Archive of Our Own ^beta

Frank cackled dizzily as he cracked open a burning eyelid to see Gerard give Ray a firm middle finger without stopping his Monster-high-jackrabbit jumping in the Box.Someone flicked his skull.

Frank shut up as Gerard’s gloss-shiny lips spilled Drowning Lessons for the fifth time, and the buzz of the studio slowed. He let Gerard’s raw voice climbing higher sweep up his intoxicated mind up too, into the crash-tinkle of rains of champagne bottles filled with bloody engagement rings and snowy piles of wedding-gowned bodies, the fucking walls falling in around you from the weight of all the corpses, holding hands so tight that their nails were stained red.                                   Don’t fucking let me go,Frank thought, head spinning and then he’d look cute with a piercing as Gerard headbanged to the guitar solo, his long unkempt hair accentuating the craziness of the kid, pale skin and freckles flashing in and out of sight as the black greasy veil tore.

Frank let his own fevered, confused head collapse on the studio’s suspiciously-stained purplish couch. He took another clumsy, too-large drag, realised that he should never again steal weed from Mark as a vague smile painted itself on his face with a flat, wash brush and the scorpion tattoo on his neck scuttled away before his eyes. A sudden,sickening wave of sobriety -Joseph was right,he needed to get over himself and do something before he killed himself. Repeated strings of worries by a worrier, Frank managed to mentally snarl before the inevitable ‘Frank,you have talent,you need direction’ chimed like funeral bells just after a war.Frank didn’t want to think. One long drag, another for luck and he continued on his destiny’s mission trying to bury himself alive in the stinking couch cushions.

He choked,began to cough,tried to make his brain and mouth work together long enough to ask for water but a sharp, too-cold hand slapped over his mouth. Frank tried to bite the hand -he guessed Mikey,he was fucking cold-blooded,and his fingers were Voldemort-long,nearly piano- then realised somehow there was a small crowd in the studio, and they were listening to Skylines and Turnstiles.

Gerard had just finished the ghost-sheets-crackling-together soft outro of Drowning Lessons, and the people had demanded more. There was something baby’s-birth,diamond-necklace precious,delicate and frightening about this shaky moment which the band would always remember. Frank stilled completely as the bones of the crowd began to move to the beginning of Skylines and Turnstiles, mohawked and buzzcut skulls nodding to the beats. Some stamping feet to the opening chords, hands clapping, voices yelling along to the now,now,now! Frank stumbled off the couch as he stared at people who screamed where are youuu along with a song they’d never heard before, by a band they’d never heard before.

Their weird too-earnest PTSD-ridden song with its complicated imagery and riffs written by a terrified, traumatised twenty something failure who’d seen Death in the form of a suicide bomber was playing. Their freaky little song was making the hearts of this fucking random (Were they friends of Mark? Weirdo companions of Mikey?) crowd race and making their bodies dance. It was happening. Frank, high as he was, was the son of a musician,the son of a musician,and had been in bands since he was 11- this didn’t happen. Things didn’t just fucking click on the first try,like this was some kind of defining moment in a movie.The song ended and the crowd,which was the world,and also the stars cheered. A fucking celestial seeming applause.

Frank laughed into Mikey’s slowly-thawing hand,tasting nail-polish. The music had converted him, had taken control of his muscles and bones like in one of the bloody laser-eyed zombie comics the Way brothers read. And now it was in the air. Motherfucker. Frank licked Mikey Way’s hand, got his nose pinched shut with a scream, refused to be suffocated, clamped his jaws until Mikey kicked his ankle and ran away. He sucked in a huge gulp of the too-strong roll-up.

Vampires Will Never Hurt You began to play, Frank’s giddy mind accompanying the sound with vividly-shadowed visuals. The wooden stake soaked in holy water and rubbing alcohol, cheap whiskey and gasoline thrown like a over-arm javelin into one office window of the whole sky-fucking sky-scraper- the one cubicle in which you typed boredly on your worn keyboard, bright red nails click-clacking. Put this spike in my heart! EM,E5,D,C,B/D- Frank imagined it punching through the blue mirror reflection of the nameless city and the shards scattered on the vomit-green carpet of the office -you pick up the glass in your teeth and cut hemp bonds, shake off the noose and drive the hearse away from the burning building which is stuffed like a pastry with the corpses of bats.
Get me to a nurse -the crowd multiplied in Frank’s ecstasy and the sweat-stinking, avocado-smelling (Mikey and Gerard had a vegan food fight) studio became Madison Square Garden.
The recorded sound of Ray’s long,cuticles-clipped finger’s genius flowed, and Frank thought for the millionth fucking time- this was it. This was the band, the new fucking Green -he looked around for a moment,saw Ray’s tee- Day, better than Green Day, this was going rock the fucking world. More powerfully and totally than the,the Beatles,Rolling-fucking-Stones -his dazed,drunk mind grasped- Iron Madien! All of it,fucker! He yelled while the cig was still dangling at his lips,held lover-soft by a black-nailed callused hand and when he inhaled as he was trying to crawl up from the magma-hot embrace of the couch,took another idiotically large drag.He landed again in the purplish lava pool. His Blink-182 shirt was soaked in sweat. 

Ray, clearly flattered, was talking about the 14-part guitar composition of Vampires will never hurt you to two androgynus russian twins, a ancient not-scary scarecrow of a man with a hangdog face, the tallest woman Frank had ever seen, in pink sequins, a couple of teens- in a uniform of emo black, acne-ridden-outcasts, weirdos, freaks on the edge of things, in the back of class. One asked, bumping hips with Gerard who was mouthing the words and spinning his arms up and down in a strange, improbable air guitar, ” You know,if you had two guitarists, you could play this live.”
Mikey returned, his hands scrubbed red, “ Yeah, but the only guy we’ve considered is currently too high to get off the couch.”

Frank looked around for a moment, as though another smashed mostly-guitarist strung out on a couch could’ve fit in the studio.He kept spinning around for a moment, chasing his tail as the tiny studio and tinier crowd swam in front of him, the black denim and pink sequins mixing together. Then he thought, fuck. He put out the rollup in the Mickey Mouse ashtray, grinding the cig as hard as he could into the little black button nose.

Well, he already knew all the parts.