Butane and Bullets

Gerard plays guitar?

Frank had noticed the instrument sitting propped up in the corner of the basement the brothers had adopted as their room, but he wasn't aware that Gerard could actually use it. He knew Mikey could play a little, and had tried his hand at bass, but he hadn't known Gerard was musical in the slightest. Well, besides being obsessed with listening to it. Speaking of which, his mere ownership of a Misfits CD had increased Frank's respect for the guy ten-fold. He decided simply to voice the question that was swimming in his mind.
"You play guitar?"

Instead of taking a seat opposite on his bed, Gerard crossed his legs at the ankles and lowered himself into a seated position on the floor. He reached behind him to grab the crumpled piece of paper that he'd left on the bedspread and dumped it on the floor in front of him, splaying his slender fingers over it to flatten the creases as much as possible. He sniggered at Frank's question.

"Not according to my last band."
Frank laughed then.
"What, they kicked you out?"
"Yeah" grinned Gerard, cheeks bunched and teeth gleaming. "Legit. Who the hell wants to play Sweet Home Alabama anyway? It's a dumbass song."
"You must really suck, that song's like crazy easy."

It was then that Gerard realised he was potentially scaring off his first listener by letting him know how terrible he was at guitar. However, in a move that only served to increase the nauseous feeling fluttering around in his stomach, he realised that not only was Frank going to be the first to hear Gerard's new venture, but Frank's band was already on a record label and were just about to release a full length album. In a way, it would be good to get the opinion of someone who was already in on the music biz, but on the other hand, Gerard wasn't entirely sure how he would approach the situation should that opinion be a negative one. Surely Frank, someone who had both played guitar and sang his heart out in a studio to make an actual album would know far more about music than Gerard could even hope to comprehend?

No. No, I am not losing this. Not before it's even begun. I'm gonna make him see, I'm gonna make him understand.

His face lost all expression bar the hope in his eyes as he looked up at Frank, appealing to the boy's good nature. "...Just hear me out, okay? Please, Frank. I'm serious about this."

Frank's previously amused expression softened in the glow of silent hazel coloured pleas. He felt his mouth morph into a different sort of smile than he had been sporting seconds beforehand. It was empathetic, encouraging, and sort of apologetic. He berated himself for being so instantly judgemental, and cast his memory back into the days where he had needed to practically browbeat people into listening to him play guitar and had wished people would just take a chance. Ah, who am I kidding? It's still like that. We may have an EP out, but it doesn't mean people are listening. He would approach Gerard's idea with an open mind. He would instil in himself the faith that he had urged Mikey to adopt towards his brother's new project.

"Of course I'll listen. Take your time."

Gerard's eyes flashed with mixed emotions. Gratitude for Frank's willingness to potentially expose his ears to a horrific pile of crap. Fear, for he was about to reveal to someone else what he had thrown his heart, his very being into for the past week. Self-consciousness, because he was awful at guitar.

There was no time to dwell on it though. It was time to lay himself bare. He took one last look at Frank. His features were soft, dirty dreadlocks framing that angelic face. Gerard's stomach tripped once with a sensation he couldn't recall, and he took a deep breath, tucking his greasy hair out of the way behind his ears, lowering his eyes to the paper before him.

He felt around for the correct strings on the guitar, closing his aching fingers over them. He'd played so often this week that one of his digits had come up in blisters, baffled by all the string action in comparison to the lack of it in the months before. The niggling pain grounded him, as he fought for the courage to play the first note.

"Just for the record, I've imagined this on an electric. ...But all I've got is this acoustic."
"...Just play, Gerard."

His eyelids slipped forward briefly, cloaking him in darkness just long enough to gather himself, as his fingers started to pluck.

He played the introduction to the song well. Frank's ears were appreciative of the fluent string of notes, and he was unable to halt the smile from gracing his lips as he watched Gerard's face in its concentration. The music sounded interesting on an acoustic, but Frank's mind was already playing translator and imagining how it would sound on an electric. He got excited then, and his eyes widened just slightly in anticipation of the lyrics this artist had penned in accompaniment. There was a purposeful momentary pause in the music before Gerard opened his mouth to sing along. ...And that was where it all fell apart.

"You're not in this alone-"Gerard began, careful to project his voice rather than sing as quietly as his nerves wished him to.

His eyes danced nervously over the scrawled lyrics that he didn't yet know well enough to sing without having them in front of him, and his fingers misbehaved whilst they weren't being watched. One of them caught on the wrong string, making the next strum sound incredibly off. It distracted him, and he frowned, moving his eyes back to the instrument as he tried to put the problem right. However, when he continued playing to audibly inspect whether he had fixed the sound, he missed his own cue, and frantically grasped at the words with his mind.

"Let me-" the music paused awkwardly until his eyes flicked back to the fret board. "-break this awkward silence; let me go-".

His delivery was sharp, and the next short block of notes that he played were strong, intriguing Frank even further. However when he resumed singing, the seed of doubt that had settled in Frank's stomach only served to flower spectacularly. Gerard sang a whole line without noticing that his fingers had stopped playing the music.

"-go on record" he drew out the note slightly, getting too passionate about his delivery. "-and be the one to say I'm sorry. Hear me- oh shit."

His fingers fumbled, strumming against the wrong notes entirely, getting angry at himself and cursing under his breath as he struggled to find the rhythm again. It didn't come naturally when he played, so to lose it was a sure fire way to ruin his flow. The lyrics seemed to be involved in some sort of trade off with the music, unable to exist in cooperation. This led to a stilted rendition, as Gerard fought for the two elements to interact.

"-out. And if you take me... me down... or would you l-... lay me... for fuck's sake."

He stopped strumming then, and angrily tried to set his fingers up over the correct notes before he could start over. His shaky eyes flashed up to Frank's pinched expression involuntarily, but he looked away quickly, face flushing in embarrassment.
"I'm sorry, let me just... let me start again."

Frank rubbed his hand over his face and held his lip ring between two fingers. His stomach fluttered as he watched the older boy fumble with the guitar, and braced for the reaction he was about to pull out of him.
"Gerard, stop a sec."

The struggle in Gerard's eyes as he looked up at the bed was positively heartbreaking. I'm fucking this up. I'm fucking up, and Frank thinks I'm a fool for trying. Gerard's heart contracted in his chest, embarrassment threatening to suffocate him. I'm onto something with this, I know I am. If only I wasn't such a fucking spaz on guitar he might think so too.

"Frank, I... I've been practising all week, I thought I had it down, just let me practise some more and then-"

The dreadlocked boy held up a hand as if to halt the other's words. It sort of irritated Gerard to see that Frank's face was kind, as usual, even when he was probably about to crush any hope he had left in his bones.
"You don't have to prove anything to me."

Gerard's jaw dropped, and he failed in reigning in his emotions.
"But I want your opinion. I need someone to tell me I can do this." A sob he wasn't aware was lurking beneath the surface caught in his throat as he dropped his eyes to the floor, ashamed to admit to the tears that rippled his vision. "Frank, I fucking need this."

The image of that little red pill dancing across the counter top underneath a slender finger flirted with Frank's memory of Gerard's sobs against his shoulder in the dark. He refused to be another reason why he would swallow those pills or cry those tears. Not only that, but the song, when it wasn't stilted or falling apart through frustration, still sounded intriguing. Just because Gerard couldn't play it that well, it didn't mean that he hadn't created a kick-ass song. He just had to hear it properly before he could judge with any ounce of justification.

He relinquished his hold on the pillow, and dropped onto the floor, sitting directly in front of Gerard, who had one hand in his hair, and the other still clutching the neck of the guitar that balanced between his thighs. He folded one small hand over a pyjama-clad knee, and hunched over, angling his head as if to look up at the face of the boy opposite whose head was still hung low as he swallowed back frustrated sobs.

"Look, I've got an idea. You can play the song on guitar, yeah?"

Gerard lifted his face and nodded briefly, rubbing the back of his hand and his forearm over his eyes, irritated to be showing his weakness through tears once again.

"And you can sing it?"
"Well of course I can."
"You just have a problem doing both at the same time?"
"I guess" he mumbled.
"Then teach me how to play it" smiled Frank, relieving Gerard of the guitar. "You teach me the chords and the basic rhythm, and then we can take a listen to both at the same time."

Gerard watched as Frank dusted his fingers onto the right strings simply from memory, and was relieved to feel his lips stretch into his cheeks. It wasn't over, not yet.

When Frank looked up from the guitar smiling, Gerard felt his lips curve even further, revealing his small teeth.
"This is what you started on, right?"

And so Gerard taught Frank how to play the song, reaching over to press his own fingers to the strings rather than deciphering what notes they were. When he did so, Frank would find himself staring up into that eager round face rather than paying attention to what notes he needed to strum next. He could see how badly Gerard needed this song to be something special. Frank wanted it to be. He wanted the song to be the salvation Gerard was hoping for. He got the distinct impression that this little project was all or nothing. If it turned out to be fruitless, Gerard would be back at square one, alone in a basement with greasy hair that was screaming for a re-dye and bottles of pills to keep him both alive and asleep.

Gerard was happily irked to discover that he only needed to provide instruction the first time before Frank demonstrated that he could run through the whole song on his own. He was pleased that they didn't need to waste more precious seconds on practising, but a little upset that his own skills were not as polished. He could barely make it through the song without a mistake, and he wrote the fucking thing.

His heart swelled through that second run-through. He watched the boy's clever fingers tease music from the instrument, and was in awe not only of Frank but also of himself and what he'd managed to accomplish in one week. He wasn't the one playing it, but damn, he'd created it. That collection of chords and rhythm would not have existed had it not been for the hours Gerard had spent working on it solitarily. When it ended, two sets of smiling hazel eyes greeted each other in unison. The air between them was electric, and neither could wait for the final run-through.

"You ready?" asked Frank, heart fluttering with excitement. When Gerard nodded, he replied in kind, moving his head up and down emphatically. "Sing with everything you've got, okay? Don't hold back. Sing it for the world, Gerard. Sing it for the world."

He didn't wait for a reply. He simply launched into the song with as much gusto as he could muster. It was the way he had always played, and hopefully always would. He lost himself in the music, brutally assaulting the strings without making a single mistake. Gerard was in awe; smile morphing into a smug grin as his cue grew near. When Gerard's voice accompanied him, elation spread through Frank like wildfire. The boy certainly was singing with everything he had, and Frankie opened his eyes simply to watch. The page of note paper was clutched firmly in his hand, but Gerard sang loud and proud, unafraid to open his mouth as wide as it would go to scream those words out. His eyes creased in emotion, and listening to the lyrics, Frank realised why. The song was about the previous week's events. The connotations were not direct and you'd need to have more info than just the lyrics to work it out, but Frank had access to that information and understood the real meaning behind every word.

"Tell me where we go from here..."

He drew the last note out as long as he could, unwilling for the collaboration to end. It left him breathless, chest heaving as he stared at Frank, whose breaths were also heavy from the exertion of playing so vigorously. They both wanted to speak, but weren't quite sure where to start. Instead, they remained where they were, breathing at each other, eyes tensely locked, with the distant thrashing of Misfits playing upstairs. Suddenly that thrashing grew louder as Mikey threw open the door at the top of the stairwell.

"Frank, you down here?" he yelled.

Frank's eyes widened immediately as he practically threw the guitar at Gerard. He was quickly becoming one of the people in the world Frank cared about the most. If he didn't want his little brother to find out just yet then Frank wasn't going to betray that. Not missing a beat, Gerard leapt to his feet to return the guitar to its original resting spot, stuffing the sheet of lyrics under his pillow.

"Yeah!" called Frank, eying Gerard to make sure the coast was clear before Mikey descended the stairs.

"Why the hell did you leave the music on upstairs?" Mikey asked as he entered the room swiftly, dropping his wet towel on his bed.
"To confuse the hell out of you" Gerard put in, standing awkwardly near his bed, not quite sure where to place himself. His grin was wide. "I see it worked."

Mikey scrunched his face up and flipped Gerard the bird, still smiling despite trying not to.

"Couldn't you have at least got dressed? We kind of have company. You could do with a shower too - look at your hair, I could make french-fries with that grease."

Under normal circumstances, that comment would have hurt him, lowering his already dismal self-esteem, however he was still too buzzed from hearing his song complete and all together.
"Ugh, why?" he groaned, in an over-dramatic teenage fashion that made them all smile. "I'm not even going anywhere today, give me a break."

Before he even registered what was happening, the words slipped from Frank's mouth and lingered between the trio.
"Yes you are."

"Oh?" enquired Gerard, eyes sceptical. "Where exactly am I going then?"

Yeah, where? Frank asked himself. He listened as his voice answered the question, seemingly detached from it.
"My band is playing at the Loop Lounge tonight. I've just decided; you're both coming."