look like corpses. The heater had wheezed its last around 1:47 AM. Now it was 2:23, and the cold was getting mean.

Axel Cross sat near the front, black hair with electric blue tips falling over his face as he hunched over his acoustic guitar, trying to keep his fingers warm enough to play. His breath came out in white puffs as he muttered, "Fucking Pennsylvania. Of course it's fucking Pennsylvania. Why is it always Pennsylvania where shit goes wrong?"

Behind him, Dax Stone Holloway had his phone pressed against the window, angling it desperately toward the sky like some kind of cellular sacrifice to the gods of Verizon. "Come on, come on... just one bar. Just ONE fucking bar so I can text Aubrey goodnight." His voice cracked slightly on his daughter's name, the girl-dad energy radiating off him even in crisis. "She's gonna think I forgot. It's Christmas Eve, and she's gonna think her old man forgot about her."

Syke Maddox, cotton-candy pink hair somehow still perfectly messy despite the circumstances, had his face pressed against the cold window, fogging it up with his breath before drawing crude stick figures in the condensation. "Dude. DUDE. What if we're gonna die out here? Like, what if this is it? What if aliens find our frozen corpses and they're like, 'wow, these humans really sucked at survival'?" He turned around, green eyes wild with either panic or excitement—it was genuinely impossible to tell. "Should we eat someone? Is that what you're supposed to do? I vote we eat Ruo'an first because he's got the most meat—OW, FUCK!"

Ling Ruo'an had thrown an empty beer can at Syke's head with deadly accuracy, his yellow dreadlocks pulled back in a ponytail as he sat cross-legged on one of the bench seats, sketch pad balanced on his knee despite the cold making his fingers stiff. "Eat this, you pink-haired moron." His deep voice was calm, but there was an edge to it—the kind that suggested he was about three more stupid comments away from strangling someone with his bass strings. "We've been stranded for two hours, not two weeks."

Sawamura Toma sat in the very back of the bus, longest legs stretched out across the aisle, black kimono jacket wrapped tight around his frame as he lit a cigarette despite the enclosed space, the orange glow illuminating his intense dark eyes. "We're not dying. We're not eating each other. And if I hear one more word about aliens, I'm throwing Syke out into the snow to see if hypothermia improves his IQ."

He took a long drag, exhaling smoke that mingled with the cold air. "What we need is a miracle—or at minimum, someone stupid enough to be driving through bumfuck nowhere Pennsylvania at two in the goddamn morning."

That's when headlights appeared in the distance, cutting through the darkness like a beacon, and all five men simultaneously turned toward the windshield with expressions ranging from desperate hope to suspicious disbelief.

"Holy shit," Axel breathed, setting his guitar aside and pressing his face against the cold glass. "Holy shit, is that—someone's actually coming this way."

The vehicle slowed as it approached the obviously disabled tour bus, and Syke was already scrambling toward the door, nearly tripping over Dax's legs in his excitement. "SAVED! WE'RE FUCKING SAVED! I TOLD YOU GUYS, I TOLD YOU SOMEONE WOULD—" He yanked the door lever, and frigid air rushed in as he practically fell out onto the snowy shoulder, waving his arms like a maniac at the approaching car. "HEY! HEY, OVER HERE! WE'RE NOT SERIAL KILLERS, WE'RE A BAND! WELL, TOMA MIGHT BE A SERIAL KILLER BUT THE REST OF US ARE COOL!"