FicWad

He smiles and lies his way through the hours after the show, stealing lines from the voice in his head that seems sane enough for public consumption, smiling and laughing and signing until his hand aches, fingers twitching for a cigarette. He wishes it would end for the night already, but he needs his fix today, and it has been too long before he felt the energy to do this. He latches on the first pierced little teenage girl with a knock-off truck red hair who mentions that she was at Frank’s show last month and sucks in every word like a hungry vampire he used to pretend to be.

He does not remember when was the first time he asked for little pieces of information about Frank like this in a form of fucked-up exchange, but the guilt and self-loathing didn’t intensify because of this, so he does not dwell on it too much. It's not like it truly matters, it's just a big, big game anyway – Frank just needs a bit of a time before they will be alright again. But until then, he has this strange game of questions, and he has to control his addiction like this; whoring himself out to people who pay him to hear his voice and maybe touch him once or twice after shows, showering them with fake attention and too bright smiles while they happily buy it all.

Then there are the nights when he cannot do it and tries anything and everything to get away after the shows and hide; these are the nights he tries to save some of his dignity by tweeting empty apologies to the people waiting hours and hours in the rainy, badly lit city nights just to go home with an image in their hearts of a hero who does not care enough. Not like he ever asked to be put on a pedestal, but lately, they are right; he really does not care at all. A voice in his head used to nudge him whenever he got like this before, but it stays silent now, so everything must be fine.

Between shows he is suffocated by planes, but it’s even worse after landing, and that little bit of control he had over his brain disappears as well and he is left there, trying not to drown while he lies on the ground and gasps for oxygen, hands on his throat, missing something but pushing the memory of it even farther down inside himself. He knows he used to have something, but does not remember what. He knows that he has new things now, but when he tries to count them, it always equals to double zero.

(He is like a fuckup impersonator of a lurking secret agent. Always just that one thing on mind lately, he convinces himself Frank is doing just the same as him, stalking him, sucking in every little thing he can find out. Convincing himself that one day they will crash and collide and it will all make sense.)

He wishes the weather would mirror his decomposing brain just one time, but it stays grey and cloudy as always and he cannot remember a day anymore when the sky did not look like this. He imagines the sunshine and the fluffy whiteness on blue and the storms, but never sees them, so he knows that these things never really existed, he only imagined them; he never dares to talk about lightning bolts and drops of sweat in the hotness of Jersey summers. He now knows that he came up with these things in his brain, and he does not want others to think he is crazy, so he shuts up and keeps staring at the grey clouds.

He listens to Frank’s songs again, the full thirty-seven minutes and twenty-six seconds, and dissects the lyrics over and over again until he is satisfied. (The cover is grey too, just like the clouds.) He has to do this when he feels like losing another shred of sanity, he has to reassure himself that every piece of lyrics is spat and screamed at him, not at some stupid other person unappreciative of his Frank and his only. He smirks at the clouds because she does not know.

He is not sure how he feels about his so-called fans’ eyes always on him, as if they are waiting for him to break and spill, like vultures circling a prey that is still clinging to its last breath of life. To confess and tell them all his regrets and crawl on his knees for them, asking for salvation. To bring back what, at some point, was all they had as a therapy and as a way to escape the real world. They do not know that what they used as a getaway was all he was, was all he had. But he himself, he knows that too; always have known. (He does not want it back. He knows he is happy now.)

And they seem to be doing just the same to his own songs as he does to Frank’s, only difference in them ridiculously lacking any kind of knowledge of what happened since that day in September when he watched the twin towers collapse. He remembers how he let all his stupid, unnecessary comic drawings be blown away by the wind, remembers burning the ones left once he got home. He remembers sitting in the basement, smoking up, holding back everything he later spit in the microphone when he finally got on stage, his anger and frustration never letting up. He remembers how the sheets always smelled like cigarettes and alcohol and Frank. He remembers promising him the world and kissing him hard on stage and later behind closed doors. He used to be those memories, he used to smile at those memories, he used to cry at those memories. Now he does neither because he knows better. (He needs a drink.)

(He knows that deep down, Frank thinks and hopes and knows the same too - that although they have both changed, they still are the only ones so inimitable and above all these self-proclaimed geniuses. He wants and needs Frank, and it is only a question of time before he will not need to want him anymore because he will be there, he knows it.)

One day, he knows, one day, Frank will drop everything and come to him, and he smiles to the ceiling as he chain-smokes his (he swears, last one) pack of cigarettes, wishing for cheap, dirty motels and endless rivers of booze instead of the crisp luxury and sharp edges and unreasonably priced coffees. He knows that for some important reason, he should not be staying at those places anymore, but he cannot remember what that reason was. He thinks about it until his head aches and then decides that Frank will call him when he wants him to go and stay in dirty motels with him again. Frank is almost here with him, only a matter of time.

And then he will never leave unless he has music to make, he knows that too, because he is just the same; unsatisfying in a way and yet the closest person other than his brother to understand him. Mikey is gone, though, he does not remember where, but it’s alright because Frank will tell him when he finally gets here. Frank will make music and do some shows when he feels like burning up from the inside, and once satisfied with his artistry, he will come back, asking for everything. He knows that he will give it all to Frank, because he used to be just the same… burning up just the same. He still knows the feeling but now he is starting to forget it, having gone much too long without it. (He promised the world to Frank and he didn’t lie back then. Nobody knew how life would get in the way. Everyone out there is too fucked up and he needs the tattooed arms around him.)

He doesn’t have to look out on the window or go on the internet to see them all, the teenagers screaming about their mental illnesses at everyone, living off of antidepressants and nicotine, like a sick contest – the more venom you take, the more fucked-up brain you prove to have. The thing is, these kids chose them at some point to be their therapist, coming to him after shows, thanking him, showing their faded scars and their fresh tattoos, all inspired by the band, by him. (He does not know why anyone would choose him as an inspiration when Frank was always right there, right next to him, but all those people, they don’t know shit anyway.)

But he cannot avoid the other kind of vultures, the only ones he despises even more – the journalists and the reviewers. Comparing the new style to the old one, talking about emo and Britpop revival, rating, asking questions. They never run out of them and it seems like new people are born every day, set out just to hunt him down. His legs are tired of running; his brain is suffocating him, never providing enough oxygen.

And then one day he gets drunk after three years of being sober and he calls Ray and cries and sobs and begs and throws around everything in his room, screaming at him for not saving what they had, and he knows, he knows what he needs and it’s on the tip of his tongue before he manages to push it deep down again, almost giving himself away. He asks Ray to come in his room and help him like he always did before but he tells him that Ray is in Los Angeles right now while he is calling from Europe. He does not understand why, he only knows that Ray is not there for him, so he screams some more. Ray tells him to calm down, and then he does not care anymore, he asks for Frank, always Frank, just a word about him to keep him sane.

He nearly begs for every little piece of Frank until he feels his heartbeat return to something similar he had years and years ago, back when everything seemed to be faster and more vivid, but it’s never the same, never will be until Frank gets here. Ray is oddly silent once he finishes and tells him to call Lindsey once they get off the phone. He agrees and he does not call her.

He goes home because tour ends and they tell him he has to and after a few months or weeks or days of being in his Los Angeles house again Lindsey leaves him, but he is not sure why and definitely sure he does not care. He starts missing Bandit after a week or two because the house is big and quiet without her, and for the first time he can remember, he feels sad. He would call her but the phone is too far away and he’s not sure he remembers how to use his words anyway. He hums the song he wrote for her so long ago, but it makes him even sadder, so he sits down and starts waiting for Frank instead. He really should have arrived by now. He remembers now that he wrote that song for Frank anyway, not Bandit. He pours another drink.

And then one day, he feels himself growing restless, and he hasn’t felt that for years now, so he jumps and takes the first plane he can, only finding out the destination when he lands. The clouds are grey here as well and people are drinking lots of coffee so it must be fine, he thinks. He buys cigarettes and cheap vodka.

(And as his plane lands, he looks around because he knows Frank will be there, wherever he is right now. Frank is always there, Frank never leaves him hanging, Frank never lies, Frank never turns his back on him, Frank would never do such thing, he knows that. It’s just, it’s just that Frank is still lurking in the shadows, playing the game, not noticing he has gotten bored of it, that he has come out to show himself. So he waits around and after some time he gets on another plane, not sure about the why and the how and the when, only about the who. He lands and he waits there, wishing Frank would come already. He never took this long before. He finds himself on a plane once again and stays in the haze of the constant jet lag.

Someone comes up to him and asks something about making music. Says something about how more than a year passed since he was last heard singing or be seen in California. Asks how he is doing after the divorce. He does not understand. He and Frank never married. He tries to say something but his tongue is tied. He hears a lot of words and he knows what the words mean but still, no words make sense anymore.

He knows that he is waiting for Frank. He knows that Frank will come. He forgives him for being a bit late, and he tries not to wish him to just come already, because Frank always knows when the time is right. He is not sure if he will recognize Frank when he gets here, but he knows everything that he needs to know so it must be fine.

He knows he is sober.

People are talking too loudly as he counts all the songs he has ever written which were not about Frank. It always equals to double zero.

Gerard just stays where he is because he is waiting for Frank.)