We Come out at Night

“Come on you scrawny little spit fucks! We’re gunna be late!” I yelled up the stairs to hurry the girls up. It’s been a little over two and a half months since our accident and we were cleared from the doctor saying we could tour again. Katie was now five months pregnant and growing. Surprisingly, she wasn’t as needy and bitchy as we thought she would be, she was actually rather pleasant.

My ribs healed perfectly fine, as well as my wrist. My tail bone however was forever broken, just dangling there. It no longer hurts, but it feels weird whenever I slam my back into something, I feel it wiggle and it makes me shiver. Lexi too was perfectly fine. Her collar bone healed and all her bruising was gone. As for Lucy, the doctor said that her leg healed extraordinarily well for such a short amount of time. She had a soft cast that went from her hip to her knee. He said that as long as she didn’t go crazy, that she could take it off for shows but to put it back on immediately after.

Tonight was our first show since it was postponed. Since Christmas was only 3 days away, we decided to dress the part. Lexi was dressed in Santa themed lingerie, black leather boots with white fur, and a Santa hat. Aden, Lucy and I dressed as elves. Since Katie was so far into her pregnancy, her doctor advised her to stay away from the kit for awhile. That being said, we had to find a replacement. The one person we all knew would be a pleasure to be around just got laid off from his job, so we called him and he agreed.

“Lookin good bro.” I said to Caleb as he got to the bottom of the stairs in his red silk boxers with red suspenders, Santa hat and red converse.

“I’d like to say the same J but, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in anything that tight in my life, and I don’t know how I feel about it.” He replied.

“I’d say she looks pretty fuckin good.” Zacky said stepping out of the kitchen.

“Dudettes, this is going to be the hardest performance, we’re wearing heels. Ugh.” Aden said trying to walk like a normal person as opposed to Frankenstein.

“Yeah I know, only Lexi is used to heels.” Lucy replied. Lexi smiled wide.

“Alright lets head out.” Caleb ordered, we all obeyed.

Touring with our boys and Black Tide were still pretty routine for us, we felt like we never left the tour. Right after Avenged went on, we walked out, and of course our outfits caused the crowd to go wild.

“MERRY CHRISTMAS FUCKERS!” Lexi yelled to the crowd. They all screamed in response. “So normally, we would have kicked off the show with Blood Shedder, but since it’s Christmas, how about a little Christmas song?” they screamed and wailed again. So we started playing our version of ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’. Lexi of course sang, the only difference was Lucy and I were screaming in the background.

The crowd apparently loved it, but we moved on to our own stuff. “So, I feel it would be rather important for us to point out the obvious and introduce our guest. Joanna? Fill our fans in please?” Lexi said pointing to me.

“Well, as you can see, Katie is not on the kit right now. As of Tuesday, she is five months pregnant, so she can no longer play for the tour. So, filling in for her is my big brother Caleb. Give him a hand!” the crowd cheered for him has he stood up and bowed. He was in a band with his friends when he was a teenager but the biggest shows he did were in a bar back home, this was the biggest crowd he ever played for, and you could see the excitement written all over his face.

I must say, he was very impressive. It took him only a week to learn all of our songs. The girls and I were really excited to have him around and tour with us.

After we played a third song off our new album, we took a break and gave Caleb his time to shine and do a solo. The crowd loved him. We somehow worked it that towards the end of his solo, Aden and I joined him by adding our solo, which broke us off into another song.

After the show we ran to our dressing room to clean ourselves up a bit before we did a signing. Lexi wore a cheetah print tank top, black skinny jeans, and black chucks. Aden wore a Bob Marley t-shirt, tan skinny jeans, and yellow Converse. Caleb wore a Diesel t-shirt, jeans, and Element sneakers. And as for me, I wore a Metal Mulisha t-shirt, blue jeans, and DC shoes.

We waltzed over to Katie at our stand and sat down in the chairs that were placed for us. The crowd cheered as we smiled and waved at them. Caleb sat with us too. We felt it was only fair to let him get some spotlight too.

Before the security guards let our beloved fans get to us, Aden took the opportunity and ran over to the Avenged Sevenfold stand and stole their makeshift tip jar. We all busted out laughing while the guys looked at her, jaws dropped and eyes wide. Brian got up and chased her around the stands, “Get back here wench!”

“NO! My moneys!” she yelled as she came around from behind our stand.

“We worked hard on that tip jar!” he called to her.

“What?! Ya mad cuz?” she yelled as she threw the tip jar to Lexi. Lexi freaked out and tossed the tip jar to the ground, which Brian retrieved before putting it back to its rightful place in their stand. Aden stuck her tongue out and our fans were passed through the barricade.

The signing was going very well. Every now and then, Johnny would come over and check on Katie, even though we kept telling him she had 3 security guards, 4 girls, and a guy over here looking out for her. Every time a fan came up, we’d apologize for postponing the tour, and 9 times out of 10 they told us we were forgiven and that getting injured wasn’t our faults.

Caleb was having a blast. We’ve already been through quite a few signings and he has attended a few with us, but him being a part of it, put the icing on the cake. The fans loved him too. They wanted pictures with him, have him sign autographs, and he definitely had quite a few girls hitting on him. The best was when a guy with hot pink and purple hair hit on him, the look on his face was priceless.

All was going well until one guy in particular got all of us girls autographs and got to Caleb. He asked for a picture with him and just as he leaned over the table to take the picture, he punched Caleb in the face. I think I was on the dude before security was. As soon as I saw the guy swing his arm, I was up on the table and lunging for him. As soon as we hit the ground, I was pulled off by Aden and Lucy. My work was done, because the fans were on him like white on rice.

I turned to look at Caleb, his lip was split open and he was furious. I jumped back over the table, Aden and Lucy following, and stood in front of him so he wouldn’t go after him. Matt, Brian and Zacky joined us and tried to calm him down.

We kept telling him that security would take care of it and that the fans were doing a good job in making sure he got a beating. All of our reassurance was interrupted when Katie screamed. We all looked at her as she held her stomach and vomited. My eyes went wide as we all ran over to her.
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Caleb’s POV

I sat in the backseat with Aden while Joanna drove, well swerving through traffic would be a better description, with Lucy riding shot gun. It was silent, no music, no talking, every now and then Aden and I would exchange glances but never said a word. Not until we heard a sniffling sound from Joanna.

Lucy leaned over the arm rest and appeared to wipe a tear from her cheek. Joanna didn’t swat away like she normally would, she just threw the car in fifth and continued on.

“Joanna, everything’s going to be alright.” Lucy said. The look on Joanna’s face was unreadable, but scary as fuck. No one said a word again until we reached the hospital.

“Joanna!” we all called after her one we got there. As soon as we got a parking spot that she cut an old woman off for, she flew out of the car and towards the door. She didn’t even give us time to catch up to her.
When we walked in, we saw Katie in a wheelchair, clutching her stomach. Johnny was behind her getting ready to wheel her off while Joanna was kneeling down in front of her talking to her quietly. I walked up behind her and put my hands on her shoulders. She looked up at me and I saw the tears forming in her eyes, it killed me inside, but I knew there was nothing I could do at the moment to help her feel better.

The nurse led Johnny and Katie down the hall and I pulled Joanna into a hug as we watched them disappear from our view.

I heard a bunch of rustling come through the door and saw the rest of the guys come in. Zacky ran right up to us and I released Joanna so he could hug her. I turned to Lucy who was just pulling away from Matt. She raised an eyebrow when she looked at me, “Did she really look at her and say, ‘you better not be faking’?” she asked me.

I shrugged, “I don’t know.”

We all made our way to the waiting room. I sat in between Joanna and Lucy. We waited for about 45 minutes before we started playing a very heated game of rock paper scissors. The result was a bruise on my right arm and a bruise on Lucy’s leg; both were produced by Aden right before being told we were ‘pig fuckers’.

Joanna soon fell asleep on my shoulder while she held Zacky’s hand. Lucy fell asleep too, resting her legs on mine while she was wrapped in Matt’s arms. Then about an hour later, Johnny walked into the waiting room with a bag. It looked like the clothing that Katie was wearing earlier. Zacky and I tapped Joanna awake as did Matt to Lucy.

“Johnny.” Matt said getting up.

“H-how’s Katie? How’s the baby?!” Jo asked, practically running over to him.

“Katie’s fine. She got pushed by one of the security guards when the guy went after Caleb. As for the baby, she’ll be fine. They want to keep her here overnight for observation. My biggest thing was her throwing up, but the doctor said it was just stress induced. They will both be fine.”

“Can we see her?” Lexi asked.

“Yeah, that’s the initial reason I was sent out here. But I felt that I should have filled you in on what was going on. Follow me.” He replied before leading us to Katie’s room.

Once we walked in, everyone’s faces lit up, including my own. The girls ran up to her and hugged her warmly. After they dispersed, the guys and myself got a chance to hug her.

We sat there for awhile. Talking, laughing, and just being relieved that Katie and the baby were going to be okay. I couldn’t stop watching Joanna though, she wouldn’t leave Katie’s side. Joanna is closer to Aden and Lucy out of all of them, but watching her with Katie, you’d swear they were sisters.

Eventually we had to leave. When we heard that visiting hours were over through the intercom, we said hour goodbyes and we headed back to their house. We greeted the dogs when we came in, Cindy was rather lost since Katie and Johnny were nowhere to be found.

Everyone went to bed except for Lucy and I. We stayed up for a while and watched Sweeny Todd. Since I was staying at their house for a couple of days, I was sleeping on the couch. I took my spot on one end of the sectional they had and pulled the blanket off of the back of the couch.

“Hey Lucy, can I have one of the pillows?” I asked her, since she had every single pillow that went on the couch.

She threw me the smallest pillow to me and I gave her a look, “Really? The smallest fuckin pillow? Come on I know you gotta love me a little more than that.”

“I’m a pillow whore! Go get your own! I’ll probably take that one too mwauhahaha!” she replied. I burst out into a fit of laughter as she broke out into a song they were singing in the movie. I watched for a few minutes more and smiled before falling into a deep asleep.