Stigmata

It had been a week and a half since that strange talk with Jimmy before the set, and nothing had really happened in regards to Vivien’s new talent - aside from the fact that she had gained more conscious control over her emotions (after all, she was a woman, she had to consciously control her emotions every day and it hadn’t been that difficult thus far). Dealing with Matt had been difficult for the first few days, until one drunken confrontation during which Vivien had nearly taken the singer’s head off for looking at her funny, which turned into a discussion about her talent. Finally the redhead had managed to convince Sanders that she wasn’t some sort of lunatic who might convince those around her to leap from the Empire State Building on a whim (if they were anywhere near it, of course), and the pair had been able to kiss and make up in a manner of speaking.

So it had been onward and upward for the little redhead; between actually doing her job and getting drunk, she had been studying “vampirism” with at least one of the six potential teachers who surrounded her at any given hour of the day. So far, she had learned that the only thing that could really hurt one of her kind was wood, that crosses were beautiful decorative pieces and holy water was completely potable, almost every vampire had a talent, and that there were witches (of which she was part), werewolves, shape shifters, and humans who had the odd talent (such as clairvoyants and dreamers). She had rapidly figured out how to recognize and control when she used her talent, and to control what emotion or thought she wanted to attach to the compulsion.

Standing on Avenged Sevenfold’s stage, Vivien strummed chord after chord, making sure that Brian’s mix and tuning was up to her standards of OCD (or CDO, because then the letters were in alphabetical order).

“Viv! What are we singing today?” Zachy’s guitar tech Thor asked, his trademark sound check cigarette dangling precariously from between his lips.

“Uh, er… well, what’s not on the set list tonight?” Amid amplified groans, Viv added, defensively; “I’m open for suggestions guys, I have to pick this shit every time!” While true, the statement still prompted protesting while the three men figured out what wasn’t on the set list for the afternoon’s performance.

“Oh! Trashed and Scattered. That’s nice and short, too.” Leave it to Ronnie, Jimmy’s drum technician, to find one of the highest energy songs missing from the set list. It was also widely agreed by the technicians that they could only play songs from the album City of Evil because a) none of them could scream for shit, b) the City of Evil songs drew a crowd, and c) well, they just had a way of generally fucking up Seventh Trumpet and Waking the Fallen in a way that made Matt pout, Zachy and Brian cry on each other’s shoulders, Jimmy frown in that angry way and Johnny sulk in a very bassist-like manner. Ryan, Vivien and Thor each took a microphone - because Thor didn’t generally sing, they always placed him at Matt’s microphone to check the levels.

“Keep on writing, you’re just raping yourself…” The song proved itself slightly difficult for Vivien, however she managed to pull through - for some reason, playing, singing, and trying not to compulse the audience into doing some sort of awkward chicken dance or stabbing ritual. Either way, life was difficult.

After they finished the song - and they were allowed to finish the song for once, which came as a shock to the little redhead - a brightly smiling Vivien passed off Brian’s mix and his guitar to the man in question, and clapped him on the back.

“Break a leg!” Vivien closed Brian’s hand over his guitar pick and sent him out onstage after she was sure the pack of his mix was secured to the back of his pants - because nobody wanted a 5” x 3” box hanging between their legs, especially in addition to man junk. Finally she was able to take her usual seat on an amp to observe as the boys played - just within arms reach of Brian’s guitars but not out of eyesight of his body on the stage. As usual, Valary perched nearby, facing the stage so as to peer through the amplifiers, just close enough to Viv so that they could fake conversation if they started commenting too closely on the boys stage antics mentally. Life was becoming interesting for Vivien, she often wondered how the boys could live so long around humans, hiding everything about themselves and laying low for a combined two-thousand years or so. Humans were so dumb anyway, it shouldn’t have been too difficult to cover for mistakes and slip ups. She relayed this thought to Val, who shrugged.

Speaking of mistakes… With one final shrug to Val, the redhead popped her head around the nearest amp, holding a fresh guitar for Haner because it sure sounded like he had just popped a string in the last few notes of Chapter Four. She couldn’t see a string hanging, and usually Brian would have alerted her mentally by that point… Concerned, she took another step toward the stage as the song ended - to the dancer’s relief, Brian walked toward her, taking off his guitar. But he did not look happy.

“What the fuck is this shit?!” Vivien looked taken aback by the anger in the guitarist’s voice as he shook the guitar inches away from her face.

“That’s a guitar,” She had to shout to be heard over the din of the crowd, so she added a little mental jab for extra amplification.

“Fuck, Vivien, do your goddamn job and do a proper sound check!”

“What do you mean?” Matt was walking back toward where she and Brian argued

“Your fucking mix!”

“It hasn’t changed since day one, Brian! Fuck you!”

“Then you play the goddamn show! I’m not doing this shit!” Brian chucked his guitar across the backstage area, out the back of the tent-like back of the stage like a child. Scowling, Vivien ripped the mix from his head (along with his sunglasses, which were necessary but had to be taken on the down low).

“I will, you fucking ass hole! And I’ll deal with the shit you get for not playing it! Go fuck yourself, you primadonna!” Brian threw the pick at Vivien - she caught it midair based on pure luck - and stomped offstage just as Matt walked up behind the lithe redhead.

“What was that all about?” Swallowing heavily, Vivien handed Matt the guitar she had been planning to hand to Haner; she stripped down to her bathing suit top, secured the mix to her shorts and then through the strings of her bikini to her ear.

“It looks like I’m playing the show.” She took the guitar back and looped its strap over her head, looking up at Matt grimly as she pulled her hair into a hasty ponytail. The singer looked down at the determined-looking redhead, over at his girlfriend, and back to the girl before he pulled the bandanna and hat off his head and slipped the apparatus over her ginger locks.

“You got this, I believe in you.” He clapped her on the back, and led her onstage as she pushed Brian’s aviators into shape on the bridge of her nose. “Sorry about that, folks, Synyster’s back, he just lost some weight, shrunk, grew boobs and became a ging! Hooray for gingers!” The crowd roared. Suddenly, Vivien felt a lot more nervous about the situation Haner had just left her in. What if the mix was horrendously wrong? What if the guitar broke, and she had no tech to pass her a new guitar? A quick glance over to the right side of the stage showed her that Ryan stood with a guitar in each hand, one of Zachy’s and one of Haner’s.

“Everybody say hello to Vivien! One of these days, Vivien will come up with an awesome stage name, but right now, she’s just going to help us play the show because Brian’s not feeling too hot today.” Matt stood with his arm around Vivien’s shoulders, presenting her to the crowd as if they were part of some demented Southern Debutante Ball. The dancer swallowed gamely, asked Matt mentally if he wanted her to sing harmonies, and somehow managed to plaster a sly smile on her face a la Synyster Gates and struck the opening chords of the Beast and the Harlot.

It didn’t take long for Vivien to start cursing Haner, his parents, his grandparents, and every other ancestor for leaving her in the middle of a set on Warped Tour (though, she gave many mental blessings to Kevin Lyman for making sets so short on the tour), especially considering the set list the boys had arranged for the day. However, somewhere between the first and second solos of Beast and the Harlot, Zachy wandered over to her side of the stage and leaned against the little redhead’s back, forcing her to lean right back against him to remain upright.

At least look like you’re having fun, Viv! We‘re not judging you! Zachy laughed raucously in her ear and smacked the brim of Matt’s hat down over her gray eyes. Viv stuck her tongue out in the guitarist’s direction and threw her head and hair back, effectively righting the hat on her head. With another slight push from Zachy, she climbed atop one of the front amps for the final solo of the song, her hands flowing over the neck of Brian’s guitar as if it were her own.

“How do ya’all feel about Vivien!” Matt’s fist pumped the air in the brief break between songs, which gave Viv a moment to re-assess her bikini top (becoming a topless model on a Warped Tour stage was not the way she wanted her life to proceed), and adjust the tuning on her (Brian’s) guitar. “Yeah, she’s the best! This song’s called Eternal Rest!”

Zachy’s opening notes reminded Vivien as to where she was and what she was supposed to be doing. Feigning confidence, the girl strutted across the stage to stand with Johnny as he delivered his bass line, staring at the crowd as if she owned it.

The rest of the show was more of the same - except when Viv slipped and almost fell off Jimmy’s drum platform, yet managed a spectacular save, turning a back flip in order to land on her feet. This gained a mental jab from Jimmy about her abusing her powers and alerting the audience to funny business, to which she replied;

Jimmy, I’m a goddamn dancer, that’s normal shit! Grinning, she stood next to Matt to play a solo as she had seen Brian do so many times.

It seemed as if the show was over before it began, Vivien mused amid claps on the back from the boys as she packed up Brian’s guitars.

“Come on Viv, we’re going to the table to sign autographs!” Zachy snatched the three hard guitar cases the redhead cradled in her arms and set them beside his own, where Ryan was working. “Ryan, can you get these for today?”

“No, I can take care of my shit, Zachy -” The guitarist in question waved her off, while his tech shooed her out of the way and grabbed up Brian’s guitar cases.

“Vivien, it’s alright, go and see your people!”

“Ok, I mean, they’re all cased up, just make sure they get into the trailer, and -” A member of Avenged captured each of her arms and practically dragged her from the backstage area. Protesting all the way, Vivien made her way to the signing tent held captive between Zachy and Jimmy.