#he loves this venue so much he talked about it at the seattle concert

[konakoro]

The Gorge is the one venue I wouldn't mind being on the General Admission lawn for. The slope hopefully means less chance of getting my view blocked by someones giant boyfriend AND a beautiful view of the river

I love how Hozier is such a little fan boy of this venue, it's cute

[sinceileftyoublog]

Pearl Jam Live Show Review: 8/29, Wrigley Field, Chicago

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Even when Pearl Jam have released a new record that happens to be arguably their best of the millennium so far, the band's priority when playing live is putting on a show. And when the venue represents a hometown return for Eddie Vedder, at the hallowed grounds of the Friendly Confines? Forget it. Last Thursday, Pearl Jam performed their first song from April's Dark Matter (Monkeywrench/Republic) 8 (!) tunes into their set. Wanting to ease in the crowd in, and perhaps themselves, the Seattle quintet opened with Ten closer "Release", whose slow-burn-to-shout-along pipeline has long made for a perfect introduction to the band's notoriously anthemic concerts. Ensconced in silhouetted light, they embarked on the tune's swaying melody, and at the point Vedder and the audience simultaneously shouted, "Release me!", a blue light came over Wrigley Field, as if to say that we were, for a moment, all on this Earth together.

Indeed, Pearl Jam has a way of uniting a crowd due to their willingness to play both rarities and favorites, appealing to newbies and die-hards alike. On Thursday, the sneaky "Of The Girl" gave way to campfire slice of life "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town"; acoustic choogle "Off He Goes", a fan request, was followed by cascading Vitalogy favorite "Immortality". The band also provides moments new to even those who know their early 90s albums by heart. "Why Go" forewent its studio version's urgent thwack for a more patient industrial thump, while drummer Matt Cameron sped up "Even Flow", only for Mike McCready to steal the show with a behind-the-head guitar solo.

I also, though, have to give props to Vedder for continuing to never shy away from waxing on what he believes to be moral and just. The day before the show, I was working on my laptop in a restaurant and overheard a father, his daughter in hand, mention to the bartender that he was going to see Pearl Jam but hates when Vedder "talks politics." Okay, I realize Howard Zinn, to whom Vedder dedicated "Down", may not align with the majority of Pearl Jam's fan base, and few folks nonetheless are going to concerts to discuss political theory. But during "Daughter", when he included a tag from Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2", he spoke about abortion rights. Singing, "We don't need no thought control" alone is easy--mental gymnasts from across the political spectrum can choose to interpret that line as in alignment with their beliefs--but his amendment of, "Teacher leave our bodies alone," left no mystery as to what Vedder was talking about: the right to choose. I couldn't help but think about whether the dad from the restaurant was momentarily pissed off and how many more like him were in the crowd; it made me appreciate Vedder's outspokenness even more.

As for Dark Matter, it really is an album meant to be heard live. It's the first to feature contributions from touring and session member Josh Klinghoffer, and unlike the band's previous record Gigaton, it was banged out by the band in studio, a much more spontaneous-sounding effort than many of their recent releases. "Scared of Fear", a punk rock barnburner, sports huge guitar solos and virtuosic tempo changes. The chiming guitars and shouted vocals of "Waiting for Stevie", a song the band wrote while waiting for hours upon hours for Stevie Wonder to show up to a recording session, encompassed the upper decks of Wrigley, Vedder's declaration that, "You can be loved by everyone," an affirmation for the ages. "Dark Matter" was Cameron's time to shine, one-upping the studio version's mammoth beats alongside pulsating keyboards and guitars. Vedder invited a crowd member, Abby, to sing with him on "Won't Tell", which may as well have been planned considering it features a chorus practically meant for harmonies or a duet. "Wreckage", the album's best song, was a Petty-esque serving of heartland rock, containing the catchiest pre-chorus melody Pearl Jam has written in some time.

At first, I was a little skeptical of the band's inclusion of Dark Matter closer "Setting Sun" in the encore, a drawn-out song at the end of a particularly sticky night. But its build-up segued perfectly into "Alive", a song I've heard more times than I've told my wife I loved her, no thanks to its inclusion on classic rock radio rotation. At the moment Vedder launched into the final rousing chorus, the lights went on at Wrigley and stayed that way throughout the cliché but undeniable move of inviting the opening band on stage to help cover Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World". With Vedder donning a glittery Cubs hat and uniform over his Walter Payton shirt, and multiple Ian Happ jerseys adorning the stage (one said "Happer", so you know Vedder and Happ are buddies), even the most cynical, jaded music lover and baseball fanatic couldn't help but be persuaded into fist-pumping along. It's a testament to Pearl Jam that they can continue to inspire, three and a half decades in.

[greysonlove]

❝ i've got a hundred thrown out speeches i almost said to you ❞

stats:

full name / greyson henry love

nicknames / grey

age / 38

dob / jan. 5th

star sign / capricorn

sexuality / bisexual

hometown / london, england

current residence / seattle, wa

subject / building a spell: the art of poetry in magic

demeanor:

likes ; brand new pens, the smell of old books, playing guitar, going to smaller venue concerts, taking the ferry, walking the waterfront, adding a new book to his collection, cucumbers

dislikes ; talk of the war, when people ask if he's met the queen after they hear his accent, wands

usual temperament ; quiet, reserved, usually lost in a thought. generally he can be found in his classroom either grading papers or playing his guitar between classes. he always has time for his students, and takes great care in making sure they know they can always come to him for help. he still remembers the disinterest in many of his professors in hogwarts, and he strives to be nothing like them.

highlights:

greyson spent his days in a cold manor. his parents expected too much, always, and he always exceeded expectations. but it was never enough. they always wanted more and used brute force to make that known. it took a long time for him to simply stop caring. he focused on music, the one thing he really cared about, and did well enough in school to get by. he quickly became the family shame. it was why, after leaving hogwarts, he dropped the last name greengrass and changed it to love. a small nod to something he'd never had.

for a long time he floated. played his music well enough to make some money and make a name for himself locally. met a girl named delilah and fell in love. within a few months of their relationship she fell pregnant. he was terrified and she was excited, together they planned their lives together as a family. even started planning a wedding. up until his daughter was born he remained afraid, though he kept it to himself as best as he could. but the moment he watched her come into this world...he loved her. he was still terrified, but he was sure he would be nothing like his parents. rosalind love was born at 2:13am and his world was forever changed.

unfortunately, his relationship with delilah changed as well. she avoided him and their baby. accused him of wanting to run off and just play his music and not loving either of them. and then about 3 months later she was gone. leaving him alone with their daughter. he tried for over a year to find her until he had to just give up and accept that it was just him and his rosie from now on.

the year before she got her letter the rumors about voldemort's return were starting. he knew his daughter was a witch, and that if there was any truth to this she could be in danger, especially if anyone knew her mother was a muggle. so he fled before she could ever get her first letter. in the time since she'd been born he'd started exploring magic again but with a different approach. one that had interested a few magical universities. but it was the offer from uw he took because it brought him and his baby girl far away from a war she should never have to fight. in the years as things ramped up and he heard reports of the tragedies coming from his old school, it cemented his lack of regret over leaving.

rosie opted to only attend a magical school in seattle. her reasoning was that she hated math, and if she was going to be forced to learn it then she better also learn some really cool stuff too. greyson didn't mind, despite his own reservations with the magical world, he could see it was different enough here that things might be okay for her.

his family never reached out, but he heard they'd joined the death eaters, all while still calling him the family shame. he knew very few of them would survive a real war. they were monsters, sure, but they were also pampered housecats that didn't really care to get their hands dirty. should it come to that, he will not mourn them, nor will he ever step foot back there to help the fight. not if it meant putting his daughter at risk.

[mysweetgeo]

I Need You (Part 18)

Summary: Sequel Series to the Do You Want to Know a Secret ? Series. Reader accepts a job as a photographer for a band as they begin a tour mid-1966, what happens when she finds out that she knows them ?

Warning(s): Smut !!!! Smut smut smutty smut SMUT !! I’ve marked it in case anyone wants to skip over it ! x

America continually drained the lot of you, Brian included.

You spent a lot of time bouncing between Brian’s makeshift offices in his hotel rooms and tending to the boys.

Brian uses you to make phone calls to upcoming venues, which you didn’t mind in the slightest.

And in between phone calls you help the boys re-pack and unpack between cities and help carry their bags to their rooms.

And every night you find just enough time to spare for your love, your George.

The two of you tuck into bed and George likes to hold you for just a few moments, to take in your scent and when he pulls away he holds your face in his hands and just has this loving grin on his face, as if he’s waited his entire life just to look at you in this way.

And the pair of you fall asleep, face to face as you cling together, afraid to lose each other.

This is how many of your days have been spent, and you are thankful that their tour will be ending soon.

As much as you love spending every waking moment with the four boys, you can’t wait to have some privacy of your own.

Their last string of concerts were soon approaching, with hardly a day of travel between shows.

You were travelling from Seattle to Los Angeles by van, and you were smushed in the back between George and John because Paul and Ringo were taking up the entire middle row of seats.

John’s head was on your shoulder, fast asleep, and George was nodding off aswell.

You grasped George’s hand and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek, “You can sleep, love,” you said softly.

He hums when your lips make contact with his cheek and he leans his head against your shoulder, “Love you,” he whispers before nodding off.

You grin and keep his hand in yours as you feel yourself becoming sleepy.

You lean your head against his and allow yourself to fall asleep as well.

+

When you awoke, you were being carried into the hotel by George, who held you like a child. His hands held firmly under each of your thighs.

Your arms were wrapped around his neck, and your face pressed into the skin between his jaw and his neck.

You pressed a soft kiss to his pale skin and pulled yourself impossibly closer to him before letting out a soft whine.

“Don’t wake up, dear. We’re almost to the room,” he whispered in a soft voice as he stood beside John and Brian in the lift.

“Yer lucky we love her, George, her suitcase weighs a ton!” John muttered out loud.

“No it does not,” you grumbled.

“Whatever,” he replied, you swore you could hear his eyes roll as he spoke.

“Fuck off, John,” George said as he swayed from side to side.

“Enough,” Brian said firmly, “Get to bed, I don’t want to hear you fighting over something so juvenile.”

“Alright, Eppy,” they both replied in near unison.

You could hear John and Brian talking about something in hushed voices, and you could feel George’s eyes on you as he held you close to his chest.

He swayed from side to side, his cheek pressed against the top of your head, “Don’t wake up lovely,” he whispered as his swaying came to a stop when the lift did.

You felt his steps shake his body as he walked to your shared room, and you could hear John following close behind (due to his blabbering mouth).

“John, please quiet down, she’s asleep,” George all but begged.

“Oh! Right, sorry,” he said as he continued walking beside George to the room. “Care if I sleep with you lot tonight?” He asked.

“I don’t,” you murmured sleepily at the same time George said a firm, “I do.”

“Lady’s in charge, Geo,” John said with his classic shifty grin.

“Fine,” George grumbled as he readjusted you in his arms before handing John the key that was in his hand.

You heard John unlock the door and flip the lights on, and heard George close the door gently behind the two of you.

You felt him attempting to set you down in the bed, but the loss of warmth cause you to whimper and lock your legs around his waist to keep his body against yours.

“Love, I’ve to change out of my suit,” he whispered into your ear.

You whined and tucked your face into his neck, refusing to let go.

“George, let me get changed and I can take her so you can change,” John said as he flung his suit jacket on the floor.

“Okay,” George said hesitantly, sitting down on the edge of the bed, holding you against his chest and swaying you softly.

John stripped of his suit and threw on some baggy pants and a plain long-sleeved tee on before he sat beside George and took you gently into his arms.

“Mm,” you murmured at the new warmth of John’s body against you, “warm.”

George made quick work of changing into pajamas and quickly scooping you from John’s arms, “D’you want to wear one of my shirts to bed, dear?” He asked.

You nodded into his neck, clutching him tight against you.

“Okay,” he said more to himself before looking up at John, “d’you mind making yourself scarce so I can get her dressed?”

John licked his lips in a wicked way, “I could help, y’know.”

“No,” George’s answer was short and final and John acknowledged that as he went to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

George held you carefully as he stripped you of your clothes, “Can you stand up for me, love?”

You hummed in agreement, standing on wobbly legs as you leaned heavily against George while he took one of his shirts into his hands and slid it over your head.

“Mmm,” you murmured as you fell into his body, happy to return to his arms.

George could only grin as you tucked your face into his neck, curling into the side of his body where you fit perfectly together, like two pieces of a puzzle.

“Can I come out now, George?” John yelled from the bathroom door.

“Yes,” George answered simply as he stood for a moment to walk around and lay the two of you down on the bed together.

You whined at the movement, but soon relaxed into his grasp, wrapping your arms around his waist.

“Love you, Georgie,” you whispered in his ear as you began to fade back into sleep.

“I love you too, dearest,” he replied, contorting his body to plant a kiss atop your head.

“You two make me ill,” John stated as he climbed into bed beside you two.

George rolled his eyes as he shut off the beside lamp, “Goodnight, John.”

“What? No ‘I love you’ or ‘sleep well, darling’? Rude,” John replied.

“Oh shut yer trap, Lennon,” you said with a grunt.

“Goodnight to you too,” John remarked.

+

When you woke, George was splayed across the upper half of your body, his mouth open and soft snores vibrating his body.

John was curled into your side, his arms wrapped around the two of you with his head pressed under your arm.

You used a free hand to run your fingers through George’s messy hair, watching his expression soften as you did.

After admiring George’s sweet face, you turned to look at John, whose eyes were rapidly moving under his eyes as he was deep in a dreamy sleep.

You ran a finger against his cheek and watched him relax into your touch, “Mm, Cyn,” he murmured.

You let out a quiet giggle as John dreamt of his wife.

Your small sound seemed to have woken George, as you felt him stir and nuzzle his face into your chest slightly as he adjusted himself to look up at you.

“Morning, sleepy boy,” you whispered, trying not to wake John.

His face cracked in a soft smile, “Good morning, love,” he said quietly before pressing a sweet kiss to your cheek.

“How did you sleep?” You asked, tangling your fingers in his soft hair.

His eyes closed and his mouth opened slightly in content before he could reply, “I always sleep well with you,” he answered.

You grinned at his reaction, “I love you,” you said in a soft voice before leaning forward and placing a kiss on his lips.

George sighed into the kiss, one of his hands reaching up to caress your face as the two of you kissed, your breaths mingling together.

He moved to straddle you for a moment, a moan escaping his mouth as he settles on top of you.

Your hands clasp at his cheeks as your tongues enter each other’s mouths, grunts and groans tumbling into each other’s mouths as you lose yourselves in your own little world.

“You two are disgusting,” you hear from beside you, jolting you out of your daze.

The two of you turn to face John, lips swollen and faces flushed.

“I’m going to my room, you guys can do whatever you like here,” John states, sliding out of your bed and shuffling to the door.

(Smut begins)

George’s eyes meet yours as the door shuts and he grins wickedly at you before diving down to meet your lips.

“Mmm,” you groan against his lips before pulling away and guiding his lips to your neck, “I love you, George.”

“I fuckin’ love you too,” he groans against your neck, sucking and biting at the soft skin of your neck.

A moan escapes your lips as his canines sink into your skin, leaving a trail of wet kisses along your jawline as he slowly moved his lips down your neck and along your collarbone.

You sighed in pure pleasure as he inched lower once more, mere inches above your fully clothed breasts.

You gently pushed him away for a moment as you reached down and grabbed the hem of your shirt, pulling it over your body to expose your breasts to him.

George hummed in approval and began to suck on the supple skin of your breasts as you arched your back to press yourself against him.

He let out a groan as his mouth latched onto your left nipple, causing you to gasp, your eyes rolling back into your head as waves of pressure washed over your body.

“George,” you moaned, as his left hand came up to squeeze your opposite breast, flicking and pinching the nipple as his teeth grazed the other.

He soon switched his position and his mouth began suckling your right breast, while his other hand came up to massage the other breast.

You could feel his erection pressing against your inner thigh as he continued sucking and biting your breasts before his lips trailed down your stomach, making your body shiver involuntarily.

When he reached the waistband of your pants, he looked up at you for consent, you nodded, arching your back and pressing yourself closer to him as he began to slide them down your thighs, revealing your panties to him.

George groaned when he saw how soaked the crotch was and he pressed a kiss on the crease of your inner thigh, causing your hips to buck.

He grinned and pulled away from you, standing for a moment as he slid his shirt off and tossed it to the side.

You sat up and crawled to the end of the bed, reaching out to help him pull off his pajama bottoms and his briefs, pushing them down his legs before he kicked them off.

You took a moment to drink him in, his exposed chest shimmering with a gleam of sweat which made him look much more masculine, you had to keep yourself from pouncing on him.

George came to stand at the edge of the bed, gently pushing you back so that you were laying flat on the bed again as he crawled over the top of you, resting on his elbows as your bare chests pressed against one another.

“George,” you murmured, looking directly into his eyes.

“Yes, my love?” he replied.

“Make love to me.”

That was all you had to say before George had all but ripped off your panties, spreading your legs apart and slicking his member in your wet folds, allowing a groan to escape his lips.

He aligned himself with your entrance and the two of you were looking intently into each other’s eyes as he pushed into you.

You both moaned in unison and you gripped his shoulders for support as he stilled for a moment so that you could adjust to his size.

After a moment you nodded in approval and squeezed his shoulder gently with your hand, and he slid himself out of you, only to slide back into you, never losing eye contact as your hips met in perfect synchronisation.

It was quicker than you’d imagined it would be with your George for your first time together, but all the sexual frustration and tension that had built up over the years had finally come to a harsh halt.

“George”, you murmured when you felt the familiar pressure building up in your lower abdomen.

He bit gently under your ear, “Yes, love?”

“I don’t think I’m going to last very long,” biting back a moan as you finished your sentence.

“Me either,” he grunted, his thrusts becoming sloppier as he slammed into you, “let go, darling.”

“George!” you yelled as you felt your orgasm overtake you, your toes curled and your back arched, lifting your bodies slightly.

George continued to thrust, releasing with a loud moan as his body collapsed on top of yours.

His hot, laboured breaths tickled the nape of your neck as he took a moment to recover before hovering over you again.

“I love you,” he said once again, looking directly into your eyes.

You grinned and pressed your lips to his with a quick peck, “I love you, too.”

He smiled and pulled himself out of you, earning a soft groan from you as he did.

You soon were laying in his arms, completely content.

“Why did it take us so long to find each other?” You asked as he traced his fingertips along your bare torso.

“‘m not sure, but ‘m very glad we did,” he answered as he pressed a quick kiss to your cheek.

(End smut)

+

The boys last concert of the tour arrived quickly, and you could feel the tension between all four of them growing as the long tour finally came to an end.

Candlestick Park wasn’t as big a venue as Dodger Stadium which they’d performed at the night before, or Shea Stadium in New York, but it felt massive when you thought of how this was to be their last tour.

You and Brian had gone to check out the venue before the boys were set to arrive, only to see a massive chain link fence covering where the stage would be.

Brian must have seen the look of surprise on your face, “To protect them from the fans,” he explained.

You nodded as you took in the scenery of the venue, “I can’t believe this is their last show,” you admitted quietly to yourself, but still within earshot of Brian.

“Well, they’re taking a break for now,” Brian stated, “hopefully some day they’ll consider performing again.”

You hummed in agreement as the two of you headed back to the car which would take you back to the hotel.

Upon your arrival you found John and Paul in a wrestling match and you saw George and Ringo looking on as John held Paul’s neck in a chokehold.

“What is going on here?” Brian asked in horror, causing John’s hands to release Paul.

“Oh nothin’,” John said, standing up and going back into his room seemingly to get ready.

You looked up at George, who only shrugged and went into your joint room, leaving Ringo and Brian tending to Paul who was gasping for air.

You watched for a moment before following George into your room, “What happened while we were gone?” You asked.

“Paul got on John’s nerves,” George explained simply.

“And what happened to get that reaction?”

“I’m not sure, Ringo and I were in his room messing with his camera and heard them screaming at one another in the hallway,” George said.

You sighed as you plopped yourself down on the bed, “You boys tire me out,” you stated.

George snickered before replying, “I’ve tired you out in more ways than one.”

“You are disgusting, George,” you state as you look up at him.

He can only grin, crawling over to the bed to crawl on top of you and press a kiss to your lips, “You love me, though.”

You can’t help the grin that splits your face, “You’re right,” you say with a giggle, “but you have to get ready, if you’re late Brian will have your head as well as mine.”

George presses one more lingering kiss against your lips before standing up and starting to get dressed for their concert, “Fine, fine.”

George got dressed in record time, much to your surprise, and was sat on the edge of the bed looking bored as all could be as he waited for you to get dressed.

“Does this look alright?” You asked at you turned to face your boyfriend.

You wore a navy blue longsleeve with a turtleneck collar, and a navy, gold, and white pleated plaid skirt along with a pair of tights and heels.

“A right stunner, you are,” George said with a grin as he stood up and pressed a kiss to your lips, “I can’t wait to be home with you.”

You flushed, a soft smile adorning your lips as you looked away, “Yer a cheeky thing.”

George’s mouth opened wide in a loud cackle, “Oh, you are absolutely right about that my love!”

You wrapped your arms around his torso and just grinned up at him, “Are you excited that this is your last concert?” You asked, looking up to meet his gaze.

George shrugged, “I’m indifferent to it, I suppose,” he paused for a moment to trace a finger along your cheekbone, “the thrill of travelling the world, but the hearing loss and physical absuse is just too great a problem.”

You nodded in agreement, tilting your head up to press a gentle kiss on George’s jaw, “You lot can always go back to it,” you said softly.

“I don’t think that’ll happen,” George says sternly, indicating he didn’t want to talk further on the subject.

After a moments silence, you squeezed his side and pulled him towards the door, “We should get going, don’t want to be late.”

George only nodded in acknowledgement before pulling away from you to grab his guitar case and firmly lock your hand together as you left your hotel room.

[not-your-pussikat]

I miss going to concerts

… especially if they are club gigs, as I just love the intimacy of small venues. My favorite band by far to see in clubs is Walking Papers. They are an amazing live band!

With my favorite Angel(l), Dublin 2013

… and again in Hamburg in 2014. I think I said “Don’t you dare make a goofy face!” 🙄😄

Ben and I completely overexposed but happy to get to talk to one another again (it’s become a thing).

The one, the only, the King of Bass: Mr. Duff McKagan. He gives the best hugs. Honestly. He also loves talking about his girls and what they are up to musically and he gets super excited when you show him any tattoo that has to do with his music. I quote: “I feel really honored that you would get some of my lyrics tattooed.” (I have a quote from a LOADED song on my right arm, he insisted that I e-mail him a pic via Jeff so that he could put it up on his Twitter account.) He’s an absolute sweetheart and every bit as intelligent, funny, and kind as you would think him to be after reading his autobiography.

Now, let’s see if I can find a few nice pics from the gig itself:

Jeff Angell channeling his frontman and songwriter energy. Watch out, that mic stand is about to get kicked and then tilted back by his foot at the last second before it hits someone in the first row in the head. 😏

The other half of Walking Papers’ dynamic songwriting duo, Mr. Socks (always takes his shoes off on stage) aka Ben Anderson. Wonderfully kind man and a gifted piano and keyboard player. 🧦

This man needs no introduction. I love this pic because the blur makes him look so much like he looked when he was maybe 16? Die-hard Duff fans will know the picture that I have in mind, I’m sure. 😉

Mr. Rhythm, Barrett Martin, formerly of Screaming Trees fame (among many other bands—if anything musically happens in Seattle, you can almost bet on him having a hand in it). 🥁

If you don’t know who Walking Papers are, here’s a taste from the first album:

The lineup around Jeff and Ben has changed since then, but their music is equally captivating and keeps evolving to yet greater heights:

If you like alternative/indie rock with a bit of a dark touch and a myriad of influences from other genres, then Walking Papers is for you. And if you ever get the chance to catch them live, I highly recommend you take it!

[babymetaldoll]

Danger Days - Chapter nineteen: "If you're gone (maybe it's time to come home)"

Word count: 16,9K

Summary: Joey is not ready to start touring, but being away from Matthew sounds like a good plan to get over him. But... Matthew has other plans, and he is determined to be forgiven. Gerard is not letting his illusions go either, but he has to realize he is wasting his time.

Warnings: Cursing, there are some arguments, a little angst, and some fluff.

A/N: I'm soft.

Masterlist

Chapter one | Chapter two | Chapter three | Chapter four | Chapter five | Chapter six | Chapter seven | Chapter eight | Chapter nine | Chapter ten | Chapter eleven | Chapter twelve | Chapter thirteen | Chapter fourteen | Chapter fifteen | Chapter sixteen | Chapter seventeen | Chapter eighteen | Chapter nineteen | Chapter twenty | Chapter twenty one | Chapter twenty-two | Chapter twenty-three | Chapter twenty-four |

--

::: March 30th, 2011. Los Angeles :::

Frank sighed and looked around. It was early morning, and there was chaos around him. It was video shooting day, and his family was with him at the small indoor venue where MCR was recording the “Planetary Go” music video. Five hundred kids were outside, waiting in line to get there and be part of the show. Meanwhile, inside the arena, his wife and kids hung out with Joey, Ray, and Mikey in the dressing room. They were still waiting for Gerard, who was late, as pretty much always.

- "I brought some things you might need through these next months"- Jamia said to Joey as Frank walked closer- Mostly books and a few maternity shirts I loved.

- "Thank you! I’m gonna need all your help, ‘cos I have no fucking idea what I’m doing."

- "You are gonna be just fine! You have mom material!"- Jamia pointed out as the young woman held Lily in her arms, smiling- "You are glowing"- Joey grinned- "Now tell me everything about, have you seen him? Have you talked to him? Did you tell him?"

The drummer widened her eyes and held her breath for a second. Mikey looked at her and kissed her temple.

- "I’ve seen him, I told him, he is thrilled, he has been..."- she made a pause and tried to find the right words to describe how the last ten days had been for her- "Incredibly caring and supportive. I hate him"- Mrs. Iero frowned.

- "He is making it hard for you to hate him, right?"

- "Awfully! I swear I have to do some exhausting mental work to keep myself from forgiving him each time I see him! It’s awful!"

- "If you want to forgive him…"- Jamia started, but Joey shook her head.

- "No! This is not about forgiving him because I won’t! once a cheater, always a cheater!"

- "Yeah… that’s true."

- "And I don’t trust him!"

- "I know…"

- "And..."

- "It’s ok, Joey. Don’t worry"- Jamia smiled and changed the subject- "Did you tell your parents yet?"

- "No, we are gonna be in Seattle in four days, so I’ll tell them in person."

- "Are they going to the show?"

- "Yeah! They are thrilled! And they want to meet the band, which I know is gonna be weird. I’m so glad you are coming along for this leg."

- "I was dying to come with you, and now you have two babies to get used to"- Joey chuckled, but her happiness was clouded when Gerard walked into the room with Lynz.

Ever since her talk with Mikey, Joey had successfully managed to stay away from Gerard. And the best part: no one had asked if there was something wrong, ‘cos though neither Frank nor Ray knew the details of the story, they both knew there was something definitely wrong in the way Gerard looked at the drummer, and she was clearly awkward around him.

Gerard was in hell, and he knew he deserved it. He had crossed the line, and the distance between him and Joey was the proof. Gerard was afraid even to talk to her, and he felt the wall his brother had created around her. Mikey wasn’t mad at him anymore. He was just worried about him and also a little disappointed. Gerard had always made sure to give him a positive example- even in his darkest times- and suddenly, that whole mess fell upon them.

- "Hey guys!"- Lynz said with a happy face and arms wide open as she walked into the room and started hugging everybody, including Joey, who felt like a whore the second she saw her. She had promised her she was never going to do anything with her husband, and she had failed.

- "Hi Lynz! How are you?"- Joey tried to keep a straight face and smiled.

- "Congratulations! Gerard told me about your baby!"

- "Thank you so much!"- the drummer was making the biggest effort to look happy and natural- "Wanna see the ultrasound?"

Gerard looked at the scene, and his stomach tightened. Joey seemed to be so happy. The drummer gave Frank his daughter and took the ultrasound from her backpack.

- "Hey! I wanna see it too!"- Ray said, moving closer.

- "That little bean is my baby!"- Joey pointed and chuckled- Can you believe that tiny thing is gonna be a person?!

- "Shit!"- Ray sort of mumbled- "It’s so small!"

- "Ok, kids! outfits ready?"- Brian walked into the room and looked at them- "Neither of you is ready, come on! Move! We are late!"

Matthew finished packing and smiled. He wasn’t carrying much, but it was enough to follow Joey for the next eighteen concerts she had with the band, starting march 21st and until April 23rd. His plan was simple: standing in the first row of every show and cheering for the drummer. He wanted to show her how much he loved her, and he was willing to postpone his whole life for her. He had gotten in trouble in his job for doing that, and he didn’t care. He wanted to be with Joey, and he wanted her to know how much he loved her, and if that meant being fired from Criminal Minds, so be it.

He put the eighteen tickets for the shows he had already gotten in an envelope and smiled pleased.

- "This has to work"- he said out loud- "I mean… it has to, ‘cos I don’t know what to do next…"- he grabbed his phone and looked at the hour.

- “Good luck with the video today”- he wrote and sent.

The latest days had been weird for him and Joey. She would accept to see him when it came to things related to the baby, but of course, she would never let him get too close. The nap they had shared had been the last time he had held her in his arms. The rest of the time, she had been distant, and though he had done his best to stay calm and positive, sometimes it scared him to think maybe he was really going to die trying to get her back.

But “weird” didn’t mean bad, though. And Matthew had made the best of the time he had shared with her. He would bring her treats she liked and would call every morning to know how she felt. She always picked up. That was good; it meant she didn’t hate talking to him.

He also took her to see a nutritionist, to help them make a meal plan, considering Joey wasn’t the healthiest person when it came to meals. They also had a conversation with a personal trainer to help her identify the exercises and movements she could do to train and stay fit those first months. Besides, Matthew kept getting thoughtful presents to make her pregnancy more comfortable, and he brought one every day as an excuse to see her, even for a minute. He got her the pregnancy pillow and customized it as one of his stuffed monsters. He got her natural spa products for her bath to help her relax. He even got a tiny drum for the baby. Joey hated him because she couldn’t stay mad at him if he was being so adorable. He bought her so much food she was sure she was getting fat for eating too much and not because of her pregnancy.

- “Thank you”- his phone dinged, and he quickly read the text, smiling.

- “Wanna come for dinner tonight?”- he wrote and held his breath. It was a bold move, but he needed to play all his cards.

- “Better not, I’ve got an early flight.”- she replied. Joey held the phone in her hands tight, locked in the bathroom. She really didn’t have to change for the video, she just had to put on an MCR t-shirt, and she wanted to fix her hair. Joey wasn’t really going to be in many shots anyway, she just was a support player in the back. She couldn’t take the eyes from the phone, though she knew she had to. She was waiting for Matthew’s answer.

- “Can I stop later to say goodbye?”- and a smile lodged on his lips as he wrote those words. Joey had no idea he was going to be on tour. Joey bit her inner lip as she considered the options. She wanted to see him but didn’t want to give him hope, but he was the father of her kid, but… he cheated.

- “I can bring some dinner, in case you get home tired and you don’t want to cook.”

- “Mother fucker!!”- the girl coursed and sighed- “See you at seven.”

- "Yes!!"- Matthew jumped from his bed and danced around his room on his own. He just had to be calmed and try not to fuck it up. He could do that, right?

Lynz kept a good eye during the whole day, trying to see if Joey would look at Gerard, but she didn’t. They didn’t really talk at all. She knew Joey had told her they weren’t close, which made sense with the scene in front of her. It was like Gerard didn’t exist for the drummer.

- “Isn’t that weird too?”- Mrs. Way thought. She could notice Gerard was concentrated entirely on the whole “making the video” process. He kept checking with the director and making sure everything was ok. Joey talked with Mikey and laughed a lot with Ray. Her husband and the young woman never interacted except during the show. Gerard wouldn’t stop going back to the drum and looking at her every time they had to perform. Just like Lynz had seen in the Valencia show. Joey didn’t seem to pay that much attention. She would be playing, their eyes would crush, they would nod, that was it.

- “Ok, if it doesn’t seem to be anything going on, why can’t I shake these thoughts from my head”- the bassist asked herself as she kept staring at her husband performing.

During the break, Joey walked away from the stage and the noise and locked herself in the bathroom again. She checked her cell phone and read.

- “Do you think we could ever get to be friends?”- and she held her breathing, nearly in shock. The text was from Gerard. When the fuck did he text her? He had been there the whole time. She looked around, but she was alone in the bathroom. She reread it, frowning. Why was he texting her? They had managed to spend weeks talking the minimal, and she was completely in favor of keep doing the same for the rest… of her life, basically. And so she didn’t reply. It was clearly easier for her to stay away from Gerard than from Matthew for obvious reasons.

- "Hey!"- Lynz walked into the bathroom and smiled. Joey kept looking at her reflection in the mirror, fixing her makeup- "How are you feeling?"

- "Like I could puke everything I’ve ever eaten, and at the very same time, so fucking hungry"- the drummer answered with a smile- "How have you been? I haven’t seen you since London."

- "Good, busy, thank God. That’s the only way I can stand being apart from Gerard for so long."

- "It was an eternal tour!"- Joey added- "It felt like a lifetime! Are you coming along these following dates?"

- "Yeah! I’ll be there on April 5th, I have to finish a project I’m doing with a friend, and I’ll take a plane to Canada."

- "Awesome!"- Joey was doing her best to be as normal as possible. Besides, she honestly liked Lynz- "You and Jamia! Finally, I’m not gonna be the only woman around! You have no idea how exciting this is for me. I’ve been around guys my whole life, but I really need a break after these last months. I’m actually hoping to have a girl"- Joey guided her hand to her stomach and chuckled.

- "What did Matthew say, by the way?"- the drummer sighed and closed her eyes- "Sorry, I didn’t mean to… Gerard told me what happened between you two."

- "No, don’t worry"- Joey smiled and sighed again- "Matthew is happy with the baby news."

- "That’s good."

- "He is thrilled, actually. He cried when I told him, cried during the ultrasound, cried when he realized the baby due is close to Halloween."- Joey couldn’t help but smile, remembering his face, tears filling his eyes as she told him she was pregnant. She had never imagined he would be so happy.

- "And how is everything between you two?"

- “Did that little shithead tell his wife everything going on in my life or what?!”- the drummer didn’t answer. She felt pretty awkward knowing Lynz was aware of the whole story.

- "Sorry… I didn’t mean to intrude."

- "It’s ok… I…"- Joey scratched the back of her neck, honestly nervous about explaining her mind- I’m sorry, I’m just not really used to talk about things with people.

- "No, please, I was out of place, I just… Gerard was in shock when he told me, and he said you were pretty affected"- Joey nodded and looked down.

- "Yeah, I was a mess, but I’m better now…"- the two of them stayed in silence for a few seconds, that felt like hours- "I should go back"- Joey pointed to the door, and Lynz nodded.

- "I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable"

- "Don’t worry, I’ve got problems communicating with people… not just in this matter"- Joey tried to smile, though she knew she still looked pretty awkward- "It’s a long story."

- "Hey, no need to explain, really"- Lynz opened her arms and hugged her.

Joey didn’t get a thing. Why was she being so nice? Did Lynz want to be her friend? Was she being honest or just trying to be friendly under the circumstances? Did she want to get closer to her to know if she was crushed on Gerard? There were too many questions around Joey’s head, and she didn’t have the time or the energy to try to find an answer to any of them. She just hugged Lynz back and cut her a friendly smile.

The whole recording process took the entire morning and part of the afternoon. By the time they were done- and gave the kids in the audience a short show of five songs - the band and their families were ready to go home.

- "Bug, we are gonna go grab dinner together. Wanna come?"- Mikey wrapped an arm around Joey and kissed her temple as they all grabbed their things in the dressing room.

- "I’m too tired. I wanna go home."

- "Want me to go with you? Ask for some take-out? Maybe from the Vietnamese place you wanted to try, watch a movie… you know, rest before the tour that’s coming, what do you say?"- Joey smiled but declined.

- "I have plans…"- Mikey raised an eyebrow and nodded.

- "You are gonna see Gubler"- and by the tone in his voice, she knew he wasn’t happy with the news.

- "He is gonna drop by to say goodbye."

- "Sure… are you sure you are ok with him?"

- "What do you mean?"

- "You have been hanging out with him a lot."

- "No, I haven’t!"

- "Name one day this week you haven’t seen him"- Mikey furrowed his brows and crossed his arms on his chest, staring at the drummer.

- "Today?"- she answered, thinking.

- "See?"

- "He keeps bringing presents for the baby. What am I going to say? Stop being such a good dad?"

The whole band was overhearing the conversation. They were all pretty nosey, actually. And the whole Matthew/Joey drama was their favorite subject at the moment.

- "He ain’t trying to be a good dad! He is trying to win you over! Are you gonna let him break your heart again?"

That escalated quickly. Joey stood in front of his friend, not knowing what to say. Lucky for her, Lynz was the one to talk next.

- "Are you jealous, Mikey?"- though her words weren’t really the best to be spoken at the moment. The bassist looked at his sister in law almost in shock, nearly insulted.

- "Not jealous, worried. I am concerned about her ‘cos I don’t want her to get hurt again, is that a fucking sin or what?"

- "No, it’s not! I’m just asking ‘cos you sound like a jealous boyfriend worried his girlfriend is gonna cheat or whatever."

Joey hated Lynz’s comment, every single word in it, ‘cos it was meant to start a fight. Had she said it with those intentions?

- “No, she didn’t… did she? Is she trying to know if Mikey and I are into anything? No, stop being paranoid!”

- "I’m not jealous, Lynz"- Mikey’s words were cold as he responded with a serious face- "I’m just worried and taking care of her. That’s what friends do."

- "Sorry! There’s no need to get all serious."

- "Ok, dinner?"- Ray clapped and tried to lighten the mood- "Let’s go before Frank gets all cranky."

They all nodded and started walking. Gerard made sure to stay a little behind as his wife talked with Jamia and moved closer to Joey.

- "You didn’t answer my text"- he whispered, and the drummer froze in shock, even a little scared. Why was he talking to her? They had managed to spend weeks without saying a word directly to each other. Why did he decide to talk to her the only day they had been around his wife?

- "Sorry, I’ve been busy"- Joey mumbled and started walking quickly to get away from him.

- "And would we ever be friends?"- Gerard asked, following her and talking under breath, making sure no one except her could hear him.

- "Sure, if you stop saying nonsenses, we can be friends."

- "Nonsenses? You mean telling you that I love you?"- the young woman widened her eyes and turned to him immediately.

- "Don’t say that! Ever again!"

- "But I do. I am in love with you, Sugar."

- "And that’s why we can’t be friends"- Joey sentenced and walked to her car, never looking back. She said goodbye to the rest of the band, kissed Cherry and Lily a few times each, and drove home.

- “What the fuck Gerard?!”- she yelled inside her head- “What the fuck is his problem?! His wife was right here? And he keeps telling me that he loves me? is he stupid? Has the stress affected his brain functions? Did he start drinking again?”.

There was no explanation for his behavior, and it freaked Joey out, ‘cos a new leg of the tour was starting the day after, and she didn’t want to face it that way. She didn’t want to travel with Lynz knowing her husband was trying to get into her pants again.

Again, that was the worst part. Joey felt like a whore knowing what had happened with Gerard. She didn’t want to even think about it, but the image kept coming to her mind. His lips on her, kissing her jawline, her neck, her breast… If she hadn’t thought he was Matthew, would she have let him go on? If she wasn’t in love with her ex, would she had sex with Gerard, even knowing he was married?

The answer could actually scare her, ‘cos it was against everything she had ever believed in. But she thought it was possible. The only thing that kept her from having sex with Gerard was that she was in love with Matthew.

If she had sex with Gerard, would she stop loving Matthew? The girl shook her head, frowning, disgusted by her own thoughts. That was never going to be a good idea.

Gerard was in silence, staring at the food in front of him. He didn’t want to eat. He didn’t want to be there. He could hear his friends talking, his wife laughing, but all his mind could register was the fact Joey was now in her apartment with Gubler. With the guy he hated the most in the whole world. With the guy Gerard wanted to be. The guy he was jealous of. The one she loved instead of him. Just the thought of what could happen between them made him sick in the stomach.

Was she going to forgive him? Was she going to have sex with him? Was she going to marry him after all? Matthew was going to be with her that night. He was going to make her laugh, he was going to lean over her slowly and whisper sweet words in her ear. He was gonna make her blush, he was going to get her wet and cream her undies.

The singer shook his head and tried to think of anything else. But he couldn’t.

- "Are you ok?"- his wife asked, frowning- "You haven’t had a bite."

- "I’m not hungry"- Way whispered and tried his best to cut her a nice natural, all innocent smile.

- "Sure?"- Lynz touched his forehead in case he had a temperature, but he was ok- "Do you want to go home and rest?"- the singer nodded right away

- "Yes, I think I need to lay down for a while."

- "Ok, I’ll tell the guys."

Gerard was full of it. But going home and locking himself in his studio sounded like a nice idea. At least there, no one could see him freaking out over the idea of Joey being with someone else but him.

Matthew counted to ten as he stood outside his car and took three deep breaths to calm himself down. He had done the same, like a mantra, each time he walked into Joey’s apartment those days. He had to control himself from running over, from making a mistake. He had to make sure he wasn’t going to mess it up with her, Paget had told him over and over again: he only had one chance to make things right, and he couldn’t fuck it up.

His friend was the only one who knew Matthew was gonna be a dad, and she was as thrilled as he was, mostly ‘cos she knew how badly Gubler wanted to have a baby. And the fact he loved Joey more than anything made it even more perfect. Well, it would be perfect if he hadn’t cheated, but both of them hoped to fix that any time now. As soon as possible, as a matter of fact.

- "Hey"- Matthew smiled as his ex-girlfriend opened the door. She was already in her pajamas, make-up swept off her face, a messy bun on her hair, and some chocolate around her lips. Matthew had never seen her as beautiful as in that moment.

- "Shouldn’t you be quitting sugar already? We agreed no more lava cakes from this week on."

- "I’m eating the leftovers from the fridge, ‘cos it’s all gonna be rotten when I come back, and the whole place is gonna stink"- Joey answered, cleaning the corner of her mouth, turning back to the kitchen.

- "You know chocolate won’t get bad… wait, where did you get chocolate from?"- Joey turned to him and grinned.

- "Frankie got me some"- Gubler nodded and left the take-out boxes on the counter.

- "Are you hungry?"

- "Actually… I don’t know… are you?"

- "A little. But I can wait a while if you want…"- he smiled at her and stared in silence. The young woman turned away to the fridge again and opened it.

- "Anything else that’s gonna spoil while you are away?"- he asked.

- "Not much… peanut butter will live, I guess."

- "Yeah."

- "And ketchup."

- "Yeah… but ketchup was making you sick a few days ago."

- "But who knows next week..."- the conversation between them was so natural, neither of them remembered how bad things were between them for a long while.

They talked about the fridge, the new self-watering system Joey had gotten for her plants, and how excited she was to see her parents again. And that was when Matthew pushed things a little too far.

- "Are you going to tell them about the baby?"

- "I don’t know"- Joey simply answered and walked away from him. She had been walking away from him most of the time he had spent in her apartment, and he kept following her like a lost puppy through the whole place.

- "Why not?"

- "‘Cos they are gonna ask too many things. ‘Cos I want to know if everything is ok with the baby first, wait until he is twelve weeks. And mostly, ‘cos I’m gonna have to tell them you are a cheater mother fucker and that we are not getting married, and I haven’t seen them in forever… I don’t wanna ruin the trip."

- "Maybe you don’t have to tell them we broke up,"- Joey raised an eyebrow and looked at him, standing on the frame of the bathroom door, staring at her putting all her beauty products (the few she had) in a “go-to” bag.

- "Sure, Matthew"- her answer was snarky, and she refused to turn to him.

- "I mean… we don’t have to break up"

- "Again? You wanna do this again?"- her voice was annoyed, making it clear she was tired of talking about their relationship.

- "We’ve danced around the subject all week, and we haven’t properly talked about it."

- "We are over because your cock was in your ex’s mouth the night of your birthday a few weeks ago. That’s all there is to know about that subject. That’s why we are in this fucking shitty situation. And no, Matthew Gray Gubler, I am not going to forgive you! So can you just drop it?!"

A heavy silence hung in the room. Joey lost it, and she ended up yelling. She was tired, she was sad, she was stressed. And most of it, she was anxious and slightly depressed over the whole deal.

- "I’m tired of this shit! We are gonna be parents together. I swear I am doing my best to get along with you and have a healthy relationship. Still, the fact is, I am doing my best to stop fucking loving you ‘cos I am not going to get back together with you! Ever!"

Her words were full of anger, and she couldn’t stop herself from screaming at him.

Matthew looked at Joey in silence. He didn’t know what to say at that. He had a lot of ideas in his head, but all of them were probably just going to get her even more upset. And that was the last thing he wanted to do that minute. And so, he just nodded and turned around and left the room. Joey sat on the edge of the bathtub and bit her lips.

- "I got this for our baby today"- he murmured a few minutes later when he walked back to the bathroom.

- "What is it?"- Joey mumbled and looked at the iPod Matthew gave her- "What? You know the baby won’t use one of these in probably another ten years, right?"

- "It’s not the iPod, it’s what’s in it"- the drummer nodded and wondered what was in it- "I just…"

Matthew cleared his throat. Words came painfully slow from his lips as he spoke.

- "I recorded a few stories and tales and things for the baby, so they can listen to my voice while you are away. That way, they won’t forget me"- Joey’s heart ached in love at those words.

- “This is one smooth loving bastard”- she thought and took a deep breath- "Thank you, that’s very thoughtful"- he shook his head and took a few steps back from her, ‘cos he knew all his body wanted was to lean over her and kiss her.

- "It’s nothing"- he sighed and made a pause- "I’m just worried if we are not gonna be together again, my baby might forget about me."

Those words broke Joey’s already broken heart. The sadness that Matthew’s face reflected showed her how bad he was feeling and reminded her that this was also a troubled time for him. Even when he was the one that had brought those problems to their relationship.

- "I promise you, that’s never gonna happen. You are always going to be our baby’s dad, and you are always going to be part of their life, no matter what"- he nodded and looked down, biting the inner part of his cheeks.

- "I think I better go"- Joey didn’t want him to go. He didn’t want to go, but her words had been so hard, they had left him speechless. Uneasy. Depressed.

- "You…"- the young woman stood up and took a deep breath, not know what to say- "You can take your part of dinner if you want."

That was not what she wanted to say. She wanted to say, “I’m sorry I just said all that in the nastiest way possible. I fucking love you, stay with me and hold me ‘cos I am scared and sad and alone”. But that was not what came out from her lips.

Matthew nodded and walked to the kitchen. He sighed and closed his eyes as he grabbed his box of Chinese noodles. That evening hadn’t come out as he was hoping. It had actually been the complete opposite. He had fucked it up. Making Joey upset only caused more pain to the two of them. He knew she would say things in the most painful way possible, not because she wanted to, but because that’s how she reacted when hurt. Hurting back. Hurting deeper.

Joey stood in the middle of the hall, watching Matthew grab all his things and turn to her.

- "Take care"- he whispered, and she nodded slowly.

- "You too."

- "I’ll call you to know about the baby bean"- she nodded again.

- "Of course. I’ll see you when I come back, and we’ll have another check-up"- he looked at her as she whispered those words. Each one of them hurt as they left her lips, ‘cos they were goodbye words, and she didn’t want to say goodbye.

Matthew just stood there, staring at her, not knowing how to move. He didn’t have the strength to walk away from her at that moment. Still, the words she had just practically yelled at him were a warning he was pushing her, and by pushing, he was never going to make things better. He had such a sad look in his eyes, Joey took a step closer to him. He kept his eyes on hers, almost holding his breath.

- "And… thank you for being here with us"- she held her hand on her tiny belly as she spoke- "I know it’s hard and all, I just… want you to know… I appreciate it."

- "They are my baby too"- he simply answered with a short and sad smile on his lips- "I would do anything for the two of you, any day."

Joey bit her lips and took another step closer. He stood still, not knowing what to do. Joey walked slowly to him and stood right in front of him.

- "Sorry about what I said"- she managed to whisper.

- "No, Joey, please don’t apologize, you said what you said ‘cos it’s the truth, and I understand how mad you are… please don’t say you are sorry for something I brought to myself, to the two of us"- Matthew made a pause and sighed, his eyes stuck into Joey’s- "To the three of us, actually"- she nodded slowly.

- "I didn’t want you to leave with an argument if we were not going to see each other until another month"- Joey managed to murmur but couldn’t hold her eyes in Matthew’s for another second, and so she looked down.

- "I didn’t want to start a fight either…"

The two of them stayed in silence. The distance between them was so small Matthew could hold her tight if he only took one step ahead. But he controlled himself. It was one of the most challenging efforts he had ever made, and he moved his hand to her chin, lifting her face sweetly.

- "Take care, ok?"- his eyes traveled slowly from her lips to her eyes, and he noticed how her cheeks blushed sweetly.

- "Ok"- she whispered, nodding.

- "I’ll call you"- she didn’t say a thing and just nodded again. Matthew moved carefully over her and landed his lips on her forehead. It was the sweetest touch Joey had ever recalled feeling from him. So delicate and tender, and at the same time with such intense love. It was impossible for her not to close her eyes and feel her knees trembling. He stared at her in silence and smiled shyly before whispering “Goodnight” and walking out of her house.

Joey stared at the door and restrained herself from the deep desire to run after him and wrap her arms around his neck, to kiss him deeply. She didn’t. She couldn’t. She shouldn’t. Instead, she walked to her couch and laid down, wrapping her arms around her legs, feeling how warm tears fell from her eyes. How many times can a heartbreak after being broken? ‘Cos every time Matthew said goodbye, her heart ached, just like the day they broke up. And her body ached, feeling the empty space he left by her side.

- "I love you so fucking much"- she mumbled, sobbing. Tears kept falling like a waterfall until she fell asleep.

::: March 31st, 2011. Oakland :::

Mikey looked at Joey as they walked into the hotel and checked in. They had hardly shared a word that day, ever since they left California. She sat with Jamia and helped with the babies the whole trip, and her plan was to continue to do the same until it was time to play the show.

- "Are you mad?"- he asked out of the blunt as he stood next to her in the middle of the lobby, both waiting for their room keys.

- "No, why?"

- "You are not talking to me."

- "You haven’t talked to me either"- she answered with a shrug- "Are you mad at me?"- Joey furrowed her brows as she spoke, thinking maybe that was the point, and she never actually noticed it.

- "No"

- "Then?"

- "Are you ok?"

- "I’m tired and puked breakfast on the plane, you?"

- "I’m tired and drank three coffees on the plane ‘cos I couldn’t sleep"- Joey nodded at her friend’s words- "Why does it feel weird?"- Mikey pointed out and crossed his arms on his chest

- "I don’t know... - the drummer answered and looked at his shoes- "I love those boots."

- "I’m not gonna give them to you. They are not your number."

- "Shut up"- Joey cut him a short smile, and he did the same- "I hated Lynz’s comment last night"- Joey confessed and kicked Mikey’s boot friendly

- "Me too… Gerard said I was too rude to her."

- "You were, but she kind of deserved it"- Mikey chuckled at Joey’s confession- "Really, I just hated so much how she was insinuating you were jealous of whatever, considering she has no idea we are best friends!

- "I know! I thought the same"

- "That’s ‘cos we are best friends"- Joey added and smiled, giggling. Mikey looked at her and wrapped his arms around her slowly.

- "Did you have a good night after you saw that asshole?"

- "Yeah, it was ok"- Joey lied, hiding her face in his chest- "He brought dinner and left."

- "Good"- they rocked slowly, still hugged. Mikey kissed the top of her head and whispered- "I’m not jealous."

- "I know"

- "I’m just scared"

- "Why?"- Joey moved apart from him but never got an answer. Jeffrey showed up and gave them their keys.

- "Get ready. We’ve got an interview in an hour here in the conference room"- the bassist frowned, nodding.

- "Good news for me, I get to get some more sleep"- Joey added and stuck out her tongue to Mikey.

- "I hate you"

- "I know."

Gerard looked at his brother talking with Joey. He saw how they hugged. How he kissed the top of her head. How she smiled at him sweetly and hid her face on his chest. They looked like a fucking couple, and he hated everything about it.

- "Stop it"- Ray said and stood next to him- "I thought you were gonna be over your fucking obsession by now"- he pointed out with an eased tone of voice like he was just talking about the weather.

- "You are gonna fuck everything up if you keep looking at her like that"

- "What do you know?"

- "I know she won’t talk to you at all, and I think there has to be a reason I don’t know"- Gerard stayed still, pretending those hadn’t hurt him. Or scared him. He didn’t even look at Ray as he spoke.

- "And I know you like her, so stay away from her before you do something that ruins everything."

- "I’m not gonna ruin anything."

- "Your wife is gonna be here soon."

- "I love my wife."

- "I know… just try not to stare at Joey drooling, like she is the object of your undeniable desire and love when Lynz is around."

Gerard turned to his friend and tried to say something back, but nothing came out.

- "And for the love of God, don’t fuck it up!"- Ray tapped on his back and walked away.

Gerard Way was busted. He was fucked. And it was the first day of the tour.

Matthew laid on his bed and sighed. He was in Oakland, staying at a hotel two blocks from Joey’s. He had made sure not to book his room in the same place as her, to keep a safe distance in case she got too mad- which was always an option with her, especially under those circumstances. Those were the worst circumstances they had ever faced, so Matthew was being extra precautious. Even more after what had happened the night before. He was still angry with himself for pushing her too much. He had to be patient.

- “Let’s hope she won’t get angry with me for doing this.”- he thought and stared at the ceiling. He could only stay still for a minute or so. He quickly moved to his bag, grabbed a book and his phone.

- "Hey"- Joey’s voice at the other side of the line made him smile right away

- "Hello, how was your trip?"

- "It was ok"- Joey cleared her throat and looked at her feet as she walked around her room. She felt weird and awkward talking to Matthew after what had happened the night before- "How are you?"

- "I’m ok…"

- "How are you feeling from the bruises from the car crash?"

- "Like nothing ever happened"

- "Good…"- there was a silence on the line. Matthew could hear Joey’s breathing as she scratched the back of his neck and said the first thing that came to his mind.

- "So at what time is the concert tonight?"

- "At eight"

- "Good… and… are you having lunch soon?"

- "I don’t know. I was thinking about napping now and maybe grab a late bite before going to the arena."

- "Remember the nutritionist said you shouldn’t skip meals"- the drummer sighed, knowing he was right.

- "But I’m so sleepy, I’m gonna fall asleep on the table eating."

- "You couldn’t sleep last night? “God knows I couldn’t.”

- “I did. “No, I didn’t. I stayed up crying and thinking about how much I love you, damn it!”

- "Then why are you so tired?"

- "Maybe because I’m turning food into a human being"- Matthew chuckled at those words, and Joey smiled, listening to his reaction.

- "That seems to be a good reason. I’m sorry I questioned you"- the girl kept the grin on her face for a second

- "That’s ok. I should really go grab something to eat and then nap. You are right about that."

- "Talk to you later?"- he asked as casually as possible- "Maybe after the show, to know how you are feeling?"

- "Yeah, sure. Talk to you later, bye."

Matthew hung up and sighed. Just a few more hours and his plan to get his girl back would start. His stomach tightened as he imagined what Joey was gonna say when she saw him. Was she going to be mad? Was she going to be happy? Was the band going to hit him? There were too many questions for him to answer, so he did the only thing he could do: lay on his bed and grab the book he was carrying.

Jamia, the babies, and Joey had lunch together. The drummer loved having her around ‘cos she wasn’t alone back in the hotel all the time like she was in Europe, and that meant less time to overthink everything. She loved hanging out with Jamia ‘cos she was too nice and understanding with her. It felt like they could be friends. Jamia considered Joey her friend already, meanwhile the young woman still had trouble opening up with people.

Though she had to be honest with herself. The latest months had changed a lot of the things that made her a loner. It was all Matthew and My Chem. Except for Gerard. But for Joey, Gerard wasn’t really in the picture anymore. He was the guy she needed and wanted to avoid at any cost. Even if that cost meant to leave the band.

- "So… have you thought of any name already?"- Jamia and Joey were at the drummer’s room. The babies were napping, and the two women were laid on the bed, eating Oreos.

- "Not really… I just…"

- "It’s not real yet?"

- "It’s so not real yet"- Joey whispered and chuckled- "I keep looking at the ultrasound, and I can’t believe there’s a baby in my tummy… I bet I ate a sea monkey at some point, and that’s what’s been growing inside me"- Jamia snorted as she tried to keep it down and nearly laughed out loud.

- "Wait until the sea monkey starts kicking. That’s the weirdest thing of all"

- "You are not making it magical, J"- Joey made a pause and chuckled- "You are so gonna be J from now on"- and Jamia smiled.

- "Sounds nice coming from you."

- "Good, ‘cos I think I’ve got no more brain cells to think of anything else."

- "Oh honey! You are just starting!"- Mrs. Iero tapped on her friend’s leg as the two of them laid back next to the babies- "You have months of exciting emotions, like pregnancy arousal, cravings, hormonal changes, hair coming in weird places, and my personal favorite, pregnancy brain"- Joey frowned disgustedly.

- "I’m afraid to ask about the arousal, the hair, and the brain shit"

- "Whenever you are ready, I am here."

- "You are my Jamia San Kenobi"- Joey chuckled and sighed- "My pregnancy Jedi master"- and Jamia smiled.

- "I’m glad I can help"- and after a few minutes, they were both asleep as well.

The doors to the theater opened at five, and Matthew ran inside to make sure to grab a spot on the first row. He nearly tackled a few teenagers to get there. But he did and sighed, relieved at his success.

- "Hey! Where are you? did you make it?"- Paget called and didn’t even say hello to her friend. She just started asking questions right away, making him chuckle.

- "Hey! Yeah, I’m in Oakland, already at the theater. It’s a very cool venue, small, intimate… I’m almost sure Joey is gonna get to see me."

- "Are you in the first row?"

- "Of course, I am"

- "Good"- Paget smiled and nodded- "We miss you around here."

- "I’ll be there when everything is ok."

- "We know."

- "Is anyone mad at me?"- and Paget chuckled.

- "No, actually everybody thinks you are the sweetest and most romantic guy on earth following your girlfriend like that."

- "I’m following her to get her to be my girlfriend again, actually."

- "You get the point"- and Matthew chuckled- "Ok, Gubler, gotta go, please call me and tell me how this went."

- "Of course!"

- "Hey! Wait! Did you make a banner?"

- "Yes! I remembered your advice and got a banner."

- "What does it say?"

- “The distance is nothing when one has a motive”- the actor confessed proudly

- "Pride and Prejudice?"- Paget asked, puzzled.

- "Yes, her favorite, I’m making her banners with quotes from her favorite books"- and his friend sighed.

- "Stop it! I am gonna end up falling for you!"- and the actor chuckled- "If she doesn’t take you back, I am single!"

- "Shut up!"- Paget laughed, knowing Matthew had blushed, though he knew she was joking.

- "Call me later."

- "Sure thing!"

Joey kept jumping on her spot. She was backstage, feeling really psyched to play that day. She didn’t really know why. Maybe it was the two hours nap she had taken that afternoon with Cherry and Lily. Perhaps the fun size Snicker Mikey had just given her, breaking her meal plan on the first day on the road.

- "You look extra happy today"- and it all stopped the second she heard Gerard’s voice next to her.

- "Hey, yeah… I think it’s a sugar rush"- she answered and looked around, feeling safer knowing everybody was around her, including Jamia and the babies.

- "How are you feeling?"

- "Good"- Joey smiled and nodded- "You?"

- "Good… but I’m not pregnant"- the girl smiled and looked away from him, trying to keep that conversation as casual and distant as possible.

- "You look gorgeous, by the way"- Gerard whispered and even blushed as he moved a little closer to her- "I guess it’s true pregnant women glow and grow in beauty."

Joey took a step back and gulped as she felt her cheeks burning red as Gerard just continued talking.

- "‘Cos each time I see you, you catch my breath."

- "Please don’t..."

- "I’m just being nice"- Gerard smiled, pretending to look as innocent as possible.

- "You and I both know that’s not what you are doing."

- "Hey Iceland"- Frankie appeared all of a sudden and wrapped an arm around the young girl, kissing her temple and giving Gerard a glare that forced the singer to take a few steps back.

- "What are you guys talking about?"- and Joey sighed, relieved to feel him next to her, like a little guardian angel, though Frank Iero had nothing angelic.

- "I was just telling Joey she looks gorgeous today and that pregnant women are beautiful"- Gerard answered like it wasn’t a big deal at all. Joey wanted to run away or hide under a rock. Frank just tightened his arm around her and nodded.

- "Yes, she does… wanna help with my warm-up?"

That was the most random question Iero could come up with that second, but it didn’t matter, ‘cos Joey smiled and quickly said yes, escaping from Gerard’s presence. But not from his eyes that followed her through the room. He wasn’t worried anyone could see how much he loved her, ‘cos he didn’t want to hide it anymore. Not until Lynz was there, at least. But that was a problem he would face when the right time came, in a week or so.

- "What can I help you with, Jersey?"- Joey asked as Frank grabbed a few kettlebells and started making bicep curls.

- "Absolutely nothing, you just looked like you wanted to get the fuck away from him, and I decided to rescue you"- the young woman wanted to deny it all, but at that point, she was just so glad Frank had taken her away from Gerard, she just nodded and smiled.

- "You are such a smart guy"

- "You are gonna make me blush…"

- "Can I use one?"- she casually asked, pointing out the kettlebell.

- "Definitely not! You’re not lifting any weight until we talk with your doctor"- Joey rolled her eyes and shook her eyes.

- "We already did that. I am ok to work out… I just can’t… run and… carry heavyweights"- Frank raised an eyebrow, and she smiled guilty- "Sorry, I just love lifting weights."

- "Have your baby first, then we care gonna train like we are fucking CrossFit athletes"- the soon-to-be mother chuckled and reached out her hand to her friend.

- "Jersey, we’ve got a date."

The crowd was running anxious, and so was Matthew. He had stayed put on his spot in the first row, right in front of the drumset like his life depended on it, no matter how much kids would try to push him away.

- “This is gonna work, this is gonna work, this is gonna work,”- he kept repeating in his head as he felt the weight of two thousand people pushing him against the security fence.

The crowd started yelling louder and jumping as the band appeared on stage. And along with them came his girl.

His breath was caught in his throat as he looked at her walking to the drum, a huge smile lodged on her lips. She looked so happy, happy like she had always looked when playing. There was nothing Joey loved more than her job. She had fought so much to get there, Matthew could barely get a glimpse of how good she felt playing as a professional drummer.

Looking at her sitting behind the drum in a My Chemical Romance concert, with that sweet and happy grin on her face, made him fall a thousand times harder in love with her. He felt proud of her and jealous of all the people who had been able to see her glowing in joy in the latest months when he had been away from her.

- “You fucked it up! Now fix it!”

Gubler never noticed the countdown of the music had started, and all the kids were yelling every word in “Look Alive Sunshine” until Gerard’s voice took him from his thoughts. Joey started playing, and the singer yelled.

- Oakland!! Make some noise!!- and the show started.

The whole crowd jumped, and Matthew jumped along with them, his eyes locked in Joey, who was lost in her drum. He smiled, watching how her lips now moved along with the song, murmuring the lyrics. Of course, she had toured with them long enough to learn all the lyrics of each song. She would probably deny it but sing them in the shower when she knew no one was listening.

The first one who spotted Matthew was Mikey. He frowned as he looked at Gubler standing in the first row, not getting what the fuck was going on. But Matthew never cared -he hadn’t actually considered- the fact the band could spot him in the audience. There was no one else on that stage but Joey for him, and that’s why she was the only person he had eyes for.

As soon as “Na Na Na” ended, Mikey walked to Frank. The intro of “Mama” started, so the bassist talked as fast as possible.

- "Dude, Gubler is here"- Iero looked at him frowning- "The first row, staring at Joey"- Frank looked over and saw him. He hadn’t seen him ever since New Year, and if there was one thing the Jersey boy was dying to do was to break Matthew’s face so hard no one would ever recognize him again.

- "Mother fucker"- he said and didn’t take his eyes from the actor- "I’m gonna kill him!"

But at the moment, he didn’t have the chance, ‘cos he had to play a show. But for a second, he and Mikey shared a look and turned to Joey. She was playing, eyes shut, smiling. They knew she still had no idea what was going on. And that was ok for them.

It wasn’t long until Gerard found the actor. It wasn’t hard to see him ‘cos he was the tallest guy in the front row and the only one who wasn’t looking at him. Matthew was the guy who stood still, hypnotized with each movement of the drummer, drooling over her like a kid staring at his first love. Gerard felt how his whole body shook in anger. Even his hands shook with a deep desire to kill him. Right there, in front of everybody. But he couldn’t. He had to keep on singing, keep on playing. Keep on pretending everything was ok, not just for the show and the kids, but for Joey too. He kept wishing she hadn’t seen him yet. Maybe she could never see him.

But the singer needed to let Gubler know he was fucked. And so he stood right in front of him, at the very edge of the stage, and managed it to catch his eyes. Both of them looking at each other in such deep hate, it was obvious the pair knew they despised each other. Gerard didn’t think about it twice. He had the higher ground. It would be a shame not to take advantage. And so, he spit on Matthew, and an evil smirked lodged on him as he saw him cleaning his face in anger. That was a little piece of sweet, sweet revenge. But it still wasn’t enough to make the actor pay for everything he had put Joey through.

Ray widened his eyes when he spotted Matthew, just the second Gerard spitted on him. He saw the whole moment in action and knew it was gonna be hell after the show. What was Gubler doing there? Trying to get Joey back. Ray knew that moment was gonna come, eventually. Toro knew how much Matthew loved her. It was crystal clear for everybody to see.

Ray was the only one who could keep a cold head to analyze the whole picture, and that’s why he always tried to remind his friends Joey and Matthew weren’t a subject they could decide on. It wasn’t something related to them at all, though they were friends with her. They were their own thing, a thing they could merely watch but never ever control. It was clear neither of his friends had listened, and so Toro sighed. He was going to have to stop a big fight after that concert.

- "The next song"- Gerard said after “House of Wolves” was over. It was Joey’s favorite song, and they played it as often as possible- "It’s about being a kid, about you being a kid, about me being a kid, about us being a kid, about you having a kid"- Joey raised her eyes from the drums and looked straight into Gerard’s eyes. That’s when she heard him.

- "Yami!!"- it was Matthew’s voice, but it couldn’t be. Joey frowned and looked around.

- "Yami!!"- he yelled and raised the banner. Frank, Mikey, and Gerard looked at him in the most honest and pure hate anyone could have ever seen from them. Ray tried to concentrate on Joey. She was the one he cared about at that second. And when he saw the puzzled expression on her face as she looked at him, asking what was going on, Ray couldn’t control himself and pointed at the actor.

Joey’s heart stopped. It was Matthew, it was really him, standing there, on the first row of the concert, staring at her with the biggest smile anyone had ever had around her in her life. And he was holding a banner that read, “The distance is nothing when one has a motive.” She couldn’t move. She didn’t know what to do. He just smiled at her and mouthed, “I love you.”

- "Bug!! Bug, are you ok?"- Mikey waved in front of the drum and looked worried at the girl. She just nodded at him and then at Frankie, who stood next to the bassist.

- "Yeah, I’m ok"- she smiled and started counting. It was time to play “Kids from yesterday.”

Everybody loved that song, and she wasn’t going to fuck it up, not even if her eyes and mind were stuck looking at Matthew in front of her, as he kept smiling like a kid on Christmas morning as she played.

Gerard stared at the scene, and it felt he was gonna make a tantrum in the middle of the stage. Joey was staring at Matthew, and her whole face had lit up, even if she didn’t want to. And just like a little child, Gerard made sure to stand right between the two of them to stop them from looking at each other. And like if they could all build a fortress, Frank and Mikey stood around the drumset, protecting Joey, trying to make sure Matthew knew he wasn’t going to get anywhere near her, over their dead bodies.

Matthew didn’t give a damn. He just wanted to look at her. He just wanted her to know she was the most important person in his life and that he was willing to drop anything and everything just to be near her.

The song was ending. Joey kept playing drums, her eyes glued to Matthew’s, until Mikey stared at her, counting the beat at the song’s end. She nodded at her friend and kept playing, both of them, the two of them, to finish the song together, just like they had done for over five months now, in perfect timing. Joey loved that part, and he knew it, ‘cos it was the only part of the show they had a little solo. Mikey was happy Matthew didn’t take that moment from them. At least he felt Joey was still in the zone, playing and being present at the show and not lost in thoughts.

Joey was lost in thoughts, she was making her best to play a good show. But Matthew’s appearance had moved the ground underneath her feet. It had been the biggest and warmest surprised she had had in a long time.

“I’m not ok” set the mood for the rest of the concert. No one on that stage was ok. But Gerard was the one affected the most. He would sing, giving his back to the audience and looking at Joey as often as possible. He knew that was going to drive Matthew insane, but it also helped him stay focused.

His eyes locked in Joey’s face tried to read her. She looked… happier. And that hurt, ‘cos though Gerard knew she didn’t love him back, it didn’t help to know he was still in her heart. It was so obvious she was in love with him even a blind man would see it. Even Joey would try to keep her eyes shut or look away, she would always end up looking at Matthew, and Gerard could swear a smile lodged on her lips each time she saw the actor. It made him want to punch a wall, or Gubler’s face, whatever came first.

- "Give me all your fucking money!!"- Gerard yelled and ran to the drum set as Joey started playing “Vampire Money” with a huge smile- "Are you ready, Ray!!"

- "Yeah!"

- "How about you, Sugar?"

- "Yeah!!"

- "How about you, Frank?"

- "Fuck you, Gubler!"- he answered, and Joey turned to him in shock, though Iero looked at her with the cutest and most adorable smile on earth.

- "How about you, Mikey?"- Gee yelled

- "Fucking ready!"

- "I think I’m alright."

Gerard would always call Joey “Bug” when he addressed her in that part of the show. It was the only moment of the day he could call her by a nickname, and “Bug” was her official band nickname. But that day, Way wanted to make a difference. He wanted to make it sound a little more personal than it was in real life. “Sugar” fit perfectly, and in his mind, Gerard would always call her Sugar.

Somehow, being so angry brought a different energy to the band while playing. They were mad into it. Gerard sang as his life depended on it, while Mikey wouldn’t stop moving, and looking in the most threatening way possible at Gubler, every once in a while. Frank would jump and yell and shout, playing his guitar with the energy of a caffeinated hyper ten years old. Matthew never even saw them. He couldn’t care less. All there was for him on that stage was Joey behind the drum, looking at him with the corner of her eye every couple of minutes.

She didn’t know what to think or what to feel. She was in shock. What was Matthew doing there? What was he going to do next? What was he planning? Joey needed to run away from that stage and hide under a gigantic pillow ‘cos she had no idea how to face what was going on, though, at the same time, she was dying to run to Matthew and hug him. She just felt so good to know he had followed her to see her one more time. She felt special like he always made her feel.

Gerard started singing Cancer, and Joey turned to one side of the stage. Jamia looked at her, literally waving. She could perfectly read her lips, “What the fuck?” and the drummer could only shrug.

- "Hey"- Mikey appeared in front of the drummer and cut him a quick, shy smile- "Are you ok?"

- "Yeah, just surprised."

- "You knew?"

- "I had no idea"- he nodded and looked around

- "Just a few more songs, then we can go hide and eat a pretty good dinner"- Joey smiled at him and watched him walk back to his side of the stage.

But Joey didn’t want to hide in her room and eat dinner with Mikey. Though she refused to admit it, all she wanted to do was to stand in front of Matthew and feel his eyes fondling her skin as he talked to her, just like he was doing at that moment, from a distance. She could feel his eyes running up and down her skin, though she didn’t look at him.

Jamia nearly jumped on Joey as soon as the girl reached backstage. The babies were miraculously sound asleep. No one got how, considering a huge rock concert had been happening that whole time a few meters away from them.

- "Oh my god, what the fuck??!"- Jamia made her best to whisper/scream to not wake the babies, but to make Joey wide open her eyes and frown.

- "I swear I have no idea!!"

- "He is adorable!!"

- "He is a cheater Jamia"- Frank interrupted his wife and took off his shirt, frowning- "And you shouldn’t be that excited. He is just trying to win her over."

- "He is being romantic, Frank"- Jamia corrected him and looked at Joey again- "What are you gonna do?"

- "I don’t know"

- "Call him!!"

Jamia was the closest to a best friend from high school Joey had ever had. Sure, back in the days, she had Tabatha, but her friend had her share of social life, and Joey was always shut down to any kind of social interaction. Now Jamia was talking about boys and telling her to call one. If that was high school talk, Joey had no idea what it was.

But before she could actually make a decision, her phone rang in her backpack, and J widened her eyes in excitement.

- "I swear to God, Jamia! you are just acting like this ‘cos you think he is hot!"- Frank turned around to see his wife, clearly annoyed, as Joey grabbed her phone and held it tight in her hands, not knowing what to do.

- "I’m just being honest with my friend. He is being cute and asking for a second chance. Coming unannounced to a concert with a cute banner is the sweetest thing I’ve seen a guy doing for love!"- Jamia stopped talking, and Joey’s cell stopped ringing. She looked at it feeling disappointed, until a second later, it started ringing again.

- "For Christ’s sake! Answer!"- Jamia sounded annoyed, and Joey did as told, not really thinking about her own actions. She just… deep down wanted to do it.

- "Hello?"

- "Hey..."- Matthew stood still in the middle of the arena, waiting for the kids to leave the place, he was anxious to know what Joey thought of what he had done, and though he had thought about waiting for a while to call her, he just couldn’t control himself.

- "What was that?"- Joey asked, blushing, as she locked herself in the bathroom.

- "That was me dying to see you, traveling to Oakland to be with you, even from a distance"

- "Why did you do that?"- Joey managed to ask, feeling she was nearly mumbling each word.

- "‘Cos I love you, ‘cos I miss you…"

Neither of them was able to say another word. Matthew was nervous and didn’t know how Joey managed the whole situation, though her voice sounded peaceful and calm. That should be a good sign.

- "You shouldn’t have…"- she whispered and felt her heart was about burst inside her chest

- "Do you wanna come out for a minute and talk?"- she wanted to, so badly, but it scared her to think what would happen if Frank, or even Gerard, got near Gubler.

- "Where are you?"

- "Still here"

- "You haven’t moved?"

- "Nop"- Matthew smiled and looked around- "I don’t know if they are planning to kick me out though"

- "Give me five minutes, I’ll change into something dry, and I’ll be right there."

Gerard Way was in hell. Literally burning alive as he watched Joey walking out of the bathroom in a fresh shirt and combed hair made a ponytail. She had even fixed her makeup.

- “God! She even got pretty for him!! What the fuck?! How can she be so eager to forgive him?!”- his eyes could burn holes in the wall as he did his best to look away from Joey.

- "Hey Bug, what are you gonna do?"- Mikey asked her as he stood next to her and held her hands. Gerard hated that too. He had managed to decode each movement from his brother around Joey like he was her couple. Lynz’s words had really fucked up with his brain. And if he was jealous of Mikey before, now it was turning into something worse.

- "I’m gonna go talk to him"

- "Are you sure that’s a good idea?"- Mikey looked worried, but Joey smiled at him and held his hand tighter.

- "Yeah, don’t worry, I’m gonna be ok."

- "If he does anything to you, I’m gonna break his fucking face"- Frank added from the other side of the room, already in a clean shirt and now holding one of the babies in his arms. For someone who sounded so threatening, he surely didn’t look the part.

- "It’s ok kids, let Joey take her own decisions, ok?"- Ray finally spoke up and sighed- "She knows we are here for her no matter what, but she has to do what her heart tells her to do."

- "Thank you, dad, but don’t think for a minute I’m gonna forgive him"

- "Even if you do, Bug. You will always count on me"- the guitarist walked to her and kissed her temple.

- "Best dad ever"- she whispered and opened the door.

Matthew felt his heart stop in his chest when he saw her walking over to him. He did the only thing that came to his mind and raised the banner he still held in his hands, so she could find him. It wasn’t hard to see him. There weren’t many people left at the arena, mostly just the crew setting everything to go.

- "Hey"- Joey said and waved as she walked to him and stood right in front of him. Just like she had imagined, she could feel the warmth of her eyes traveling down her face as he stared at her in pure bliss and love.

- "Hey"- he replied and smiled. He didn’t really want to talk. He didn’t know what to say. All he could think of was to kiss her and hold her tight.

- "What are you doing here, Matthew?"- she finally asked and crossed her arms on her chest to remind herself she couldn’t feel anything but anger against him and that she shouldn’t be so happy to see him. Or worse, she shouldn’t be showing him how happy she was to see him.

- "I just wanted you to know how much I love you"

- "By traveling to San Francisco to see a show?"

- "With a handmade banner"- he added and smiled.

- “That damn fucking adorable smile is gonna be the end of me,”- Joey sighed, thinking what to say next, making her best to stay calmed and not drooling over him.

- "That was a good touch."

- "Thanks, just like Lizzy, I would walk any distance just to be with you ‘cos you are my whole purpose."

Joey nodded, melting inside, as she made her best to stay cold and look indifferent. She didn’t know if it was working, but she wanted to believe so.

- "I’m not gonna forgive you just 'cos you showed up unannounced to a show"- that was all that came to her mind, it wasn’t the most intelligent answer, but it was all she had.

- "I wasn’t expecting you to forgive me today"- he simply replied and shrugged. There was a weird mix of security and happiness around his whole attitude Joey couldn’t wrap her mind around.

- "Good"- that was the whole answer she could give him, furrowing her brows. Matthew stared at her in silence for a second and took a step forward, closing the gap between them a little.

- "It was an amazing show, by the way"- he said and smiled. Joey’s knees shook as a response.

- "Thanks"- she whispered and looked down

- "How’s the little bean?"

- "Good… floating, I guess. I’ve felt pretty good today."

- "That’s great"- the two of them nodded at the same time and stayed quiet- "Remember to play the tracks I made for the bean."

- "Yeah, I will tonight."

- "They are just for the baby, so no peeking, ok?"- Matthew’s voice felt velvety as he talked close to Joey. She managed to raise her eyes from the ground, and Gubler swore his heart could be heard from any corner of that arena as it beat harder just to feel her looking at him.

- "I’ll put the headphones on the belly, so it will be the first secret you can share with your baby"- she smiled at the end of her answer, and Matthew held his breath.

- "That’s the cutest thing I could think of"- he mumbled, and the two of them stared in silence, sharing a moment that was a mix between love and angst.

Joey was still fighting to get away from him and stay mad at him. She had to play over and over again, like an old movie, the pictures she saw of Matthew cheating, just to keep herself from wrapping her arms around his neck.

- "Does she look in pain to you?!"- Jamia pushed Frank back as he kept trying to walk towards Joey and Matthew and drag her away from him.

- "She is gonna cry! He is gonna make her cry!"

- "Frank! This is not your war! Look at them and tell me they are not in love! If this was a cartoon, there would be hearts above their heads!"- Jamia was right, but Frank didn’t want to listen.

- "Hey!! Asshole!!"- Frank yelled, and Joey turned to him, frowning- "Stay the fuck away from her!!"

- "Oh shit!"- the words sneaked through her lips as Matthew looked at Frank and didn’t find anything better to do but to wave, infuriating Iero even more- "You know he wants to kill you, right?"

- "I am aware… the way they all looked at me made it pretty clear during the show, Gerard actually spit on my face."

The way Matthew said, it didn’t sound like it was a big deal. But it was, and Joey’s eyes were wide open as soon as she heard him.

- "He did what??!"- and she shouted- "Who the fuck does he think he is??!"

The young woman’s face was red in anger, and she quickly turned around and headed to the backstage area. But Matthew stopped her, grabbing her hand quickly.

- "Hey! Hey! Calm down, it’s ok! I don’t care!"

- "But I care!! This has nothing to do with him! He is not even my friend!! What the fuck does he think he is doing?!"

Unfortunately, the scene didn’t really look good from a distance, and Frank watching them, not getting what they were talking about, could only see his friend trying to get rid of Matthew and him not letting her go.

- "Take your hands off her!!"- Frank shouted and ran over, Jamia following close behind- "I said let go!!"- he pushed Matthew and put an arm in front of Joey, trying to keep her back.

- "What the fuck, dude?"- Joey shouted.

- "I don’t want him to hurt you, Bug!"

- "I’m not hurting her!!"- Matthew frowned, feeling insulted- "Why would I hurt the mother of my baby?!"

- "He ain’t hurting me!!"- Joey supported him, ‘cos Frank actually ignored Gubler’s words

- "Doesn’t look like he is being pretty nice either!!"

- "Frank! Stop it! Joey says nothing is going on!"- Jamia held Frank’s arm as Matthew tried to cool down the mood.

- "Hey! Nothing is going on"- Gubler used the calmest voice he could to talk to Iero- "I understand you wanna protect Joey from me ‘cos I was an asshole and fucked it up, but I am not gonna hurt her!! Ok?"

- "What fuck do you know! You broke her, and I am not gonna let you near her again!"- and just like the day Mikey had told him the same, Matthew’s heart tightened in his chest, listening to Frank yelling how badly he had hurt the woman he loved.

- "I can take care of myself!!"- Joey shouted- "So stop it! Now let me go kill that mother fucker!!"- the drummer turned around and started jogging to the dressing room. But Matthew followed her quickly and grabbed her hand again.

- "Please don’t! Joey, I don’t care! He can do whatever he wants to do. That ain’t gonna stop me!"

- "You don’t get it! I hate the guy! And the fact he thinks he can come and spit on your face like he is the fucking king of the world, or that he can avenge my sorrow, it’s wrong!!"- Joey pushed and let go of Matthew’s grip and continued her way until she opened the door and found Gerard, Mikey, and Ray playing with the twins.

- "Hey Bug"- Mikey turned and smiled, but Joey ignored him, ‘cos her eyes were locked on Gerard’s, staring at him with pure hate.

- "What the fuck is your problem, kúkalabbi (scumbag)?"- she spit every word with contempt- "You fucking think you can come and do whatever you want ‘cos you are the fucking lead singer of a band?"

Gerard frowned, though he had a hint of what might have happened.

- "I don’t care what the fuck came through your mind at the moment! You can’t spit on someone’s face! You can’t spit on Matthew’s face!"

Mikey wide opened his eyes as soon as he heard those words. Even for him, that was a little too much.

- "Joey, I think I can…"- Gerard tried to explain.

- "Haltu kjafti! (shut up!) No, you can’t!"- but Joey shut him up in a second- "This is my problem, my battle, and my fucking business!! You have no right in trying to avenge me! None!"

- "He fucking cheated on you, and you are mad at me?!"- he frowned, surprised, not getting what was going on.

- "Yes! I am mad at you! You are not even my friend, and you were doing shit I never asked you or wished for you to do!"

- "If I want to spit on his face, I can fucking do it!"- Gerard shouted back- "I hate the fucking bastard!"

- "So I can spit on yours then!!"- and Joey was about to do it when Matthew rushed and covered her mouth.

- "No! No! No!"- he held her tight, but sweetly- "Calm down! please! Calm down!"

- "What the fuck are you doing here?!"- and Gerard freaked out at the sight of Gubler- "Get the fuck out!"

- "I will be gone as soon as Joey asks me to leave"- Matthew simply answered and looked into Gerard’s eyes with the same hate yet calm he had the last time he saw Way at Mikey’s New Year’s eve party.

- "Who the fuck do you think you are?! Get out before I kick you out!"- at that point, Jamia and Frank were in the room as well. Jamia had an eye put on her babies, playing in their cart, while holding Frank back to keep him from getting into that fight.

- "Stop it!"- Joey managed to move from Matthew’s grip and looked into Gerad’s eyes in a fury- "I hate you!"

She didn’t yell, but her words were a dagger and cold as ice. The honesty was evident. Maybe now Gerard was going to understand he had to step back. She looked at him in the eyes for a second, then grabbed her things and stormed out, followed closely by Matthew.

- "What the fuck?"- Mikey asked to break the awkward silence that hung in the room after Joey had stormed out.

- "I spit on his face today, when I saw him there, looking at her with his stupid fucking puppy eyes, I just… lost it and spit on him- Gerard murmured, and his voice broke.

She hated him. She meant it. How was he going to win her back if she hated him? Jamia’s jaw fell as soon as she heard him. One thing was hating the guy, even trying to punch him, but spitting on someone’s face, that was… well, it seemed offensive and degrading. It was over the top.

- "Not that I wouldn’t think about doing something like it, but…"- Frank started, but Jamia’s eyes stopped him

- "That was out of line, Gerard"- Ray said with a calm, though stern tone of voice- "I told you all, the only thing you are gonna accomplish by acting like a bunch of possessive friends is to push her away. If you all call yourself her friends, you can’t fucking do this shit!"

It felt like Ray was scolding his kids. Mikey wanted to argue, but it was true, just like the day he had hit Matthew in Joey’s house, and she had freaked out and gotten mad at him.

- "I would do it again if I could"- Gerard whispered and sat down, fighting the urges of smoking a cigarette.

- "That’s why you ain’t her friend"- Ray added, and the look coming from Way’s eyes let him know he wasn’t happy with the reply- "Her words, not mine."

Matthew followed Joey on her way out of the arena. The cold air hit her skin and made her shiver as they stood foot outside the building.

- "Here"- he quickly took his hoodie off and gave it to her. She didn’t argue. She was too mad to argue about anything else. She was also too mad to talk about it. She just wanted to walk away from everything. Walk and ease her mind.

- "Excuse me, Joey?"- a girl walked over with a huge smile and forced her to take her eyes from the ground- "Can I have your autograph, please?"- Matthew wide opened his eyes in amazement. Joey quickly smiled and grabbed a sharpie from her bag. She signed the girl’s ticket to the show and smiled for a selfie with her.

- "Wow"- Matthew chuckled as the girl was gone- "That was…"

- "Weird, I know"

- "That was amazing! Kids are reacting to your work! Kids are looking at you and being excited about what you do! I am so fucking proud!"- he didn’t really stop himself to think. He just wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight.

- "Thanks"- she whispered and felt how her cheeks turned pink- It’s still pretty weird. It’s not something that happens all the time, but…

- "It’s impressive, Joey!"- Matthew nearly yelled- "I mean it, sometimes it shocks me how cooler and greater you can be!"

He sounded honest. He sounded proud. Joey’s heartbeat in joy with those words but didn’t say a word. She was thankful it was night, and the street lights weren’t illuminating his face properly, or he would be able to see how blushed and nervous she was.

- "Don’t overreact"- she murmured and kept on walking in silence. Matthew sighed and walked with her, stuffing his hands in his pocket to stop himself from trying to hold her hand.

- "Are you hungry?"- he asked after a while

- "No"

- "When was your last meal?"

- "An apple and a fun size Snicker before the show"

- "Mikey keeps controlling your candies?"

- "Yes… but Jamia is a horrible influence"- Joey chuckled at the thought of the two of them that afternoon acting like kids- "She gives me Oreos"

- "That’s drugs!"- Matthew acted shocked- You shouldn’t!

- "I know! But they are so good!"- the drummer smiled. Talking about anything was better than addressing the pink elephant in the room.

- "And how’s Jamia?"

- "Great, she is baby training me with the twins."

- "That’s very nice of her"

- "Yeah, and the babies are the sweetest…"- Joey made a pause and sighed- "She is the only rooting for you."

- "I knew I liked her for a reason."

- "Frank keeps saying it’s because she has the hots for you."

- "She doesn’t"

- "She totally does"- and the young woman laughed at her own words. Matthew only smiled widely to hear her happy for a moment- "I was actually considering selling Frank a picture of you in underwear for her birthday."

- "Double the price, and we go halfsies"- Gubler answered and chuckled- "I can even pose like a french model."

- "Deal"- there was a silence between them that lasted a few minutes. Gubler didn’t know what to say, and Joey didn’t know either.

- "Are you sure you are not hungry?"- he asked, just to ask anything

- "Do you think I overreacted back there?"- she just spit it. She was scared she had exaggerated the whole deal, and now the guys were going to fire her. Gerard could. He definitely should after how she acted with him. He was, after all, the closest thing she had to a boss. They were all the people she worked for, not with.

- "No, Joey, you didn’t… I mean… I really don’t care how he acts with me ‘cos I know he is a mother fucker asshole in love with you."

Joey’s heart froze at those words. She widened her eyes and looked at Matthew. She had almost forgotten he had always said that about Gerard. And he was absolutely right.

- "I know it’s true. I don’t care what he says, he is crystal clear, but that’s not the point."

- "The point is, I totally yelled at him in front of everybody, told him I hated him and stormed out the room like a brat after I tried to spit on his face… thank you for stopping me, by the way."

- "You are very welcome"- Matthew sighed and looked at his hand- "You totally spit on me, though"- he joked and cleaned his hand on Joey’s sleeve.

- "Gross!!"- she argued and chuckled- "This is your hoodie, by the way"

- "Damn it!"- the two of them smiled and just walked around.

- "Maybe I could eat some pizza"- Joey whispered and pointed to a little restaurant in the next corner

- "Pizza it is."

Mikey looked at his clock as he stared at the ceiling in his room. It was eleven-thirty, no news from Joey. He was worried but didn’t want to call her, ‘cos after hearing Ray talking, he didn’t want to push her away. He didn’t want to make her feel like he was mad at her. He was just worried. Worried as fuck. Feared to lose her, to see her sad again. Worried she might leave forever.

A knock on the door made him jump from his bed and run to the answer. It was Gerard. He looked like shit. Mikey left the door open and let him in, walking back to his bed.

- "How are you?"- his question was pretty stupid considering Gerard’s puffy eyes.

- "I fucked it up, right?"

- "Yeah… but in your defense…"- Mikey stayed quiet and thought about his words- "Well…"

- "I know, it wasn’t the way to deal with him"

- "It definitely wasn’t… but I don’t think it was so bad on its own. I think when you mix this with all the stupid shit you’ve done to Joey."

- "I haven’t done anything"

- "But keep harassing her and telling her that you love her"- Gerard groaned, annoyed, and laid back on the bed, hiding his face under his hands.

- "But I love her"

- "Dude! You are mad if you think this shit is gonna work. She clearly loves him. I’m starting to think she is gonna forgive him though I don’t want her to. And you are fucking married. There is no way you can get anything with her."

- "But maybe..."

- "She doesn’t love you, Gerard!"- Mikey shouted- "She doesn’t! You never stood a chance! And now she hates you! You can’t even be her friend. After today, you can’t even fucking try! You dig your own grave!"

Gerard heard his younger brother’s words. He wasn’t even sugarcoating it. Maybe that way, Gee would understand. Maybe he was doing it ‘cos he loved him. Mikey was being tuff ‘cos he was also pretty tired of his brother’s attitude. Gerard wasn’t being rational. He was acting like an animal, with no clear thoughts, just based on his instincts.

- "And what do I do now?"- Way whispered, and Mikey sighed.

- "Start with apologizing and pray she doesn’t want to leave the band"- the singer wide opened his eyes. He hadn’t thought about that, but it was a serious chance. Maybe he had pushed her too far.

- "Do you think she can quit?"

- "I don’t know what can happen. She isn’t the kind of girl who can take these kinds of things very easily"

- "If she can forgive Matthew, she can forgive me"- Gerard thought out loud

- "She loves him, she hates you, you do the math."

- "But we are in the middle of a tour. She can’t leave like that."

- "I think the same, but it all depends on her."

- "What does Ray think of this?"

- "I haven’t talked to him"- Gerard grabbed his phone and dialed Toro’s number.

Ray frowned as he stared at the brothers. Mikey was lying on the bed, looking at his phone, waiting for a call or a text from Joey. Gerard was walking in circles in the room, rambling about making Joey stay in the band.

- "If she wants to leave, she can leave"- Toro said when there was finally silence in the room. Both Ways looked at him, shocked, but Ray just smiled- "Hey! It’s her fucking decision! Not ours!"

- "Do you want her to leave?!"- Mikey nearly yelled

- "No way! I love her in the band! I’m just saying if she decides something, we should respect her."

- "You keep saying the same shit! And you are not considering the fact she could make a mistake"- Gerard frowned and kept walking in circles.

- "Come on! She ain’t a baby! And she ain’t yours to take care of! She can manage herself pretty well, so stop it! You just don’t want her to leave, I can understand that! but just stop giving her reasons to do it!"- Ray didn’t know if Mikey was aware of how fuck up his brother was. And Mikey didn’t know if Ray knew Gerard had given her plenty of reasons to leave already.

- "She is not even here yet!"- Gerard was thinking to himself, but his friends could listen to him clearly- "I bet she already forgave him."

- "Still not your problem!"- Ray added, frustrated.

- "I love her! How can’t it be my problem!"- it felt so good to take it out of his chest, but Ray’s shocked face made Gerard realize he had said too much- "I mean, she is my friend, and…"

- "Oh come on!"- Mikey argued, sick of listening to his brother talking about his feelings- "You are in love with her, and it’s sick! Deal with it!"

- "And it’s not like you are making it hard to guess anyway"- Toro added- "Frank has been arguing you have feelings for her for months now."

- "And you told her your “feelings,” and she rejected you!"- Mikey said, making Ray insanely curious. He needed to know the details of that story.

- "What I feel is not your fucking business"- Gerard said defensibly.

- "It is if you are making this kind of show! Your wife will be here in a few days, so get your shit together and be professional for once!"- Ray argued and sighed- "I’m going to bed now, please try to leave that woman make her own desitions and her own life, and just focus on being good friends"- he said and waved- "And don’t fuck it up!"

The night was cold. The wind played with Joey’s hair as she stood outside her hotel, biting her lips, holding her backpack tight, and making her best not to look Matthew in the eyes as he stood in front of her, smiling. It all gave her the first date vibes. Like they hadn’t been down that path already.

- "Well… I better go. I’ve got another flight tomorrow"- she whispered, and he nodded.

- "Yes, you have to rest, you just played a kickass show"- he answered and smiled- "And our little bean must be exhausted with all the walking we just did."

- "Little bean is floating carelessly inside my tummy, making me crave for a brownie"- Matthew chuckled and opened his backpack.

- "I just have cashews"- and he handed her a paper bag. She couldn’t help but smile at him as she grabbed it and opened it in a second.

- "Your addiction coming in handy"- he chuckled and nodded.

- "I’ve got more if you want"- Matthew started looking in his backpack, but Joey stopped him.

- " Thanks, but these are enough for today"- they stayed in silence for a second, Joey staring at the bag, Matthew staring at her, caressing her skin with his eyes, looking at her eyes, her lips, her hair- "Are you going back home tomorrow?"- she asked and still didn’t dare to look at him in the eyes.

- "Not yet"- he whispered and bit his lips, wishing she wouldn’t ask him if he was going to keep on following her. A part of him wanted to keep it a secret surprise for one more show, at least. And a huge part of her was too scared to ask if she was going to see him at another show.

- "Well… take care"- she said and finally managed to stare into his eyes. It was a mistake, considering how badly she wanted to kiss him and how much she had to argue to herself to avoid doing it. And he was looking at her in adoration, with such love she felt she could melt like an ice cube under the July sun.

- "Remember to play the bean my tracks"- he said, and she nodded.

- "I surely will"

- "I don’t want the bean to forget about me."

- "That won’t happen, I promise"- they just stared in silence for a moment, Matthew almost leaning over to kiss her- "Ok, bye"- Joey waved and turned around.

- "Wait!"- Gubler held her hand and stopped her. He walked to her and wrapped his arms around her. She stood still, not moving an inch, as his warmth filled her skin under her clothes, and his lips pressed a kiss on the top of her head- "Take care"

- "You too"- she mumbled, words having trouble to leave her lips ‘cos his closeness was killing her- "Wait, I still I’ve got your hoodie"- she tried to move away from him to take it out, but Matthew looked at her and shook his head.

- "Keep it… please"- Joey had left all of Matthew’s clothing back in her apartment, ‘cos she didn’t want to carry anything that reminded her of him for the next month. Having his hoodie was against her own rules. Then why did it make her feel so happy?

- "Thanks"- she moved apart from him and watched his smile for one last time- "Good night Matthew Gray"- her words were a whisper that made him shiver. He loved the way his name sounded like coming from her lips.

- "Good night María Josefina."

The actor waited until Joey was out of her sight to walk away from the hotel. He headed it to his hotel, a few blocks away. Ignoring the whole problem with Gerard, he thought things had been pretty good after all. He really didn’t care about Way at all. He knew he would give him a hard time. He just didn’t want him to make Joey feel bad. Joey was all that mattered to him. Mikey and Frank could threaten to hit him, even fulfill their threats. He didn’t care. He even agreed with them. He deserved to pay. But Gerard? No, he didn’t have any right to get into that fight. Gerard was an asshole who needed to stay away from Joey. He was the one Matthew hated.

- “I don’t think I had ever hated someone as bad as I hate that son of a bitch”- but that didn’t matter at the moment, now Matthew had a bigger issue to tackle: Which was going to be the phrase in the banner he had to make for tomorrow’s show?.

There was a knock on Mikey’s door, minutes after Gerard had left. He groaned and walked to answer, to find Joey standing at the other side, with a shy smile on her lips, almost a sheepish look.

- "Are you mad at me?"- she whispered right away, and he opened his arms to hug her.

- "Never."

- "You swear? ‘cos I yelled at your brother I hate him in front of the whole band and tried to spit on his face"

- "He was out of place, and he deserved it"- Mikey whispered and kissed the top of her head. His touch felt so different from Matthew’s a few minutes ago. It almost made Joey feel guilty that her friend had kissed her head after the man she loved had done the same. Almost like she was cheating.

- "And are you mad Matthew was there?"- Mikey let her go and invited her in.

- "Are you ok with him being there?"

Joey stayed in silence, walking into the room, standing next to the bed instead of sitting down. She looked down at her hands and didn’t say anything. Ray’s words were starting to make sense to Mikey as he looked at her and thought she was going to start drifting away from him if he continued being an ass.

- "Bug, it’s ok. I am not gonna get mad at you… if you love him, if you want to be with him, I’m still gonna be your friend."

- "I just don’t know what I want"- she whispered and scratched her eyes, feeling tired and sleepy

- "Anything you want to talk about, I am here, and I swear I’m gonna be the best friend in the world, and I am not gonna judge you, I am not gonna freak out, and more than anything, I am just going to worry about your happiness, ok?"- Joey pouted at her friend and wrapped her arms around him.

- "I just don’t want you to be mad at me ‘cos you are my best friend."

- "I will never get mad at you Bug, you are my little sister, and I love you. I just want to take care of you."

- "I don’t like it when people try to take care of me. I know what I’m doing."

- "I know…"

- "But I’m gonna let it slide with you ‘cos you are my brother"- she said and chuckled against his shirt. Mikey kissed the top of her head again, and she chuckled- "Just don’t push me."

- "I won’t…"- Mikey chuckled and moved to look at her- "We are cheesy, though"

- "So fucking cheesy!!"- Joey chuckled and sighed, relieved- "Ok, now that I took that from my chest, I need to go to bed. I am so fucking tired."

- "Did you eat?"

- "Yeah, Gubler bought dinner"

- "And he also gave you his clothes apparently"- Mikey pointed her hoodie and noticed she blushed.

- "Yeah… I’ll still steal yours, you know"- he smiled and messed with her hair.

- "I’m counting on it. I actually had them washed"

- "Thank you so fucking much!!"

Mikey felt a little better after Joey left. She was worried he was mad at her when he was concerned about the same. She didn’t say a word about leaving the band. That was even better. And she didn’t look sad after being with Matthew. That was enough to let him sleep calmly that night.

Joey was weary. She kicked off her shoes and laid on the bed, closing her eyes. Matthew’s smell surrounding her made her smile and sigh. Yes, he had been romantic. Yes, she had butterflies in her stomach. Yes, she loved him. None of that took away the fact he was a cheater, but he was trying to make amends. That was undeniable. How much was he willing to try? And how much was enough for her to forgive her? Neither of that she knew, but it didn’t matter at the moment. For a few seconds, Joey allowed herself to be in love.

Before she drifted off in her sleep, she remembered Matthew asked her to play the songs he had put on the iPod for their baby. She didn’t want to move from that bed, but she was way too curious to know what was in it.

- "Hey Bean, we are gonna tell your dad you are the only one who listened to it, but mom is gonna sneak a little bit, ok?"- the young woman whispered to her tummy, feeling like a dork.

- "I’m gonna take that silence as a yes"- she put on a headphone and placed another on her belly.

- "Hey Bean!"- Matthew’s voice caught her breath as soon as the first track started- "It’s me! Your dad! I wanted to record these for you so you can remember my voice while you are away with your mommy, ok? Sorry, it’s not the most soothing voice you’ll ever hear, but I love you, so I guess it’ll have to do the trick"- Joey chuckled and closed her eyes, refusing to take out that hoodie, listening to Matthew’s voice, and drowning in his scent.

- "So let’s start with a bedtime story, I’ve got the feeling you are doing a lot of sleeping in there, so I’ll read you one of my favorites growing up"- Joey’s heart melt with each word recorded on that iPod

- "I promise when you are out of your mommy, I’m gonna reread it, and you’ll tell me if you like it, ok? Now, let’s get to business:"

“I am Sam. I am Sam. Sam-I-Am.

That Sam-I-Am! That Sam-I-Am! I do not like that Sam-I-Am!

Do you like green eggs and ham?

I do not like them, Sam-I-Am.

I do not like green eggs and ham.

Would you like them here or there?

I would not like them here or there.

I would not like them anywhere.

I do not like green eggs and ham.

I do not like them, Sam-I-Am.”

Slowly and softly, Matthew’s voice relaxed Joey like a sweet lullaby, and she fluttered her eyes until she fell asleep safe and sound as his reading continued reading Dr. Seuss's stories to their baby.

Taglist: @all-tings-diego @worryd0ll

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[renegadepack]

Paul Lahote

let’s have some headcanons for paul, like he deserves. anyways i would die for this musical chef.

From a young age, Paul would help his mother in the kitchen. He started small, simply adding ingredients she had prepped, or helping to wash, measure, and cut them himself. Eventually, he started helping her plan and choose recipes, and learning how to do the more complicated steps himself. By the time he was in his late teens, he was a pretty accomplished cook, and he loved to cook for people. He often had friends over for dinner, or brought something he had made to different hangouts. He was always happy to swap recipes or talk cooking tips.

Later, he also took up baking. He loved finding new recipes to try, and mixing it up by adding his own spin to them, drying different ingredients that weren’t listed in the recipe or adjusting amounts of more standard ingredients to see what it would do. In his house, fresh-baked scones or muffins were the norm for breakfast, trays of cookies were ready for any gathering, and a cake was always prepared for a friend’s or relative’s birthday.

After showing an interest in music, and begging and pleading for one, he was gifted a hand-me-down guitar for his seventh birthday. Along with it was a book of basic chords and songs to learn. He taught himself some of the chords, but Leah’s dad came over every so often to help teach Paul more complicated songs and scales. Every day, he would practice for hours, playing the same chord or transition over and over until he could play it perfectly. After a few more months, he could easily play every song in the book, and was looking for others he could learn from. He copied some from library books, and borrowed a few from Harry’s collection to learn from. A few years later, he began picking out the chords to his favorite songs as they played on the radio.

The only natural progression was that he write his own songs, starting as a teenager. His school notebooks were more full of potential lyrics than notes, and he was often humming a new melody. If he couldn’t wait until he got home to pluck out the chords, he would sneak into the school’s music room during lunch and borrow one of the school’s guitars. They weren’t all great, but he kept every single one, however unfinished it was, tucked away in notebooks stored in boxes under his bed.

A few years later, concerts became his favorite thing. He had been working at the general store by the beach for speaking money, and spent most of it on concert tickets and bus fare or gas money to get to Seattle every time there was a show he wanted to go to. As long as his grades didn’t suffer, his parents were fine with it. He did homework in the car or bus on the way there, and studied for tests in lines outside the venue. He loved jumping right into the middle of the crowd, as close to the front as he could, and dancing and singing along the whole set. His voice would always be hoarse by the end of the night.

After graduating high school, he applied with as many labels and bands as he could, eventually getting hired by a label to play guitar for recording artists and occasionally going on tour for them. He and Leah lived together in the city for a few months, before Paul began touring more frequently and only crashed at their apartment every couple of weeks. He was always happy to cook as a thank you.

Paul loved touring, and signed up with each one that would take him. They were mostly US tours, although he took a couple across Europe and Asia, even though they were less frequent. While touring, he tried any local restaurants he could, writing down everything he could in his journal, and taking notes of new recipes to try. He bought postcards along the way, keeping one for himself for his own collection and writing quick notes about the tour on the others. His friends back home loved receiving them almost as much as he loved sending them.

more fic // request fic

[thekillerssluts]

My Relationship to Performance Has Changed

A great rock-and-roll show means openness, confrontation, and a kind of danger, and those ideas right now feel too heavy to lift.

Last October, before the second pandemic wave took off in New York City, I had one last band practice in my backyard in South Brooklyn. Five of us were working on songs from my new solo record. Normally we’d play in the basement, but it’s pretty low-ceilinged, and we’d read Zeynep Tufekci’s recent Atlantic article on viral spread, so we were all hyper-focused on air circulation. My bandmate Sara had contracted COVID-19—and recovered—in March, but the rest of us had no immunity. Besides, we suspected that we were in for a long winter and might as well hang out outdoors.

It was warm in the sun. After hauling the drums, keyboards, keyboard stands, guitars, and amps outside and plugging everything in, I hadn’t wanted to bother setting up microphones, so we had to play softly to hear ourselves harmonize. When we paused for lunch, someone leaned out of a fourth-story window in the apartment building next door and yelled: “Are you done or are you just taking a break? I have things to do, but I really miss live music!” “Me too, man!” I called back. “Should be just a break.”

Six months and a difficult winter later, the break is ending. I’m seeing more and more Instagram posts for shows that aren’t just wishful thinking. Low-capacity indoor shows are popping up in New York. Outdoor—maybe even full-capacity indoor—concerts are coming this summer. Am I ready to play? Ask me every other day and the answer changes. I’m torn. I’m desperate for sound engineers to get back behind the board and bartenders to start earning tips. I want venues to thrive again, both as places for art in neighborhoods and for the sake of the network that keeps music culture alive in America. I want my booking agent to feel excited again; he loves music so much. And I want musicians to make a living. So many people have been so screwed by the past year. I guess I just want everyone to get paid.

But the actual performance; the rebuilding of the sonic cathedral, as Dave Grohl wrote last spring; communally reaching for rock-and-roll transcendance? I’m not there yet. I’m not concerned that I’ll get sick. I received my second vaccine shot at the end of March and am ready to high-five strangers on the subway. My hesitance has an element of crowd-shyness, which we’ll all get over. But in my own performance, I don’t know how to meet this moment. A great rock-and-roll show means openness, confrontation, and a kind of danger, and those ideas right now feel too heavy to lift.

I used to think of performance in purely aesthetic terms. In the movie La Strada, a clown wearing angel wings does a high-wire act across a crowded piazza. For his finale, he brings out a table on the wire and, while balancing, tries to sit and eat a full plate of spaghetti. The heroine of the movie watches him with an almost religious ecstasy. When I first started performing, I strove for transcendence and stupidity, high concept and low art. My focus was on keeping myself in the air.

When my band Arcade Fire was playing mostly to people who hadn’t heard us before, we felt that the best way to get them to open up was to blow the windows and doors out. At an early show in Lawrence, Kansas, my brother, Win, bashed Styrofoam tiles out of the venue’s ceiling with his mic stand. We pushed as hard for an audience of six people (two of them my parents) upstairs at AS220 in Providence, Rhode Island, as we did in front of tens of thousands in the desert at our first Coachella show (during which I accidentally cut Win’s guitar cable in half by repeatedly smashing a cymbal into the ground).

At a certain point, as people got to know our music, my relationship to performance changed. The energy from the crowd was greater than anything coming from the giant speaker stacks. The audience wasn’t a challenge to overcome, or an opponent to conquer. We became a team. Not in an abstract, lovey way but how a sports team operates—pushing one another to do better, sometimes failing, sometimes frustrating one another, sometimes just joking around.The high-wire act of live performance—Will the music come together?—was still there. I’ve even sometimes tried to make the metaphor real, climbing arena scaffolding with a drumstick in my teeth and a drum strapped over my shoulder to play 30 feet in the air. Some of our crew members hate it—“Will! You have children now!”—but climbing up there doesn’t actually feel that dangerous, and a little nervousness is good. I’m reaching for primate simplicity and catharsis: The crowd needs tension to experience release.But now I have no desire to make tension. I want people to feel safe and comfortable, and I wonder whether creating a feeling of danger and openness is antithetical to that. I know that cultivating a perception of safety and actually making people safe are different. On tour, in a big venue, every night our management and local security have a briefing. It’s partly to set a vibe—People are here for music. Everybody be chill. If some teenager sneaks into a closer section, please let them. But the briefing is also serious—where the medics are located, what the escape routes are. Most of the time, these safety measures are invisible. I worry that post-pandemic precautions, as welcome and necessary as they are, will be depressingly visible. Some elements, such as temperature checks, will be inane. Some, such as requiring vaccination, will be important. Regardless, they will also set a tone—not You are entering a place for music, but You are entering a secure location. Dancing is hard when you’re looking at your feet; singing is hard when you’re thinking about everybody else’s breath. I bet the crowd could get over this. I’m not confident I could. With limited capacities and tight procedures, I worry that the stage will feel like the VIP section of the VIP room at a members-only club. Sterile, lonely, all of us chillingly aware that we are part of a ticketed event.

I have another concern that’s hard to shake. After this pandemic year, I’m more aware of the responsibility I have not only to the people who buy tickets, but to the driver making deliveries to the show and to the family of the woman working arena concessions, people who really don’t care about what I’m doing onstage. Vaccination numbers will grow, and the pandemic will end, God willing. I’m not worried about the spread of the coronavirus in particular. But these links of responsibility remain. The analytical part of my brain turns off when touring starts. Before scrambling back to normalcy, I want to make sure that this sense of connection becomes embedded in how I think. I would really love to just be a musician—but I’m also an employer and a player in an industry that has chewed up and spit out plenty of people, especially in this past year.

My hesitations are all about shows, though, not music. Over the past year, I’ve rarely played music with others—a few practices and filmed performances; work on the new Arcade Fire record in November; a handful of Zooms with bandmates to help a school’s PTA fundraiser or support a candidate in the city-comptroller race. But in all of those instances, I’ve experienced an ease, a rightness to the communication—not through the screen with whoever was listening, necessarily, but the people I was playing with. That connection felt restorative, like having a night of deep sleep that repairs parts of yourself you don’t know how to access.

I know people are ready for live music, ready to forget themselves in a wash of sound, ready to loudly talk with their friends over the song they don’t like that much. And so, for heaven’s sake, go to Neumos in Seattle when shows come back. Go to the Hideout in Chicago. See your favorite band, or somebody new. Plenty of artists don’t share my nervousness. I don’t want to add worry to the world; I’m just figuring out my new relationship to performance.

The magnolias are out in New York, and some of the apple trees are blossoming. Temperatures are creeping past 60. The vaccines keep rolling out. The future seems more possible. If I miss an emotion from live shows, it’s not any moment of transcendence. I miss the time just after, when, dazed and excited, you still feel the reach of some universal gesture, but the only thing concrete is the people around you.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/world-changed-what-makes-live-show-successful-didnt-arcade-fire/618625/

[shireness-says]

You’re Always 16 Hours Ahead

Summary: Killian Jones never expected to hit it big, but the opportunity of a lifetime pulls him away from home and the woman he pines for. Can a friendship that just might be more survive a concert world tour?

(With wide eyes and faith

That life could never pull us apart if we were ok

But distance kills the best of intentions…)

(~2.6K. Rated T for language. Also on AO3)

~~~~~

A/N: I’m so excited to share my contribution to the @csconcertseries! This is an idea I’ve had for a long time, and I’m excited to finally bring it to life. This is inspired by “Jet Lag” by Frank Turner, and also includes references to “Polaroid Picture,” “Get Better,” and “Plain Sailing Weather.” I’ve definitely been blasting his stuff all month long and dragging other people with me (looking at you, @thejollyroger-writer). Super thanks, as always, to @snidgetsafan for her beta talents. 

Without further ado: Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

~~~~~

POP PRINCESS ANNOUNCES WORLD TOUR

Great news, Fairy Fans: Wildly popular pop music star Tink is planning a world tour. The international exhibition will be undertaken to promote her latest album, “Neverland No More”. Tink will be joined on her tour by recent up-and-comer Killian Jones, who will serve as her opening act. Jones has captured the world’s ear with his recent hit single, “Green Eyes,” which continues to climb the pop charts. A full schedule of planned concerts can be found at…

  September 17th

Dear Emma,

I know it’s only been a few days, but I already miss you and Henry. Los Angeles is loud, and congested, and so much unlike Storybrooke that it scares me a little. But when that happens, I try to remember our bench on the docks, and it helps ground me. I’ve got a picture of us out there taped to the inside of my guitar case, just as a reminder that even if everything changes, I’ve always got something to come home to.

You didn’t think I was kidding when I said I’d write, did you? Mark my words, I intend to write you from every stop. To hell with blocking or setup or rehearsals or whatever, I’ll be sitting on an amp backstage writing you.

You must tell me everything, Swan - don’t you dare get skimpy with the details in your next email! I know it’s been less than a week, but I’m sure there’s something from the gossip mill. Has Liam secured a new Friday act yet? I’m sure he won’t find anyone nearly as talented (or handsome!) as yours truly, but I can’t imagine he and Robin are leaving that slot open in my honor. Tell me, how much do you think he’ll groan if I send back a signed world tour poster?

I’ve got to go - something about the lights. Such is the life of a rock star, isn’t it?

Your own personal celebrity (and best friend),

-Killian

September 19th

Liam - 

Brother, you’ve got to stop calling every few hours. I know you’re bored and your life is empty without me, but this is getting ridiculous. Half the road crew thinks you’re my father. Do you intend to run up your phone bill when the tour crosses the ocean? I love you, but please don’t go broke on my behalf. Now is the time to wean yourself off me.

All teasing aside, I do appreciate the calls, not to mention everything else. If you hadn’t insisted on making those demo tapes and forcing me to Boston and any venue or bar that would take me, I wouldn’t be here today. 

You’d have been so proud to see me - I must have been sweating gallons, but I got up on stage in front of that massive crowd and I did it, sang my pieces. The noise of all those people practically shakes your bones, Liam - and that wasn’t even half the noise that Tink elicited! I don’t know how she does it. I suppose I’ll find out, though, won’t I? After all, this is my big break, as long as I don’t screw it up too badly. 

I’m sure I’ll talk to you later - in the meantime, say hello to the lads for me.

-Killian.

P.S. Keep an eye on Emma and Henry for me, would you? I know you’ve already promised, but I worry. I owe you one, brother.

  October 2nd

Emma - 

Hello from Seattle! It is just as rainy as promised, and I’ve lost count of the coffee shops. Part of that might be the Starbucks, though. I swear, they’re like a plague, popping up all over the place. 

The tour is still going well. I might even get used to this tour bus life! I miss you all, of course - my love especially to Henry - but it’s exhilarating, getting up on stage every night in front of so many people. The crowds are huge, Swan, larger than I ever could have imagined. I know they’re mostly here for Tink, but there’s always applause and a handful of people singing along to my songs, and it’s the best kind of adrenaline. Leaves me with an itch in my fingers and a new song stuck in my head. I’ll work it out later. 

I’m so happy to hear that Henry is doing so well in kindergarten; he’s always been a little social butterfly. I’ll bet that he makes tons of friends; I’m glad he loves it so far. I’ll call soon, I promise. 

Yours, 

-Killian

  October 20th

Swan - 

Happy Birthday, darling! Technically, I’m mailing this a few days early, but I hope it’ll reach you just in time. I’m sorry to be missing the festivities this year - just know that I’ll be thinking of you all day, wishing I was there to celebrate with you. Keep an eye out for a package or two - and before you even try to protest that I don’t need to, they’re just little things, love. Stuff that made me think of you. Tokens of my affection, if you will. It’s your birthday, anyways - live a little! Let us spoil you for once.

Texas is… less than impressive. Large? Yes, in a way that feels almost performative. It’s missing some kind of charm, at least to me. Then again, I’ve never been much for cowboy hats; maybe that’s the real problem, here. Regardless, I’d gladly take the northeast fall colors any day. 

Make a good wish, alright? I hope the year to come is as wonderful as you are.

Yours,

-Killian

  November 26th

Dear Henry - 

Happy Thanksgiving! Did you have a good holiday? Did Granny make enough macaroni and cheese for you to eat your fill? I know that’s your favorite.

Thank you for watching the parade! I was really excited to be in it too. Sadly, the powers that be wouldn’t let me take home the Snoopy balloon for you, but I did manage to get a couple of handfuls of confetti for you. It should be inside this envelope. You would have loved it, Henry - the confetti was flying everywhere and I saw so many really cool floats up close and personal. We’ll maybe have to go together in a couple of years, aye? We’ll ask your mum.

Draw lots and lots of turkeys for me, little mate - I know you’re really good at that. And give your mum and Liam a great big hug for me!

Love,

-Killian

  CELEBRITY FILE EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH EVERYONE’S NEW FAVORITE HEARTTHROB - KILLIAN JONES

… In researching this piece, I heard over and over about how personal Jones’ lyrics were, how well they captured every feeling and variation of being in love. Every fan out there seems to feel like his words are written just for them, like a window into their soul. So when I finally met with the man himself, I couldn’t help but ask: Was there anyone who inspired such lyrical devotion? Some woman - or man! - in his own life who inspired such moving words?

“You know, the thing I’ve always liked in listening to music on my own is being able to recognize a little bit of myself in someone else’s words,” Jones told me in response to the question. “It always made me feel a little less alone - a little more connected to other people, I guess, to hear that they experienced or saw things the same way I do. It’s very rewarding to hear that people feel the same way about my music. I’m of the opinion that music should be a universal experience, and when I write, I write words that I hope other people can see a bit of themselves in.”

Something about that blush and the nervous scratch behind his ear that fans know so well tells me he’s holding out on us…

  December 11th

Dearest Swan - 

The holidays have crept right up on us, haven’t they? Do us both the favor of imagining me singing that sickly-sweet “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” nonsense, because it’s true. December 20th. Mark your calendar, and don’t blame me if I fall asleep on the car ride home from the airport. It’s all this travel, you see - takes it right out of you. You can’t blame a man for that, love.

(Also, please ignore that I’ll be flying in from Chicago. I still plan to claim jet lag. That one hour difference, love, it’s a real killer.)

Is there anything in particular that Henry especially wants this year? I’ve done my best to pick up things for you and Liam and everyone else, but I know the lad’s tastes change practically hour to hour, and he’s probably got a whole list stashed somewhere. I want to get him something he’ll really like instead of just wandering through the toy store in a panic, if at all possible.

Counting the hours until I see you again,

-Killian

  January 8th

Emma - 

I don’t even know where to start. How can I properly apologize for what happened at New Year’s? I struggle, because I can’t truthfully say that I regret it. I don’t think I’ve made it a secret all these years that I’m helplessly enthralled by you and everything you are. There are words - big words, three words - that rattle around in my heart every day, but I know you’re not willing to hear them yet. I’ll be here, love, whenever you’re ready.

I know you’re scared, Emma, but I’m begging you - just talk to me. We can forget all about this, if that’s what you want, but you’ve got to talk to me. Every day I don’t hear from you is just a little bit harder. I’ll follow your lead, whatever you say.

You’ll always be my best friend, Swan - no matter what else happens.

-Killian

  January 20th

I kissed her, Liam.

I’m sorry; that’s not much of a way to start a letter is it? How are you? Everything going well? 

But I’m sorry, I’ve got to talk about this and get it off my chest. Because I kissed her, Liam. Emma. I kissed Emma. And then it kind of… all went to shit. I guess that’s just like me, isn’t it? Give me one fine day of plain sailing weather, and I can turn it to stormy seas.

And I know where she’s coming from, really - I know better than almost anyone about how she’s been left behind too many times. As much as it hurts to have this sudden radio silence, I know she’s just trying to protect herself. But I love her, Liam. I’ve loved her forever. This isn’t just “distance makes the heart grow fonder,” or something stupid like that. I should have acted a long time ago. I should have done a thousand different things, but here we are.

If you have any ideas of how to fix this, please, let me know. I hope you’re having a happier new year than I so far.

-Killian

  February 2nd

Dear Emma - 

I can’t tell you how good it was to hear from you the other day. You may think that there’s nothing interesting about all the goings-on in the bar, but that particular kind of nothing is soothing. It’s like a little piece of home in every email. Besides, I know that the bar is never quite as boring as we always joked. And I’d welcome any word from you anyways, after how much I’ve missed you.

We’re in Paris right now. It’s gorgeous, truly - I’ll have to bring you and the lad back sometime. I know you’d call me a nerd, but I’ve been hitting museums - the Louvre, the Musee d’Orsay, the Rodin museum, etc. I made sure to do the Eiffel Tower too, just for you, even though the crowds were utterly terrible. Stuffed my face with pastries too, all on your behalf.

(Okay, you caught me, Swan - the pastries are for me too. The croissants, Swan! The bread! I surely won’t fit in my trousers if we’re here any longer, but I can’t regret it. I swear, I’d ship some back to you if I thought they’d survive the trip.)

We’ll have to schedule time for a call home soon - I find myself so often longing for your voice. I love your emails, but there’s something to a phone call that can’t be replaced. 

Yours,

-Killian

  March 11th

Dear Henry - 

Thank you for sending me that drawing! I love it. It’s taped to the inside of my guitar case now, where I can look at it every day. I especially like the yellow you used for your mum’s hair. You’ll have to thank her for scanning that for us on my behalf. That’s good form, you know.

I’m in Amsterdam right now. Your mum or Liam can show you where that is on a map; it’s in Western Europe. I went someplace I think you’d love today; it’s called Madurodam. It’s this entire miniature city, with little airplanes and zoo animals and everything. I had a lot of fun exploring it, and I think you would too.

A graduation, you say? From kindergarten? I wouldn’t miss it for the world, lad. I’ll be home, no matter what.

I miss you, Henry, and your mother too. It always brightens my day to see an email from you.

Sealed with a great big hug,

-Killian

  April 21st

Emma - 

London is rainy and cold. I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything different, but here I am, surprised all the same. It’s hard to convince myself to go do any of the tourist-y things when the weather is like this, so I’m stuck inside, writing to you. Not that that’s ever a hardship...

You’d hardly recognize me with this get-up I’ve found myself in for the show tonight - the heavy eyeliner especially. Gone are the days of some beat-up tee - though I think you might like the vest. Getting dressed feels like slipping into some other persona. I worry a lot of the time about whether I’ve changed beyond recognition, or if I’m still the same person you know. That’s the man I want to be, you know - someone you can be proud of, but somehow still that same poor bastard in the bar, just trying to write words that mean something. I hope I am. But you know how it goes - distance kills the best of intentions. 

I miss you terribly, Swan, and Henry too. Hell, even Liam. These letters are all that ground me some days, I fear. On the loneliest nights, I reread your emails and imagine you’re talking to me instead. It’s always just a too-brief daydream, unfortunately.

I’ve grown rather maudlin, haven’t I? That won’t do at all. I blame it on the rain. Here’s a happier note for us both: I’ll be home late next month. Perhaps I’ll have to make one of those paper chains Henry’s so fond of; if I do, I’ll include a picture with my next letter. 

Counting the days. Until then - 

Love, Killian

  May 17th

My Swan - 

By the time you get this, I’ll be home with you and the lad again, and hopefully have already told you in person everything I want to say now:

I love you, Emma. Every word of every song is for you. I’ve loved you from the first moment I laid eyes on you, and no time or distance or groupie is ever going to change that. I’m yours, love, body and soul. And I have faith that life can never tear us apart as long as that’s true.

I’m coming home, love. And my home is you.

Yours (in every sense),

-Killian

  BREAKING NEWS: KILLIAN JONES’ SECRET LOVER?

Bad news for all the fangirls and Killy-Tink shippers out there: Bad boy popstar Killian Jones appears to be off the market. The singer, 27, was spotted locking lips with an unidentified blonde at the Storybrooke Memorial Gardens, just outside of Boston, where Jones calls home. Sources have long speculated that Jones has a secret girlfriend back home, and this just might be confirmation. Check back as this story continues to develop. StarWatchOnline remains YOUR #1 celebrity news site… 

~~~~~

Tagging: @snowbellewells, @profdanglaisstuff, @kmomof4, @winterbaby89, @teamhook, @ohmightydevviepuu, @optomisticgirl, @spartanguard, @thisonesatellite, @let-it-raines, @scientificapricot, @searchingwardrobes

[marvelsdc22]

One Last Time(pt. 1)

Intro: Hello, lovelies!! I hope you guys are having a good day/night!! I’m not too sure how this is gonna go, but enjoy!! :)

Note: Y/N is a lead singer. Kara still has powers. Will see it more in future chapters. Not gonna be as long as The Professor And I.

Word Count: 1279

------------

When you first started this make-shift band, you honestly never thought it would take off as much as it did. You and a group of friends had first started the band back in High School, calling yourselves Cordhead, which you changed as soon as most of the members were replaced to Y/N and the Lonely Humans, after your first gig and first song release your band took off to the point you were being signed to a record album and were going on tours.

You had been in love before, an old High School sweetheart but they broke your heart in too many ways that you had vowed to never love someone again in that way, so you didn’t and here you are, 23 years old and still single but you were happy, traveling with your band that had become your second family “Yo, Y/N” your drummer, Eddie called, looking at you from his spot on the bus “The driver said we’re gonna be hitting National City in twenty” he told you, you nodding and shutting your laptop as you got up to join the rest of your crew.

“Everyone ready for tonight?” You asked them, sitting down next to you bassist Hannah “When are we not?” She asked, leaning back against the couch as your guitarist, Zeke, sat down next to Eddie “Yeah what she said… Maybe tonight you’ll finally get laid for once and you can stop being such a stick in the mud” he said, nudging your foot with his as you rolled your eyes “Haha, very funny, get your things together… We don’t want another Seattle incident, do we?” You asked, giving Eddie a look to where he rolled his eyes “It was one time!” He argued, watching you head back to where your bunks were.

Once you arrived at the venue in National City, you were helping carry some equipment up towards the stage when a woman with long, black hair and green eyes came up to you “You must be Y/N Y/L/N, I’m Lena Luthor… The one in charge of this whole thing” She said, holding her hand out to you which you took “That’s me, this is for charity, yeah?” You asked, Lena having contacted you a few days back in hopes that you’d help her “It is, all proceeds go to charity” Lena assured, giving you a smile which you returned “Excellent, I hope it’s successful” you said, glancing to the side “I should get back to helping, it was nice to meet you, miss Luthor” you said, flashing one more smile before heading off.

Once Lena was done talking with you, she walked back up towards the front gate where people were already lined up “Lena!” She heard someone call, causing her to look around before she spotted Kara and Alex, along with Nia and Winn, Lena waving them over and letting them in through the side gate “It’s so nice of L-Corp to host this whole thing, I’m shocked your mother allowed it” Kara said as she looked around, knowing that Lillian would never approve of something like this without a promise of something in return “It took a lot of convincing, but she finally conceded” Lena said, leading them over to where they would be for the concert and seeing you run over to them “Lena, hey… We have a small problem” you said, looking at her and glancing at all the people in her group, you freezing when you locked eyes with the blonde “What’s wrong?” Lena asked, causing you to come back to the conversation “What? Oh, come with me and I’ll show you” you said before grabbing her arm and dragging her to backstage.

Once you got back there, you pulled Lena into your dressing room “So, major issue actually… Our amp decided to shit itself and we don’t have a backup” you said, looking at her and watching as her eyes widened “You don’t have a backup?” “That was our backup” you admitted sheepishly, causing her to groan in frustration “But! If you give me like twenty minutes, I can run out and get a new one!” You said, looking at her and watching as she thought “Fine, let me send someone with you” Lena said, looking at you and you nodding before following her out.

What you didn’t know was the person she wanted to go with you was the pretty blonde from before “I’m Kara by the way” Kara said from the drivers seat, you in the passengers seat “Y/N” you said, glancing at her and trying to fight back how your heart was pounding at the moment just from being this close to her “How long have you been doing this?” She asked, glancing at you as you fidgeted slightly in your seat “Uh, since my junior year in High School… I’m the only original member though” you said, looking at her finally and giving her a small smile, the two of you falling into what seemed like a comfortable silence even though on the inside your stomach was doing flips.

After you got the amp into the back of the car, you got back into the passengers seat and looked at Kara who was smiling “Ready?” She asked, you trying to speak but then just opted to just nod and quickly force yourself to look away from her, you haven’t had someone effect you this much since… them and it made you nervous and slightly scared since you were treading into dangerous territory.

Once the concert and everything was over, you grabbed a towel and a cup of water “Y/N!” Zeke shouted, running over to you with a wide grin on his face “We’re going to the after party, are you coming?” He asked, looking at you and you sighed, thinking about denying ‘What if Kara is there’ you thought to yourself which caused you to second guess “Uh, sure” you said, freezing when you said it and seeing it caused Zeke to do the same since you never accepted the after party invites “Hell yeah!” He shouted, grabbing your arm and dragging you out to the car parked outside.

Forcing you into the car, your face flushed when you realized you were squeezed between Kara and Zeke “Hey” Kara said, giving you a smile which you returned “Hey” you said, feeling a little self-conscious  since you knew you were sweaty and you knew you smelled terrible, but she either didn’t notice or didn’t care since she didn’t even react.

This caused the two of you to hang out the whole night at the party, you learned that she had only been in National City for a few months but she got lucky and met some amazing people, while she learned some things that you had never told anyone else and you knew you were falling for her… Hard “So, how long are you going to be in National City?” Kara asked, looking at you as you took a sip of water “A few weeks, this was our last stop on this tour, so we tend to hang in the last city for a while before the next one comes up” you said, looking at her and your face flushing at the smile she flashed at you “Great! We should hang out this weekend” she said, blushing slightly after she said it “It’s a date” you said, smiling slightly when the red on her face seemed to get darker, knowing you were going against everything you had told yourself, but she was different ‘One Last Time’ you thought to yourself as the two of you talked well into the night.

Permanent Taglist: @rianncreates​ / @5aftermidnight​

Supergirl Taglist: @x-danvers-x​ / @aznblossom​ / @stop-drop-and-drumroll​

Kara Taglist: @babyydanvers​

End Note: Let me know what you guys think!! I hope you guys enjoyed!! If you want to be added to a Taglist, shoot me a DM or an Ask!! Have a good day/night!! :)

[the--blackdahlia]

It’s So Easy (And Other Lies) Chapter 17

Title: It’s So Easy (And Other Lies) Chapter 17

Summary: Stevie Adler likes Duff McKagan. She has for a while now, but she is convinced Duff doesn’t like her that way. Duff likes Stevie, but so does their new bandmate Axl Rose.

Chapter Warnings: Language, sickness

AN: Thank you for all the feedback!

A Couple Months Later

It was back to work. The honeymoon was long over and Axl was starting to turn the band into a dictatorship. They were working on some new songs for the big album Axl had planned. He had even brought in a full time keyboard player named Dizzy Reed. He was a pretty nice guy, but they had to call him Reed and use Izzy’s last name in order to help with first name confusion, not that it worked half the time.

Stevie could feel a slight shift in the band as they worked on the song “Civil War”. Things were getting tense, Axl was snippier than normal, Izzy wasn’t hanging out and was distancing himself from the frontman, Slash seemed grumpy, and things just were not the same as they had been.

And then they were told about Farm Aid.

“Wait, isn’t that the thing Bob Geldof did?” Slash asked as they were sitting around, talking about it. Geffen had given them some information about it, and they were passing it around, reading about it.

“No, that was Live Aid,” Dizzy informed them.

“This was started by Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, and Neil Young,” Duff told them, reading the paper the information packet.

“Oh, so it’s Pot Farm Aid,” Stevie laughed a little. She wasn’t feeling very great right now and was resting against Duff. He carded his fingers through her hair.

“Well, where is it?” Izzy asked Duff. He was sitting on the other side of Stevie on the couch, putting as many people between him and Axl as possible. Izzy had told Stevie what had happened, and she didn’t really blame him. Duff looked at the venue date and location and started to laugh. “What?”

“You’ll love it,” Duff told him. “Farm Aid 4 will be at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis, Indiana.”

“Fuck!” Izzy and Axl both groaned at once.

“Just when I think I’m out, it pulls me back in,” Axl sighed. Izzy rolled his eyes.

“We get like twelve minutes,” Duff flipped through the paper. “So we can do a couple shorter songs.”

“Or, we can premier “Civil War”,” Slash suggested. “I think it’s ready and we still have a few weeks to perfect anything we don’t like.”

“I think that could work,” Axl agreed. “Okay, we’ll put the other music on hold until we’re sure that Civil War is 100% ready.”

****

2 Days Before Farm Aid

Stevie was throwing up again. Her stomach didn’t hurt, and she didn’t have a fever, but it had been happening on and off for the past couple weeks. What she thought had been the flu or food poisoning had to be something else. She had a feeling she knew what it was. So, while Duff was out with the other guys, Stevie went to the drugstore and bought a pregnancy test. She followed the instructions on the box and waited for the results.

And it came back positive.

She was pregnant. Her and Duff were having a baby.

While she was excited, they had this big concert coming up. They were all so excited and so focused on it, she didn’t want to take away from it.

So the announcement could wait a few days until the event was over, right?

She tossed the test in the trash and went back to packing for the trip. It gave her plenty of time to think of the best way to announce it to Duff. She wanted to do something special. She was sure that she would have a big way to announce it to her husband by the time the concert was over.

****

Indianapolis, Indiana

Two Days Later

“Oh Indiana, the Hoosier state,” Axl sighed as they walked out of the airport to the car that was taking them to the hotel. They would drop their stuff off before heading to the venue for Farm Aid. Thankfully, it was April, and while it wasn’t exactly warm, it wasn’t as cold as they thought it would be, but it wasn’t warm either.

“What is a Hoosier?” Duff asked as they got in the car. Izzy sat by him and Stevie while Dizzy and Slash sat with Axl.

“The fuck if I know,” Axl shook his head.

“Well, you’re from here. Shouldn’t you know?” Dizzy pointed out, to which Axl glared at the keyboardist. He just gave the frontman a sheepish smile in return.

“A Hoosier...is a person from Indiana,” Izzy supplied as he lit his cigarette.

“Thanks for your knowledge Mr. Stradlin,” Slash laughed. Stevie rested her head on Duff’s arm and closed her eyes for a brief moment.

“You okay?” He asked her as the car made the trek from the airport to the hotel. He played with her hair gently.

“Yeah, just tired,” She told him. “Practice today, event tomorrow, then I’m going to sleep for a few days.” She knew she shouldn’t do it, but she hadn’t been eating very much to limit the morning sickness until after the event. She really didn’t want to blow the surprise by throwing up everywhere.

“Then it’s back to work on the albums you mean,” Axl laughed. Stevie sighed.

“Yeah, that’s what I meant…” She closed her eyes again.

Duff frowned as he looked at his wife. Something was wrong, he could feel it. He knew that she wanted to go back to their Seattle home. Hell, he did too. But while they were working on the albums, they had to be in LA. It wouldn’t be too much longer and they could go back. Maybe that would cheer her up. He knew it would make him feel better.

They got to the hotel and their manager was given all the keys before they headed up to the floor. He passed them all out and Izzy, Duff, and Stevie immediatly went to their rooms, leaving Dizzy, Slash, and Axl to mingle for a bit. Upon arriving in their room, Stevie threw herself on the bed. Duff would’ve laughed, but she had been so under the weather here the past few weeks.

“You feeling okay babe?” Duff asked, brushing her hair back.

“Yeah. Just this flu or whatever is really taking it out of me,” She laughed a little. He placed a kiss on her forehead.

“Axl can let us have a couple days off after this,” He told her. “He’s got all the words and music written down for this big, extravagant album. We just have to put it together. Hell, I think Dizzy already has a lot of the synth stuff down. Plus, I think that Izzy and everyone else could use a few days off too.”

“Yeah,” Stevie nodded, curling up farther into the blanket on the bed.

“You really aren’t feeling good, are you?” Duff asked. She just looked up at him. “After practice, we’ll get something to eat. Dinner, just the two of us?”

“That sounds amazing,” She stretched. “I miss our one on one dates.”

“Me too sweetheart.” He leaned down and pressed his lips against hers. “Come on, let’s get to rehearsal.”

****

They practiced the two songs they were going to do at the venue, watching while people set up everything around them. Civil War followed by Down on the Farm. Everything sounded great in the large venue, but Stevie really just wanted to go back to the hotel and go to bed. She really hadn’t been feeling good, but she was looking forward to a night out with her husband.

“Ready to go babe?” Duff asked when they got done. Stevie smiled and nodded.

“Let’s go,” She laughed and took his hand. They headed out, heading to one of the downtown restaurants that had caught Duff’s eye.

“How about when we get back to LA, we take a week and go back to Seattle?” Duff asked as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they walked. “I know you miss the house. I miss it too. We could spend the whole week there.”

“That sounds amazing,” Stevie admitted. “But don’t you think Axl would throw a fit? You know how he wants to get this grand work of his out.”

“Screw him,” Duff rolled his eyes. “I don’t care if his fucking album doesn’t get out on time. All I care about is that my wife is happy.” Duff led her into the somewhat busy restaurant, but they got a table pretty quickly thankfully. They took their seats and ordered their drinks, Duff not seeming to notice that Stevie didn’t order alcohol when he ordered a beer.

“You think Axl and Izzy are happy to be back?” Stevie asked, sipping on the juice she had gotten.

“I think they’re fine as long as we don’t play Lafayette,” Duff laughed. “But soon, we’ll be back home in our bed and getting a much deserved break.”

“Yeah,” She nodded. “Duff, I…” Stevie was going to tell Duff what she had been wanting to tell him since she saw the positive test, but she was cut off.

“I’m here with them!” She heard Izzy tell the hostess. Duff and Stevie looked up as Izzy joined their table as the waitress came to get their order. “Hey guys!” He gave them a small smile. Duff and Stevie looked at each other before looking back at Izzy.

“Hey Iz,” Duff smiled. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I wanted a table and they’re kinda busy, and you had an extra seat. And, you know, sharing is caring,” The guitarist smiled at them. “And the first place I was going to, Axl was going and...I just don’t really want to spend time with him…” Stevie sighed a little.

“Make yourself at home,” She told him. Izzy nodded.

“Right on,” He took a menu to order his food. Stevie went with something light, since her stomach wasn’t agreeing with food. Duff and Izzy chatted while Stevie picked at her salad. Soon, they were done and the trio headed back to their hotel. Stevie shivered a little and Duff placed his jacket on her shoulders.

“You okay?” Izzy asked, looking at Stevie. He had adopted her like a sister just like Slash had, since she had been so supportive of him when he told her everything.

“I’m fine,” She told him. “Just kinda tired.” She snuggled into Duff’s jacket.

“I think her and I are gonna take a week and go back to Seattle,” Duff told Izzy. “Princess Peach is probably missing us. He’s been staying with Stevie’s mom, and I know he misses my mom. She spoils the brat.”

“King Axl won’t like that, but if you guys take off, I’m going to lock my apartment door and chill out for that week. Or maybe I’ll go someplace too,” Izzy smiled at them. “Let’s go get some sleep. We’ve got a big day ahead of us.”

****

Stevie slept through the wake up call. She slept through Duff getting up and opening the curtains. She just buried herself deeper into the blankets. Her body hated her and she really didn’t want to get up. Duff crawled onto the bed and placed kisses on her.

“Babe,” He whispered to her as he kissed her neck. “Get up.”

“Don’t wanna,” She groaned.

“Sweetheart, you have to,” He chuckled. “I know you’re tired Stevie, but once we’re done, we can ditch Izzy, Axl, Dizzy, and Slash. Head back to LA, snag Princess Peach, then get to Seattle and spend a week in our bed.” He kissed her shoulder.

“Okay, okay, I’m getting up,” Stevie told him. “But I’m not happy about it.”

“I know honey,” He laughed and watched as she got up and started to get ready. Duff watched her for a minute before he got ready himself.

****

The event was packed. There were so many artists gathered around, chatting, and the fans filled the stadium. They were all backstage, getting ready. Stevie watched as Izzy casted a couple looks in Axl’s direction, almost like he wanted to talk to him, but he just shook his head and buttoned his shirt. They were ready and led out to the stage for their small set. A quick warm up with the crowd staring at them and they were ready to go.

Stevie focused on the drums. That’s all she could manage to do. But fuck, why did Axl start wanting their songs to be seven minutes and longer. And they still had one more song to do. She just needed to focus on the drums and they would be done soon.

And they were, thankfully. They took their bows, waved at the crowd, then headed backstage. Dizzy, Axl, Slash, and Duff were walking ahead of Stevie and Izzy. Izzy was talking to Stevie.

“You excited to get back to Seattle?” Izzy asked, glancing over at her. “Too bad we can just work on it up there so you guys can be in your home for awhile or something.” He noticed that Stevie was quiet. “Stevie?” He looked at her, expecting to see her still walking with him.

Instead she stopped walking as the hall started to spin.

“Stevie?” Izzy asked again. The next thing he knew, her knees were buckling and she was going down to the ground. “Shit! Stevie!”

Forever Tags: @anathewierdo​ @dekahg​ @marvel-af-imagines​ @feelmyroarrrr​ @nanie5​ @imboredsueme​ @gemini0410​ @aiaranradnay​ @babypink224221​ @mogarukes​ @xxwarhawk​ @sandlee44​ @shatteredabby​ @caswinchester2000​ @supernaturalwincestsblog​ @lauravic​ @mrsambroserollinsacklesmgk​ @teller258316​ @horrorpxnk​ @tommyleeownsme​ @marvelismylifffe​ @mrslogansixxpixx​

Guns n Roses Tags: @duffshairdye​ @slashscowboyboots​ @hauntedapricoteggsclam​ @bitter-13-suite​ @arianareirg​ @lucyboytom​ @ozzy-dumbass-of-darkness​

It’s So Easy TAgs:  @str4nge-haze​ @viralwolf02​

[ficsandcatsandficsandcats]

Can you do another Punk Jask with Vicious Mockery? I love that AU soooo much. Maybe Jask sees the reader getting crushed in a mosh pit and jumps into the crowd to drag her out?

Fandom: The WitcherPairing: Punk!Jaskier x ReaderWord Count: 1,478Rating: GTaglist: @heroics-and-heartbreak a/n: This one got a tinge of angst but I’m me so it ends happily. Hope you like it! PS, the lyrics I use are from the song Trust by the band 7 Seconds. 

“Hello Seattle!”

Jaskier’s voice echoed through amplifies surrounding the venue, the roar of the crowd nearly drowning him out.

“How are you doing tonight my Mockingbirds?” Jaskier cries out, raising his voice above the din. You’ve heard him do the start of show banter a thousand times but it never gets old.

“We have a great show for you tonight, Geralt has even threatened to crack a smile,” Jaskier says, gesturing to the man sitting at the drum set who cocks an eyebrow and shakes his head. The crowd screams especially loud at that and you know he’s going to catch hell for that after the show.

“Alright enough of this, you’re not here for conversation you’re just here for the good times,” Jaskier says and you laugh out loud, the sound lost in the crowd and the sound of the guitar as Jaskier seamlessly transitions into the first song. You knew he was quoting a song he was still working on. You’d sat next to him drawing while he and the bass player, Yen, worked on the tune to fit the words he’d penned. Those little moments were the ones you loved the most, just getting to be around him as he worked on his craft, giving you a little smile every time his eyes met yours. This was a close second though, standing in the crowd and watching him perform.

He’d been anxious about you going into the crowd but you’d insisted on it, waxing poetic about the energy of a mosh pit and the comradery you felt with other fans when you were down there. Your relationship wasn’t officially announced but you also didn’t really hide it and that had already made your life a little more complicated with security details including you and your friend as you toured with the band. But you were determined to keep this part of it the same as before and so you stood in the pit with a crush of other fans in matching Vicious Mockery merchandise. Jaskier played to the crowd as he usually did though he did sometimes pause and sing a few bars meaningfully at you. The crowd jostled and danced around you and you felt the adrenaline pumping through your veins and realized that this moment, possibly, was the most perfect moment you’d had in your life so far.

And then you fell.

Jaskier kept his promise to you, playing to the whole crowd and not just singing to you as he’d come to love doing backstage. He still kept you in his sights at all times, even if just in the periphery. That’s why he was able to catch when you disappeared from view. One moment you were looking up at him, singing along to the words you knew so well, and the next you were gone. He knew all too well the danger a mosh pit could pose. He waited a beat – looking for signs of anyone around you helping you up – and then he dove.

The crowd grasped at him, mistaking his sudden leap into the crowd as a part of the show, but he ducked low, looking for you in a tangle of limbs. You had crawled to the edge of the stage, hands raised over your head protectively, and he pushed through to reach you. He could hear security trying to move people back and Jaskier pulled you to your feet. He wanted to check on you right there, make sure nothing was broken or bleeding, but he knew it wasn’t safe and he let a guard guide the two of you through the throng. He heard Yen’s voice singing into the crowd, improvising to keep the crowd happy while he was gone and he made a mental note to thank her.

“Is she ok?” you heard your friend ask. They’d chosen to watch the concert from the wings of the stage as they usually did and hadn’t realized what was happening until Jaskier had leapt into the crowd. You drop your hands, still trembling slightly, and Jaskier takes your face in his hands, looking you over carefully.

“I told you not to go down there,” he said, “Are you hurt?”

“This happens to people all the time it’s fine,” you said, pride more damaged than your body.

“People die that way all the time too, Y/N,” Jaskier says, his voice angrier than you’ve ever heard. His blue eyes are stormy and his face a dangerous blend of anxiety and anger.

“I’m fine, I promise,” you say soothingly, resting your hands on his. Andrzej, the band manager, walks over with a first aid kit. He’d made sure he was trained in first aid and CPR to provide quick care if the band or crew needed help on the road and he began to gently examine your face, feeling for bumps and asking you to move your limbs to check for fractures.

“You should go back out and finish the show,” you say, rotating your wrists for Andrzej.

“No I’m going to stay here,” Jaskier replies.

“Um. No. That’s ridiculous,” you blurt out the words before you can temper them.

“You went down in a mosh pit, I’m staying here until I’m positive you’re ok,” he argues.

“Andrzej are you worried?” you ask, turning to the manager who glances between you and Jaskier, clearly not thrilled to caught in the middle.

“I’d suggest we still get you checked out by a doctor after the show just to make sure but so far everything seems fine,” he answers.

“See?”

“Still I-”

“Jaskier would you do this if a fan got caught in the crowd?” you ask. His hands go to his hips and he glares at you.

“This isn’t the same. You’re not just a fan,” he argues.

“I know. But I’m ok and this is your job and I won’t let you put me before it,” you insist.

“You don’t get to decide what I prioritize or why,” he snaps, “If I want to make sure my girlfriend is ok more than I want to finish a show that’s my choice.”

“Well it’s not mine.”

You stand in stony silence, glaring at each other for a few moments. Finally Jaskier sighs and runs a hand through his hair and you exhale a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding. When he looks up at you again his eyes are kinder but still pained and you want to pull him into a hug and tell him everything will be ok but he nods a couple of times and you wait to see what he’s going to say.

“Look we need to talk about this some more but let’s find a compromise for now,” he says. You nod though your heart is thundering in your chest. ‘Needing to talk’ about things never led anywhere good. Not in your experience at least.

“I will go out and finish the show if you stay up here with Y/F/N instead of going back into the crowd,” Jaskier says.

“Ok. Of course,” you say, and then, because you’re afraid it might be one of the last times you’ll get to, you pull him in for a hug, wrapping your arms around him tight. He holds you tightly, one hand covering the back of your head and the other around your waist and he rocks you slightly, the emotions that fueled his anger bubbling to the surface in ways that can’t be expressed in words, only touch. When you pull apart he gives you a smile and pulls you in for a quick kiss.

“Alright, go knock ‘em dead,” you say encouragingly. He gives you a little salute and runs back on stage. The yelling in the crowd spikes at Jaskier’s return and you see Yen pass his guitar back over, picking up her bass and getting back in position.

“I’d like to dedicate this song to my girlfriend,” Jaskier says. Your friend squeezes your hand and gives you a little nudge which you return, blushing hard as he murmurs something to Yen who nods at Geralt.

“Hey now I’ve this feelingThat I’ve never felt beforeI know it ain’t cool to say this nowBut I can’t help the way I feel inside…”

The song sounds familiar and you’re surprised because Jaskier doesn’t usually do covers. He’s still managed to make it his own by slowing the pace. You realize he must have been practicing this when you weren’t around and when he looks to you in the final verse there are happy tears in your eyes.

”You inspire me intenselyWithout any doubtYou keep me thinking, help me tryShow that I can do withoutWith you there’s more foundationMore than any other timeAnd when it comes to you my heart is trueUntil the day I die.”

[talix18]

November 21

Yesterday Katelyn called to see if I wanted to hang out. Katelyn is the almost 22-year-old who I call my adopted niece but she’s something more than that. I lived with K and her mom from the time K was 18 months old until she was four-and-a-half so I was her de facto other mom. I know it’s just the slightest approximation of what parenting must feel like but I treasure the memory of her being satisfied with coming to me if Mom wasn’t available. Three-year-old K running towards me when I showed up to pick her up from daycare. The memory of the Christmas when all K wanted from Santa was to see her father and her mother and I couldn’t make that happen – talk about powerlessness. Watching her sing at her high school variety show remembering how I’d been too terrified to sing in front of people…

She inherited some things from me – her opinions and eagerness to share them is probably the big one, but she also, somehow, has come to love Def Leppard (I suspect that’s her boyfriend’s influence). You already know how Def Leppard introduced me to my first boyfriend. I can tell you exactly where I was and who I was with when I heard about the car accident that ultimately took Rick Allen’s arm. I remember that someone who worked at a music store called me to tell me Steve Clarke had died. Def Leppard was my third concert (1st: Asia; 2nd: Stray Cats) – I still can’t believe Mom let me go with Allen and some of his friends at 15. Some people have made-up imaginary friends – mine were real people.

I went up to see K at her mom’s place after work (Kate’s mom and her husband of a year and a week are still on their delayed honeymoon in Tennessee) and we talked about all kinds of things. She said something about Def Leppard touring with Motley Crue, which led me to the Crue documentary I just watched on Netflix over the weekend. I was a fan – saw them open for Ozzy once; had a poster on my ceiling for a while – but the milestones in their lives were vague memories. Of course Tommy was married to Heather Locklear and Vince committed vehicular manslaughter, but that was most of what I knew.

The documentary is an unflinching portrait of the toll drugs took on the band – specifically Nikki Sixx – but that’s not the part that really got to me. I know how addiction works. I had to stop the movie to Google what happened to Vince Neil’s daughter after her cancer diagnosis, which paid off as the next scene opened on her dead four-year-old body laying in the hospital bed. So now I’m having feelings about poor Vince losing his daughter after killing his friend how many years after the fact?

On the way home, after playing a Def Leppard song, the DJ mentioned the tour with Crue and I had to call Katelyn. We are definitely going, I assured her, now that I have even more emotions tied up with these people. I am definitely not thinking about the fact that “Crue called their friends in Def Leppard” to arrange the tour because I assume that means the Leps were also hard partiers and I’d rather not consider all the sordid debauchery that follows along. (Poison is also on the bill, and we’re all down with Bret since Rock of Love. Don’t threaten me with a good time!)

K and I also watched Mean Girls, which I had never seen, and I’m always happy to patch up a hole in my cultural reference knowledge. “Her hair is so big because it’s full of secrets” is everything. Feel free to welcome me to fifteen years ago.

I have to believe the increased meds dosage is making a difference. Tuesday alone I scheduled a doctor’s appointment (colorectal), an ultrasound (thyroid), a dinner/movie date with a friend, a massage, an eye exam, and a dentist’s appointment AND I enrolled for supplemental vision insurance. It seems like a reasonable amount to accomplish in one day, but I’d been putting off some of these appointments for months. Why is it so hard to pick up the phone and call someone? I will never be able to explain it. Trust me – I wish I could help people understand! The best I can do is recognize that I’m functioning more effectively and keep track of what I’m doing that’s different.

Yesterday I committed to flying to Boston to see a friend get married on New Year’s Eve. “Black tie optional”? Hell yeah I want to go hang out in that hotel and see that venue that my amazing friend and her intended are having a black-tie optional shin-dig in! I can’t imagine my lifestyle ever affording me such luxurious splurges on the regular so I need to take advantage of the opportunities when they manifest. Besides, I already have a dress that I got for a black-tie New Year’s Even anniversary party a few years ago; wearing it a second time makes it an even better value! (We don’t discuss how much money I ultimately spend on a wrap and statement earrings.) (Ack! I need to make an appointment with Katelyn for my hair!)

I haven’t seen Karen (the friend getting married) in FIVE years, which seems impossible, but there it is. Karen is one of my original gang of Webpeeps – Webpepes 1.0! Most of us met on a news aggregate website, got to know each other in the forum (4um elites represent), and created a new bulletin board to hang out in. At our peak we had about 150 members but the core group was about 40, and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting at least 30 of us in meatspace.

The first time I met Karen (GreenBeans/GB) was at her then husband’s 30TH (?) birthday party. Rider (PsiDefect), Tim (GasMasher), and I drove my car up to Boston from Philly (Tim and I drove up from MD) to surprise this dude we’d never met, and that cemented my friendship with both Karen and Ted (Law). Their marriage broke up some time ago, which I learned the weekend she and I got together in Orlando with Catrina (CatWritr) and CJ (Hajen). Which was somehow five full years ago.

The first time I met ANY of these nerds was…I don’t even know how long ago at the original Farkoasterfest. I lived with Katelyn and Vanessa at the time and V straight up took pictures of Rider and his license plate when he pulled up to scoop me and head out to Sandusky, OH. I do know I was working at SSA and it was relatively early in my tenure, so early-2000s? It was also probably the first time I spent an entire weekend with people not in recovery since I’d gotten clean. Several hundred miles away with nearly perfect strangers – who thought that was a good idea?

It turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Some of the people I met that weekend and after are straight up some of my closest friends. It was my first experience making friends as an adult, which is startlingly difficult to do. My first group of friends that didn’t start in our hometown or on campus or in recovery – people I connected with in a realm where all we had was the words on the screen and our wit.

Places I’ve since hung out with these people include Seattle twice, Cedar Point one or two more times, Northern VA, DC, PA, and Toledo. I’ve seen at least three couples wed and have almost ten kids between them. I dated the guy in Toledo for a few years. I flew out to Seattle for Andrea (BigOrangeCat/TheOtherAndrea)’s 40th birthday party and to visit her in the hospital before she died. We helped Amy (Hisey) mourn the loss of her nearly full-term daughter. We helped Joe (ThedNeedles) deal with his ex keeping his son away from him – some of his helped him with legal aid. We watched each other’s kids grow up and have kids of their own. Norm (Zorgon) just emailed to let me know he was in town (-ish –northern DC suburb) and wanted to connect but was laden with germs – we get together for a meal very few years when work brings him this way. Never let anyone tell you your online friends don’t count.

(Logging back in to the old bulletin board to count heads gifted me with a video of Mike (BitZero) (father of FarKoasterFest) smashing up some obsolete Fark hardware. Good times!)

I reached out to CJ and Cat to see if either one was planning on coming to the wedding to offer the other side of the king-sized bed I’ll be sleeping in in Boston and I’m glad I did. CJ’s got a handful of kids so money is always a concern and I’m paying for the room whether I’m alone or with someone else. We’ll be FaceTiming Cat at midnight and maybe during the ceremony too.

In fact, I’ve been suspiciously functional this week. Monday was meh, but since then I’ve had three good, productive days in a row. I have no specific plans tonight so I could go to a meeting, or I could go home and see if any of this momentum can be channeled into house projects. Coming up with a fictional framing device has given me the opportunity to figuratively walk myself through the necessary steps to get started. So whatever comes of this writing exercise, it’s been worth doing.

[waveridden]

FIC: the neon limelight

The story behind Neoscum is like something out of a movie. (Or, a day in the life of a rock band. 3.5k, gen)

AUcember || read on Ao3

#

In the front of Xanadu, the infamous semi-truck-turned-tour-bus, there is a letterboard hanging precariously from the top of the cabin. It’s a smaller version of the kind that you’ll see outside movie theaters and churches, the kind that would light up if it were plugged in. This board isn’t plugged in, and it’s held in place with a combination of nails and duct tape. The message is changed once a week, by a different member every time. This week, the letterboard reads in mismatched letters, “BALLS 2 THA WALL TILL U FALL.”

The letterboard is one of the many personal touches in Neoscum’s infamous tour truck. There’s a futon bolted to the wall, a bunk bed, a crow’s nest-style hammock, and entirely white leather seats. There are also Polaroids taped to the wall, which bassist Pox tells me are mostly her work. There are five or six for every stop on their tour so far, and every stop on all of their tours. All in all, the four walls of Xanadu are cluttered.

This kind of clutter wouldn’t be a surprise to any Neoscum fans - at least, not any fans who have seen the band’s social media. “They know we’re dirty,” says Pox, with an exaggerated wink. “If they follow us on Instagram, they know we’re dirty.”

“They know we don’t always do laundry,” adds Zenith, the band’s drummer. “They know a lot about us. We don’t have a great concept of TMI.”

“Or just a low threshold,” Pox says. “We’re comfortable with people seeing our true selves. If that means posting pictures of Zenith’s dirty laundry on Snapchat, then that’s what that means today.”

The band’s social media presence is a lot like the interior of Xanadu: a little cryptic, a little eclectic, incomprehensible until you look closely enough to see the pattern. Six days before the release of their fourth album Neon Americana, a fan discovered that the fourth word in each installment of the band’s Snapchat story from the last month spelled out the tracklist. It’s not clear which of the band’s members masterminded this long con, and none of them own up when asked. It’s this kind of mystery that defines Neoscum: flawless execution, but for no clearly comprehensible reason.

“Of course there’s a reason,” Pox says, when I ask her about the Snapchat story. “It’s not about who did it, it’s not about the tracklist. It’s about having fun and making people pay attention. Haven’t you ever wanted someone to pay attention to you?”

#

 The story behind Neoscum is like something out of a movie. Lead singer Dak Rambo was making a name for himself with country music, but he was small-time at best. Squirt Purpler, more commonly known by his stage name of Tech Wizard, was playing the keyboards in a live band on a Chicago stand-up comedy showcase. The two of them met and started recording independent experimental music. Before long, they reunited with Rambo’s old friend Zenith, a drummer from the Seattle punk scene, and met Pox, a bassist and songwriter who was shadow-writing pop hits. With the addition of Max Epstein, a folk guitarist making waves online, Neoscum was complete.

The musical tastes of Neoscum, much like the rest of the band, work despite having every reason not to. “You can go to twelve different record stores, and they’ll all have us sorted differently,” says Purpler. “I think it’s great. We’ve got a little bit of everything, we’re all over the place. Who needs to only be one thing?”

Neoscum’s first album, Death Race, charted as a metal album, a rock album, and an indie album. Their second album, ratcandy, landed firmly on the pop charts, and their third album Time To Kill A Dragon was a country album. With the release of Neon Americana, Neoscum have cemented themselves as both everything and nothing: the album was a blend of techno, R&B, and every other genre that the band had ever worked with. The album is more than two hours long, and tells the story of a road trip from coast to coast. Tracks blend seamlessly from one genre to the next, creating the image of a chaotic, cohesive nation. It received universal acclaim after its release.

“The album was Pox’s idea,” Zenith says. Pox is the one foreign member of the band, a transplant from across the pond. She’s infamously secretive with her personal life; the closest anyone has found to a hint about who she used to be is an online demo of a song dedicated to someone named Pandora. “The first tour we did, the one after Dragon came out, was the first time she’d ever seen most of the country. It was completely new to her, and I think she was enchanted by it.”

Pox is not the group’s only songwriter, but she is the mastermind behind album concepts. The whole group credits her with the idea for Neon Americana. There are rumors that she had a meticulous journal, keeping notes about every city she stopped in; there are rumors that she wrote the entire album on the tour. Pox doesn’t confirm or deny any of them, either publicly or when asked. Instead, she insists that the album is a collaboration, a meeting of the minds.

The one thing she does take credit for is the idea behind the tour. “I saw all the big cities last time,” she explains, twirling a lollipop between her fingers. Xanadu is in the middle of Kansas, between tour stops, and Pox is dipping into her secret sugar stash. I have to close my eyes whenever she wants candy, because I’m not allowed to see where she keeps it. “We went to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, all the places that everyone stops. And I wrote songs about them, we all wrote songs about them. But there’s only so much of a picture that the big cities paint. So when we started planning our second tour, I said that I wanted to see smaller towns. I want to go the places that nobody else goes.”

The tour, formally titled “The Small Town Neon Americana Neoscum Second Tour Extravaganza Party” and colloquially called “the second tour”, is entirely focused on small cities and small towns. There are no stops in New York, or in Los Angeles, or in Chicago. The biggest city that Neoscum is visiting will be Rochester, Minnesota. The venues are small, and the crowds are all enthusiastic. I’m joining them for two shows in Kansas, in towns that have never had big names perform before.

The band is all enthusiastic about the concept behind the tour, all for different reasons. “I never got to go to big concerts when I was a kid,” Purpler explains. “I lived just far enough outside of all the major cities that it was too far to drive for anything less than an emergency or a once-in-a-lifetime thing, so I never saw any bands growing up. It means a lot to me that we get to give some small town kids that performance.”

For other members, it’s less personal: Rambo says, “I like driving. Anything that gets us driving is good. Those real small town ones, the ones where the pavement hasn’t been touched since 1984 and the grass looks like it’s going to crack if you touch it? That’s the good shit, baby. We’re seeing a lot of those lately, and I am loving it. Everything’s tiny, it’s the way this country is supposed to be, you know? It’s just us and those kids who get to see a cool band.”

And for Epstein, the quietest of the band? “There’s less stage fright in a bar than in a stadium.”

#

 The band’s first stop is in Josephine, Kansas, and they immediately start in on a whirlwind series of pre-show rituals. Rambo drives Xanadu to the outskirts of the town, to a sign that says the town’s population, and they all pile out of the truck to take a five-man selfie next to the sign. Once they’re inside city limits, Zenith starts playing ABBA - not on the truck’s high quality sound system, but on his phone’s speaker. He doesn’t stop until they pull up outside their venue: an outdoor amphitheater for an afternoon show. Epstein recites a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Pox opens the door with her left hand and her eyes closed, and the band all take the amphitheater by storm.

They’re ruthlessly fast in their setup: Purpler talks to the venue coordinator while the rest of the crew makes sure everything is to their standards. Zenith and Epstein manage the band’s tech setup as Rambo and Pox manage the equipment. From start to finish, it takes them under thirty minutes to have everything in perfect shape.

“We don’t fuck around with these things,” Zenith says. He’s nearly as cryptic about where he came from as Pox is, but he at least has a traceable career. He has no last name to speak of, and he has never explained why he’s missing an eye. But he’s competent, both as a drummer and as the band’s self-proclaimed tech guy, and he has a reputation for being mysterious. “We’re here to do a show, we’re going to make sure it’s perfect. It’s not like it’s hard to be prepared, to get things done the way they’re supposed to be done.”

The amphitheater in Josephine is packed, not just with locals but from people in surrounding towns. There are teenagers and middle-aged men and elderly women, all sporting Neoscum merch. All of them are buzzing, talking about songs that they hope to hear and things that they hope to see. Neoscum is notoriously flashy with their concerts. It’s not unusual to see pyrotechnics, or costume changes, or people swapping instruments. One tour video, which went viral, showed Pox attempting to play Zenith’s drums with her feet in the middle of a show.

“We don’t plan anything for our actual shows,” Epstein tells me, five minutes before the curtains go up. “We have a set list, and we normally play all the same songs off of it, but if something seems unplanned, that’s because it probably is. None of us like playing by the rules, or doing things the same way every time. Not even me.”

Epstein is known for being the most relaxed of the band’s members. He’s the least likely to try and haggle with grocery store clerks (as Pox has done), share obscure knowledge of advanced physics (Zenith), get stuck on top of a telephone pole after a dare (Purpler), or win a blackjack jackpot (Rambo, Epstein’s maternal uncle). He’s the least spotlight-happy of all of them.

He’s also the most forthcoming about his personal life. Epstein graduated in the top quarter of his high school last and joined Neoscum not long afterwards. He has a sister, seven years younger, who recently received a kidney transplant. He says that his biggest inspirations are Bob Dylan and Yo-Yo Ma, and his uncle Dak. He’s the most likely of the band to be singing, humming, or playing his instrument in his spare time. He’s the mediator of debates and the filmer of shenanigans. He has a prosthetic left arm and right leg, and he refuses to let anyone call him “the disabled one” in the band.

Epstein says that his reputation as “the boring one” doesn’t bother him; if anything, it’s a relief. “Those guys are my family,” he says, echoing a sentiment that the whole band has shared at one point or another. “But they’re all kind of fucking crazy. I don’t want to be in the news for even the less weird things that they do. Except for that time Z got to be in the news for knowing thermonuclear physics, that was pretty cool.”

Sixty seconds before the curtains go up, Rambo goes around the band. He gives Pox a warm hug, Epstein a kiss on the left cheek, Zenith a kiss on the forehead, and Purpler a kiss on the right cheek. He looks at me and winks, and says something I can’t quite make out over the cheering crowd outside. I’ve only known Rambo for two hours, but I already understand the charismatic rock star allure that everyone claims he has. He seems more at ease on stage than he does off, and when the curtains rise, he shouts, “What the fuck is up, Kansas?”

Kansas lets him know what the fuck is up. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a man not even remotely cowed by thousands of people screaming at him.

#

 There is a list of rules in Xanadu, taped up next to the letterboard. “It’s for you,” Purpler explained, not long after I boarded the truck. “And for everyone who visits us, but it’s mostly for you right now.”

The rules are simple. Feet on seats are fine, but shoes on seats are not. Dropping food is okay as long as you clean it up. You never challenge someone to a fight if you wouldn’t actually fight them. You don’t talk about Lil Marco - the band’s nickname for the producer Big Marco who attempted to sue them after the release of Deathrace. You don’t say the word “Grammy,” because it’s a jinx, and nobody needs a Grammy anyways.

The list contains nearly forty rules, and I’m sworn to privacy about most of them. “Nobody needs to know the way we do things,” Rambo says. “Not really, you know? Fans get weird. Gotta keep some things a mystery.”

The last rule on the list is don’t say shit about other people’s shit in interviews. It’s obvious where the rule came from. On the drive from Josephine to Troy, I ask Rambo about the rule, and his lips thin. Rambo is a friendly, jovial man: before he was a rock star, he was a trucker, a country singer, and an unabashed sex worker. But there’s no humor on his face as he thinks through his response. “It was fucked that TMZ did what they did,” he says. “People are entitled to have secret personal histories if they want them. I don’t care that Morrows was up for reelection in Colorado, and I don’t care that they thought it would be okay. Digging up people’s stuff is - it makes it easy to forget that we’re people too. But we’re people too.”

Rambo is, of course, referring to a now-infamous exposé that TMZ published, revealing a link between Purpler and incumbent Colorado governor Fayglin Morrows. The connections aren’t especially clear, but it’s obvious that Morrows was a family friend to Purpler’s parents, who were killed in a hate crime when Purpler was four. The entire band followed their newest rule to a T, and none of them publicly discussed the article or the incident, including Purpler. Morrows went on to win reelection in Colorado, although the race was subject to a recount.

“It was hard for all of us,” says Zenith, “and by that I mean it was mostly hard for Tech, so we were all pissed. We were trying to keep him out of the limelight, trying to let him keep his past to himself.”

“I don’t think it matters where any of us are from,” says Purpler, in his only interjection into the conversation. “I know what I need to know about everything, and nobody else needs to know anything. We all know where the band’s politics stand, and we share the personal stuff that we want to.”

Neoscum is full of outspoken socialists: Epstein in particular has been vocally critical of healthcare reform policies, and the band has made a name for themselves by participating in protest marches. And nobody has to look any further than the band’s social media to see their openness about their personal life. But the band is firm when they put down boundaries. TMZ never issued an apology to Purpler, despite the influx of fan petitions and demands for one; the fans still stood by Purpler in his wish for privacy. He later thanked them for their support in a public statement, marking the first and only real time he addressed the TMZ article directly.

It’s clear from early on that the band’s “don’t say shit” rule applies while talking to me. Zenith and Pox almost form a protective barrier around Purpler with their bodies, and even Epstein comes down from his perch in the crow’s nest to watch me. They’re defensive of one another, and as soon as the conversation moves on, everyone relaxes. It’s hard to say if they do it intentionally or subconsciously, but the meaning is clear either way: they have each other’s backs, at all times.

#

 The pre-show rituals in Troy go the same as the rituals in Josephine. This performance is the same evening, at a bar called the Electric Cowboy Lasso-Swingin’ Doogie-Wrasslin’ Party Zone Gambling Hall and Microbrewery. Rambo seems to know everyone there, from the bartender to the regulars. “That’s just Dak,” Purpler says. “He’s always like this. He has friends everywhere.”

At the Josephine concert, Purpler and Zenith switched instruments for two songs. At the Troy concert, everyone stays where they’re supposed to until the second-to-last song, when Pox takes Max’s acoustic guitar and sits in the center of the stage to sing an acoustic ballad. It’s not a good fit for the trucker bar, but they’re all rapt and silent as she sings, and a fan’s video of the performance went viral the following day. (Eagle-eyed fans noticed that this was the song that she dedicated to the mysterious Pandora, but Pox hasn’t commented, and neither has the rest of the band.)

The most interesting part of the show comes afterwards. Strike happens in a neat fifteen-minute timeframe, and then the band is in the bar, drinking and laughing with the rest of the patrons. They’re patient and friendly with autographs and selfies, but before long, the fans clear out of the bar and leave only regular patrons. Rambo is introducing people by name to the band members, and before long they’re all piled into a corner booth, talking over each other. They eat food off of each other’s plates and poke each other and finish each other’s sentences. It lasts for several rounds and a couple of hours. “Family dinner,” Zenith calls it at one point, and it’s exactly that.

 #

 Rambo insists on dropping me back off at my office in Lawrence, even though I’ll get there in the wee hours of the night. He doesn’t seem at all bothered by staying up all night driving. The band goes to sleep in what seem to be normal places for them: Epstein in his crow’s nest, Pox in the passenger’s seat, Tech on the bottom bunk, Zenith on the futon. Only Rambo stays awake, and he answers my questions quietly, like his voice will wake them over the noise of the truck on the road.

“It’s impossible to describe what these people mean to me,” he says, in a candid moment. “You know, this job, it’s changed all of our lives. I’m never going to have to worry about where I’m going to stay the night again. Max, he got his sister’s operation paid for. Pox and Z and Tech, they all have opportunities to figure things out that they couldn’t have had two or three years ago. And we’re paying that forward. We’re doing these shows in little towns, it’s fucking great. Have you ever been to a small town? Some of them are awful, but some of them are just full of people who wanna be happy. And we make them happy.”

We reach Wichita at four in the morning. Rambo lets me out the back gate of the truck and tells me I’m always welcome back, as long as I’m not a dick to his people. For the next three days, I receive random texts from him: pictures of the band, videos from venues, and misspelled rough drafts of tweets that he wants me to correct. They taper off, and I’m left following along with the band through the news and through Twitter, just like the rest of the world.

My single day with Xanadu feels like a dream, an illusion of Polaroids and jokes that I only half-remember. I can’t help but wonder if that was intentional. I caught a glimpse of Neoscum as people, a fleeting glimpse that falls second to the truth that they project to the rest of the world. And then I, like the rest of the world, am paying attention to them. Just like they want me to.

Argus Armstrongman is an independent contributor to Lone Star Publications. You can follow him on Twitter @argus_asm or read more of his contributions here.

[windchimelove]

so i saw IDKHBTFM !!! THEY WERE SO GOOD !!!! i went to the seattle show and gosh, it was amazing. dallon parted the crowd during visitation of the ghost and he alMOST touched my hand but didn’t. i wasn’t able to get a photo with dallon after the show but i got a photo with ryan !! his smile is so bright in real life! we made eye contact a few times during the show, so that was cool. dallon’s eyes are so BLUE in real life, omg.

here’s a step-by-step of the whole thing if you want to bother reading: i got to the venue at 3:45ish, there was already maybe 10-15 people there? i got flowers for them (daffodils for dallon, orange roses for ryan) and wrote them notes, and for a long time i was just sitting in line and waiting. it was cold and i was wearing shorts, but i was okay. i made a couple of friends in the line, one of which i was with during the concert. then they soundchecked, and we all kinda freaked out internally, it was great.

so then this weird ish thing happened: at around 6:30, 30 minutes before the doors were supposed to open, they let a couple of people at the front in. ????wtf ????? i was kinda heated about it, bc when they let those people in, other people who were in the cafe area at the venue rushed in even though they’d only been there for less than an hour. i was pr e s s e d. lmao. but it’s fine, i still got a pretty good place in the crowd.

they opened the doors at 7, we all rushed in, i got a place in about second row right in front of ryan. before the show, omg this tech guy came out and we all shouted “i stan a legend” “yes ur doing amazing sweetie” and “i love you!” and other stuff like that, it was fun. and AHAHAHSH BEFORE THE SHOW EVERYONE WAS AIRDROPPING EAXH OTHER MEMES AND IT WAS SO ICONIC i included a couple of the things people airdropped lol.

so the show, the show was SO AMAZING, reallt, they were so energetic on stage and dallon was talking to the crowd a lot and ryan kept smiling, it was so cute. it went so quickly and i miss it.

i waited outside the door for about 30 minutes with maybe 50-60 other people? it was crowded. then dallon and ryan came out, and gosh, that was so surreal. ryan, after i gave him my flowers, he put them in his mouth so he had a free hand to sign things. i love him so much. then i got a photo with him and gosh he’s the best. and dALLON, after i got a photo with ryan, i pushes myself over to where dallon was, it took a bit but then he turned to me, saw my flowers, and said “are those for me?” and i nodded and he smiled and thanked me and he was so cute. then, somebody who i DIDNT EVEN KNOW, SHOUT-OUT TO THEM THEYRE THE BEST, said “oh, i saw her in line with flowers, she’s been here for a really long time” and dALLON looked me in the eye and said “thank you so much, i appreciate it a lot” or something along those lines. it was magical. then he signed my bookmark because it was the only thing i had. (ryan also signed my bookmark)

it was sucha. surreal experience to actually meet the people i’ve supported and followed for over a year. i mean, i’ve liked this band since bEFORE THEY EXISTED (which is so fun to say ngl) and it was just amazing. i love the boys so much. i wish i could go back all the time, theyre so good live. i love them. i cant WAIT until the next seattle show. 💞💗💕💗💝💖💘

[zenruption]

Seattle’s Smokey Brights: The Only Band in the Building

by: The World’s Luckiest Music Lover, Brian Mckay

Over the Treefort weekend, I had the pleasure to meet and watch the Smokey Brights on more than one occasion. This is a band that is more than just a simple concert review. They are worthy of their story and what lies ahead being known. That story that is represented in their songs and stage presence. It is a band I intend to follow and anxiously await their upcoming album. Judging from the crowd’s response, I am not alone in this assessment.

Fronted by Ryan Devlin (guitar and vocals) and Kim West (keys and vocals) and accompanied by Nick Krivchenia (drums) and Luke Logan (bass). The band’s story is compelling. As a couple, Ryan and Kim bring their synergy and strong love to the stage in both their harmonies and stage interaction.

The band was officially born out of necessity, due to some very underfunded bank accounts, insufficient for gift giving, going into the Christmas season as a couple. The incredibly talented Nick, came along via Ohio from a family of musicians. Grooving away Luke, is via Alaska with a background of singing folk songs with his family and is a great third for an always perfect harmony.

You can see a slight punk, influence pulled into a signature Seattle sound with, what can only be described, as their own genre. While comfortably in the alt rock category, it’s obvious that Smokey Brights will take whatever they feel or find interesting and make something new and totally their own out of it.

Again, it is the experiences that shape this band and probably my best candidate to interlace a review, pictures, video, and an interview all mixed together. Considering their amazing mixture, I hope they like it.

Interview conducted Saturday, September 25th at Neurolux

So el Korah tonight is so retro cool that it’s awesome. The sound is really good and the time you play is kind of after main stage…

Kim: Dude, I’m stoked.

Ryan: I feel really honored we got moved to that slot. Eric (a Treefort founder) was out at the Neurolux show about a month ago and we were going to play Humpin’ Hannah’s at 10 and that ended up not working out as a venue for Treefort so they bumped us over to el Korah, which is a bigger room, great slot and I am just swelling with gratitude that he trusts us enough to put us in that spot.

 Indeed, el Korah ended up being the perfect spot for Smokey Brights to play. Having had the honor of playing the first concert at the Record Exchange in 18 months on Thursday, a 9.30 pm slot at el Korah on a Saturday turned out to be an absolute perfect fit.

For a Treefort with smaller crowds due to COVID, the room was the busiest I had seen it during Treefort. The first thing you notice of Smokey Brights is an energetic, open crowd that immediately jumps in with both feet. Check it out:

 So, I’ve always gotta ask, what do you think of Boise?

Kim: We love Boise. Big fans. Big Fans!

Nick: Boise loves us back.

Ryan: Boise is a live music town with venues and great people and a great history of bands and we can drive to it from Seattle, which makes it Valhalla for a West Coast musician. It’s amazing.

Boise showed Smokey Brights its love at both the el Korah and Hideout stage performances. Dancing was common, as was extensive cheering. The one time that I heard the crowd just singing along with the band at Treefort was the Hideout crowd singing to the I Love You but Damn chorus as the band closed out the set. Our photographer, Greg, said, “I don’t really know the song but feel compelled to sing along.”

Smokey Brights brought their amazing energy and Boise responded, “We love it!”

 On your song, I Love You but Damn, I think, wasn’t it that song you mention Reno and then it also looks like you’re going to Reno soon..

Ryan: In less than a week we’ll be in Reno.

So, can I assume you kind of like Reno too?

Ryan and Kim: We do like Reno. (with laughs from Nick and Luke)

Ryan: Reno is like scrappy. I grew up in Seattle and Tacoma and like my friend that grew up in Tacoma with me, he’s always like, “Reno is just Tacoma with gambling.” And that is what it feels like to me. There’s kind of a blue collarness to it. Kind of a punk rock fuck it attitude, but it’s also like their working hard to make it cooland kind of a good hang place.

Kim: It’s like the dirtier, more scrappy version of Vegas.

Ryan: I want to hang out in Brooklyn, not Manhattan or Oakland and not San Francisco and I want to hang out in…

Kim and Ryan in unison: Reno and not Vegas.

 This is a great way to define Smokey Brights. Everyone’s band with an affinity for all the punks that have come and gone. Ryan’s punk past is alive in every show and strongly influences his amazing talents on the guitar.

If you are in Reno for the Offbeat Music Festival on Friday, October 1st, check them out at 7pm. Having once lived in Reno, they fit the place so well and will light it up. After watching much of the Freakout Records lineup on Sunday, I’m thinking that watching Smokey Brights and the rest of the bands on November 11 in Seattle could be amazing.

So, what have you guys mostly been up to during COVID?

Ryan: Writing.

Luke: Staying busy. Writing, Rehearsing. You couldn’t get in front of crowds but we could be with each other so we kept working looking forward to the time we could put on a good show.

 You’ll notice that most of the bands here have albums coming out. In fact, a couple came out this weekend. A lot of people, like, they wrote a lot during the pandemic but their whole tone was impacted by it. Esme Patterson last night, who is amazing, really had some songs that reflected a lot of loneliness and were written during the pandemic. How do you guys think it impacted your writing for the next album?

Kim: It definitely impacted our writing.

Ryan: For this record, which is not out yet… and I tease it too much because it could be another year but like, even when we’re not writing about the sensation of going through this diminished life, I feel like that tonality pokes through. We’ve got a song, it might be called, I’m Not Through this Yet. Kim sings it and like the first lines are “I’m not through this yet, can I learn to love this mess, can I reassemble myself from the parts that I have left”. And like, every time Kim sings that, that feels like the state that a lot of us are in right now.

 I really love the song 72. That is spectacular.

Kim: Thank you.

I also love, I Love You but Damn, was amazing and what was it, Save Us Sarah was spectacular.

Ryan: Right on! There’s three songs you can get into.

So, Unity…

Kim: That’s coming out in October.

So, tell me about that one.

Kim: So, Unity and Honey Eye are two songs we recorded. They are coming out October 29th. And they are two songs we recorded during I Love You but Damn, and they didn’t quite fit on that record but they fit really well together and so we just sort of held on to them and decided to release them this fall, which feels like a really good moment for them. They are really about kind of just working together and giving a shit. You Know. And the chorus of Honey Eye is “I wanna rock the world with you, before it splits in two, don’t know what else to do”. That’s kind of a thesis statement for, I feel like, doing anything right now intentionally. Who knows what the hell the future holds because as we have all seen with the traumatic events we have lived through the last 20 years, nothing’s guaranteed.  It’s been insane, all you can do is do as good as you can and be as intentional as you can and be as kind as you can and give a shit while there’s still shits to give.

  Smokey Brights are the embodiment of a band that gives a shit. You can sense the caring for each other and the cohesion of the group as a whole. Most importantly, they give a shit about their crowds and no show will ever be neglected, no crowd will ever leave less than completely fulfilled.

 I Love You but Damn, was obviously kind of your tour song.

Everyone: yeah, yeah

Like, did you guys all kind of write that together?

Ryan: I mean, Kim and I co-write lyrically everything to the point where when we get done with a record, it’d be very difficult to use a highlighter pen and say who did this one.

Kim: And the songs are definitely like, it’s the unit that makes the song a song and the arrangements and…

Nick: Production wise, we came into the studio not knowing what were going to play really besides the chordal structure.

Ryan: Well, we knew the cords and the melody.

Nick: Andy the producer kind of like plugged in a drum beat and said, “Okay, play to this”.

 So, was that right after tour because it kind of reflects that weariness and loneliness?

Ryan: I mean, that one is specifically, that one’s kind of coming from my point of view. It’s talking about the first couple months when Kim and I started dating. How many years ago? 13?

Kim: Yep

Ryan: 13 years ago. And I was touring in punk bands and I was on tour in a van 3 out of the first 6 months we were dating. You know. We would be on again, off again. I’d come back into town and things would be good and then go back on tour and we’d break up and it was just like, we are touring in an old junky Dodge van that would break down too. And just like coming to some realizations that I might be in love with this person I might need to treat myself better. I might need to think of my life in a different way.

That’s a big chunk of romantic love is recognizing that someone cares about you. You should probably keep yourself in okay condition too.

 I Love You but Damn closed out the Hideout set for Smokey Brights and closed out their Treefort. Watch the fans and you’ll see why they need to become a Treefort staple and Boise regulars.

   So you’ve been together since about ’13?

Kim: So we started… I guess the vague conception of Smokey Brights began about 2011, which was when we recorded a demo in our original bassist’s mom’s house in Olympia. We put out our first recorded a couple years later in 2014. I would say it was kind of 2016 when Luke joined the band and we just got really intentional that this is what we want to do. This is what we want to be when we grow up. And we want to tour and we want to play live and we made our minds up for that to happen.

I really feel like, you know, Smokey Brights has been a band in the sense we are now since 2016.

 Okay last question. Do you think that Seattle needs to bring back the Sonics?

Everyone: Yes!

Ryan: Bring our Sonics back!

 About the title: So why are Smokey Brights the only band in the building? Watch the crowd. When they are playing, that crowd might even think they are the only band in the world.

I loved meeting them, look forward to more shows, and couldn’t recommend catching this band more.

Look out for their two new songs, Unity and Honey Eye, on October 29th and a new album, umm well, sometime.

Thank you Smokey Brights for helping make Treefort the best festival anywhere.