InsaneJournal

Fic: Art of Codependency: Magic--MCR, mature, gen (more or less)
Title: Art of Codependency: Magic
Author: Lise (lisa roquin)
Pairing: more or less gen, background (and overheard) het, can very easily be read as pre-slash if your heart so desires.
Rating: mature
fandom: bandom (god help me), MCR in specific
POV: varying
Summary: They guys set to work on writing. Frank hums, then the groove hits. And they've got it.
Disclaimer: oh, what? of course this is the gospel truth. And I love your hat, tinfoil is all the rage this year, and so useful about keeping those pesky aliens and telepaths from getting in your head, I agree. Hello. Reality Check. This is pure bullshit. Fiction. Look it up.
Author Notes: a million things I should and need to be doing, but I took a very necessary mental health time out to try to find words again before I lost my damn mind. And this is what showed up.
Dedications: points. it's her fault. all hers. and she knows who she is. she's a little busy rolling on the floor laughing at me right now. but I swear. It's her fault. And yes that is so a dedication. if she can make death threats to make me post this, I can blame her for a dedication.

Gerard || Bob || Therapy || Them




The house is awesome, Gerard has to admit seeing it. He doesn't hate Brian, even if he's not really ready to be here, this is where they need to be. Here not anywhere physical but back to writing, getting the songs for the next album out of the multitude of pieces. Ray has music. Ray always has music, he breathes it, sleeps it the way Frank fucking flies with some internal soundtrack that can't be translated into anything outside Frank. Gerard has bits and pieces and snatches of words concepts and ideas that need some form and music's as good a form as any other. Bob has rhythms beats and sound and angles none of them could come near let alone touch without Bob. Mikey has glares and little bits of what he says are nothing that Ray nearly kisses him over because Mikey's little bits of nothing are just the right missing bit of nothing every last fucking time, filling in the hole, rounding out the sound, completing the last little piece that isn't quite that everything doesn't fall completely together until that piece is present. Frank has chaotic bits, flashes of electricity and pure brilliance that need something to ground them, connect them, kinda like Frank himself half the time but the music is there. It's there even more than with Ray, just harder to put in cohesive order at times from Frank, part Frank wants the pieces, the music, too much and they tangle and hide and part that's just the way it comes with Frank and he needs the grounding to put it together.

It doesn't take too much to settle in, not really, mostly just unloading the van and trailer but that's not that much despite being crammed. Because it's equipment and instruments and enough clothes to get by. Laptops, a box of DVDs, a box of CDs all of the collective from the bus of "Who the fuck's is this?" or "Where the fuck did this come from?" Few standby games and a PS One. Gameboys and ipods are as much a given as their phones. A box of Gerard's notebooks and sketchpads and art supplies.

They're pretty simple guys really. They like their stuff, but they're here to work, and they all get so focused that it's kinda not really worth having more than what they need to stay sane, or at least keep from killing each other, in the form of distractions.

"Hey," Gerard says softly standing in Mikey's doorway. His room is--well his suitcase and duffle are on the floor next to the dresser and his laptop, phone, ipod and box of writing and art shit are on the dresser. He's good. Unpacked and settled as he needs to be for now, and Mikey's more important.

"Hey."

"You look almost as fucked as me."

"You left me"

Gerard somehow manages not to puke. Or not to say that Mikey left first because that was totally fucking unfair and so not the same, Mikey's break had been one to stave off so much worse, and there was Alicia. "Didn't mean to." And he didn't. God never, ever leave Mikey. It wasn't possible. It just wasn't. Even laidback, steady Ray kinda looks at them strangely every now and then as if trying to figure out how they managed because he'd kill his brothers, any of them, no matter how close they were and how well they got along, if they were there the way Mikey and Gerard were right there next to each other.

"I know"

"You up for this?"

Mikey bites his lip. "Yeah. Need this. It's not the road. It's..."

"Us." Gerard nods. Yeah, Mikey so isn't in shape for touring just now, hell none of them are, but Mikey is the one that it would break now. They're not to that point. They could. They could take a few dates just to move once they get a chunk of writing done. Probably, maybe will. Just a few, couple here, couple there. For some reason or another not actually tour but still could. Hell for all he knew Brian had turned down some dates as it was, when he was holed up the last weeks, months. They need this, they all do, from whatever direction they're coming, for whatever reason. "If Alicia has the time...you could call her and have her come up.."

Mikey shakes his head. "We're writing."

"We can write anyway."

Mikey shakes his head again. "Not what we need to."

"Okay, but..."

"Yeah." Mikey nods. "Yeah."

*

"C'mon. Grocery run," Bob grabs Frank by the back of the shirt. Ray gives him a grateful look and goes back to setting up the living room for working on the songs.

*

"Leave a voicemail," Bob hands Frank his phone as they're hitting the end of the lane to the house.

"Huh?"

"One through four doesn't matter, it's you guys. Do it. What you're humming."

Frank takes the phone and obediently leaves voicemails with the bit stuck in his head on all four, which also required telling Mikey and Ray to hang up and let him leave it on voicemail. Mikey was with Gerard, so he didn't answer when his phone started to ring.

"You look like fucking hell, man," Frank says when he reaches to put Bob's phone back in his pocket.

"Not a surprise," Bob snorts.

"No, but you really look like fucking hell. We're supposed to take care of you too."

"You do," Bob says firmly.

Frank pulls his knees up, curling into a ball in the passenger seat. "Not good enough"

Bob snorts and reaches to squeeze Frank's knee.

*

Frank spends the trip through the grocery store clinging to Bob's back piggyback style like a hyper kid when he's not grabbing this that or the other to throw in the cart. Touristy vacation town or not, it's not tourist season yet, and the locals don't know what the fuck to make of a blonde guy with a lip ring and a little Italian with lip ring, nose ring, and tattooes hitting the point he nearly had more ink than bare skin left. Schools in session, so the ones most likely to recognize them are safely spacing out not listening to algebra and history lessons rather than pointing and rushing for autographs and shit.

"Frankie," Bob growls at the fist-fulls of candy being dropped onto the conveyor from the checkout lane racks. Frank's emptying the fucking racks.

"Chocolate," Frank says as if that's all the more explanation that is needed. "And I haven't had these in for ever." He holds up five packs of Dip It.

"You and sugar." Bob mutters, staring at the flavored pure sugar that came with candy dipping sticks. "You aren't getting all of those yourself. No fucking way. We each get one because we're not going to survive you having all five."

Frank pouts.

The woman checking them out likely has pictures of half a dozen grandkids in her purse somewhere and stares as if they might be dangerous, or contagious, or both.

Frank is deliberately being an ass and picks up every last Dip It pack and puts them on the pile.

"When Ray kills you, don't hide behind me."

"Ray will kill you first for letting me get them," Frank smiles angelically.

"Probably," Bob agrees and "Shit, Gee's Lucky Charms.."

Frank darts off. He's back with a box of Lucky Charms and looking sheepish holding a box of Count Chocula.

Bob rolls his eyes and reaches to ruffle Frank's hair a bit, which is really getting fucking long these days. Frank puts the cereal on the pile and moves around with the cart to bag and fill it with bags. The checker calls for some help, which is another woman who is easily in her fifties and looking at them almost as strangely.


*

Gerard's in his room looking through his composition books looking for the phrase stuck in his head, he knows there's something there. Mikey's picking out Frank's humming on his bass. Ray's fiddling with a riff that is almost chaotically polar opposite of the little bit that Frank had been humming and left on voicemails so it didn't get lost.

Bob has a beat in his head that has him twitching and tapping as they make their way through putting away groceries and then Bob has to set up his kit.

The music is there. And they're not thinking about it, not even wondering about what's their concept or vision or what the fuck ever for this one, Gerard will tell them when they figure it out and they might have to save a song or two for something else, for live show or for whatever if it doesn't make it but the music hit, and it's there. Frank's humming caught the magic and they're not asking, not thinking, not questioning.

It sucks. It's clashing and chaos. And it's three songs, Mikey is the one to decide, not one. Frank's humming, Ray's riff and Bob's backbeat, three songs from three different directions, maybe four because Gerard's wavering about the words he's stuck on and Frank's bit which popped those words in his head but didn't seem to fit Frank's bit yet, if at all.

The initial bit of words that the humming brought forth ended up with Bob's backbeat by midnight and Mikey and Frank had expanded the humming to bass and rhythm. Ray's still fiddling with his riff and a hook and...it's fucking THERE. And it's nothing like Black Parade, the feel in the air, the feel of how they're doing this. And Frank would add it's nothing like Three Cheers either or what he did with Pencey, Gerard and Mikey and Ray would say it's nothing like any of their previous albums. Not in how the music is coming forward, not in how it feels.

Any thought of trying to top past achievements is tossed out the fucking window, hell, it was before they left Jersey. It was almost like that hadn't even got in the van with them.

They take turns listening, taping rough track pieces that are raw and disjointed and still fluid and unset. At best it could be called an inspired jam session of absolutely fucking nothing and randomness that doesn't completely suck even if it's jumbled up to making no sense. Fuck it's not even skeletal it's jagged fragments and none of them have a clue what the fragments go to. But it's THERE.

And they let it take them because you just don't not. Not when something talks like that, not when something is that there, no matter how many somethings it is from different directions it's...it's THERE.

By noon fingers and throats are raw, Bob's nearly lost feeling in his arms and none of them can fucking see straight and it'd been fucking eighteen hours or close enough, munching and bathroom breaks and wandering the living room in circles, a bit of bitching back and forth and chunks of raw, but very real, songs even if they had no idea just what yet. What to grab first and build on was impossible to decide but they had pieces, they had something. They had fucking magic that you just don't have strike like that unless something somewhere in the universe just. fucking. loves. you. And they all know it's not over, that they have music yet to play and write, that it's not time to walk away. They'd hoped, they'd feared, they didn't want to walk away but you didn't force it or you were just another cookie cutter sound from the industry machine. And they weren't that. They had an album, somewhere in the pile of shit they'd hacked out since Frank started humming. They knew they had an album.

They stumble to their rooms shaky, buzzing with the high of the pieces and exhaustion and pass out.

*

By day five the manic pace hasn't lessened but the toll is climbing. They have a song, Franks Hum, raw, needing cleaned and tweaked, fleshed out and probably all but rewritten in the process of cleaning it up and getting it to fit together just right and a thousand rounds of 'what if we try this here instead'. They also have a little less than half of two more songs. The drum and lyrics entirely to one, which is fucking strange but no one's blinking at how it's coming together. Too afraid whatever the hell has turned on will suddenly turn off and leave them, they take what comes at them. They have one fucking awesome guitar part, and half the drums to it and maybe maybe a bass-line. They have lyrics for two more, and one Gerard stops them all with, "The kids going to get this one?" because it's...it's...yeah. It's completely from the almost automatic writing from Bob's drum practices when it was a challenge to get eight whole bites down him without resulting to forcefeed him. It's raw, ragged devastation and clawing from a place that's pretty fucking horrific.

"Doesn't matter." Mikey is the one that speaks up. "The kids that can get that, need to hear it, and fuckin hell you almost hope a lot don't get it."

"Can you sing it for three years?" Is Bob's question.

Gerard looks at the paper he put on the coffee table between them all. "I don't know"

"Then we sit on that one." Ray decides. "We write it, get it, see if we keep it as just ours for now when it's done."

*

Day ten. They're wrecked.

The magic is there, the music is still coming with no more coherency, no gentleness whatsoever. Raw, demanding, ragged, razor-blade sharp bursts of fuck, now, right fucking now, before I forget this, listen, listen, does it work, god-fucking-damn, yes.

Gerard wandering off and getting lost in creating, in thinking, in whatever the fuck goes on in his head even when life is at it's best is normal. But this time it's all of them. And sometime around day six phones got turned off when Jamia called in the middle of things flowing, just fucking flowing so damned good.

Showers are vague memories, they're likely to bleed coffee at this point and that's the only thing in the house they haven't ran out of yet. And that's just because a years supply for normal human beings was packed along with them, so that translates to they're down to enough to make another six, maybe, maybe seven pots of coffee then they're fucking screwed and a fast fucking run for a couple cartons of cigarettes won't cut it anymore.

The rescue party shows up at two.

Brian. Jamia, Alicia, Christa, Jacob and Mark.

"Brian? You brought our shrinks?" Ray stares.

"You guys didn't answer the door yesterday, I called and had someone come out here and check. Figured you were alive by the noise coming out of the house but you totally fucked off the doorbell and the door nearly beat down."

"I didn't hear --" Bob frowns. And goddamn it why now when the drumline to Mikey's ThrumRhythm that fucking blew them away two days before is there. almost almost almost there. Just on the edge of his reach but he can hear it in his bones even if he can't get it out of his drumsticks yet.

None of them had. And not a one of them looked any happier than Bob at stopping just now because, because because...

"Three more hours," Frank whines looking at Jamia with puppy eyes.

Three turns into closer to five. Grocery shopping is done by someone, bedding is washed, they're chased one by one to the bathrooms to shower and shave and change clothes that probably could walk by themselves at this point. They're forced to stop when supper is ready. Which is just fucking weird. But the smell of food reminds them all they haven't had anything but the stash of candy and stale dry cereal in a couple days. They're starving.

Brian's looking like he's not sure if he should be fucking scared or kneel down and worship. He snagged the tracks and started listening while being stuck on laundry duty. "What the fuck happened?"

"Frank was humming on the way to the grocery store, groove hit," Ray says as if that explains it all. And, honestly, it really does. At least for Brian. And for Jamia and Alicia. And mostly for Christa, who doesn't quite get it, but has been well educated on the subject of grooves by Ray. Christa hasn't quite seen anything like this either. The manic of the Way brothers and Frank so thoroughly infecting Ray and Bob and all of them riding the groove so fucking hard that they completely lost the world around them.

*

Bob goes back to work on the drumline to Mikey's ThrumRhythm. Gerard sits with him and plays Mikey's bass, a bit sucktastically with lack of practice and ages since he's played, but well enough that it's there, with the beat. The other three hauled off to their rooms by their women.

"This is the Dark One." Gerard whispers, his voice shaky, when at about eleven the drumline is cemented.

"Yeah," Bob agrees. The ThrumRhythm is dark and somehow conveying brutal-pain, the drumline with it powerful, primal. It's not punk, it's not, it's not...It's not fucking anything but fucking raw and perfect. It's the song. It's...yeah. It goes with the set of lyrics that Gerard's unsure he can sing night after night for a year, two, three years. Because when they hit the road, they all know they're going to hit it hard and long and it's going to be that long. Til the next album hits them between the eyes or they just have to fucking stop and collapse and decide what next.

"We can't not use this one."

"Yes we can," Bob disagrees. "We can. We can let it sit and rot if we have to."

Gerard stares at him. "You're fucking out of your mind."

"This one isn't going to be your next nervous breakdown from singing it every fucking night."

"Fucking listen to it, even without Ray and Frank touching it yet. Just the bass and drums and the fucking lyrics. Fuck we--"

"We can let it sit for as goddamned long as we have to, forever." Bob insists. "We write it. Let it sit til you know you can. And if that takes fifty years then it does."

"It's the Dark One."

"Yeah it is."

"It's it's.."

"Yeah"

"It can't sit"

"It can, if we need to let it,"

"Figure it the fuck out in the morning," Brian interrupts. "It's almost eleven and we drove all fucking day. And which room are Jacob and Mark in? I'll take the couch here."

"Mine." Bob says. "I'll crash with Gee." He looks at Brian as if he's just a little fucked in the head for even wondering because Gerard's got all his shit strung out in his room by now when he's dug through looking for the lyrics, papers and composition books and sketches and shit that he's not ready to show anyone, and is careless with because he knows the rest of them don't look without permission but attempting to gather all that up so someone could use the room?

"I was being polite." Brian rolls his eyes because he damn well knew the answer.

Bob snorts.

"I'll get Brian some bedding." Gerard says, reluctantly putting down the bass and letting go of the debate over the song for now.

Bob catches Gerard's shoulder and squeezes hard as he goes by. It's a fucking crime to let the song sit and rot, even with as much as they have, just lyrics, drum and bass but they can, they will, and not a one of them would even think to flinch over it. It needs to be written, has to be finished, can't not be. But fuck if they have to do anything with it no matter how criminal that might be, how much Gee thinks they have to, if it's too much it is.

Brian, for all he's their manager, and in fucking love with what pieces they have of this, not even a clue of the lyrics, he's not asking, and he won't. He just hopes he gets to hear it polished up just once if they trash it. He'd spent too much time living with and around musicians. The best were the ones that would drive you just fucking batshit because they were. totally. fucking. insane. even when stone cold sober and straight. Not road-crazy, not socially inept, partying burnout or rock star crazy. But creative genius fucking insane. And that was this bunch. All the technical skill and absolute love of music in the world didn't necessarily make the sort of insanity and intensity this bunch had. Once they had what they were willing to put on the album, then they'd argue producers, and he'd get to hear them fucking bitch and piss and moan and snarl about whatever producer they worked with, at least one of them would be fucked off at, over, each and every song before it all came together in the studio. But right now, this was all them. And he just had to watch. Which watching pure fucking magic wasn't any sort of hardship, except maybe on the nose.

Bob leads Jacob and Mark to his room. Taking all of three minutes to gather up his suitcase, duffle and laptop off the top of the dresser. "Clear my shit out here so you can get to bed" Bob offers awkwardly, not all that comfortable, wary and protective of the others. Because yeah, looking like a bunch of deranged, week or more unwashed lunatics in front of their shrinks, who obviously don't quite grasp the concept of groove and yeah...Gerard, Mikes, Frank. No...just no. Not letting them doubt, couldn't. This was too fucking real and good and going to be fucking amazing and damn Brian anyway.

"Is that normal?" Jacob asks. "How you were..."

"No, that was fucking magic," Bob offers. "And when it goes like that. You don't quit cause you can lose it and you might not catch that bit of magic again and that'll fuckin' drive you insane."

"My mom's an illustrator, and does her own art besides. We'd have to harp at her to eat on occasion." Mark smiles. "Go get some rest if you can."

Bob nods.

And he can rest. They all can. There's enough. They've got enough pieces, that even if they have to fight and coax the rest with massive amounts of frustration and hairpulling and cussing and chainsmoking, they've got a foundation. They've got enough to start. They were hitting the crash point where they were going to have to rest by virtue of being ready to collapse and pray they could recatch the magic when they woke up.

*

Gerard's staring at the wall half amused, half horrified.

Bob chokes.

Gerard rolls his eyes at the deep groan twining with a throaty keen. Well, at least they were done. Gerard raises and eyebrow and gives Bob a wicked grin, throws himself back on the bed so it thumps against the wall with a moan.

Bob grins and hits the footboard with his knees, knocking the bed to the wall and giving a growling/groan that Gerard harmonizes a perfectly hiss-drawled out "FUCK" with.

The yelp from the next room has them both struggling to contain their giggles as Gerard carries on the theatrics and Bob has the bed knocking against the wall a little more steadily with accompanying grunts.

The thud of a body hitting the floor and Alicia's laughter.

"OH NO FUCKING WAY I AM NOT LISTENING TO YOU FUCK MY BROTHER, BRYAR!" Mikey's there, slamming the door open, with nothing but a sheet around him and that likely only for benefit of Jamia and Christa if they poke their heads out, or rather come downstairs since Frank and Ray's rooms were upstairs.

They burst out laughing as Mikey's eyes widen further. "OH YOU FUCKERS!"

"Got a clue how thin the wall between these two rooms are there, Mikey?" Gerard asks.

Mikey groans. "You. Fucker."

"I am totally staying on the other side of the house in your room next time Alicia visits, Bob."

"As long as Brian doesn't send the shrinks, deal."

"You know what a fucking ipod is, assholes," Mikey growls and stalks back to his room slamming the door behind him. "I suggest sleeping with them tonight."

"Too much information, where the fuck is my ipod?" Gerard laughs.

"Think I see it under the sketchpad there."

"Got yours"

"Yeah."

*

Gerard wakes up hard, Bob spooned behind him, half wrapped around him, though they didn't go to sleep like that. Not by a long shot, both of them had been on their respective sides of the bed. Fussing about sharing utterly ridiculous after the last couple months even if Gerard had been a zombie through it. But this feels good, and even risking a bit of awkward and embarrassed he doesn't want to move just yet. He tenses slightly as he feels Bob's arm move, pull first his own earbud then Gerard's. "It's safe, can I have my arm back? Gotta piss."

Gerard manages a yawn and nod and rolls a bit sprawling on his stomach as Bob pulls his arm from underneath Gerard and gets out of bed.

*

Two days later it's Tuesday, the others had left Sunday evening, only there for the one night but there and it had done Mikey a world of good, Frank and Ray too.

Gerard's made a point to know the day. He stares at his coffee cup if he's gonna do this, have to get going soon enough. He hasn't slept, they were up til nearly six, making up time, recapturing the groove. the others were asleep. He'd asked Brian when he was here, and Brian had known when and where.

He swallows and pours a second cup of coffee and goes to wake Bob.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Bob asks, groggy, eyes unfocused and fighting to wake up, feeling more than seeing something wrong.

"Wanna go to a meeting," Gerard mumbles.

Bob is more surprised that he isn't surprised than anything, and he reaches gratefully for the cup of coffee, shifting to sit up. Needs to be awake because..."Hey, hey, fuck don't think twice about askin'. I'll drive if you want. Go in with you if you want."

Gerard lets out a shaky breath.

"You dumb fucker cannot have thought I'd say no,"

"Knew you wouldn't."

"Did you sleep?" Yeah, right. It had been-- what?--all of two and a half hours since Bob had fallen into bed.

Gerard shakes his head.

"Do I have to move you in here to make sure you do, damn it?"

Gerard laughs. "That would freak Mikey out we'd never get any writing done and Frank would be obnoxious as hell."

Bob grins. "Then you better fucking sleep next time we stop," Because saying 'tonight' is kinda pointless. Clocks are something that are just there at the moment, not anything they pay attention to when they're writing. "Did we fuck up not getting you to meetings when we were home?"

Gerard shakes his head. "Nah, nah I wasn't functioning enough for that, and there wasn't, except for Ray drugging Frank it's not like there was anything right at me."

"Wanna see if Mikes wants to go?" Bob asks softly.

"uh...yeah," Gerard nods.

"We're finishing it, and then it's fucking sitting,"

Gerard glares. But not surprised Bob knows exactly what's eating at him, why he wants to go now.

"Fine, argue that one later, all five of us, even if we need to get Brian Jacob and Mark to come referee and Worm to sit on people. Want to get Mikey or want me to?"

"You...I"

"Go. Get your head on. I'll see about Mikey."

Gerard gives him a tired shaky smile.

*

Gerard would have to find a meeting nearly an hour away. But Bob doesn't mind the time lost, despite the beat trying to rattle itself from his head. He sits and dozes in the van, Gerard and Mikey heading into the meeting together. They stop for something closer to lunch than breakfast on the way back.

Ray and Frank have the guitars fucking nailed for that fucking song when they get there. Bob wonders if he's going to be able to play the damn thing for three years, having watched where it came from from arms length away and knowing how much further it went.

*

Day twenty they have six songs, counting the one that they're still arguing using or not "The Dark One" is all it is nothing near a title for it. None of them quite wanting to do that yet. Four more mornings have been eaten up by meetings but the manic has passed, at least the desperation manic, and the music's still flowing, perfect, right, it's starting to be terrifying how this is coming together.

*

The women come for another weekend. Gerard spends both nights they're there in Bob's room.

*

Brian shows up the thirty day mark. 10 rough songs, very rough. Very raw, not quite there but more than skeletons. Three more in pieces and the Dark One. Whatever magic had struck had stayed, hadn't abandoned them.

Brian talks producers and studio time and accompaniement and what they're going for, concept art and fuck. They look at each other stunned. Not ready to get that far. It's Ray who tells Brian to give them the rest of their time to get this done and sorted, and they're not sure just what they have. They don't want the pressure don't want to bring in anything of the need to top Black Parade or anything else near this yet. This..the comparison just isn't there. In some ways this is darker, harsher, yet there's something more. A rebirth or hope or something. It's not as ...theatrical. But it's sweeping, vast and they're not jinxing themselves getting too far ahead and fucking up.

Brian also quietly pulls Gerard aside to sign the divorce papers he'd brought with him, they'd been delivered to Brian's office for the least amount of headaches for everyone involved.

*

Day forty, the girls are back. They have thirteen songs, two of which have been almost completely rewritten as they started seriously working out the rough spots and changing up to get it completely right.

And there's the Dark One. As loved as it's hated. It's the purest of the magic of this bunch of songs and the one none of them are sure about. Bob would just as soon forget the fucking thing. Ray's with him, even if it kills both him and Frank how fucking perfect the song is. Frank loves the song, but the cost of it has him winding himself up feeling guilty about loving it so goddamned much. It is without a doubt the best song that they have any of them ever had any hand in creating. All of them agree on that, even if the world at large might not, but they still don't know what the fuck to do with it. They have an album without it, so the decision on it at least isn't one looming and going to have to be made now or even soon.

They could, could honestly, put it as a bonus track and never ever ever play it in concert except maybe once or twice a year for some occasion.

The only problem is, they're scared that it won't be allowed to be a bonus track, that it might end up the fucking first single released or some shit. They didn't write any singles, they didn't write a concept album even if it sorta is, everything coming out of the last few months the bleak and raw and light at the end of the tunnel of all of it. They wrote fucking magic, and it's going to be that much more when it's cleaned up and the background instruments and sounds they've started thinking about get into it. The label can pick what it decides is most profitable or marketable for the singles, they really don't give a flying fuck about that because what the label will have to do that from is all something they're going to have not the slightest problem standing behind.

"Hey," Gerard says softly. "There you are,"

"Yeah," Bob says tiredly.

"You okay," Gerard asks sitting down on the porch swing next to Bob. Tourist season and summer have hit, and getting groceries is a fucking pain in the ass, but they're left alone at the house thankfully. It takes some thinking to realize his birthday was just before they'd come to Maine. Cake and a few presents at his parents with Bob, Mikey and Alicia had marked his thirty first birthday, after an all day therapy marathon that had Bob, Mikey and him all kinda dazed and head-swimming and scraped up. So momentous he had to stop and think for an hour two months later what the fuck he'd actually done that day, so very much not.

"Yeah, I'm good. Just shit catching up ."

Gerard nods and leans into Bob just a little, he kicks off with one foot, setting the swing in motion.

*

Brian's there for half of their last week. Listening to what they have. Debates of song order and some sketches of Gerard's that are possible starting points of cover art. The album doesn't have a name. Half the songs don't have names. It definitely shows where who worked on which song most intensely and where someone else said here this is your part of this on this. They change up chords here and there. All of them making faces at spots in a couple songs where it still just not quite --not quite, quite something. Still rough, unpolished, vaguely not so much unfinished as unsettled where they're still feeling out bits. He's never seen or heard of a bunch of songs coming quite like this. And he probably never will again, this kind of lightning, this kind of magic strikes too rarely but goddamn had it struck. And only this bunch could be hit by the same song at roughly the same time, Brian can't quite figure out how they managed that, but he can tell where it happened the most in which parts, in which songs. Fucking hive mind or something. Not one of them coming up with something and the rest picking at what they're given to make it work. But five seperate "I've got my part for something, this this I've got we need to do something," and putting it all together to make...goddamn. The same fucking song from five seperate directions at once.

"You going to let me do my job and not give me shit now?"

"I want ten days or so," Bob says. "Need to head back to Chicago a bit and take care of things. Arrange for storage for my stuff, shit like that. So other than that, first, I'll be good to go when I'm done with that."

Brian nods.

Ray rattles off a weekend he wants in September to be able to be in Jersey. It's a cousin, friend, something. A wedding on Christa's side of things that's close-big-important and if possible she wants Ray there with her.

"You'll be in studio then but that should work," Brian agrees. Then goes back to the two weeks he's setting aside for Bob. "Gerard, you going to Chicago too?"

"Yeah, yeah I will," Gerard nods slowly, glancing over at Bob. "Up to you, but I will," took care of me, can help with your shit. Don't have to alone.

Bob smiles and shakes his head. "We'll see, considering I've had two phone calls from your mom and one from Alicia in the last four days think you might need to be home."

"My mom called you?" Gerard stares.

"Alicia?" Mikey crunches his eyebrows together.

"Your wife is plottin' a surprise. I just am the sounding board."

Mikey snorts.

"Be afraid, she's evil."

Mikey grins wickedly.

"Just as long as her surprise isn't in the next room from me!" Gerard teases.

Mikey shoves Gerard, laughing.

"We'll let you know. Have a few days to work out where and what" Bob decides.


*

They spend the last few days at the house packing up and mostly just crashing. Sleeping, sprawled every which way in the living room watching movies and playing video games. They've got just over a month before they have to be in LA, in the studio. It's already been decided they're driving again. Bob, Mikey and Gerard taking the van and trailer, Ray and Frank taking Ray's car. Brian's working on places for them to live whilte they're there.

The hum is starting to build. The excitement for the studio, winding up to getting back on the road.

*

Bob and Ray give the house the final going over, checking every crack and crevice, behind and under every piece of furniture, between every cushion and under every mattress, even as far as pulling out drawers and checking. Mikey, Frank and Gerard have phenomenal talents for losing things and, Mikey especially, for shit turning up in the fucking oddest of places. Nothing's left behind. The earring found pocketed for Alicia, Jamia and Christa to identify, it was under the couch so god knows whose it was, none of them did.

Bob drives first. Ray's in the front with him.

Mikey and Frank in the middle. Mikey texting Alicia and Frank being a damn ass elbowing and giggling and putting his chin on Mikey's shoulder. Not looking, not reading, just happy, just too much energy at heading home, at what they were driving away from here with--a fucking album.

Gerard's sprawled in the back seat. He reaches and flicks the back of Mikey's head. Mikey howls, complaining with a smile.

"If I have to make Bob pull over and spank all three of you I will!" Ray threatens, struggling not to giggle as he speaks.

Bob almost has to pull over because they're all laughing that hard.