TS: Gerard, after Japan
The Traveling Show Master Post is located here.
This section happens directly after Bob's snip here .
This requires the 'rough like sandpaper' disclaimer. Oh, and there's more to this. Just so you know.
~~~~
Gerard's stopped being able to sleep at night. All light- any light at all- keeps him awake. The steady flicker of spaced lights on the highway is the worst; the diffuse halogens feel like they are wrapping around his eyelids, peeling his eyes open. The thing is Gerard's never really liked sleeping at night - darkness is comforting and soothing, of course, but it means far more than that to him. There so much to do at night, so much prompting him. His brain falls open when the sun vanishes and countless creatures climb out, half-tangible limbs, half seen in thick shadows, reach out and bring inspiration with each gestural twitch. The night is kinder to muses - or at least kinder to his muses. Gerard can't run the risk of missing their conversations. Especially now, when everything is so fucking askew. He'd happily sleep through the day, if he was allowed. Gerard's dreams quiet then; it's almost as if the sunlight intimidates them. He can feel warmth, through steel and glass and bunk curtain... even through blankets, musty shirts, a pillow piled up over his face. Gerard can manufacture darkness, conjure up its comfort, but he can't ever seem to lose his awareness of the sun.
Caught up in bus-quiet and the keen edge of morning, Gerard sighs. He's thrust too quickly out of the lull of wheel against asphalt. The heavy breath of sleeping band mates has never held him close to earth, as he needs.
When he falls into sleep, his dreams are vivid, more sharp-edged and saturated with color than ever before. Gee wishes they were less so, since he's dreaming fragments of violence and illness, the same things over and over again. These dreams feel too real to be anything but memories... but the contents are too outrageous to be anything but dreams. Blood and fangs and hands too strong, holding him close. The thick cloying taste of herbs bitter green on his tongue. Salt tracks tired and dry, vomit stench thick in his sinuses. Gerard's brain is scrambled but good, and he doesn't know what to do about it. He's afraid he waited too long to get clean.
If he'd been caught in this loop of pain and blood before, he'd have retreated to the bottle for solace. That's not a fucking option anymore. But Gerard doesn't know what to do. He doesn't feel like he's going crazy - Gerard just feels like the world's off-kelter, more raw and full of rubbed-thin spots that he remembers. His dreams just widen the battered expanses -in him and in the air.
Each day is about penance, about trying to hold onto his control and the promises he made - to Mikey and Brian and Frank, to Ray, but mostly to himself. Gerard's decided his promises require silence, since that no longer comes easily to him. He's pretty sure it did, in the past.
This is not what Gerard thought it would be like to get sober.
~~~
He sees the first one of them outside, after the video shoot.
It had grown dark and Gerard had been too fucking drained to do anything but lean against the doorway, smoke winding around his fingers, stinging his eyes, as he waited for the rest of his band to find him. He's started to find a tentative comfort in smoke. It skirts the line between hazard and familiar. That thought had slipped like quicksilver through his brain as he'd stood under the set's shower, letting the water pressure batter the fake blood out of his hair. It's not new, exactly, but there's a novelty to the duality that intrigues him. Gerard's been chain-smoking and digging for understanding since the school's doors has fallen shut behind him.
Half a pack down and he hasn't figured anything out.
Gerard fishes out his eleventh cigarette and does not look over his shoulder for Mikey.
When the lighter flares up, he catches a flicker of movement off to his left. Gerard squints - his night vision is fucked up by the light at his back, but he can make out a tall figure in a dark coat. Smoke and breath rasp free as he registers the pale smear of skin, the matched dusk of dark hair.
That coat has to be really fucking hot in this weather. Gerard thinks as he stares. He knows he's being watched in turn, can feel the eyes on him. There's a clatter of noise behind him. Voices echo down the stairwell and are distorted by distance and the doorway's glass. Gerard glances up over his shoulder, looking for Frank. He knows that giggle like he knows the shutter-thump and skip of his own heart. When he looks back, the figure has vanished.
~~~
He doesn't see them all the time, definitely not every night. But there's a crawling itch that settles low and presses against his spine once night descends. Sometimes all he sees is the flip of a coat disappearing around the back of a bus, or a shadow that seems too dark, one that the crowds walk around without any awareness of their detour.
Then there are other nights, when he's leaning against the bus' warmed steel skin, doing his best to find personal stability in the metal. On those nights they stand down in the gap between his bus and that night's neighbor, not hidden at all. The faint light sharpens the darkness of their coats. Gerard smokes, watching them watch him. He can't figure out why. Why him? Why now? He smokes and tries to find the courage to approach them and get some fucking answers. They always disappear before he can find the words. He can still feels their eyes, even after they fade from sight.
This section happens directly after Bob's snip here .
This requires the 'rough like sandpaper' disclaimer. Oh, and there's more to this. Just so you know.
~~~~
Gerard's stopped being able to sleep at night. All light- any light at all- keeps him awake. The steady flicker of spaced lights on the highway is the worst; the diffuse halogens feel like they are wrapping around his eyelids, peeling his eyes open. The thing is Gerard's never really liked sleeping at night - darkness is comforting and soothing, of course, but it means far more than that to him. There so much to do at night, so much prompting him. His brain falls open when the sun vanishes and countless creatures climb out, half-tangible limbs, half seen in thick shadows, reach out and bring inspiration with each gestural twitch. The night is kinder to muses - or at least kinder to his muses. Gerard can't run the risk of missing their conversations. Especially now, when everything is so fucking askew. He'd happily sleep through the day, if he was allowed. Gerard's dreams quiet then; it's almost as if the sunlight intimidates them. He can feel warmth, through steel and glass and bunk curtain... even through blankets, musty shirts, a pillow piled up over his face. Gerard can manufacture darkness, conjure up its comfort, but he can't ever seem to lose his awareness of the sun.
Caught up in bus-quiet and the keen edge of morning, Gerard sighs. He's thrust too quickly out of the lull of wheel against asphalt. The heavy breath of sleeping band mates has never held him close to earth, as he needs.
When he falls into sleep, his dreams are vivid, more sharp-edged and saturated with color than ever before. Gee wishes they were less so, since he's dreaming fragments of violence and illness, the same things over and over again. These dreams feel too real to be anything but memories... but the contents are too outrageous to be anything but dreams. Blood and fangs and hands too strong, holding him close. The thick cloying taste of herbs bitter green on his tongue. Salt tracks tired and dry, vomit stench thick in his sinuses. Gerard's brain is scrambled but good, and he doesn't know what to do about it. He's afraid he waited too long to get clean.
If he'd been caught in this loop of pain and blood before, he'd have retreated to the bottle for solace. That's not a fucking option anymore. But Gerard doesn't know what to do. He doesn't feel like he's going crazy - Gerard just feels like the world's off-kelter, more raw and full of rubbed-thin spots that he remembers. His dreams just widen the battered expanses -in him and in the air.
Each day is about penance, about trying to hold onto his control and the promises he made - to Mikey and Brian and Frank, to Ray, but mostly to himself. Gerard's decided his promises require silence, since that no longer comes easily to him. He's pretty sure it did, in the past.
This is not what Gerard thought it would be like to get sober.
~~~
He sees the first one of them outside, after the video shoot.
It had grown dark and Gerard had been too fucking drained to do anything but lean against the doorway, smoke winding around his fingers, stinging his eyes, as he waited for the rest of his band to find him. He's started to find a tentative comfort in smoke. It skirts the line between hazard and familiar. That thought had slipped like quicksilver through his brain as he'd stood under the set's shower, letting the water pressure batter the fake blood out of his hair. It's not new, exactly, but there's a novelty to the duality that intrigues him. Gerard's been chain-smoking and digging for understanding since the school's doors has fallen shut behind him.
Half a pack down and he hasn't figured anything out.
Gerard fishes out his eleventh cigarette and does not look over his shoulder for Mikey.
When the lighter flares up, he catches a flicker of movement off to his left. Gerard squints - his night vision is fucked up by the light at his back, but he can make out a tall figure in a dark coat. Smoke and breath rasp free as he registers the pale smear of skin, the matched dusk of dark hair.
That coat has to be really fucking hot in this weather. Gerard thinks as he stares. He knows he's being watched in turn, can feel the eyes on him. There's a clatter of noise behind him. Voices echo down the stairwell and are distorted by distance and the doorway's glass. Gerard glances up over his shoulder, looking for Frank. He knows that giggle like he knows the shutter-thump and skip of his own heart. When he looks back, the figure has vanished.
~~~
He doesn't see them all the time, definitely not every night. But there's a crawling itch that settles low and presses against his spine once night descends. Sometimes all he sees is the flip of a coat disappearing around the back of a bus, or a shadow that seems too dark, one that the crowds walk around without any awareness of their detour.
Then there are other nights, when he's leaning against the bus' warmed steel skin, doing his best to find personal stability in the metal. On those nights they stand down in the gap between his bus and that night's neighbor, not hidden at all. The faint light sharpens the darkness of their coats. Gerard smokes, watching them watch him. He can't figure out why. Why him? Why now? He smokes and tries to find the courage to approach them and get some fucking answers. They always disappear before he can find the words. He can still feels their eyes, even after they fade from sight.