Keep the Faith

They're All I Have Now.

"We love you!"

He made his way towards the backstage with those words ringing inside his head. He kept his pace fast, until finally, he was surrounded by walls again, hiding him from the crowd.

Still walking quickly, he kept his head bowed, determined to keep his ears deaf from the world for a while... he wanted to be alone.

Despite every effort he was exerting, his ears still seemed to want to vacuum and decipher every word from the people who were walking beside and behind him.

"Are you alright?"

"Is everything okay?"

He knew, both inside and out, that he wasn’t. He felt sick. Since the beginning of the Revenge line-up, he started to feel like shit.

"Dude..." he felt Mikey tap him on the back. Gerard stopped, and sighed. His brother's touch made him feel better, it always did... but at the moment it was not what he wanted.

'A time to think... that's what I need right now.' Gerard thought.

"I want to be alone for a while."

Mikey removed his hand from Gerard's shoulder, and then they both stared at each other. Seeing the worry on Mikey's eyes didn't help Gerard at all, so he removed his gaze from his younger brother and decided to continue walking.

As Gerard started to walk away from him, he gave him two more taps on the back.

"Thanks, Mikey." Gerard made a final glance at his brother, and forced a smile. Mikey smiled back and pointed his thumb behind him, as if telling Gerard to follow where he was going.

Gerard just nodded idly.

He headed towards the dressing room, his mind whirling with thoughts about the show which just ended a couple of minutes ago.

'That was just shit.' he thought, shaking his head as his fists closed tightly.

As he reached the room at the very 'dead end' of the hall, he pushed the door, and kicked it at the same time, so that it banged on the wall.

The room was empty, which he was thankful of. He went further into the room and found a bed, where he sat.

Still with closed fists, he thought.

'What happened?'

He looked at his hands as they started to redden. His mind tried with great effort to come up with answers for the questions that had been bugging him.

'Is there something wrong about us right now? Is there something wrong on what I've become?'

His eyes narrowed and breathing became a hard task for him as the words from the crowd rung in his head, as the scenes from a while ago flooded his mind...

"The Black Parade has left!" Gerard announced to the crowd, his eyes gazing at the huge banner the people were holding up high. 'We want the old My Chemical Romance back! We want the old Gerard Way back.'

The crowd screamed harder than it ever did.

"And My Chemical Romance will now fucking take over the stage!"

The crowd screamed the loudest.

"Finally! A bit of the old My Chemical Romance we knew!" and words as such were all he heard from the people who were in the front row.

Gerard just bit his lip and turned his back on the crowd as the guitars and the drums started playing the beautiful intro of Cemetery Drive.

From the very opening of the concert, to the last beautiful song of The Black Parade, most of the people had just kept quiet.

And then suddenly they were all rocking out…

'They just didn't appreciate the new music we have, maybe...' Gerard forced to believe the thought, as he knocked himself back from his reminiscing.

But remembering the snobby looks his eyes had met a while ago, the crossed-armed people who had watched him with bored eyes… he couldn't help himself from thinking... 'We're losing them.'

'They're starting to doubt us and the words that come out of my mouth... but why?'

He sighed and put his hands on his lap, and examined the reddening of his sweaty fingers. He bit his lip as he tried to stop the tears that were forming in the corner of his eyes, it made his eyes sting, so he closed his eyes and unexpectedly… tears fell from them.

The crowd he usually saw before the stage used to comfort him, used to reassure support and love for the band, but he didn’t sense that comfort anymore, he sensed no more reassurance.

Now it felt as if the people around him just came to wait and witness another mistake he will be making… another “non-heroic” expression he will be saying… to be used for a merciless attack against the band… a merciless attack against him.

'The people who had come together to support us were falling part... and it was my entire fault.'

His band mates had always tried to deny to him every word from the crowd that reached him.

Liar. Stuck-up. Snob. Fake. And a failure.

These might just be words… but weren’t it the words and lyrics they used to deliver messages to the people? Weren’t it the words of support that kept them going?

Tears continued staining his beautiful but pale face, as more questions started bothering him.

When had this human disappointed them?

What had he done wrong?

Did this hero just destroy the world for the people who believed in him?

… Did he really let them down?

Is he still the hero we look up to… or is he really a failure now instead?

Failure.

He felt like a failure. Without the people who had stuck with them through thick and thin... his band is a disappointment.

Always, for him… it was not about the recognition, it was not about the album sales, it was not about being on the charts... it was the people who understood them, it was the people whom they stood up for... it was the people who once stood up for them...

It was their support that kept them going, it was the people who believed in him that kept him breathing... it was the people who promised to back them up when the rest of the world fails them...

It was the people who claimed their lives to have been saved by them...

And now these people... these people are starting... one by one... to go against them.

Gerard stood up and headed towards the drawer. He looked for a pen, and once he had found it, he wrote these letters, with shaking hands, on his neck.

"Stay."

'I'm not losing hope. We have earned them before; we can earn them back...'

'Because I want them to stay for me, and I'll stay for them. They're all I have now.'