Staring down a loaded gun: gift for creepylicious

[stuffitmod.livejournal.com]

Title: Staring down a loaded gun
Author: auctorial
Pairing(s): Gerard/Ghost
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: PTSD
Word count: 4259
Summary: Lost Souls? is the band that changed Gerard's life.


1992

Mikey had acquired the tape from a trade with an older boy, down at the record store. "His name is Nate," Mikey had said, then shrugged his thin shoulders like he had started off thinking the story was an important one to tell, then realised it didn't really matter. "Said he just moved from the South. He has an accent and everything."

The liner stuck in the case was half-ripped already. The cover was a grainy photo of a gravestone, starkly bright against the dark, twisting vines surrounding it. Across the gravestone, someone had lettered the band's name in smudged crayon, each letter a different colour, like a fifth grader's art project.

Lost Souls?

Gerard had never heard of them. The cover must be why Mikey had wanted it. He was twelve years old, and the only thing he loved more than cemeteries was rainbows. Gerard knew he could blame himself for the cemeteries; he still wasn't sure where the rainbows had come from.

He hadn't thought much of the band until one day he put the tape in and gave it a listen. After that, he was entranced. It stayed in his Walkman for a solid month, and he would have kept it longer if Mikey hadn't prodded him and told him to stop hogging it. The music was different from anything else he'd ever heard: the wailing guitar riffs were familiar, but not the voice - Gerard's never heard such a voice. Always gentle and full of a surprising strength, it flowed over the jagged chords like a bubbling brook, breaking apart and coming back together again.

As he listened, Gerard would look at the back of the liner notes, at the picture of the two musicians, and try to imagine their lives. The guitarist, Steve Finn, with his easy, sarcastic smile. Sitting next to him, a boy who looked so skinny and frail he might blow away at any moment, hiding his face behind his hair, beneath his hat. The mysterious Ghost.

Ghost's voice soothed something deep inside Gerard, the howling, lonely part of him that he had yet to fully acknowledge.

But Ghost's lyrics and Steve's restless instrumentation made him hungry for more. More of what, Gerard wasn't sure yet. But he was growing steadily more eager to find out.

*
"Ghost." Steve was calling out to him, and Ghost opened his eyes to catch the end of the Louisiana sunset disappearing into the swamp. Steve's hand curled around his arm, a warm anchor to the real world. "Goddammit," Steve cursed. He looked wild in his worry. "It's this fucking place, isn't it? We shouldn't have come back here."

Ghost shook his head. "No, it was somewhere else. Far away." The man had spoken with a distinctive accent when he had jammed his gun against the boy's forehead point blank and said, Get on your knees. Now, lie down. People spoke like that up north: in Boston maybe, or New York.

"New York," Steve echoed, and Ghost realised he had spoken aloud. "We're going up there, too. Is there trouble?"

"I - " Ghost didn't know. He still felt the adrenaline, the sheer terror coursing through his veins, as if he were that boy, limbs moving jerkily as he scrambled to obey, to press his pounding heart against the filthy tile floor. Then the barrel had swung away - or had it? The boy had squeezed his eyes shut, his mind a babbling mantra of oh god please no I haven't done anything wrong I'm too young to die

Then nothing. No thunderous gunshot or the click of the safeties flicked back on. No wail of police sirens. No exhale of relief. Nothing.

"I don't think so," Ghost said slowly, and leaned in closer to Steve. "Just - " He shook his head again. Steve didn't press him this time, so he didn't have to try to explain why he felt so concerned whether a nameless boy far from here had lived or died by the hands of an ordinary man.

*
The crumpled flyer caught Gerard's eye by sheer chance, but once he saw it, he knew he had to go. He counted the days down and carefully planned out what he was going to wear and how he was going to get there. But on the night of, he ran into a problem.

"Where are you going?" Mikey demanded.

Gerard hadn't done anything out of the ordinary. He was wearing a hoodie and baggy jeans. His wallet was hidden in the front pocket of his hoodie. But Mikey somehow knew, like a sixth sense.

"I'm going over to a friend's," Gerard lied, automatically and badly.

"Bullshit," Mikey said flatly. "You don't have any friends."

Gerard looked down, ashamed. It was true: he didn't have any friends. Not the kind where he dropped by their houses and they came over to his, at any rate. There were people he nodded to in the halls, complained about teachers and homework with in classes. But lately he hadn't talked to anyone at all.

He bit his lip, worrying it between his teeth. "Lost Souls? is playing tonight," he admitted, unwillingly.

Mikey's eyes lit up. The only things he ever got really passionate about were music and old Disney movies. Gerard worried about his future, sometimes. "I want to go too. Take me with you," he demanded.

Gerard sighed. He loved his brother more than anything, but this was something he had wanted to do on his own. He could make a run for it, maybe. Even if Mikey followed him onto the train, Gerard could lose him at the station, and Mikey didn't know where the club was -

"If you don't, I'll tell mom and dad."

Their parents were upstairs, already sleeping or doing things that Gerard didn't want to think about. As long as the basement was quiet, they would assume Mikey and Gerard had gone to bed and weren't sneaking off on a school night to see a band in an underground club in a sketchy part of the city.

"Fine," Gerard said, resigned. Mikey beamed, bouncing on his toes. He was twelve, but tall for his age. Sometimes people mistook him for the older one. It'd be okay, probably. The flyer hadn't said anything about an age limit. "But don't think I won't leave you out on the street if they don't let you in."

It was an empty threat and Mikey knew it. "Whatever," he said, rolling his eyes. "Come on, we're going to miss the train."

*
They caught the train with a minute to spare, and rode it all the way into the glittering city. Then it was just a short trip on the metro before they were walking down an unfamiliar, dimly-lit street. Vendors still trying to sell their wares called out to them as they passed by, but Gerard kept his head down and walked fast, Mikey clinging close by his side.

The club entrance was easy to miss, and Gerard almost walked right past it. But even on the street, he could hear the faintest thrumming of the bass beneath his feet. He followed that thread of music down the stairs and past an unlit neon sign that said Be Aware. At the foot of the stairs, the bouncer took their cover fee and waved them through without a second glance. They were in.

Another band was playing, guitars shrieking in the enclosed space as the singer threw himself all over the tiny stage. Mikey grabbed Gerard's hand tightly as they wove through the crowd, trying to inch closer and closer to the front. By the time the set ended, they were nearly there, two or three people from the stage, and Gerard's stomach was tense with anticipation.

When the lights went down, Gerard thought he might actually throw up from excitement, his palm gone clammy in Mikey's. Then the first words of Mandrake Sky floated out of the darkness, and Gerard gasped, forgetting everything else as Ghost's golden voice flowed through his ears straight into his soul. He felt suddenly afloat in the music, kept upright only by the press of bodies around him, Mikey's solid presence by his side.

The guitar kicked in and the lights came up, revealing the band: Steve and Ghost in the flesh, standing so close to each other they were nearly elbow to elbow, looking ready to take on the world. Ghost's pale blond hair fell into his face as he leaned into the mic to croon the chorus, and he didn't bother to brush it away; five songs later, when he threw his head back, Gerard caught sight, for the first time, of his pale blue eyes that looked infinite as the sea.

Ghost was so close. He was right there, and Gerard felt like he could reach out and capture some of that magic for his own. Of course it was an illusion, but he tried anyway, reaching out just like all the other boys and girls, screaming himself hoarse in an attempt to be noticed. To give something back. Gerard felt like an entirely different person in that moment, transformed by the music, clutching Mikey's hand hard as they stood there together in the surging crowd, watching, listening, being.

*
At the end of the set, Ghost's attention snapped sideways, and he looked down and met one boy's eyes directly. There was something familiar about the boy, although Ghost didn't understand why at first. He'd grown accustomed to picking off different vibes from the crowd to be distracted from singing, but he couldn't look away from that one kid, who was screaming Ghost's words back at him.

Ghost could tell he was a singer, even though he might not know it yet. He'd been singing along for the entire set, had the lyrics committed to memory when most of the kids here hadn't even heard of them before. Maybe he was a fan who'd followed them up to New York? Ghost discarded this idea as ridiculous.

Then it hit Ghost; the underthoughts of the boy's mind still churning around in roiling circles, the oh my god oh my god he has a gun and the taste of slick metal and gunpowder, both imagined but so vividly so that they're just as real as the fear.

At least he hadn't been shot. At least he hadn't had to watch anyone else. At least it was just a desperate, hungry man with a gun and not a monster. This time.

Worse things could happen. Ghost saw, with a sudden clarity, that worse things would.

You can't save them all, a voice that sounded a lot like Steve's said in his head, and Ghost knew it was right. He didn't even know the boy's name, didn't know anything about him except that his future stretched out before him like a dark, starless expanse. Yet he couldn't shake the feeling that this boy was important to him, somehow. That he - out of everyone in the world - had the power to reach out and save him.

Ghost couldn't do that. But he held the boy's gaze till the end of the last chorus, singing the words like absolute truth, just to see the burden lift from the boy's shoulders and give him courage, for at least a little while:

WE ARE NOT AFRAID
WE ARE NOT AFRAID
LET THE NIGHT COME
WE ARE NOT AFRAID



***


2000

Gerard had just turned twenty three. A month ago, he'd graduated from art school. The possibilities should be endless, the world his for the taking. Instead, he's still living at home in his parents' basement, spending the nights staring at a blank page, a handle of vodka at his side, and spending the days sleeping off the hangovers. All the free time he'd been longing for in school, so he could work on his own comic, felt like a curse now. All of the ideas that were cheap and easy when he didn't even have time to think about them, when he was falling over his own feet in exhaustion and half his face was always smeared in charcoal or ink from faceplanting into some assignment in progress or other - they had all left him, and nothing else came to take their place. He had nothing.

It felt like dying. Like the panicked, watery breaths of a drowning man.

He needed to draw. He needed to get off his ass and find a job. Instead, he hid in his room and poked around boxes he hadn't touched since high school. He found tons of useless shit. Keepsakes that had been important once upon a time. T-shirts so old they had holes worn through them. Stashed in one shoebox, a stack of Batman comics he'd been looking for for ages, and an empty cassette case.

Lost Souls?

It all came rushing back to him: the music, Ghost's gravelly golden voice, Steve's wailing guitar. Holy shit, this was old. He turned the case over in his hands, thinking back to that night. How he had come out of the nightclub with the imprints of Mikey's fingernails pressed into his palm, stumbling and shaking like a newborn kitten, reborn. How the memory of Ghost's eyes gazing deep into his soothed his nightmares, made them run wilder and deeper than even his own imagination, pushing him through the fear to wonderment.

He let the case fall open, slipping the liner notes out, careful of the tear. The tape itself was probably still somewhere in the car. Mikey had given it to him for his seventeenth birthday. All wrapped up and it was the best present Gerard remembered getting that year, even though their tapes were always communal, and he'd already listened to it a thousand times.

The crayon was even more blurred with age, the picture of the gravestone faded out somehow, like it had been left out in the sun and not buried in a box all these years. The picture of Steve and Ghost had changed too; or rather, Gerard had. When he was younger, Gerard had thought they looked wise and mysterious, like they knew all the secrets of the universe. Now they just looked incredibly young, and despite the posturing, uncertain of themselves.

But they must have grown up as well.

There's an address beneath the picture: 14 Burnt Church Road, Missing Mile, North Carolina. Missing Mile. Gerard liked the sound of that. It had a romantic ring to it; something lost but now found. And like that, Gerard knew what he had to do.

*
He left the next day in the shitty old Buick that he hoped had enough miles on it to last the trip down. Mikey punched him in the shoulder and said, "You better write, you fucker." Gerard pulled him into a hug, relieved when Mikey leaned back into him, skinny twig body melting against Gerard's. His mom and dad looked that bizarre mix of proud and heartbroken as they said goodbye, telling him to take care of himself, and to come straight home if he decided he didn't like it down there.

"I will," Gerard said, and his dad sniffed and pretended he wasn't crying.

His mom gave him one last smacking kiss, and said, "You better stop and say goodbye to your grandma first."

Elena's place was a short stretch down the highway, and in the process of driving there and parking, Gerard realised he had never been away from home before, not by himself, on his own. The thought had been an exhilarating one the night before; now it was truly terrifying. He only really had a couple weeks' worth of clothes stuffed into a garbage bag and a backpack full of sketchbooks. How was he going to survive on his own?

Gerard found himself telling the whole story, about the band and how Mikey had brought home the tape in the first place, and how he needed to get out and do something, go somewhere where things happened, discover his own life. Elena listened to him without interrupting, which was what Gerard's always loved best about her.

When he was done, he realised that no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't turn around and go back home. He needed to set out on his own, before it was too late.

"I worry about you," Elena said.

"You always worry, grandma." Gerard remembered her saying that to him since he had been seven. Strangely, she had never said it to Mikey, not once.

"Yes, well." She stroked his arm. "You're such a talented boy, my Gerard. Do what you need to do."

Gerard nodded, solemnly. He kissed Elena's cheek, then went to face the miles of road that lay ahead of him.

*
Ghost startled out of sleep, awoken by a sound like a clap of thunder or a gunshot. But there was nothing, just him in the bed alone and the taste of gunmetal. He reached out beside him, instinctively, but his hand landed not on a warm shoulder, but the cold sheet. He sighed. He and Steve had broken up three years ago, and Ghost still missed him in his bed.

To be honest, he didn't miss anything else about that relationship. Steve made a better friend than a lover, and they were still best friends. They still had the band, and although they hadn't made it big yet, they were still working on it.

He sunk back down against the pillows as his dreams started coming back to him, in flashes and fragments. Someone sketching: quick, furious lines coming together to form stony glares and brooding mouths. Paintings hung on the wall, slick with red and black, still drying, blood and guts and bile spilling out over the canvases in a dark miasma of gore.

The rabbit-fast heartbeat of the hunted. He was staring directly into a boy's terrified eyes. His finger was on the trigger, even as he pleaded no, please, not me with the acrid-bitter taste of fear in his mouth. A dark shadow in a gas mask hovered over the scene, ready to reap the dead and the dying.

Ghost knew with certainty that something was coming. Something always was.

*
Missing Mile wasn't much of a town, just a strip of rattling empty storefronts, peppered now and then with a few open ones that frankly didn't look much better. Gerard had driven all day and through half the night to get here, and then just crashed in his car for a few hours of sleep, too exhausted to even think about finding a motel. Now his priorities were coffee, a bathroom, and a place to stay, in that order.

He took care of the first two in short order, and was carrying his third cup of coffee when he stepped into the realtor's office. "I need a place to stay," he said, and the agent sitting behind the desk looked at him dubiously. She was neat and buttoned up, and the office was tidy even though the paint was peeling off the walls. He realised he probably looked like a hobo, fresh from the road with his backpack and his torn jeans and his greasy hair. "Somewhere cheap," he amended, and she nodded.

"There's a place on Violin Road," she said, after a few minutes of looking through the records. "You won't need all the space, but it's the cheapest thing we have. You can rent it on a monthly basis."

"Okay," Gerard said, and she wrote down the address for him.

On his way back to his car, he walked past a place called the Sacred Yew. What drew his eye, though, were the posters plastered over the window: TONIGHT - LOST SOULS? He ducked his head and grinned to himself, knowing he had come to the right place. He would be in that crowd tonight, just like he had been in the crowd eight years ago.

*
Ghost didn't look like he had aged a day, standing in front of the microphone with the light haloing down upon him like he was some angelic being instead of a mortal man. Gerard felt like he was fifteen again, caught in the throng of bodies pressing forward and screaming their appreciation. The only difference was, this time he didn't know any of the songs.

The new songs were just as good, or even better. It was hard to tell, when all Gerard could feel was a fierce joy that he had rediscovered this band again, that they were still together, that they hadn't given it up like so many bands do. Steve's licks were tighter and more complex, and they had brought on a drummer this set, an older man who drove up the pace and the intensity of the songs. Ghost's voice rose above it all, like always, weaving them all together as he sung the melody, low and sweet.

The night passed in a whirl, songs and riffs and words blurring until Gerard was brought to a standstill by the opening chords of a familiar song. After all these years, they were still ending their set with World.

Gerard closed his eyes and let the music pour into him, remembering back to that night and what it felt like to be fearless.

Then it was over, when all Gerard wanted was more. He hesitated. He didn't want to go back to the empty house, not yet, so he hung around the bar and drank another beer. When he stepped outside for a smoke, he came face to face with Ghost purely by chance.

"Um, I - " Gerard stuttered, intending to apologise. Ghost was clearly leaving, hood up even though it was still warm, and he probably didn't want to be accosted by fans.

"You," Ghost said, his pale blue eyes blazing with a sudden intensity. "I dreamed you."

The words knocked Gerard breathless. "How - " he said, and Ghost stepped in, and touched his fingers to Gerard's mouth, so that Gerard had no choice but to lean in the rest of the way and kiss him.

*
Ghost always felt clumsy in these situations, but it was okay; Gerard was too. He led Gerard back to his house and tumbled him into his bed, and it didn't seem to matter to either of them, wet mouths and bumping hands and breathless laughter - all of it just honed Ghost's desire sharper, when it so rarely existed in the first place.

As they rocked together, Gerard wrapped over him like a comforting blanket, he read Gerard's history from his lips. He was the boy Ghost had noticed in New York, the singer. He was the sketcher. The painter. The artist who drew comic book panels of a murderer wearing a Mickey Mouse head, skeletal drummers beating a ticking clock, doomed werewolves howling at their last full moon. He was the kid who had had a gun pressed to his head when he was fifteen years old, and had carried on so bravely ever since.

It was only after that Ghost caught the hint of something else on Gerard, something that made his blood run cold. Gerard had been to the house, and he was intending to stay there. While an ordinary person might sleep there overnight and come out of it no worse than a few truly horrific nightmares, Gerard was an artist. The house would chew him up and swallow him whole.

Ghost wet his lips, and turned to Gerard. Now, lying peacefully and unguarded in the bed, Ghost could see how young Gerard was. He was that age once; going back to that time would be truly terrifying. "Stay with me," Ghost said, almost implored. "We're going on tour again. Come with us."

Gerard's eyes widened with surprise, and Ghost waited with bated breath for his reply.

*
"Come with us," Ghost said, and Gerard was shocked that he even had to consider it before giving his answer. He had just put a month's payment on a house, and he had a blank sketchbook, a box full of pens, and all the time in the world to draw, uninterrupted. Following Ghost on the road meant spending most of his time in a van, surrounded by people he didn't even know, bouncing from one place to another. Gerard didn't even know what he would do. He had always wanted to start a band, but he had no idea how any of the equipment worked, so his usefulness would be limited to lugging gear. When would he even have time to draw?

"Yes," Gerard blurted out. Missing Mile was just a place, after all, and Gerard was in it for the journey, not the destination. He'd loved Ghost since he was fifteen and first heard his voice; he'd never expected Ghost to like him back. He'd follow Ghost like a moth drawn to the sun for as long as Ghost would let him.

"Forever," Ghost said, the word formed around a smile, warm and genuine, and they curled up together and slept soundly and without dreams.


A/N: Lost Souls? and Missing Mile are borrowed from Poppy Z. Brite. The title is from Cemetery Drive by My Chemical Romance. Thank you to my lovely beta, C. <3

Comments

[akamine_chan]

As they rocked together, Gerard wrapped over him like a comforting blanket, he read Gerard's history from his lips.

Oh, that's a lovely line. I liked what Ghost sees in Gerard.

[auctorial.livejournal.com]

Thank you! And yay, I'm glad that came through; it felt pretty obvious to me while I was writing why Gerard was drawn to Ghost but not vice versa, but I didn't want it to be a one-sided connection.

[verbyna.livejournal.com]

Lost Souls/MCR is my favorite bandom crossover, and this story was just so beautifully written. It had the same sense of magic thrumming just under the surface that the novel does and the music tied it all together - Gerard and Mikey, Gerard and Ghost, 1992 and 2000. I wish this was a 'verse - I'd read so much more of it.

[auctorial.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! That is such an amazing compliment to me - that it had the same sense of magic as the book. :DD I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[dr-jasley.livejournal.com]

There's such a vibe to this that I don't get to see much. I had to keep stopping just so I could soak it in.

<3

[auctorial.livejournal.com]

Thank you! So glad you enjoyed it. <3

[bootson.livejournal.com]

I know absolutely nothing about Lost Souls? But this makes me want to know everything! I love the feel of this.

[auctorial.livejournal.com]

Thank you, bb! <333

And this reminds me - have you read Drawing Blood yet? I'm gonna hound you until you do. ;)

[bootson.livejournal.com]

i haven't! but it's totally on my iPad and I WILL get to it! <3

[belleweather.livejournal.com]

This was beautiful and totally made my night.

[auctorial.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm so happy you enjoyed it!

[creepylicious.livejournal.com]

Just let me point out all the lines that made me stupidly happy, besides that you lovely person wrote me Gerard/Ghost, because I didn't think someone would.

Ghost could tell he was a singer, even though he might not know it yet.

Because of course Ghost would.

It felt like dying. Like the panicked, watery breaths of a drowning man. This, because it feels like that, so I was all: YES! the whole paragraph, actually about how it feels so wrong and frustrating when the paper starts to stare back at you.

Ghost knew with certainty that something was coming. Something always was. Your Ghost is wonderful. A grown up and not really grown up version of the one I love so much.

Mentions of the house on Violin Road. The house creeps me out and I still love it and of course Gerard would try to live there (I kinda want that story too,now).

all of it just honed Ghost's desire sharper, when it so rarely existed in the first place. This is how I like to see Ghost too and it was just so perfect.

The whole story is lovely written with that undercurrent of magic under the grit and normal.

AND: It's such a nice change to see the Ways being functional and caring without being super co-dependent.

Thank you so much.

[auctorial.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome, and I'm so happy you liked it! You were the perfect person to write for, for me - I was so excited when I saw you wanted a Lost Souls crossover, and knew I had to write this! xD I'm glad you thought I did Ghost justice!

I actually have this "what if" offshoot idea that I'm thinking about writing, where Gerard stays at the house and gets lost in it, and eventually Mikey comes down and finds him and they both get trapped, and the house gives them ideas~ and they slide into being codependent and lovers and forget about being everything else, and decide to stay there forever and ever because there's nowhere else to go, and of course the house is pleased for having yet another artist to torment. ;D

[creepylicious.livejournal.com]

Honestly I didn't expect it because it was so out there. I'm so glad you wrote it - it is what I wanted. <3 I have a very sharp image of Ghost in my mind, it's nearly as if he were a real person and you just got him like I do, which, how were the chances, you know?
Oh god! great minds and all that, I wrote a story with that premise, it's about the Way's car breaking down, they staying in the house and the house getting to Gerard, but Mikey refusing to leave him, the house, simply leave. It's more on the gen-side of things, but it ventures into waycest.
Needless to say I would real that story of yours in a heartbeat.

[turps33.livejournal.com]

This is a crossover that really works. Gerard and Ghost fit together so well, neither tethered down and always heading toward one another.

This was written beautifully too. I liked it a lot.

[auctorial.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I'm glad you think they fit well together, that was my biggest challenge in writing this fic. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[delphinapterus.livejournal.com]

Absolutely wonderful crossover! I really like the tone and the lyrical writing style. The undercurrent of magic that is never quite explicit is very nice done.

[auctorial.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! <3