FicWad

Morning arose rapidly after the previous night’s events, stirring Ray from his uncomfortable sleep on the couch in his apartment, he grunted in annoyance and wrenched his body upwards, causing him a sudden sensation of pain, as though a fire had exploded inside his whole body, he let out a yelp of pain but remained in his seated position, shaking.
Ben tip-toed over cautiously, handing him a glass of water, pain-killers and a sympathetic look before heading out of the door towards the local restaurant where he worked.
Ray knew he needed to see the extent of his fathers rage, and there was no time like the present, he gingerly rose up from his resting place and walked steadily towards the mirror in the bathroom. What he saw when he got there made his stomach churn. He let out a small gasp as he caught sight of himself.
He was a mess. His eyes were both swollen and blackened, with a greenish tinge developing, his nose was out of place – presumably broken. He had a deep gash across his lip and his face was covered in dried blood. If that had come as a surprise to him, he dreaded to see the rest of the damage. He lifted up his shirt carefully to reveal what didn’t even appear to be a part of his body.
His torso was cut and swollen, with huge bruises running from the top of his chest to his groin. They were a dark shade of purple and stung violently. It looked as though some crazed maniac had tried to murder him, not his own parent, his creator.
He didn’t look to good, neither did he feel it, but his motto was that “Life goes on” So he changed out of his blood-soaked clothes and made his way to Gerard’s house for what he hoped would be a more successful band practice than the previous day.
On the way there, Gerard had messaged Ray on his phone, informing him that Matt couldn’t go to the practice, but they could give it a go without him for that day. Ray didn’t mind about that at all, personally he didn’t, never had, or never would like Matt.
To Ray’s surprise, when he got to Gerard’s house, after a sensible car ride, Gerard was completely sober, with a cup of coffee in his hand. Then it all clicked inside Ray’s mind, every other time apart from today and the night he and Gerard had me up again Gerard had been too stoned to function, and also.. MATT had been there. The two occasions that he had been completely sober, Matt wasn’t present. It all added up! It was Matt doing this to Gerard! Ray knew he had been trouble…
On spotting Ray’s fucked up facial features when the door had been opened, Gerard had let out a girlish screech and ushered Ray inside to interrogate him on the previous night. Ray explained to Gerard about the show, his father, the arguments and the beatings. Gerard stayed still in a statue-like manner and listened intently, he was disgusted, how could ANYONE do that to another human being??
After Ray had finished his recollection of the previous night, Gerard gave him a soft, caring hug and went to retrieve him a cup of coffee and to awake Mikey from upstairs, who could be heard producing manly snores which anyone would assume belonged to somebody far more masculine than him. When Gerard was sober he was such a great, kind person. If only he could be like that all the time…
The story had to be repeated to Mikey, avoiding the drag show factor of the plot and replacing it with Ray owing his father money. Mikey was just as horrified. Deep inside though, Ray felt that he probably deserved his beating, if only he could get a normal job like a shop cleaner or something, but to him those jobs were too boring, too mundane, and he loved to perform. And although he tried to hide it, he did love his job.
After a while they began to start organizing songs. They still had no clue what lyrics fitted where and to be honest with themselves, both their lyrics and music were complete rubbish at that point.
Gerard flopped down onto his bed in defeat after realizing that their songs were utter crap and rambling about “The Day I Dropped My Gameboy Down the Toilet.”
“I’ve tried writing a few songs, they’re over there.” He stated blandly, directing a finger to his desk in the corner of the room, Ray decided it would be interesting to read what goes through Gerard’s mind on a regular basis, and he could do with a laugh.
The desk was littered with chewing gum wrappers, vampire drawings and comic books.
Ray was flicking through some of Gerard’s untidy scrawls of ideas and brainwaves when he spotted what seemed to be song lyrics or a poem beneath the jumbled mass of songs about the pizza man and purple dinosaurs flying through windows. The song or poem was called “Skylines and turnstiles.” As Ray read through the words he could clearly see it was based on the 9/11 attacks previously in the year. Ray could familiarize himself with the thoughts and feelings Gerard portrayed on the paper and he could feel tears spring to his eyes, it was beautiful. He could picture that as an amazing song, he would be sure to recommend it to Gerard as a song. Hey, maybe Gerard DID have song-writing talent after all….
“I like this song, Gerard. Maybe this will work out.” Ray suggested, holding up the coffee-stained paper with what he hoped would be their first real song.