Chapter Text
Gerard sat on the sidewalk outside of the venue. He always liked the hour before a show more than the show itself.
People thought it was weird and backwards. The entire point was the stage. The crowd. The lights burning into his eyes while he looked out upon the audience pretending he wasn’t terrified.
But the hour before felt different. Stressful but in a more calming light. Like the entire night was balancing on the edge of something that hadn’t happened yet.
The venue sat between a pawn shop and a laundromat in a part of Jersey nobody visited unless it was necessary. The sign above the entrance only lit up halfway, leaving a few letters permanently dark and a few flickering. Gerard thought he played here twice. Probably did. Probably got too drunk to remember where he’s played.
The back door was propped open to release the summer heat. Gerard’s back was against the wall directly next to it, sketchbook balanced on his knee, listening to the distant sound of equipment being unloaded and what sounded like a fight down the street. Cars passed occasionally. Somewhere nearby, someone was playing music a million decibels too high. Gerard’s mind drifted as the ran his painted black fingernails on the pavement.
Inside, Ray and the others were arguing over something involving cables. (again..)
Gerard wasn’t paying attention.
He dragged his pencil across the page, not really drawing anything in particular. Just shapes. Faces, maybe. Fragments of ideas he’d drown out with alcohol and probably forget about tomorrow.
Infront of him, a van pulled into the alley. He looked up briefly. He was honestly confused at first until he remembered the venue owner said someone about sharing the bill with a band called Pencey Prep, who playing before them.
He sighed audibly.
He’d heard of them. Everyone had. Not because they were famous. Nobody around here was famous. Get real. But their name came up a lot. Somebody always seemed to know someone who knew them.
Their guitarist jumped out last.
Spiked up dark hair. Leather jacket despite the heat. Tattoos.
He immediately started unloading equipment without saying much. Gerard watched for maybe 3 seconds before looking back down at the nonsense on his sketchback. Just another musician showing up the show that you could tell they either were way too excited for or that they’d rather be sleeping right about now.
Gerard sat for a minute longer before heading back into the venue. It was beginning to fill. Flyers being exchanged for future shows. Local musicians drifting around, talking to different groups. People starting debates around the merch table. All parts of a normal Friday night.
Gerard squeezed past the crowd gathered at the entrance and headed towards the stage. Left with sweat and glitter from strangers painting his body. He stopped when he saw the bar to his right.
“Hey, just a beer please?”
The bartender looked up, a younger woman with stretched septum.
“Of course!”
She came back in seconds with the beer requested.
“Thanks.”
He turned back and took a deep breath before walking backstage. Ray and Mikey were still standing by the cables arguing in hushed voices. Prencey Prep sat across the room, tuning instruments and drinking.
Reminded Gerard he had to down this beer before getting on stage. He folded up his sketchbook and pen and threw it into a leather couch that appeared to be from the 30’s and never cared for.
“Hey, Gee!”
He felt a hand on his shoulder. Bert. He was always there. Always somehow knew when and where he would play next.
“What’s up, dude?”
They gave eachother a quick hug, an awkward action for two people who recently broke up. Not really recently. A year ago, Gerard had found out Bert was cheating on him during their entire relationship. His reason was that he wasn’t entirely sure he liked dudes and that Gerard was just a test. Which made it hurt worse.
“Nothing much, y’know? Seen you were playing while i was down here and thought I would stop to watch.”
Bert said, too cheerfully.
“Alright, you don’t get a backstage pass for me. Skedaddle.”
Gerard says jokingly before quickly backing away and flashing a fake smile. Ray and Mikey stood behind him. Gerard’s face went pale. He hated seeing Bert. Remembering what he did to him.
“Yo, you good man? Really pale in the face.”
Ray looked genuinely concerned.
“Yup all good.”
A few feet away, someone was testing a guitar. The sound cut through the room in short bursts. He glanced over.
The guitarist from the alley.
Fuck, what’s his name again?
Nothing more than a passing look. The guitarist glanced up at that exact moment. For a second they make eye contact. Then both look away.
The interaction was so insignificant that Gerard would’ve forgotten it completely if someone hadn’t leaned over a second later and casually said, “That’s Frank.”
Gerard blinked.
“Who?”
“The guitarist. From Pencey Prep.”
Gerard looked across the room. Frank was still adjusting equipment. Turning knobs, pulling cables, tuning guitars.
“Oh.”
The conversation had ended there.
Once he turned back to look at Frank, he was finishing up with the equipment and began carrying it out to the stage with the help of his bandmates.
The first song started with a burst of feedback that made half the room wince.
Gerard folded his arms across his chest and leaned against one of the support beams near the side of the stage. The wood dug into his shoulder through his jacket, rough and splintered from years of people carving names and band logos into it. The crowd shifted forward immediately as the music started, bodies squeezing together in front of the stage until there wasn’t much room left between them. Somebody knocked into somebody else. A drink spilled somewhere. The smell of beer grew stronger. The room had gone from comfortably crowded to suffocating in less than thirty seconds.
He wasn’t really watching.
At least, he didn’t think he was.
His eyes wandered across the stage the same way they wandered across every opening act he ever saw. Looking without paying attention. Noticing pieces of things instead of the whole picture.
The drummer played too fast.
The bassist kept drifting closer to the edge of the stage every time the chorus hit.
The guitarist,
Frank.
Gerard hated that he knew his name now. Gave him too much to think about when he saw him.
Frank couldn’t stay still.
Most guitarists had a routine. Same places on stage. Same movements. Same practiced motions they’d repeated a thousand times before. Frank looked incapable of doing that. Every few seconds he seemed to be somewhere else entirely. One foot on an amp. Then standing beside the drummer. Then crossing the stage without looking where he was going. Sometimes even laying on the ground. His guitar hung low enough that Gerard was convinced it had to hurt his back. The instrument practically bounced against his knees whenever he moved. It made him notice letters on the guitar. Pansy?
Gerard watched for maybe twenty seconds before looking away.
Then looked back.
Then looked away again.
The song ended.
The crowd cheered.
Another song started almost immediately.
And somehow Gerard found himself looking at the guitarist again.
He wasn’t attractive. He couldn’t be, anyways. He was the band’s competition. He was just looking because.. because…
Just because he moved around so much that Gerard’s eyes kept getting dragged back toward him whether he wanted them to or not.
At least that was the excuse he settled on.
——————
By the fourth song, the room had become unbearably hot.
Sweat collected beneath Gerard’s collar. The crowd had compressed itself into a single moving organism in front of the stage, people colliding and separating and colliding again as the music carried on. Somebody near the front lost a shoe. Nobody seemed concerned.
Gerard stayed where he was.
A fact he didn’t notice until somebody stopped beside him.
Mikey.
He was holding a soda that had already gone mostly flat. For a while he didn’t say anything. Just leaned against the beam beside Gerard and watched the set. The silence stretched long enough that Gerard assumed there wasn’t a conversation coming.
“You know we’re playing tonight, right?”
Gerard frowned.
“What?”
Mikey gestured vaguely toward the stage.
“Just checking.”
“I know we’re playing tonight.”
“You’ve been standing in one place for like thirty minutes.”
“So?”
“So usually by now you’ve disappeared at least twice.”
Gerard looked away from the stage.
“I haven’t.”
“I noticed.”
Another song started.
The crowd cheered.
Frank nearly smacked himself in the face with the neck of his guitar while turning around too quickly. Nobody else seemed to notice. Mikey took a drink from his soda.
“You look like you’re studying for a test.”
Gerard laughed once.
“What does that even mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why’d you say it?”
“It felt right.”
Gerard shook his head.
Mikey watched the stage for a few seconds.
“That guitarist almost died like three times.”
“He keeps tripping over stuff.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s gonna eat shit before the set’s over.”
“Probably.”
Then Mikey glanced over.
“You’ve noticed that too.”
Gerard narrowed his eyes.
“What?”
“The tripping.”
“Yeah. What’s your point here, dude?”
“Nothing.”
Mikey shrugged.
Gerard hated when he shrugged.
It always felt like he knew something he wasn’t sharing.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Mikey.”
“I’m serious.”
“You’re smiling.”
“I smile all the time.”
“You absolutely do not.”
That made a laugh come up that Gerard wasn’t really expecting. For a second neither of them said anything. The audience erupted as another song started. The stage lights flashed across the room. Mikey stared ahead.
“You know what’s weird?”
“No.”
“You usually complain about opening bands.”
“I do not.”
“You do.”
“I don’t.”
“You called one band musically offensive last week just because they were a little unprepared.”
“They were musically offensive and they weren’t just unprepared, they didn’t have any of their shit together. I don’t care if they're teenagers. They need a new drummer.”
Mikey snorted.
Then he pointed toward the stage.
“See? That’s the thing.”
“What thing?”
“You’re not complaining.”
Gerard opened his mouth.
Closed it again.
Because annoyingly enough, he hadn’t really found anything to complain about. Mikey noticed immediately. His grin appeared for half a second. He wasn’t teasing, just amused.
“That’s all.”
Then he walked away before Gerard could throw his empty beer at him.