fic: In The Walls (7/8)

[thesamefire]

 
Headers & Main Post - Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five - Part Six - Part Seven - Part Eight - Bonus Content



There's half a pot of coffee waiting for Gerard when he gets into the kitchen, but there's nobody else in the room. There's a strange light to the room; the sunlight coming in through the curtains is muted, like it's had to fight its way through a layer of cloud cover before it got to the window. It's almost unsettling, Gerard thinks.

He pours himself a cup and drinks it before even thinking about what it could mean, and then pours himself a second and takes it to the table. He thinks about grabbing a bowl of cereal, too, but he's not really hungry. He sits and sips anxiously at his coffee. He's really glad they're finally getting back to work, but he's trying not to get too worked up and risk setting himself up for disappointment. First days back are always rough no matter how well-intentioned they are and no matter what they were doing before, so he knows he shouldn't be expecting great things even though he's secretly hoping for a miracle. It's hard, though. He feels like they deserve a miracle after all the shit they've been through in this house.

He's on his third cup of coffee when he hears it, faint but there: somebody is already in the ballroom playing-it's a guitar, so it's Frank or Ray. Whoever it was must have put the coffee on and then gone straight for the music without waiting for anyone else. Gerard doesn't recognize the song, either, so it's either something new or something obscure, and either way he's excited to go listen. It's exciting to hear music again, plain and simple, and he doesn't want to wait if he doesn't have to.

When he gets to the ballroom he sees right away that it's Frank playing, sitting on an over-embellished antique chair with an acoustic cradled to his chest. His back is to the door and Gerard doesn't want to interrupt so he creeps forward as quietly as he can, still listening intently to Frank pulling music from the instrument. Gerard pauses when the music stops, and his breath catches in his throat. The sudden silence shouldn't strike him as so sinister, but it does. He lets out a relieved breath when Frank starts playing again, this time in a different key.

Now that Gerard can hear it more clearly he can tell that Frank is clearly improvising, running scales and progressions in different rhythms like he's blindly feeling his way towards something, one test run at a time. The sound fills the room, plain and unamplified except for the room's natural acoustics. Gerard stops to lean against one of the random cast-concrete statues standing in the middle of the room to watch and listen from a bit of a distance.

Frank starts tapping his foot and the music changes from simple scales to something more melodic. Gerard can see Frank's hand on the guitar's neck, moving chords down the frets with a bit of swing, some syncopation. It doesn't sound like anything they've ever played together, style-wise. It sounds older than that, really old, almost a call back to the first half of the last century. Frank pauses for a second and then the music switches abruptly into a more minor sound. Gerard likes it more the new way, and he finds himself nodding along in time. He doesn't know if Frank is writing or if he's simply playing for himself, but if it's the latter, Gerard is ready to lean on him to share with the class-it's that good.

Frank plays the same riff for a couple minutes before he starts veering off, moving into a progression Gerard thinks might be intended as a chorus. It's a little off and Gerard can tell that Frank knows it-every time he plays it through it's a little different as he tries out different options.

Eventually Frank stops playing after another run-through of the maybe-chorus, putting his hands over the strings to stop the notes from ringing. He clears his throat and says, "You can stop lurking, Gerard."

"Sorry," Gerard says, a bit abashed, as he steps away from the statue. "I didn't want to interrupt."

"You wouldn't have been," Frank waves it off. "But you just standing there was kinda giving me the creeps."

"Sorry," Gerard says again. "It was nice to listen, though." He drags another chair across the floor and sets it facing Frank, then sits down. "What are you working on?"

"Nothing in particular," Frank shrugs. "Just playing."

"Why the acoustic?" Gerard asks.

"Changing things up," Frank says glibly, but Gerard doesn't miss the sidelong glance Frank shoots at the guitar he was using when everything blew up in their faces days ago. It's still in its stand and getting a little dusty. "It sounds different so it helps me think different, you know?"

Gerard nods. He knows the feeling. "Is it working?"

"Dunno, you tell me," Frank says.

"I really liked what you were playing," Gerard tells him.

Frank's eyebrows go up. "Yeah?"

"What, was I not supposed to?"

"No- I mean, yes, I don't know, I was trying to come up with something my dad would be really into. I don't know if it's really anything for us."

"I want to use it," Gerard tells him. "Or at least try. It can't hurt, right? I mean, it's something to do today, and it doesn't need to end up being anything if we're just playing..." He trails off. Frank still looks unconvinced.

"Did I hear you playing?"

Gerard and Frank look up in unison as they hear Ray's voice from across the ballroom. Bob is a couple steps behind him.

"Yeah," Frank says.

"Told you," Bob says to Ray.

"I liked it," Ray says. "You going to play it again for us?"

Gerard shoots a pointed look at Frank that more or less amounts to I told you so.

"Fine," Frank says. "I think you guys are nuts, but why the hell not, hey?" He readjusts the guitar across his knees and takes a slow breath, then starts into the riff Gerard had heard from the kitchen. He plays through it a few times, then moves into the maybe-chorus, playing the last variation he'd come up with before he stopped playing. He goes back to the first verse riff from there.

"Hmm." Ray says thoughtfully. Gerard looks over in time to see Ray fretting chord shapes in mid-air with his left hand, nodding along in time with Frank's playing. He only drops his head when Frank stops playing. "Yeah, I really like this," Ray says. "I don't know why you don't."

"I never said I don't," Frank says, maybe a little too defensively for what sounded like a simple observation on Ray's part. "I just didn't think it was really for us. Too different or whatever."

"Looks like you've been outvoted," Bob says dryly. "Better luck next time."

Frank unsuccessfully tries to hide his snicker at that, and if the look on Bob's face isn't quite a smile, it's still pretty close.

Ray lifts his guitar from its stand and settles it around his shoulders, then turns on his amp and tweaks a few knobs. Gerard expects him to try to brush the dust off from where it's been collecting, and when he doesn't, Gerard looks more closely and realizes that the dust has already been cleaned off. Has Ray been playing by himself? Gerard wonders. He must have been.

Frank plays through the song again as Ray watches closely, and soon enough Ray is playing along with him, but quietly so as not to drown out the acoustic.

At first Ray follows Frank's lead, playing the same chords in time, but soon enough he starts breaking off into a second part. It's not long before he's got something fleshed out and full of promise, his fingers practically pulling harmonies out of thin air.

"Something like that?" Ray asks seriously when Frank stops playing.

"Yeah," Frank agrees, his eyes full of light. "Let's run through that again, and maybe figure out a bridge? I think it needs one."

"Sure," Ray says.

They play through it again, and this time, Bob starts tapping out accompanying rhythms on a practice pad he pulls out of a nearby bag. Gerard's not sure exactly what changes they're making as they play but the song sounds better already.

"That was better," Ray declares when they finish.

"Yeah," Frank nods, satisfied, and then says, "Let me get an electric and we'll do that again." He puts the acoustic back into its case and lifts his white Les Paul out of its stand. He looks like he wants to take the time to carefully brush all the accumulated dust out of the lines of the body and the crevices of the pickups, but instead he slings its strap over a shoulder and plugs it in.

Gerard watches him carefully as he walks back, and he's sure he's not imagining it-Frank is definitely limping, favouring his right foot.

"Are you okay?" Gerard asks him. He can't not, even though Ray and Bob look at him funny for it.

"Yeah," Frank shrugs, and then shifts his weight onto his right foot like he's deliberately trying to hide his injury. "I mean, I still wish we could leave, but I'm okay."

"What do you mean, we can't leave the house? Did we sign a contract or something?" Ray looks really perplexed.

Frank shakes his head grimly. "Not quite. Have you thought about leaving the property in the last couple weeks?"

"Sure," Ray says. "I keep thinking I should go for a jog and explore the neighbourhood, get some fresh air."

"Have you done it yet?" Frank asks.

Ray blinks, looking startled. "I haven't, actually."

"Why not?"

Ray gives Frank a confused look. "Huh?"

"Why haven't you gone for a jog yet?" Frank presses.

"Dunno," Ray shrugs. "I guess I keep getting distracted."

"Have you ever walked right up to the gate, all ready to go, and then changed your mind and gone back inside?"

Ray's eyes go wide. "I- How did you know?"

"Lucky guess," Frank says dryly. "Also, the same thing happened to everyone else at some point too."

"Really?" Ray looks to Bob, then Gerard, like he's not quite ready to believe Frank alone.

"Yeah," Bob says.

"We're not going anywhere in a hurry," Gerard says gently.

"Well, shit." Ray practically deflates. He looks torn for a moment, and then he puts down his guitar and walks off across the room. They all watch him go, and then Frank shrugs and turns back to his guitar.

To Gerard's relief Ray doesn't actually leave; he just skirts along the edges, staring down at the floor, clearly lost in thought. Gerard bites his lip and doesn't say anything, even though he wants to call out to Ray and tell him that it's okay, they'll all figure it out together. He's not surprised that Ray needs some space to process-it's not the most pleasant of revelations, especially not when it comes right on the heels of what had happened to Ray yesterday.

He turns back to watch Frank and Bob while they wait Ray out. Frank's not making any pretense of working on the song in Ray's absence; he's noodling around the fretboard as Bob gives him a series of beats in shifting tempos and time signatures. Frank shakes his head as he tries to keep up with Bob, and it turns into a total unmusical mess really quickly. It looks like they're having fun, though, so Gerard is happy to watch.

It's in a quiet lull in Frank and Bob's playing that Gerard hears Ray's shocked gasp of "Holy shit!", even from across the room.

"What?" Gerard yells back, twisting around in his chair to see what's going on.

"It's her!"

"What's who?" Gerard squints at Ray to see what he's waving his hand at. He can't quite see who it is at this distance, and Ray's standing in the middle of a bunch of stuff so it's not clear what exactly he's pointing at.

"The woman, the ghost- I saw her, in the room."

What Gerard can see, even at the distance, is how pale Ray's gotten all of a sudden, and there's no mistaking the edge in his voice. He's unsettled, obviously so, and Gerard still can't tell what it is.

And then Ray moves, and Gerard sees what's on the wall behind him. When he realizes what it is, it's like all the air's been sucked out of his lungs.

Ray is pointing at the painting of Daisy Canfield.

Gerard gets to his feet, then, and crosses the room quickly to stand next to Ray. "Are you sure?" he asks at a normal volume. He's glad to not be yelling anymore.

"As much as I can be," Ray says, not taking his eyes off the painting. "It looks like her. She's striking, you know?" He waves his hand at the painting. "Something about her eyes, I think."

"She is," Gerard agrees. Last time he'd looked at the painting he'd gotten a real sense that it-she, whatever-was watching him, but he's not feeling it this time. Right now it's just paint on canvas, as soulless and unmoving as all the furniture around them.

"Do you know who she is?" Ray asks.

"Yeah, Mikey told me." The words come out before Gerard really realizes what he's saying. "She used to live here-she and her husband had the place built-and she's buried in the back yard." He thinks Mikey told him something else about her, too, but he can't quite remember what it is.

But from the wide-eyed look on Ray's face, it seems he's said enough anyway. "Oh," he says faintly. "So it probably really was her."

"I guess," Gerard shrugs.

Ray stares at the painting for a little while longer before he finally turns away, and Gerard follows close behind as he walks back to where Frank and Bob are still playing. "Sorry for walking off like that," Ray says.

"It's okay," Frank assures him.

"Yeah, we're cool," Bob says.

"You good to play some more?" Gerard asks. He's mostly addressing Ray but he figures it goes for all of them.

"What else are we going to do, if we're stuck in here?" Ray jokes. The words could be harsh but he sounds like he's trying to make the best of it, at least for the moment, and that's a feeling it looks like they're all ready to get behind.

So they play, because it's the best-and only-thing they can do for themselves anymore. There's nothing for Gerard to do yet, not with a song so new he hasn't even had a chance to write the lyrics, so he sits and watches Frank and Ray and Bob, tapping his fingers on his knees in time with the song's swing. They're building the song up from Frank's riff faster than Gerard would have thought possible after their crushing failures not a week earlier, and it's really fucking amazing to watch.

Frank turns, then, to look over at Gerard and shoot him a real, honest-to-god grin. It takes Gerard completely by surprise to see it. The fact that Frank can still smile even after what happened last night, the day before, everything in the days and weeks since they've been in this house-that's enough for Gerard. They're making music and they'll make it out. He has to believe it.

Gerard watches them play, watches them lean in close together to talk about alternate chord progressions and how to handle the counter-melody in the chorus, watches the way Frank tries to avoid putting any weight on his right leg, and he gets a kernel of an idea for the lyrics. He latches onto it right away even though the idea scares him-it's not like he hasn't brought Hell into their songs before, but it's never been like this. It's huge, it's spot-on, and it's more than a little terrifying. But it's an image, a phrase he can't shake: a house of wolves.

It stands for a lot of things, all of them all at once, and he thinks it could be perfect. He can practically hear it in his head already, and the words are right at the tip of his tongue. He knows where the song is going to go and the clarity of the vision is startling, what with how it's coming hot on the heels of all the trouble they've been having.

He reaches for the notebook he's been keeping by the practice set-up and yanks the cap off of his pen so hard it flies out of his hand, but he ignores it as he starts scribbling furiously to get the words onto the page before they dissipate into the ether to join every other good idea he's ever had and lost. It's practically the blink of an eye before half the page is covered in scratchy blue scrawl, and he just lets go and writes, letting it all pour out onto the page.

As he writes, the music swells around him like he's in a fucking movie or something. And even though he can't quite convince himself that everything is going to be okay, he can't help but think that they stand a good fucking chance together.

* * *

Gerard gasps and chokes as he jolts awake. It feels like there are hands on his throat, pressing, crushing, and he can't breathe, can't get any air in.

There's fire everywhere. Flames crackling and roaring around him, licking up at him, powerful and hot against his legs.
He struggles against it, his hands coming up instinctively to grab at his throat, feeling desperately for anything that might be there, whatever it is that's cutting off his air, stopping his breathing. He has to find it, has to get it off.

Smoke is stinging at his eyes and he blinks it away, trying to get a clearer view of his surroundings. He's somewhere in the Paramour, he just knows it. The room is full of furniture and books, but he can't see any windows and he can't find a door.
He trembles and shakes, his whole body going rigid before he breaks through and starts thrashing around blindly in his bed, tangling the sheets up in his legs. He can feel hands on his skin, distinct fingers pressing into his throat, crushing his windpipe, squeezing the last of his breath right out of him.

The air in his lungs is searingly hot and there's nowhere near enough of it.  He tries to cough the smoke out of his body but he sputters and gags and ends up sucking more in.
He wants to fight against this with everything he's got, every cell and molecule of his entire being, but there's nothing to fight against and the terror of the realization is almost enough to make him give up.

The jumbled piles of antiques around him are quickly turning into char and ash. He pushes through the thick smoke, looking for some way out, anything. All he finds is a full-length mirror.
He's light-headed and faint, falling back into a foggy stupor almost as quickly as he came out of it, but it's not sleep now, no, it's not the same at all, and he fixes his eyes on the ceiling and starts praying because he doesn't know what else to do.

The figure staring back at him is frail and gaunt, dressed in a simple white hospital gown. He's holding a box of matches.
His vision is getting dim around the edges, so quickly and suddenly it's black in the corners, and it's creeping in fast, too fast, and he still can't breathe-

As he watches, captivated and helpless, the spit of fire around him jumps over to the box in his hand.
He wonders if this is what dying is, how it feels. He wonders where his white light is and why his life isn't flashing before his eyes.

He burns.
And then, just like that, the pressure is gone and the pain in his chest takes on a new, hotter quality as he sucks in greedy lungfuls of air, gasping and shivering and sweating, sprawled wide across the mess of tangled sheets. His hair is soaked and sticking in strings to his face. It itches against his skin but he can't even muster up the strength to brush it away as he lies there limply, his heart racing so fast he worries it might give out-and after everything, that would be what kills him.

He finally manages to roll onto his side, and he realizes that his shirt is soaked through too, cold and clammy where it clings to his shoulders and the small of his back. Even the slightest movement feels impossible right now, and every second feels like forever. The air in his room is stifling with the stink of sweat and fear, and he can't help but wonder if there's actually a lingering smell of something burning or if he's just imagining it.

It takes a long time, but he finally gets out of bed and makes his way carefully across to his dresser. He's glad nobody's watching as he wrestles his shirt off; he's never had so much trouble getting his body to cooperate with something this simple before, not even when he was a drunk. But it feels good when he pulls on a dry shirt that he doesn't remember having worn yet, so it's probably clean, and he's thoroughly glad to have made the effort.

He leans against the dresser as he thinks about his options. He can't go back to bed, that much is clear. Not only because of the dreams, but because he needs to strip the sheets before the bed is usable again. But that's too much effort right now. So right now it looks like he's got two choices: he can keep standing there-or rather leaning there, because he still feels an aching weakness in his legs; or he can leave his room, maybe go sit on the stoop for some air. He thinks about smoking a fuckload of cigarettes but can't quite bring himself to get excited about it, not when he can still feel the heat of the dream-fire on his skin.

Leaving his room feels like the better choice, at any rate. His legs are wobbly under him for the first few steps, so he keeps close to the wall as he makes his way down the hallway, one hand up to catch himself should he need it. But then his strength starts to come back, surprisingly quickly now that he's out of his room, and by the time he reaches the stairs he's walking almost normally again.

As freaked out as he was before, it turns out that moving around is sort of strangely soothing in its own way, like if he's walking he only has to think about putting one foot in front of the other and deciding when to turn, instead of having to think about anything else.

It's funny though, he thinks as he moves quietly down hallways he's starting to recognize even in the dark, it sort of feels like he's the one haunting the house on these late-night wanderings, rather than the one getting haunted. He wonders if he's going to disappear when the sun comes up. Maybe he'll just blink out of existence-there one heartbeat and gone the next. Maybe he'll get caught in that weird interstitial zone between late night and early morning and spend eternity stuck in a poorly lit loop, walking through pale grey hallways and reliving the lingering edges of nightmarish terror for the rest of time.

As awake as he felt before, he's still kind of foggy now-or more like he's moving through a fog that's seeping in through his skin, slow and strange. The walls seem to pulse gently around him as he passes them by, letting his feet lead him around. He thinks in passing that he should be more careful of where he's going, or at least pay a little more attention, but the soft coddling fuzz in his mind is enough to convince him that there's no problem, everything will be okay.

Eventually his feet bring him downstairs. The main floor of the house is completely dark except for moonlight edging in the windows, sharp silver slices through the darkness. They're like little finish lines as he crosses them, breaking through the ribbons to leave them flapping in his wake. He isn't sure what the race is, or what he's going to win. A lifetime supply of bad dreams, maybe. An all-expenses-paid vacation in a haunted house. A gold record. A nervous breakdown.

At first, he's not sure if he's actually hearing the music or just imagining it. It nags at him, phasing in and out as he moves through the halls. It's not until he rounds a corner and the suggestions of notes coalesce into something more concrete that he knows for sure that he is actually hearing it. With the way the sound bounces off the walls and bends around corners it's hard to say exactly where it's coming from, but Gerard figures it's almost a sure thing that it's coming from the ballroom. It gets louder as he walks closer, and he pays attention to what it's saying.

It sounds sad, more than anything else. It's like the notes are little bubbles, hollow where the heart should be, floating up to the ceiling to escape. It's hard to listen to, hard to take. It sounds like innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire in a fight between music and a musician.

Gerard keeps listening as his feet bring him toward the ballroom. He wasn't sure at first but now he'd bet anything that it's Ray playing. He simply knows it from hours and years of listening to how he plays, what he puts into it. He knows it so well he can hear what isn't there as much as what is, and tonight the music is missing an awful lot.

And besides, he thinks wryly once he recognizes the song, it's not likely to be Frank who's playing old Ozzy songs at top volume in the middle of the night.

Sure enough, when he rounds the corner into the ballroom he sees Ray sitting on an amp, hunched over his guitar, swinging one foot in slow back-and-forth arcs. There's only one floor lamp on to light the whole room, and it sends long shadows across the floor toward where Gerard is hovering nervously in the door.

And then Ray shifts from the riff he was playing into the intro from "Headfirst for Halos", and damn, Gerard hasn't heard that in a long time. But it sounds a little off-it's not quite the song he remembers. He can hear the frustration in Ray's playing as much as he can see the tension across his shoulders. He's wrestling with the song, with the music, and Gerard isn't sure who's winning. There's something very heartbreaking about it, and he finds himself drawn across the room to where Ray is sitting. He doesn't want to startle him so he tries to step as heavily as he can, but he can't get his slippers to make any noise against the old scuffed wood of the floor.

Ray stops partway through a measure and lets the notes ring out, too loud in the dark ballroom. Gerard takes that as his cue to clear his throat deliberately, and Ray looks up sharply but doesn't look startled, so Gerard counts that as a win.

"Hey," Gerard says softly, walking the rest of the way over to where Ray is sitting.

Ray waves once, abruptly, and then looks down at his hands. "I didn't wake you up, did I?"

"I was up already," Gerard assures him, "you're not being too loud."

"Good," Ray says then sighs. "I haven't been sleeping so well, and it's something to do instead of tossing and turning and thinking about not being asleep, you know? So I'm glad it's not bothering anyone." He shifts his guitar on his lap and Gerard takes note of it for the first time. It's Ray's oldest guitar, the knock-off his brother gave him years and years ago. Gerard recognizes it right away even though he doesn't see it much-it never tours with them because it's got too much sentimental value, so Ray always leaves it at home where there's no chance it'll get broken. He didn't realize that Ray brought it to Los Angeles with him, but now that he knows it's here he's not surprised to see it in Ray's hands in the middle of a sleepless night.

"You come up with anything?" Gerard asks.

Ray shakes his head. "Not really working on anything, no," he says. "I can't pin anything down, it's weird. There's some stuff in my head, riffs and choruses and all that, but I can't get my fingers to do it. So I'm just messing around."

"That sucks," Gerard says with feeling. If there's one thing he can empathize with it's the feeling of being totally blocked, and there's really almost nothing more frustrating than when you have an idea floating around in your head that you can't get out properly. He watches as Ray keeps strumming absently at his guitar, and he has an idea. "So hey," he says carefully, "I have this vocal melody I've been working at for a bit, can you play me something?"

Ray nods and looks down at his guitar. Gerard is expecting him to improvise something, but what he gets is a song he recognizes. When they first came up with it, they called it "The Saddest Music in the World" as a joke, but here and now in the middle of the night it's not so funny anymore. Gerard is about to ask Ray to stop and play something else but he's got this nagging feeling that's keeping him from opening his mouth, and as he sits and listens he realizes that "The Saddest Music" could actually work.

Gerard hums the melody he has overtop of the melody Ray's playing, and yeah, fuck, it's a really good fit. Ray keeps playing and Gerard takes a deep breath and starts singing, wordless tones that somehow work with the guitar. "Fuck," he breathes when they stop.

"Fuck," Ray agrees.

"I mean, it needs a rhythm part, but it definitely works," Gerard says thoughtfully.

"There's an acoustic right there," Ray says, gesturing at the floor by Gerard's feet.

"So there is." Gerard drags the case over and sits down in the nearest chair before flipping the case open. He takes out the acoustic that Frank was using earlier in the day and strums the strings lightly. The wood is cold and feels unwieldy in his hands, and he thinks he should probably do himself a favour and spend more time practicing guitar, to keep his hand in. He fumbles his way through a few chord changes before he picks up the feel for it again, and it's not much longer before he feels old muscle memory coming awake again. It's been hibernating since he last played, in the overheated studio in the back of their bus somewhere in the dusty middle of the continent, a long way away and a long time ago. His fingers slide across the frets lightly, and the squeak of the strings under his fingertips is loud in the dark silence of the ballroom.

Ray picks up a moment later, following Gerard's lead and playing easy harmonies and counter-melodies. Gerard's not playing anything in particular, just sticking to staple chord progressions, and they fall into an easy duet for a while, playing for the sake of playing until Gerard gets warmed up.

The fog Gerard's been feeling ever since he woke up out of his nightmare finally starts to lift, suddenly and startlingly, like something is chasing it away. His head feels clearer and his whole body feels somehow lighter. He smiles to himself, the one side of his mouth quirking up, and keeps playing.

He doesn't think too hard about what he's doing and just lets his fingers move on their own. He ends up playing a lot of discordant notes, chord progressions that would set his teeth on edge if he was playing anything for real, but for now it's okay. He's not trying to say anything or be anything. He's letting the notes come as they will, and if sometimes it doesn't even quite count as music, then that's okay too. He's going to start thinking about the rhythm part soon, but he needs to get comfortable first.

And that's how it happens: one minute he's barely paying attention to what his fingers are doing, and the next he's suddenly caught up in the progression he just played. He bites his lip as he moves his hand back up the neck of the guitar, brushes the strings lightly until he finds the chord that sounds right to start the riff again. He fumbles through it once, trying to feel for the right notes, and then he plays it again, and again. The riff is heavy-not like classic rock or metal heavy, but like it carries a weight with it that's bigger than the notes themselves. It's an emotional weight, he realizes as the notes thrum in his chest. It's pretty fucking emotionally heavy and it's like a firecracker going off in his brain, loud and flashy and immediate.

When he looks up from his hands he sees Ray staring at him, eyes wide and mouth open. "Holy shit," Ray breathes. "Where did that come from?"

"I have no idea," Gerard admits.

"What if we did this," Ray says, parroting the riff back at Gerard much better than Gerard had played it, and then after the second repetition he crescendos into "The Saddest Music." The little flourishes that had seemed so desperately melancholy before sound different in the new context-they're still sad, but there's a certain strength to them now too.

"Okay, play that again," Gerard says, and when Ray starts playing Gerard's new riff, Gerard starts to sing for real. His voice comes out as a rasp without him meaning it to, but he likes it, it works, and he thinks he'll keep it in the song. His eyes fall shut as he sings, the words springing to mind and then coming off his tongue almost before he even registers them. They're about what they're going through without Mikey, trapped in the house with the abject horror of the unexplainable. They're about him, the band, the music, and he's never felt so powerful as he does in that moment, singing those words.

When they run out of music and words for the moment, they stare at each other, flushed and wild. Gerard can feel a vivid electricity crackling between them, powered by the music, the everything. "Shit, that's a verse," he says, a little breathless.

"Two verses," Ray agrees, nodding so hard his hair shakes around his face. "We should stick a chorus in the middle, between your part and mine."

"I have something we could try," Gerard says tentatively. He hums the melody that came to him as he was singing the verse, and then again when Ray gestures for it. Gerard watches Ray ghost chords up and down the neck of his guitar. "Good?"

Ray nods. "You have words already?"

"Yeah." Gerard can hear the wonder in his own voice. He has no idea where this sudden flood of ideas is coming from, but it's like something dark and secret broke open inside him and it all wants to come out all at once.

He's going to let it.

"From the top or from the chorus?" Ray asks him.

"Chorus," Gerard says. "Let's just go for it."

"Sure," Ray says, and then counts them in.

Gerard takes a deep breath and when the music starts, he sings.

I am not afraid to keep on living.

He closes his eyes and lets go, letting the words take on a life of their own as they fill the air around them with everything he never thought he'd be strong enough to say. He's exhausted when the song ends, worn out and wrecked, but he's filled with a rush of elation that lifts him back up.

This, he thinks. This is exactly what he's been looking for. As the last notes of the song echo through the room, he can't help but feel like all the trouble they've had has been worth it, if this is what comes after.

* * *

They stay up all night working out guitar parts, rearranging lyrics, and letting the song put itself together out of the pieces they provide. Gerard barely feels the time go by and it feels like one second he's sitting in the dark hunched over Frank's guitar and the next, the room is flooded with sunlight and Frank is holding a steaming mug of coffee under his nose and asking him something.

"Huh?" Gerard blinks dumbly up at Frank, and then gratefully grabs at the mug. The muscles in his back protest as he sits up straight for the first time in what must be hours.

"I said, have you guys been here all night?"

Gerard nods, then starts stretching his shoulders out as best he can without spilling his coffee or knocking the guitar out of his lap. "Yeah," he says into his mug, then takes a big gulp of the coffee. "We've been writing."

Frank's eyes light up. "You have something new?" he asks carefully.

"Fuck yeah we do," Gerard tells him, and Frank finally smiles.

"You're gonna show us, right?"

"You bet," Ray says.

"I thought of something for the song we did yesterday," Bob says from somewhere behind Gerard. Gerard turns and sees Bob settling down behind his kit. "Maybe we can warm up on that and then you guys can play us the new stuff?"

"Sounds good," Ray agrees.

Gerard finishes the mug of coffee and puts it down on the floor, then lifts the guitar off his lap and puts it back into its case. "You know, I should feel tired, but I'm really not," he says.

"Same," Ray says. "I didn't sleep at all last night, but I'm barely even feeling it. It's kind of weird, actually. I was just getting used to being tired all the time."

"Well that's good, I guess," Gerard tells him.

"What did you come up with?" Frank leans right over Bob's kit to ask, almost nailing Bob with the headstock of his guitar.

"Give me some space and I'll show you." Bob probably means for the words to come out as stern, but Gerard thinks he really sounds sort of fondly resigned.

"Yeah, yeah," Frank waves it off, but takes a couple steps back anyway.

Bob rolls his shoulders a few times, then picks up his sticks. "I was thinking this for the intro," he says, and Frank nods. He starts tapping his foot to count himself in, and then starts playing. It's a syncopated beat on the toms, and it sounds fucking huge. He gets through the four measures and then stops. He slumps on his throne and sort of crosses his arms over his chest-it almost looks like he's bracing himself for bad news, Gerard thinks. He wishes Bob would have a little more faith in himself.

"That was epic," Frank breathes, leaning back in over Bob's kit to put a hand on his shoulder and push him until he's looking up. "Play it again, then keep going."

Bob looks at Frank for a second before nodding, and Frank backs off again to let Bob play. Bob counts himself back in and plays the intro again, and Gerard finds himself tapping his foot along in time. He really, really likes it. He listens as Frank comes in on guitar after the fourth measure, and yeah, fuck, Bob's intro captures the menace and the swing of the guitar part perfectly.

Ray comes in for the chorus, and the sound becomes so huge Gerard can feel it vibrating in every molecule of air in the room around them, almost lifting him off his feet in his delight. He can't believe they got almost the entire song put together the day before, but here it is, loud and alive around him, echoing off the vaulting ceilings and ringing in his ears. He feels it resonating in his guts; he's blown away by how good the song is and how it feels so right that they've come together to do this. The song still needs a solo and some of the finer details of the chorus hammered out, sure, but it's a song and they wrote it and it's amazing progress.

Frank looks a little breathless when they finish the run-through, and he turns to face Gerard. "You wrote words, right?"

Gerard nods.

"For the whole song?"

"Yeah," Gerard says. "You guys ready for me to sing already?"

"Looks like," Ray says. He's smiling, and it's such a relief to see him looking so happy after all the doom and gloom of the last weeks.

Gerard gets to his feet and goes to get his mic out of its case. Someone must have put it away-he remembers having left it out the day they fought, and he hasn't touched it since. He slides it into its stand and plugs it in. The stand is still set up just right, so he wraps a hand around the mic and thumbs the switch to turn it on. "Okay," he says. "Whenever you guys are ready."

Bob counts them in again, this time tapping the beats on the rim of his snare. Gerard forces himself to take steady, even breaths as he waits for his cue to come in, and when he finally opens his mouth, he sings with all he's got. The song seems to scream by, the guitar lines practically racing against each other without a bassline to hold them down, but it sounds good-great, excellent even-and Gerard knows with an unshakeable certainty that it will only sound better once Mikey adds his part.

His heart is beating hard by the end of the song just from the excitement of it, and he feels a little lighter on his feet, ready to do anything. The look on everyone else's faces that tell him they must feel the same way.

"Fuck, Gerard," Frank says, whirling to face him even as the last notes are still ringing in the air. "Where did you even get those words?"

Gerard shrugs, spreading his hands wide. "They came to me all at once. It kind of wrote itself, really."

Frank nods thoughtfully. "Does it have a name?"

"Yeah." Gerard takes a steadying breath. "'House of Wolves'."

"Huh," Frank says. "Okay, yeah. Yeah, that's good, I like it."

Gerard smiles.

"Again?" Ray asks.

"Hell yeah," Frank says. He starts scratching the strings over his pickups, then slides his pick up the neck of his guitar. At first it's just noise but then once Bob starts in again with the drums Gerard hears how it works in the context of the song, and he thinks for the millionth time that he's so lucky to be in a band with such talented musicians-because damn, Frank keeps having really great ideas.

The second run-through of the song is even better than the first. Gerard has a better idea of where the vocal melody sits with respect to the guitars and he's able to fix a couple bits of vocal phrasing that bothered him the last time, and by the time they hit the bridge it feels like his entire body is vibrating with barely-contained energy. He missed this, the joy of writing music and playing it together, and while he still isn't quite sure how they got it back, he knows that the last weeks have been hell without it.

They play the song through another half-dozen times and it gets better with every go, but that's almost not the point anymore-now they're really playing for the sheer joy of it.

"That was great," Gerard says after.

"Yeah," Bob nods. He's smiling, and it hits Gerard with a jolt-he can't remember the last time Bob looked happy. He's been dour and grim ever since Mikey left, and maybe even before that.

"I'm feeling pretty warmed up now," Frank says. "I wanna hear the new stuff you guys were working on this morning."

"I do too," Bob says, and he sets his sticks down on his snare and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"Well, if you insist," Gerard says glibly, but he's already reaching for the acoustic he'd put away. Once he's got it settled on his knees he opens his notebook, flipping through to the page where he'd scribbled himself notes about the chords and words. He glances over them quickly, to make sure he's got it properly in his head.

When he's ready he looks over at Ray, who nods at him and then counts them in.

They play. Gerard still isn't the best at playing guitar and singing at the same time but it doesn't matter, he just lets the little mistakes slide by as he plays, pushing forward, letting himself go. The feeling of strength he'd had before, when the words were coming to him and building him up, comes rushing back, running through his whole body and then out through his voice.

He loses track of everything except the bite of the strings into his fingertips and the breath he's drawing to sing, and the song somehow sounds even better now than it did only a few hours before.

It takes Gerard a moment to pull back into himself once they finish playing, but when he looks up from his hands he sees that Frank and Bob are gaping at them. The last note from Ray's guitar finally rings out and there's silence in the room, a nearly perfect quiet that fills the air around them.

"Wow," Frank finally says, sounding awed and overwhelmed.

"You just did that last night," Bob asks, incredulous.

Ray's voice is proud when he says, "Yeah, we did."

"I don't have to ask what it's about, right?" Frank asks gently.

"That obvious, huh." Gerard looks down at his hands, spins his pick around so the chewed-up edge bites into his palm.

"It's not a bad thing," Bob assures him. "I would have been surprised if you didn't write something like that, to be honest."

"Anyway, I think I got most of it," Frank says thoughtfully. "I might get you to show me the second verse again, Gee, just to make sure."

"Sure," Gerard says, and plays the verse again, below tempo, and Frank nods along as he watches.

"Got it," Frank says.

"What are you thinking of for drums?" Ray asks Bob, who's eyeing his kit consideringly.

"Nothing for the first verse," Bob says after a moment. "I can come in during that breakdown into the next verse." He squints and it looks like he's replaying the song in his head. "I want to keep it simple all the way through, after that."

"Sounds good," Ray tells him. "You guys ready?"

They're ready.

Gerard catches Ray's eye and they look at each other for a long moment before Gerard nods, and then Ray counts him in.

Gerard can tell right away that there's something different about the song this time even though nothing has changed yet, it's still just him and Ray at the top of the first verse. But then when the rest of them come in, Frank punching a power chord overtop of two beats of Bob's kick drum, that's when Gerard knows what it is: it's them, all of them, playing it together, that makes the song what it needs to be.

Having the second guitar part played on electric instead of the acoustic changes the whole feel of the song-for the better, definitely-and now that he's not worried about playing at the same time, Gerard throws even more of himself into his singing. He can feel it rubbing his throat raw, even though it's only the first chorus, and he knows he should pull back but he doesn't want to, can't bring himself to do it. This song deserves everything he can give it and nothing less.

The intensity only grows as the song goes on. It's a palpable thing in the music itself, not quite like an extra instrument but more as if it's an added tone in everything already playing. The music fills the room, ringing off the rafters and rattling all the strange furniture piled around them. It's not just the volume-though that's part of it, all their amps are cranked up to max-but it's how they're all playing, pouring themselves into it and hitting each note as if their very lives depended on it.

When Ray comes in with his solo after the second chorus, Gerard's jaw actually drops. Ray had made a few tries at a solo when it had been him and Gerard, and they'd been okay but had never really filled the space they should have. But now that Frank and Bob are playing too, Ray throws himself into it, curling over his guitar as his fingers fly up and down the frets, tearing notes from his guitar in a shrill-edged storm. The notes rip through Gerard like a spray of shrapnel and they leave behind a story of everything Ray has been bottling up for weeks, the things he hasn't been able to express any other way than music.

The song's build is so intense by the time they get to the bridge that Gerard feels like it might crack him open down the middle and rip him apart. What started as the saddest music in the world is something bigger now, something bright and triumphant. He throws his arms wide and belts for all he's worth. He misses some of the notes as his voice cracks through them but he doesn't care, he just keeps singing.

The song can't keep going forever even though Gerard feels like he himself could, and when the final notes ring out into the room it's like they're all holding their breath, staring at each other in disbelief and wonder. It feels like a turning point-though to what, Gerard doesn't have the slightest idea, but there's something vibrating around them, an energy that can't be denied, and he's willing to bet anything that he's not the only one feeling that way.

They're quiet in the aftermath, like nobody is quite willing to be the one to break the silence. Finally, Frank clears his throat. "This is the best song we've ever done, right? It's not just me?"

"It's not just you," Gerard agrees quietly.

"That was amazing," Ray chimes in.

"Incredible," Bob adds.

The four of them standing around half-dazed and bobbing their heads at each other would be funny if Gerard wasn't still a little subdued from the song's overwhelming impact. Nobody's moving to start playing it again, as if by mutual unspoken agreement they're taking a few minutes to recover. As Gerard looks around he realizes that they're all looking like he feels, half-wrecked and overwhelmed, and he's glad for it.

"We could put a quiet bit right after the solo," Ray finally says into the stillness. "The contrast would give it that much more oomph."

"Oh, I like that a lot," Frank says enthusiastically, and Gerard nods his agreement.

"You think that needed more oomph?" Bob asks in disbelief.

"If it makes the song better we should do it," Frank tells him.

"Well, you guys figure out what you want to put in and then we'll try it," Bob shrugs. "I'm just saying, I don't want to fuck with the song too much, it's too good already."

"I understand," Ray says, and he's already starting to play again, soft palm-muted chords down low on the neck. Frank tips his head sideways as he watches Ray play, and soon enough he's feeling his way through counter-melody. He doesn't look entirely satisfied with what he's playing, but Ray picks up on it pretty quickly.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

Frank shrugs. "It doesn't sound quite right, I don't know."

"It sounds good to me," Ray says.

Frank smiles with one corner of his mouth, but shakes his head. "I think the line should be played on an organ or something, not a guitar."

Ray's eyes light up. "That's a great idea," he says.

Organ? Bob mouths at Gerard, who can't keep his own excitement down at the idea. God, an organ is perfect-he doesn't know how Frank pulled the idea out of nowhere but it's the right one and he can practically hear it already.

"Anyway, I'll keep playing it for now," Frank goes on, "but we should see if there's a keyboard hiding around here somewhere, and figure that out later."

"Sounds like a plan," Ray agrees. "Hey, are we good for another go, to try out the quiet part?"

They day passes quickly after that. They've all got their heads in it, riding the wave of inspiration to work out the finer points of the new song. They record a few takes of the song into Ray's laptop so they can argue over minutely different versions without them all having to start playing again. The quiet part ends up staying in-Bob's misgivings disappear entirely after they play it that way a couple times, and he's relaxed enough when he admits that Ray was right to suggest it.

"Toro's almost always right about that stuff," Gerard tells Bob seriously. He's not even joking. It's completely the truth-and also kind of uncanny when he thinks about it, how good Ray's ear is for the little tweaks that really push a song to be that much better.

"Come on, I'm not," Ray tries to wave it off.

"Sorry, but you are," Frank says.

"Well, I appreciate that you guys listen to my ideas," Ray says earnestly.

"Yeah, because you're awesome," Frank tells him. His stomach rumbles loudly then, and he makes a face. "Okay, looks like someone's telling me it's time to eat. I'm going to make a sandwich, anyone else hungry?"

They all shake their heads so Frank shrugs and says he'll be back soon, so they better be ready to keep playing.

As Gerard watches Frank walk out of the ballroom, he realizes that this is maybe the first time since they got to the house that he's seen Frank so willing to go somewhere alone. He can't help but think the show of courage is the song's doing, somehow.

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