Memories.

“When I was a young boy,
My father took me into the city
To see a marching band.”

Dakota sings along to the radio quietly, slowly nodding her head to the beat as she moves around the table to get a better view of the papers scattered atop of it.

“He said, ‘Son when you grow up,
would you be the saviour of the broken,
the beaten and the damned?’
He said ‘Will you defeat them,
your demons, and all the non-believers,
the plans that they have made?’
‘Because one day I'll leave you,
A phantom to lead you in the summer,
To join The Black Parade.’”

She sorts the papers into their appropriate piles as the music serves as a filler to the otherwise silent house. So far she had three piles: random doodles, song lyrics, and complete trash.

Needless to say, the complete trash pile was the biggest stack. She sighs as she surveys the three other binders she still needed to sort. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea.

“What are you doing?” The voice startles her and she whips around, holding a hand to her chest.

“Alan, you have got to stop scaring me like this.” He rolls his eyes, pushing past her to grab a bottle of beer from the fridge.

“I thought you were supposed to be songwriting with the guys today.” He leans back against the kitchen counter, a sullen look twisting his face.

“They told me to come home. I wasn’t helping any.”

‘Why not?’ She wanted to say. She wisely held her tongue.

He chugs the beer, swiftly moving back to the fridge to grab another after carelessly throwing the empty bottle in the general direction of the sink. Thank God he has decent aim.

She moves forward to place a hand on his bicep, only good intentions in mind. He looks at her french tipped hand in disgust, shrugging it off.

She just takes a step backwards with confusion and hurt written all over her face. Quietly she goes back to organizing, quietly consumed with going over everything she had done the past few days, trying to figure out what she did wrong.

He stalks past her to their bedroom after finishing off the second beer.

Austin walks in a few minutes later, uncertainty marring his usual sunny mood.

“Has Alan been through here?” She nods quietly, trying to pretend like her eyes aren’t fixing to fill up with the tears.

“What did he say?” She shrugs, still sorting all of her papers. “Nothing. It was more his attitude than anything. He just acted like he was pissed at me.”

The much taller man lays a gentle hand on her shoulder. “He’s not angry at you, he’s angry at us.”

The question, ‘why’ must be obvious in her face.

“We were telling him he should man up and ask you to officially ask you to be his girlfriend and I guess we pushed him to far. Shay said some pretty messed up shit as well.”

Of course it would be Shay.

Maybe not, her subconscious snarks, you can’t go blaming everything on that asshat. It’s probably because you’ve been eating so much lately, you fatass. No one likes a fatty.

She gulps, trying to make those thoughts go down with the saliva in her mouth.

I’m over that. I am better than some stupid disorder.

“I’ll go talk to him.” She shakes her head back and forth. “No, Aust. Something tells me he’s not in the mood to talk.” He reads into the sadness in her voice and brings her into one of his bear hugs.

“It’ll be okay. Look alive, sunshine.” She smiles at the reference to the first tattoo she had ever gotten and returns the comforting hug.

“Thanks, Austie.”

The kitchen door flings open, the wood making a loud rattling noise as it collides with the wall.

“What the fuck, Dakota?” Alan demands, roughly grabbing her wrist and tugging her away from Austin.

“First Shay, and now Austin. What, are you going to screw Phil next?” She gasps at the accusation, both angry and confused.

“What are you talking about?” He rolls his eyes, still holding onto her wrist.

“I’m talking about how you tried to get Shayley to sleep with you and we he said no, you tried to go get with Austin.”

“Hey, man-” Austin interjects but Alan dismisses him, waving a hand towards the door.

“Get out, Carlile. This is about me and this slut, not you. I’ll deal with you later.”

Her mouth falls open at the careless way he calls her a slut. She wants to snap back with something witty, but years of having the rule ‘no backtalk or you’ll get backhanded or worse’ keeps her mouth shut.

“Don’t call her that!” Alan looks towards the ceiling, seeming to draw the reply from his mind.

“Fuck off. I’ll do what I want.” His grip on her tightens and a whimper escapes her.

“Let go of her, Ashby.” Austin threatens. Alan laughs cockily. “What, you don’t like it when I touch her? Well you’ll love this.” And then the one man Dakota had let herself completely love and trust herself to punches her square in the jaw and she swears she hears one of the delicate bones in her face crack.

Austin lunges towards Alan, but Alan stumbles back and falls before Austin can get any real damage done. He knocked himself out. Fancy that.

As Austin is cleaning her up in the bathroom, she whispers a few words that make Austin completely re-guess the persona she had put up to everyone the past few months.

“Remember how I told him not to promise that he’d hit me? That’s because I knew he would be lying. Everyone always hits me and I’m starting to think I deserve it.”