Never Too Late

“You’re fucking insane.”

Bob propped one knee up on the dashboard and flicked the stub of his cigarette out the window because Brian hated littering (so did Gerard) and it was the least he could do if he couldn’t actually argue. Because he really was insane.

“You’re out of your mind, Bob,” Brian growled, gripping the steering wheel tighter, like he was trying to force himself to turn the car around and check Bob into Chicago’s best mental institution. “What if it doesn’t work?”

“Lots of people thought Einstein was out of his mind,” Bob mused and didn’t say anything else. Neither did Brian until the traffic eased their journey to a frustrating standstill.

“Gerard’s a good guy.” Brian still wasn’t looking at Bob.

“The best,” Bob breathed, his voice lighter than the exhaust fumes trickling through the open windows. Bob had to cram his beanie hat over his ears to stop them falling off with cold. Fuck Brian and his average body temperature of a furnace. Gerard hated the cold too. Him and Bob used to share scarves whilst the others traipsed about in skin-tight t-shirts. Bob’s stomach squeezed like the stress ball he’d once lost on tour.

“The best,” Brian agreed, crawling the car forward. “But sometimes he makes stupid decisions. Sometimes he’s melodramatic and spontaneous and doesn’t realise what he’s doing until it’s done.”

“I know,” Bob smiled.

“And sometimes he regrets those decisions, whatever he might say first.”

“I know. He’s…I’m not going to…he’ll have as much time as he wants. I just…he needs to know, Schetcher.”

Brian squeezed his knee without looking away from the road. “Whatever happens, Bob. Whatever happens.”

“I know,” Bob said for the last time, and then mumbled. “He needs to know,’ again, as if psyching himself up.

-

“Fucking motorists, fucking traffic lights. Who the fuck told these fuckers they could drive, Jesus shit!”

“Bob, it’s fine. There’s time,” Brian kept chanting, skidding down a street, mounting the curb so Bob’s head cracked into the car roof. But he didn’t care.

“There isn’t time,” Bob snapped, heart hammering, jumping through gears faster than the car. Brian slammed to a stop at the end of a street heaving with kids in black and merch shirts and crazy hair. Bob opened the door and stuck his leg out, ready to bolt, but Brian grabbed his arm, staring Bob in the eye for the first time since the whole thing began.

“There’s always time, Bob. With Gerard. There’s always time for you.” Bob clenched his hand around Brian’s wrist and ran, not even trying to understand what Brian had just said.

The wind hissed past his ears and oh fuck, Bob was too old for this running shit. He thought he heard himself leave behind excited and shocked exclamations behind him when he finally got inside, short snapshots of ‘Is that-’s and ‘Could it be-’s, but he ignored them. There was a brief hold-up trying to show his ticket without getting recognised by the crowd, but most already had by now. Or thought they had. Three years had done a lot to Bob. At least he hoped so.

Bob pounded through the venue. He knew this place, had played here a lot, worked there even more. He took the stairs, a left, a short corridor, more stairs, a right, a door. Bob burst through, his lungs wrecked and eyes wild.

-

Gerard was warming up. Ray could hear his weird weeahweeahweeah technique and then a high pitched gigigigigi. Also, the sign on the door read ‘Fuck off. Warming up.’ It was the same sign he’d been using since they wrote TBP. Bob made it because Gerard kept getting pissy when Bob walked in on him and then Bob would get pissy and then Gerard would hold these Meetings where they all had to talk about their feelings, which were helpful and all, but always left Ray feeling light and sleepy.

Bob had even got one of the crew to laminate it, because Bob had weird connections with crew members, like it was one big cult you never left. The result was the sign lasted a lot longer than Bob, and Gerard stopped using it even when there was no Bob to walk in and disturb him.

Frank was curled up on the dressing room couch staring into space with that moon-eyed look he got when he thought about his dogs or his wife or his twins – who Ray was glad were at home with Jamia right then, because last gig they went to Frank sent them searching for snacks and they came back with a bill for two wrecked guitars and an ice cooler and four new best friends in the shape of a support act.

Frank laughed until he looked at the bill.

“You should go tell Mikey to start getting ready,” Frank suddenly said. “You know how long he takes.”

“Everybody knows how long he takes.” Ray got up to knock on the bathroom door. Mikey liked to sit in bathrooms before shows. He said it helped with the nerves thing he’d had ever since TBP-incident. Frank liked to tease him about it sometimes. Ray never did.

“Hi,” Mikey said, opening the door. “Time?”

“Nearly.”

Mikey smiled and moved into the room, finding hair gel and eyeliner and shit Ray still didn’t know about even more than a decade of watching Mikey use the stuff. Mikey looked in the dressing room mirror and the bathroom mirror and Frank’s pocket mirror (what the fuck) and between each glance sent Ray an unmistakable little smile that made his ears feel hot.

Gerard came bursting in dramatically eventually and even after all this time, his enthusiasm still had them all bouncing off the walls like a chain reaction of elastic bands.

“This is gonna be a good one,” he beamed out of the room. Frank drifted after him, mellow with good domestic thoughts no doubt. Mikey smiled at Ray before he left, even showing a little teeth that time.

-

Bob ran his hands over the buttons and dials and lights and switches and let the familiarity neutralise the burning acid of nerves in his throat. He could see the stage from here, almost in complete darkness, the drums where he remembered them. He knew exactly what he’d see if he sat behind them.

“Not that I don’t trust ya, mate,” the man beside Bob, his face glowing greenish blue from the only light in the sound booth, said. “But you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“I’ve been doing sound for years,” Bob muttered.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” Bob said.

-

Bob’s heart ached. It was heavy and tight and felt like it was squeezed and stretched and ripped apart and shot to pieces all at once. He wondered if this was how the fans felt when they heard the music, watched Gerard perform. Like dying and being born again and losing sync with gravity and being pinned to his own body, slave to his shaking hands and burning throat.

“Now?” the sound guy asked. Bob nodded and turned the dials and flicked the switches himself because no one could do this for him.

There were excited screams from the crowd and Bob saw Frank stumble, like the sudden silence was a brick wall he’d just walked into. A couple of crew members ran on stage and Gerard started an intense conversation with one of them involving lots of hand gestures.

“Bob?” the sound guy asked urgently. Bob’s hand shook as he flicked one more switch and turned another dial.

It flooded the venue like water, inducing a cold shock of silence and Bob watched the screen. He saw Gerard stare into space like he could see the music notes floating above the crowd and then he said something to the crew members fiercely and then his eyes were searching the walls, high up. He knew the voice, Bob thought. He knew it was Bob.

I haven’t looked out the window for days
And it shows
Because everyone notices when it snows
But I realise when I see roads turned to glaciers
All I’ve done is look at that face of yours
But you’re nowhere grey
You’re fucking miles away
Lighting up the streets of LA
You can do anything
And I feel like I can do
All because of you and what you say and how you do
Everything
Oh Gerard hear me sing
You’re everything
Oh Gerard I’ll make you see
You’re everything to me

Gerard had found the sound box, was gazing up at it and speaking, shouting over the music. Bob was still, like he had gone into shock, the fear gripping him like a million iron fists.

The guy beside Bob must have done something because the music was faded and Bob could hear Gerard, speaking at Bob and Bob couldn’t make sense of it.

“I know it’s you…I know…Bob.” Bob heard his own name wrenched painfully from Gerard, like he hadn’t said it in a long time, like it was the steadfast barrier to a flood of feeling. “I can’t do this, Bob. Not like this. Not now. I don’t…” Gerard’s voice broke in several pieces and he turned away. Mikey was there - the screen showed his hand on Gerard’s shoulder, vice-grip – and the crowd was there, their voices shouting something or everything.

And then Mikey was talking loud enough that the mic caught it. He was angry. “Gerard. You never thought you would get the chance, Gerard. And now you do. You can’t let it go. Whatever you decide, don’t let it go. If I-”

“If you what?” Ray. Mikey turned to him and spoke surely and steadily.

“If I had the chance, with the man I love, I wouldn’t turn my back on it like that.”

Ray whispered so his voice was barely caught by the mic. “What if you do have the chance?”

What the fuck? Bob’s head was spinning and his eyes couldn’t quite focus. But his hearing was suddenly sharp and he knew Gerard’s voice anywhere. “Not here.” And then Bob’s feet were moving of their own accord and walls flew by and every sound echoed.

When Bob reached the dressing room, he opened the door before realising what it meant. Gerard was already there.

“Bob.” They hugged as though the past three years and had melted away, just an extended holiday. As though this was normal and it was just good to see each other again, two best friends. Which it was.

“Gerard.” Every word they had had to say popped beneath the surface like bubbles, short lived and pointless.

“I’m married,” Gerard choked, raspy and dry.

“Whatever you decide, Gerard. You just needed to know. I love you.” Bob shrugged, because all the panic and fear was gone now. He’d never been scared of what Gerard chose, but of never giving Gerard the choice.

“I love you,” Gerard sighed, settling his head against Bob’s chest, which rumbled happily. “But I need…time and I love her too.”

“And that’s okay.” Bob touched Gerard’s face. “I just wanted you to know.”

“If I could…” Gerard took a shuddering breath and his hands tightened on Bob’s waist and God, had he missed that his whole life. “If I could have…”

Bob touched Gerard’s lips. “You can. You know you can. Lindsey, she’s something special.”

“She is.” Gerard hugged Bob again. “So are you.” Bob kissed Gerard’s hair, like that said everything. “We’d have to talk.”

“And I would wait,” Bob said truthfully. “Whatever you decide.” They pressed closer, hearts pushed together like they had only one pulse between them.

“You’re too good to me,” Gerard whispered.

“I just thought, maybe I was too late. That I’d ran out of time.”

“There’s always time for you, Bob. With me.”

“I know,” Bob said complacently.