An Empty Tank - 1
Title: An Empty Tank [1/3]
Author: RaeLouise
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Gerard/OMC, slight suggestion of Gerard/Frank
Disclaimer: I do not own, nor am I affiliated with, any of the real people involved in this story and this is work of fiction in it's entirety. Inspired by the Fabulous Killjoys. OMC's name taken from the car James Dean crashed [and subsequently died because of].
Warnings: Just some swearing in part 1, sexual scenes & violence coming in the next two.
Summary: It wasn’t that they couldn’t fight and win if they did come up from the noxious sunset, but they were on a low. Enthusiasm came in waves and breaks- they’d lose it for a day but have a fist around the rainbow the next.
A/N: First piece of My Chem fanfiction I've written since about 2006. Drawn back into fandom through my excitement about dustverse and the new album in general. I've been really inspired by some of the pieces I've been reading from within this new universe and I really don't think this compares to any of my favourites, but I'm giving it my best shot! Parts 2 and 3 to follow, so I hope someone enjoys this instalment enough to keep an eye out!
“Fuck!” Gerard grunted, dragging back a brittle handful of garish hair, scooping it from his eyes, though they still stung. Blurred, from the sweat; the scorching saline beading on his lashes, bleeding into his eyes. Once upon a time the salt might have been from tears of frustration, but no one wasted water on tears anymore. They lost enough of it in their sweat, dripping with it beneath the pummeling intensity of the deep desert sun. Their vehicles struggled with that too, under as much pressure as each kid battling for their colour splattered freedom.
That was why the Trans-am has stuttered and stilled, followed by a most disconcerting grinding- bone dry gears and the last toad-croak of a parched engine. Though it was nothing more dramatic than that. The fuel gage was lifeless too, but they all knew it had been slipping towards empty for days. The damn car had been running on more hope than it had gas: the combined effort of each Killjoy- Gerard up front, boot against the gas pedal even when the car grumbled and argued with the sand; Frank in the back with his window wide open, roaring curses and courage to the wind coloured dirty gold with dust; Mikey and Ray flanking the Trans-am on their bikes, like security. Ray had even burrowed his head beneath the bonnet of the damn thing, chewing his lip and searing and scarring his palms; knowing all that the car was whining for was precious gasoline but working with the wires anyway.
He appeared at the driver’s window as soon as he’d swerved and braked beside the dog dead car, helmet off and hair sodden. Had hopped off of his bike and rushed right across, through fresh plumes of sand, brought up by the falls of his thick rubber soles. He was shaking his head before he even opened his mouth though, running only to say- “There’s nothing I can do Gee, it’s beyond me now... I mean, it fucking needs gas. That’s all that’ll do it. Quench it’s thirst and it’ll be fucking milkshake!”
Before Ray had even finished, Gerard slammed his hands up against the steering wheel and as he smacked his palms to the dry cracked leather, Frank’s hand smacked up against his shoulder, a squeeze of reassurance, though Frank knew that it was futile. He couldn’t offer any other help. His face was half covered, to half hide his anxiety, behind his rubber mask, but at least he was close enough to touch. Mikey hadn’t even climbed from his bike; hadn’t headed to console his brother as he usually did. The blonde was eyeing the horizon instead, telling himself he was standing guard. Though he was being a yellow belly, no hero. He didn’t want to see his brother’s eyes, not with the car dead and the evening creeping up on them like Draculoids. With Draculoids. [It wasn’t that they couldn’t fight and win if they did come up from the noxious sunset, but they were on a low. Enthusiasm came in waves and breaks- they’d lose it for a day but have a fist around the rainbow the next].
“We can’t leave the fucker here!” Gerard shrieked eventually, more smoker’s cough rough than shrill. He knew that wasn’t an option. They’d lose half their fucking strength without the car- with it’s trunk for easy storage for their loot and it’s engine for easy speed- when it wasn’t spluttering and ghosting out on it’s self, at least. With it’s radio for the transmissions, for the music that went wailing through the car and through them, whipping up as much tail spin dust as the car it’s self, “We need a fucking miracle, my motor babies,” Gerard’s words were all sarcasm and venom, lip curling as he spat zone-runner jargon mirthlessly, “A shiny miracle and it will be milkshake as fuck!”
But where were they going to find gas here, now? They could siphon it from the bikes, maybe, but they were as valuable as flesh and bloody tissue, as the Trans-am it’s self, and they’d rather not to have to sacrifice any of their lifelines. Only if it came to that or each other, anyway. But it was going to be dark in two hours and they needed to be moving before then. They’d learned by now that it was best to run during the night, not hide. The Killjoys, all of the scavengers, the abstract army, knew to follow the stars, the pinpricks of them above the toxic smog, like some haphazard map; to wait to catch dregs of uneasy sleep when the sun was sharp the next morning. Always with one person to keep watch while the other’s shut their eyes and hoped to be swallowed by some ancient dream- a cold can of Sprite to brush over their foreheads; maybe an afternoon with friends in the comfiest plush chairs at Starbucks; a real bed for a slow fuck.
Gerard’s hand strayed from the steering wheel to curve over the gun in his thigh holster, but he wouldn’t ever let himself even imagine turning the damn thing on himself. Suicide was the shit the most useless of droids were programmed to do. Not Killjoys, not motor babies and crash queens in their neon patched leather, with their day dreams like artists pallets and their engines revving like pre-war heavy metal riffs. This was an interlude, they were nowhere near final curtains. All they needed was fuel but it was sometimes hard to drum up the effort. Gerard needed a cigarette too, and he could get himself one if he kissed the right Wave Head at their next intentional stop. Just a little further.
“Gasoline!” He said, with a new and definite conviction, almost with the taste of tobacco on his tongue to revive him, and just as Ray began to gingerly smile, before he could agree, a whole new hunk of hot metal hope arrived in the shape of a skidding car.
It looked like something belonging to Batman and it glided like a low flying vulture before screeching to a holt beside the snoozing Trans Am. The new car was alive with pre-war music so loud the sand shook, even as the clouds that it’s skidding had sent up settled again. A fresh gritty blanket over each vehicle, over Mikey and Ray, though they were far too dusty already to notice another silty layer. They should of heard it coming before it arrived, but they were too wrapped up in the stand-still their own journey had come to and so the driver slammed the heel of his hand up against his horn. It sounded like one of Battery City’s deafening bomb sirens and yet the boy inside of it managed to crow out even louder-
“Dust angels! Wake up! Why you fuckers sitting pretty? We caught latex on the wind less than a mile back- move fuckers move! Sole to the pedal- blur out like a lizard at a barbecue babies!”
The kid shrieking at them looked like fucking James Dean. Same pretty boy face, same quiffed up hair- though his was shot through with an electrifying streak of bubblegum pink. He had a cigarette tucked behind one ear, above a great mass of studs and tiny metal skulls; had a grin softer than you’d think, too. A real post-apocalypse rock-n-roller, flanked by two girls dressed up like the American dream [gone terribly wrong]. The Fourth of July and a nuclear explosion. Their six eyes, outlined in motor grease like kohl, first watched Gerard with a keen interest and then flittered across to Frank, who’d dived across the back seat to stick his head out of the window like a panting puppy.
“We’re out of gas!” He told them, shoving his mask to the side so that he could speak properly, “All our gas supplies fucking gone to zero and where we gonna get a measure out in the middle of this scavenger waste land?”
“Easy, simple as tugging the trigger of that ray gun in your thigh holster, my little artist,” Came neo-James Dean’s reply. His tongue brushed over his lower lip and his arm reached right across so that his thumb could brush across Frank’s cheek bone, “You hoppers found me.” His honest eyes were the same insane blue as the sky, “We got what you motor babies been craving like sugar pills, if you can pay. Flasks full of it, enough for us to have been supping when we’ve needed that diesel kick, you know?”
None of them did know, because fuck it, they just weren’t that stupid. They never pretended fuel was whiskey because it was better of powering an engine, but he had their attention and it was Ray who went around to check their trunk for offerings. They had at least ten bundles of wire; the spewed innards of a vintage television set and even a pair of size ten biker boots. They had some real good city certified electronics they’d won too, and ten books of fresh matches, but he wouldn’t be mentioning those. They were true pirate treasures. Copper wire would cover a tank of gasoline. If these guys were going to play fair, at least.
However, it seemed that the painfully vivid James Dean had no interest in whatever Ray was rooting through. His gaze had slid right back to Gerard, the cherry stain of his hair drawing him as though as he was a moth and Gerard was a sulphuric match flame. Everyone got real hungry these days.
“You!” He called, demanding Gerard’s attention, and to Frank’s surprise, Gerard complied.
He turned his head to fix the salesman with a vaguely interested stare- “Hmmm?”
“Fancy taking a little walk?”
Gerard worked the question over for a moment and then shrugged his leather clad shoulders and gave a short sharp nod, climbing out from his precious car- taking the keys with him. He looked over the pink haired boy once again, weighing him up [he was pretty sure he was too fluid to be a droid so that was a good start] and then tossed the keys at Mikey. The bleach blonde caught them in one skilled hand, knowing that to his big brother, he always counted as second in command. Frank, with his mask askew and his eyes flying saucer wide, wanted to tell Gerard that he didn’t have to, that he’d go if need be, but Gerard had already rounded the front of the Trans-am to meet face to face with the stranger.
“Spyder, also known as Little Bastard,” James Dean told Gerard as their glove-clad hands met to shake and he let the door of his own black car slam behind him. His female companions giggled like they were in on some secret and then reached for the radio dial- twisting the volume up from eight to nine to ten.
The speeding pre-war punk was like a bolt of adrenaline for the hot blood crawling through Gerard’s veins. He recognized it, of course, as the Misfits and, thought to himself, that with his eye sockets smeared in oil, Spyder looked gaunt as a skull. His eyes, however, were reassuringly alive. They weren’t glazed up like the usual Wave Heads they met at deep desert dance clubs, fucked off delicious contraband. Spyder was entirely in control of his own anarchy and Gerard liked that. Gerard felt that too [when the fucking Trans-am was running on more than empty, anyway] and he couldn’t help but give Spyder a sly, slanted smirk.
next
Author: RaeLouise
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Gerard/OMC, slight suggestion of Gerard/Frank
Disclaimer: I do not own, nor am I affiliated with, any of the real people involved in this story and this is work of fiction in it's entirety. Inspired by the Fabulous Killjoys. OMC's name taken from the car James Dean crashed [and subsequently died because of].
Warnings: Just some swearing in part 1, sexual scenes & violence coming in the next two.
Summary: It wasn’t that they couldn’t fight and win if they did come up from the noxious sunset, but they were on a low. Enthusiasm came in waves and breaks- they’d lose it for a day but have a fist around the rainbow the next.
A/N: First piece of My Chem fanfiction I've written since about 2006. Drawn back into fandom through my excitement about dustverse and the new album in general. I've been really inspired by some of the pieces I've been reading from within this new universe and I really don't think this compares to any of my favourites, but I'm giving it my best shot! Parts 2 and 3 to follow, so I hope someone enjoys this instalment enough to keep an eye out!
“Fuck!” Gerard grunted, dragging back a brittle handful of garish hair, scooping it from his eyes, though they still stung. Blurred, from the sweat; the scorching saline beading on his lashes, bleeding into his eyes. Once upon a time the salt might have been from tears of frustration, but no one wasted water on tears anymore. They lost enough of it in their sweat, dripping with it beneath the pummeling intensity of the deep desert sun. Their vehicles struggled with that too, under as much pressure as each kid battling for their colour splattered freedom.
That was why the Trans-am has stuttered and stilled, followed by a most disconcerting grinding- bone dry gears and the last toad-croak of a parched engine. Though it was nothing more dramatic than that. The fuel gage was lifeless too, but they all knew it had been slipping towards empty for days. The damn car had been running on more hope than it had gas: the combined effort of each Killjoy- Gerard up front, boot against the gas pedal even when the car grumbled and argued with the sand; Frank in the back with his window wide open, roaring curses and courage to the wind coloured dirty gold with dust; Mikey and Ray flanking the Trans-am on their bikes, like security. Ray had even burrowed his head beneath the bonnet of the damn thing, chewing his lip and searing and scarring his palms; knowing all that the car was whining for was precious gasoline but working with the wires anyway.
He appeared at the driver’s window as soon as he’d swerved and braked beside the dog dead car, helmet off and hair sodden. Had hopped off of his bike and rushed right across, through fresh plumes of sand, brought up by the falls of his thick rubber soles. He was shaking his head before he even opened his mouth though, running only to say- “There’s nothing I can do Gee, it’s beyond me now... I mean, it fucking needs gas. That’s all that’ll do it. Quench it’s thirst and it’ll be fucking milkshake!”
Before Ray had even finished, Gerard slammed his hands up against the steering wheel and as he smacked his palms to the dry cracked leather, Frank’s hand smacked up against his shoulder, a squeeze of reassurance, though Frank knew that it was futile. He couldn’t offer any other help. His face was half covered, to half hide his anxiety, behind his rubber mask, but at least he was close enough to touch. Mikey hadn’t even climbed from his bike; hadn’t headed to console his brother as he usually did. The blonde was eyeing the horizon instead, telling himself he was standing guard. Though he was being a yellow belly, no hero. He didn’t want to see his brother’s eyes, not with the car dead and the evening creeping up on them like Draculoids. With Draculoids. [It wasn’t that they couldn’t fight and win if they did come up from the noxious sunset, but they were on a low. Enthusiasm came in waves and breaks- they’d lose it for a day but have a fist around the rainbow the next].
“We can’t leave the fucker here!” Gerard shrieked eventually, more smoker’s cough rough than shrill. He knew that wasn’t an option. They’d lose half their fucking strength without the car- with it’s trunk for easy storage for their loot and it’s engine for easy speed- when it wasn’t spluttering and ghosting out on it’s self, at least. With it’s radio for the transmissions, for the music that went wailing through the car and through them, whipping up as much tail spin dust as the car it’s self, “We need a fucking miracle, my motor babies,” Gerard’s words were all sarcasm and venom, lip curling as he spat zone-runner jargon mirthlessly, “A shiny miracle and it will be milkshake as fuck!”
But where were they going to find gas here, now? They could siphon it from the bikes, maybe, but they were as valuable as flesh and bloody tissue, as the Trans-am it’s self, and they’d rather not to have to sacrifice any of their lifelines. Only if it came to that or each other, anyway. But it was going to be dark in two hours and they needed to be moving before then. They’d learned by now that it was best to run during the night, not hide. The Killjoys, all of the scavengers, the abstract army, knew to follow the stars, the pinpricks of them above the toxic smog, like some haphazard map; to wait to catch dregs of uneasy sleep when the sun was sharp the next morning. Always with one person to keep watch while the other’s shut their eyes and hoped to be swallowed by some ancient dream- a cold can of Sprite to brush over their foreheads; maybe an afternoon with friends in the comfiest plush chairs at Starbucks; a real bed for a slow fuck.
Gerard’s hand strayed from the steering wheel to curve over the gun in his thigh holster, but he wouldn’t ever let himself even imagine turning the damn thing on himself. Suicide was the shit the most useless of droids were programmed to do. Not Killjoys, not motor babies and crash queens in their neon patched leather, with their day dreams like artists pallets and their engines revving like pre-war heavy metal riffs. This was an interlude, they were nowhere near final curtains. All they needed was fuel but it was sometimes hard to drum up the effort. Gerard needed a cigarette too, and he could get himself one if he kissed the right Wave Head at their next intentional stop. Just a little further.
“Gasoline!” He said, with a new and definite conviction, almost with the taste of tobacco on his tongue to revive him, and just as Ray began to gingerly smile, before he could agree, a whole new hunk of hot metal hope arrived in the shape of a skidding car.
It looked like something belonging to Batman and it glided like a low flying vulture before screeching to a holt beside the snoozing Trans Am. The new car was alive with pre-war music so loud the sand shook, even as the clouds that it’s skidding had sent up settled again. A fresh gritty blanket over each vehicle, over Mikey and Ray, though they were far too dusty already to notice another silty layer. They should of heard it coming before it arrived, but they were too wrapped up in the stand-still their own journey had come to and so the driver slammed the heel of his hand up against his horn. It sounded like one of Battery City’s deafening bomb sirens and yet the boy inside of it managed to crow out even louder-
“Dust angels! Wake up! Why you fuckers sitting pretty? We caught latex on the wind less than a mile back- move fuckers move! Sole to the pedal- blur out like a lizard at a barbecue babies!”
The kid shrieking at them looked like fucking James Dean. Same pretty boy face, same quiffed up hair- though his was shot through with an electrifying streak of bubblegum pink. He had a cigarette tucked behind one ear, above a great mass of studs and tiny metal skulls; had a grin softer than you’d think, too. A real post-apocalypse rock-n-roller, flanked by two girls dressed up like the American dream [gone terribly wrong]. The Fourth of July and a nuclear explosion. Their six eyes, outlined in motor grease like kohl, first watched Gerard with a keen interest and then flittered across to Frank, who’d dived across the back seat to stick his head out of the window like a panting puppy.
“We’re out of gas!” He told them, shoving his mask to the side so that he could speak properly, “All our gas supplies fucking gone to zero and where we gonna get a measure out in the middle of this scavenger waste land?”
“Easy, simple as tugging the trigger of that ray gun in your thigh holster, my little artist,” Came neo-James Dean’s reply. His tongue brushed over his lower lip and his arm reached right across so that his thumb could brush across Frank’s cheek bone, “You hoppers found me.” His honest eyes were the same insane blue as the sky, “We got what you motor babies been craving like sugar pills, if you can pay. Flasks full of it, enough for us to have been supping when we’ve needed that diesel kick, you know?”
None of them did know, because fuck it, they just weren’t that stupid. They never pretended fuel was whiskey because it was better of powering an engine, but he had their attention and it was Ray who went around to check their trunk for offerings. They had at least ten bundles of wire; the spewed innards of a vintage television set and even a pair of size ten biker boots. They had some real good city certified electronics they’d won too, and ten books of fresh matches, but he wouldn’t be mentioning those. They were true pirate treasures. Copper wire would cover a tank of gasoline. If these guys were going to play fair, at least.
However, it seemed that the painfully vivid James Dean had no interest in whatever Ray was rooting through. His gaze had slid right back to Gerard, the cherry stain of his hair drawing him as though as he was a moth and Gerard was a sulphuric match flame. Everyone got real hungry these days.
“You!” He called, demanding Gerard’s attention, and to Frank’s surprise, Gerard complied.
He turned his head to fix the salesman with a vaguely interested stare- “Hmmm?”
“Fancy taking a little walk?”
Gerard worked the question over for a moment and then shrugged his leather clad shoulders and gave a short sharp nod, climbing out from his precious car- taking the keys with him. He looked over the pink haired boy once again, weighing him up [he was pretty sure he was too fluid to be a droid so that was a good start] and then tossed the keys at Mikey. The bleach blonde caught them in one skilled hand, knowing that to his big brother, he always counted as second in command. Frank, with his mask askew and his eyes flying saucer wide, wanted to tell Gerard that he didn’t have to, that he’d go if need be, but Gerard had already rounded the front of the Trans-am to meet face to face with the stranger.
“Spyder, also known as Little Bastard,” James Dean told Gerard as their glove-clad hands met to shake and he let the door of his own black car slam behind him. His female companions giggled like they were in on some secret and then reached for the radio dial- twisting the volume up from eight to nine to ten.
The speeding pre-war punk was like a bolt of adrenaline for the hot blood crawling through Gerard’s veins. He recognized it, of course, as the Misfits and, thought to himself, that with his eye sockets smeared in oil, Spyder looked gaunt as a skull. His eyes, however, were reassuringly alive. They weren’t glazed up like the usual Wave Heads they met at deep desert dance clubs, fucked off delicious contraband. Spyder was entirely in control of his own anarchy and Gerard liked that. Gerard felt that too [when the fucking Trans-am was running on more than empty, anyway] and he couldn’t help but give Spyder a sly, slanted smirk.
next