AU. Ray Toro is a girl, Rae, but MCR is still just MCR. (Written for bandombigbang '08.) 1 страница

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Summary:

AU. Ray Toro is a girl, Rae, but MCR is still just MCR. (Written for bandombigbang '08.)

Notes:

This is the most serious fic I've ever done as well as the longest, so I owe a ton of people my gratitude. First of all, this fic would absolutely not exist were it not for Lea's invaluable help. She let me cp about 45,000 words of this nonsense into her IM window, gave me advice, let me freak out at her, and was generally completely amazing. I also owe thanks to chesireempress, shoemaster, barnacling, and many, many others for audiencing. Thank you all. ♥ Also thanks to my betas, all three of whom did a kickass job: octette, belladonnalin, and rilee16. Any remaining mistakes are, of course, mine.

Work Text:

Rae didn't meet Mikey in the scene, and if anyone had thought to ask later on, they would have said that was one of the most important things about the beginning.

She couldn't actually imagine herself in the scene – not the one Mikey always talked about, with guys humping guys and music that was all whining vocals, and not the one her brother talked about either, old-school "Welcome to the Jungle" type stuff. She jammed with bands a few times, auditioned a lot more than a few, and mostly kept to herself, listening to Metallica and memorizing chords.

But somehow she got to know Mikey Way. It was more a friend-of-a-friend thing than anything else; Mikey was known for being a good time and Rae was invisible, but somehow they clicked anyway.

The first time they went over to Mikey's house, Mikey tossed her a beer and said, "My brother might come up. Maybe not, though. He gets weird in the middle of projects." She found out what he meant halfway through Dawn of the Dead, when a bundle of black fabric barreled from the basement door to the refrigerator and back down to the basement without saying a word to either of them.

"...Your brother?" she said.

Mikey bobbed his head. "He's Gerard," he said, like that explained everything. It probably did to Mikey – who, Rae was already learning, lived in a pretty weird headspace most of the time.

"Oh," she said. "Cool." When she moved on the couch, her boobs bounced; Mikey didn't glance down. That answered that question, she thought. Before the movie even ended, they made plans to watch the rest of Romero's stuff. Rae had never been good at social stuff, but she figured she'd more or less made a friend.

College happened, though, and Mikey and Rae turned into the kind of friends no one under the age of sixty really had the right to be, all Christmas cards and polite phone calls. Oh well, Rae thought, and as time passed she learned that life was a little easier behind a drum kit, even if she did suck enough to reinforce every single vagina-related stereotype anyone could think of, and then some.

She saw Mikey around: drunk at a party, hanging to the side of the stage a few times. She figured that sooner or later they'd run into each other and didn't really think beyond that.

So of course the person who finally called her wasn't Mikey at all.

||

"Anyway, it's like, there's this kid who eats a shitload of Lucky Charms and rides a goldfish. Conceptual, you know? I asked Mikey to help me out, but he's like, dude, I don't compose. He told me you did, though."

"He said what?" She frowned. "Wait, who is this?"

"Oh! Sorry, it's Gerard. Way, that is, Mikey's brother? Um. He gave me your phone number, I didn't stalk you or anything."

Rae blinked. She vaguely remembered telling Mikey about writing music; how that translated into his brother remembering it, she didn't know, but Gerard sounded nice. Crazy, but then, Mikey was the same kind of airhead and she liked him just fine. "Oh, okay," she said. "A goldfish?"

"Yeah!" The sound of frantically shuffling papers, and then: "I've got words but I need help writing the music. I want it to really convey the feeling, you know? Like, he's totally tripping, but he's got this awesome fish, and the Breakfast Monkey's singing about nutrition, but in a cool way, not a lame Sesame Street way."

"Hey, don't knock Sesame Street," Rae said.

It would take her awhile to realize it, but at that second, she was pretty much committed.

||

September 11th happened and all Rae could think was that it was fucking stupid to get drunk that night no matter what the kids next door thought. She played with her guitar strings, half-melodies that didn't have enough ideas behind them to ever be songs, and thought about getting a better job.

Gerard called a week later. She'd almost gotten used to her brain sidestepping the tragedy, even though she knew kids whose aunts or cousins or even fathers had died; then Gerard said, "So I'm thinking about starting a band," and Rae found herself agreeing to meeting up and jamming.

It wasn't until she got in the room and pulled her guitar out, reading the scrawled words Gerard handed her, that she realized she hadn't sidestepped grief at all; she'd just ignored it.

A lot of people cried about it. Rae did, too; hell, Gerard did in front of her. But the first thing she did was agree to try to save the world.

And just like that, she joined her band.

||

Well, okay. Not just like that, good though it sounded in the interviews. The truth was that Gerard spent a lot of time drunk and Rae got distracted for a solid two weeks by a kickass hardcore band that played on as many college campuses as possible until the professors kicked them out. It wasn't until Mikey walked in on her and Gerard fucking around in the basement that she remembered the whole original band plan.

"Um," he said. His eyes were a little wide. "Hi?"

And forget him, Rae thought defensively, because she had weird hair and ugly jeans and knew it, but he looked like a fucking bird had been nesting in his hair, so he had no room to -

"We're starting a band," Gerard said. "Be in it."

"I can play bass. Sort of."

- oh.

"I could teach you, if you wanted," she said.

Mikey bobbed his head. "What are we going to play?"

"Danzig eating Morrissey's brain."

"And having sex with Ozzy," Rae added.

"Hunh." Mikey chewed his lip. "Cool."

They got sidetracked talking about Batman, but made plans to practice the next day. Rae actually had work, but she called out – which, in hindsight, was what made her realize it was the beginning of the band, and not just the kind of stupid side project you mention to your kids a few times, twenty years and a mortgage after the fact.

Mikey was poking at his bass when Rae came in, ten minutes early and carrying her guitar and two notebooks instead of the usual six-pack. "I haven't played in awhile," he said, frowning up at her. "I'm kind of shitty. I had a tape but I lost it."

Rae had picked bass up half by accident; awhile back, a band she'd been with had replaced her on guitar with the lead singer's brother, and she had stuck around by learning their (shitty, she thought vehemently, shitty and simplistic) bass parts. "Okay," she said. "Show me?"

Mikey poked the bass again.

"...Okay," Rae said again. "Play me the bass line to something."

She didn't recognize what he was playing, but it didn't really matter. "Your fingering's all wrong," she said unthinkingly, "and you're holding it – not wrong, exactly, but not how I'd hold it if I were you. And your technique is sloppy."

It wasn't until Mikey blinked at her that she realized what she'd been saying. "Not that you're not good! Because you are, and you could get better, and I'm sorry. I can be quiet."

"But I'm not good," Mikey said. "That's why I asked for help."

She stared. He was Gerard Way's brother, a fact that was usually easy to forget; right now, though, it was as obvious as the sky being blue. "It would be easiest if I could just show you," she said finally.

Mikey didn't move.

She reached out and positioned his hands. It was a weird angle, but reaching around him would have been weirder. "And it depends on the song, but seriously, you have to be able to keep a steady beat. Do you have a metronome?"

Mikey flexed his fingers a little when she pulled her hand away, looking up at her. "A what?"

"Never mind, I'll get you one. Do you like writing music?"

His eyes widened almost imperceptibly. "Um."

She laughed. "Okay, me and Gerard have that covered. You can tell people about our band. See if you can get us a gig."

"How soon?"

Rae bit her lip, thinking. "Two weeks," she said.

Mikey nodded. "You're gonna practice today, right?"

"Sure." She raised her voice a little. "Whenever Gerard's done."

"Fuck off, it's a creative fucking process," Gerard said from his desk.

Mikey rolled his eyes. "Whatever. You're wasting our time."

"I'm almost done, Mikey, shut the fuck up."

Ten minutes passed before Gerard finally stood up. "Here," he said, tossing the sheet of paper at Mikey's head. Rae didn't laugh when it floated limply in the air and bumped into Gerard's stomach as it fell to the ground, but it was a near thing.

Gerard just picked it up and walked over to them, flopping down on the couch and handing the sheet to Rae.

The figures in it weren't instantly recognizable. "What is it?"

"It's our band, genius."

Rae looked at the paper again. A chubby guy, okay. A skinny kid on bass, a lumpy dude behind the kit.

And a tall figure holding a guitar, the barest wrinkle in its shirt.

"Thanks?" she said, not sure what to make of it.

"Oh," Gerard said. "Yeah, I was gonna draw your tits, but I wasn't sure if you'd get pissed."

"But you're positive she's okay with you calling them tits?" Mikey said.

"That's what they are," Gerard said.

"And you're allowed to draw them," Rae said, handing the drawing to Mikey.

She was used to the sudden reminder that yeah, right, she was a girl, especially with the weight of a guitar in her lap; she wasn't used to it getting dismissed as quickly as Mikey lazily kicking Gerard's shin. "You're such a moron," Mikey said, and took his bass over to the opposite side of the basement, bobbing his head a little.

"Sorry," Gerard said, taking another drink of beer. "I didn't mean to be a dick. Just, you know...it's not about your tits, right? That's what girls say. And Virginia Woolf."

Rae blinked. "Kind of? I mean, they exist. But I'm just here to play."

"And save the world, yeah." Gerard finished off the beer and set the bottle on the table. "So let's do this."

Two hours later they didn't have much, just drunken ramblings and half-connected chords and Mikey's assertion that he'd have to make sure the audience was really drunk before they went on. "Thanks for the confidence," Rae said, throwing a balled-up sheet of not-lyrics at his head.

"Anytime," Mikey said. "Where's Matt, anyway?"

"He had work. He should be here tomorrow." Gerard had given up on staying upright hours ago and was lying curled on the couch, knees against the back cushions. "You should go home, Rae, I'm gonna puke soon."

Mikey didn't even blink, so Rae just put her guitar in its case and stood up. "See you, then," she said, and started to climb the stairs.

"Another practice tomorrow?" she heard Mikey ask, but she was up and waving goodbye to Mrs. Way before Gerard answered.

It was fast, she knew. Maybe too fast – she'd have to leave work early tomorrow. If this thing fell through any time soon, she was going to be pissed.

But she thought of Gerard's face, nose wrinkling when he'd slur, "Have a little fucking faith." She thought of Mikey watching her, letting her help him.

Yeah, she thought. Okay.

When she got back home, she set her alarm an hour early and put a stack of applications on her desk. She wasn't ready to have enough faith that she gave up other options.

||

Matt was irritating.

Rae felt a little bad for thinking it, but he was. Mikey at least tossed out suggestions every now and then. They weren't always good, but they usually gelled with part of what Gerard was thinking. Matt, on the other hand, just sat there and drank beer.

He did take care of Gerard, though. She wasn't sure he'd be allowed in Mikey's space if he didn't. He and Gerard had the kind of easy friendship Rae figured came from knowing each other a hell of a lot longer than Rae herself had known either Way; she couldn't get too pissed when Matt was the one who kept Gerard from lighting himself on fire with cigarettes and vodka or helped Mikey get him to bed when he passed out four hours into practice.

That was something that gave Rae pause: four hours. Four hours of, yeah, talking about D&D and the odds of dying in a zombie plague, but mostly four hours of actual writing and practice and band shit. That was more than some of the bands she'd messed around with did in a month. Even Mikey, who had such a big reputation for being a flake that even Rae had heard it more than once, was practicing like they were playing Times Square in a week. She just hoped they could keep it up – herself included.

||

There was a party that night. Rae had no idea whose house it was, but she was pretty sure it didn't matter; there would be property damage, booze, and maybe cops, and Mikey insisted they all go.

She didn't laugh when she saw what the Ways wore for going out, but it was a pretty close thing. "Shut up," Mikey said, mouth just quirked enough so that she knew he was smiling. "Like you're much better."

"I'm not trying to look...what exactly are you going for, anyway?"

"Fuck off, we look okay," Mikey said, and tugged the hem of her t-shirt playfully. She made a face and followed them out.

The party was like every other kegger Rae had ever been to. People were drunk, hanging all over each other, and – thankfully – ignoring her.

"I'll see you later, okay?" Mikey said, and disappeared into the crowd.

Gerard was even more of a wallflower than she was, shrinking into a corner and glaring at everyone suspiciously. They hadn't even been in the house for two minutes before he grabbed a Dixie cup from someone and downed the contents, shaking his head as it went down. "He always fucking leaves me at these things," he yelled over the music. "It's not like I have to go, or whatever, but he's my baby brother. Fuck him."

Rae didn't laugh, but only just. Mikey was grinding against some guy and looked completely comfortable. "I don't think he really needs a babysitter."

Gerard just shrugged. "He's always gonna need me to watch him," Gerard said. "Even if he doesn't know it."

Rae had brothers, but they weren't the scary-close type. She settled for patting Gerard's arm awkwardly.

Mikey walked over awhile later, half-towed by a chubby guy with dreads. "This is Frank," Mikey said, taking another drink. "He turned me down for his band one time. Frank, this is Rae and Gerard."

"I've heard about you," Gerard said. He sounded like a psycho killer on a shitty 2 AM made-for-TV movie. "Dick."

"It was ages ago, Gee. Get over it. I have, and I'm the one who was rejected."

Frank nodded. "And anyway, he's yours now," he said. "With the band and shit. You're Rae, right? Who're you dating?"

Rae just blinked at him. "No one," she said.

"She's our fucking guitarist, moron," Mikey said. He didn't really sound pissed, but he ground his foot into the arch of Frank's, hard.

"Ow! Shit! Sorry," Frank said, and half-tumbled closer. He smelled like weed. "I just figured, yeah, I don't know. I'm a dick."

"She can fucking shred," Gerard said, still psycho-killer-ing it up. "And you're a fucking member of the patriarchy."

"Your brother does have a dick, right?" Frank grinned when Mikey nodded. "So are you, motherfucker!" he said, sitting himself down in Gerard's lap. They went tumbling.

Mikey stole Gerard's seat in the scuffle. "Sorry."

Rae shrugged. "He's nice. And I would be dating someone, you know, nine times out of ten. If I wasn't me." She shut her mouth hard, because Christ, way to sound like every dumb little girl with a guitar and the delusion that having tits made her special.

"No, yeah, I get it." Mikey leaned back and sighed. "Standing up again's gonna suck."

"I'll help you," Rae said. Mikey smiled and slumped onto her.

When Gerard finally got tired of beating on Frank, he stood up and rolled his eyes at Mikey. "We gotta get him home, or Ma'll throw a fit," he said, taking one of Mikey's hands and tugging. Rae nodded and slung his arm over her shoulder, only a little wobbly when she stood.

"I'm not sleeping," Mikey said, and righted himself. "Who the fuck can't even walk after tequila, Gee, me'r'you?"

"Hey, wait, when do you guys practice? I want to see," Frank said, poking Mikey's side.

It was 2 AM already. Rae sighed. "Probably tomorrow," she said.

"Seriously?" Frank sounded delighted. "Awesome. See you then."

Mikey got handsy when he was drunk, though surprisingly not in Rae's direction. Gerard rolled his eyes and fended off Mikey's grabs with the ease of long practice. "Just because I can't make an incest baby with you doesn't mean I want to fuck you, freak," he said.

"You're just as drunk! Shit," Mikey said, falling over into Rae.

"You're letting me sleep over," Rae said. If they ever actually got back to the house, there was no way she'd be awake enough to drive home.

"Fine, whatever, sure. Ooh, steps." Mikey tripped into his front lawn.

Rae laughed. "Come on," she said, pulling Mikey upright and helping him down the steps.

When they were both in their rooms – Gerard muttering into his pillow about Transformers, epitomizing the reasons why he was possibly the weirdest drunk Rae had ever met – she lay down on the couch and pulled an old knit blanket over her head, falling asleep almost immediately.

||

It took them two weeks to get enough material together for a demo. Frank called, but he never actually came over; Mikey sulked a little, but Rae was relieved. Frank was an important part of the scene Rae had never had the balls - hah, she thought, strumming the chord too hard - to learn. And yeah, he seemed nice, but Mikey was sucking up a little too hard for her to completely believe it.

Then the demo broke. Or, well, not really; Mikey handed it to Frank and said "Yeah, you should check it out," and went to have his dick sucked while Rae watched Gerard and sometimes Matt get drunk (and had a few herself; she was slowly getting used to this, and it was nice, easier to lie back and let Gerard use her as a pillow). But Frank had apparently passed it around, because suddenly they had people talking to them – her – like they mattered. "Fuck," Gerard said loudly the day Frank offered Pencey's practice space.

Rae thought that about summed it up.

Still, a place to practice was a place to practice. "Steady beat, Mikey," she got used to saying, and they'd take it from the top again.

Later she'd realize how ridiculous it was to be surprised when Frank said, "So hey. If you want it, you guys have a gig Friday."

"...Holy shit," Gerard said, downing the remainder of his beer.

||

"You can do it. No, shut the fuck up, you can."

"I don't think they're listening," Rae said. She was halfway through her fourth beer – more than a little tipsy, but Frank was trashed and working on getting Gerard and Mikey there with him, and it didn't matter anyway because Matt (where was Matt? Fuck) was right, they sucked. And even if they didn't suck it still wouldn't matter, because fucking no one was going to listen to them.

Shit.

"Not you, too." Frank kicked her in the shins. Hard. "You're not allowed to do this too, Toro, damn it!"

"Screw you, yes I am," she said, leaning against the wall of the van.

"I'm gonna suck," Mikey said morosely. "Like." He shook his head, the light glinting off his glasses. Rae watched, only half-noticing when Frank swapped out her Bud for a Coke. "Like, my pants are gonna fall down."

"Half the fucking scene's seen your motherfucking cock anyway," Gerard said. He rolled half out of the van, legs dangling. "Hey Rae, think you could go topless? They'd like us then."

"Be a dick," she said, taking a drink and blinking. Right, sugar. Okay. "Be a dick, Gee, and you'll go onstage and I'll leave you there, and then everybody will laugh."

"You're all pathetic," Frank said. "They'll laugh anyway."

"They'll laugh more. " Rae nodded. "Anyway, I can't go topless, that's illegal."

"No one wants to see Rae's tits. Gerard's right, though. They've seen my dick."

"I will kill all three of you," Frank said sincerely, and the entire van shook.

"Shit!" Gerard yelled, hauling himself to his feet. "What the fuck!"

"We're on," Matt said, and slapped the side of the van again.

They were on, right. Okay. Rae grabbed her guitar and hoped her fingers would know where to go.

||

They killed, of course.

It was rough going at first. The name was killer in theory, but in practice it sounded clumsy in Gerard's mouth, and Rae felt ridiculous in front of so many people. Mikey had shrunk to the back, which was bullshit since he was the one half the kids in the room knew, and Matt was just...Matt.

But they launched into a song, and suddenly, it worked. It fucking worked, and yeah Gerard was drunk off his ass, yeah guys yelled shit at Rae, but it didn't matter, because they were playing and kids were shoving and Frank was at the back, standing on a fucking chair and yelling at the top of his lungs. It was amazing. Rae spread her legs and banged her head and played for all she was worth.

Of course, then the lights came back on and the crowd fucked off. They were smellier and sweatier than they'd been half an hour ago, and Gerard was careening around looking for the nearest corner to puke in. "Jesus," Rae said, leaning against the wall.

Frank had jumped on Mikey and was saying something involving a lot of enthusiastic arm-waving and possibly a handjob; Rae's vision was more full of sweat than reality. But Mikey was smiling a little, which was nice.

"Help me out here," Matt said. For a second Rae thought he meant Gerard, who was leaning with his forehead against the wall, groaning, but Matt was pointing at his kit.

"Um, I think I'm gonna – over here," she said, and grabbed her guitar.

"Yeah, whatever," Matt said.

She shook her head and tapped Gerard's shoulder. "Hey, you okay?"

"Gnrugh," Gerard said.

"Right, then," she said. "Come on."

It wasn't really easy to steer him back to the car, especially not with Mikey following and giving her directions, like having Frank hanging off his arm disqualified him from helping out, or something. "He's your stupid brother," she said, but she buckled Gerard up and waited for Mikey and Frank to tumble into the car before pulling out.

Her plan to get Gerard in his bed was derailed when he crashed on the couch, burying his face in the blankets. He was snoring before Rae could grab him again, much less get Mikey and Frank to help her.

She was sober enough to realize she'd been lucky to get away with just driving them back here; there was no way she was going to try to get back to her house. Gerard's bed was smelly but more inviting than the floor, so she pulled the covers over her head and closed her eyes, falling asleep almost immediately.

||

It wasn't light when she woke up.

"Gee?" someone whispered.

"No," she said – or tried to say. It came out more as a half-hearted moan.

"Frank's a fuckin' octopus," Mikey said, and suddenly he was climbing in next to Rae. "And he dro – oh."

"Not Gerard," she said hoarsely. Fuck, her head hurt already.

"Sorry," he said, no longer whispering. She felt the covers tug like he was rolling away. "Can I stay here? Frank's the worst person in the world to share with, I swear."

"Yeah, sure. It's your house." She closed her eyes again, hoping to get at least a few more hours before the hangover kicked in.

Mikey was warm and his legs wound up tangled with hers. It might have been weird, except Frank's first move was to walk out in the living room naked and sit on Gerard, and the yelling was distracting enough that neither of them had a chance to be weird about it.

Good, she thought, brushing her teeth. If they started touring – fucking touring - they'd wind up a lot closer than that.

||

They played their second show, then their third and their fourth. Rae got used to Mikey and Gerard's systematic drinking, got used to Frank hanging all over them like they were the second coming. She even got used to drinking less earlier on and helping them home.

She didn't get used to Mikey parking his sceney ass in the middle of her room, though, because it had never happened before now. "Yeah?"

Mikey looked around. "Nice place."

"It's my room. It used to be pink." Rae raised her eyebrows. "Nice shirt."

"Work uniform. At least it's a bookstore, right?" Mikey sat in her desk chair. "Anyway. There's a party tonight."

"Let me guess, you wrangled an invitation?"

Mikey shook his head. "Someone invited us, told Matt."

"Us, or you?"

"Us, dude. The band. "

Rae thought about Mikey and Pencey and Frank following them around. "...Oh."

"Yeah, oh. We're not gonna play, but I think we're supposed to show up as, you know. My Chem."

"Do they know Gerard babbles about Lord of the Rings when he gets nervous?"

"You seriously think they care?"

"Point," Rae said. "When is it?"

"Now, pretty much."

Rae rolled off her bed and put her shoes on, checking to make sure she was wearing the Metallica shirt without the ketchup stains. "Let's go."

Mikey stared. "Um. You're sure?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

He kept staring. "No reason."

She wasn't in the mood to demand answers. "Okay, then. We can pick up Gerard on our way there."

Mikey let it go.

||

It was 2 AM and she'd just come off a twelve-hour shift and fallen into completely fantastic sleep when her phone rang.

"I lost Mikey's number," Frank said when she mumbled a greeting. "Can you give it to me?"

"How'd you lose it?"

"My phone fucked up. I have your number in my address book."

Rae had jokingly filled out the Lisa Frank address book Frank's cousin gave him for Christmas, but she hadn't expected it to ever be useful. "Urgh," she said. "Hang on."

He hung up as soon as she gave it to him. She was tired enough to not even care, asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow again. The next morning, though, she woke up to both Ways sitting creepily at the foot of her bed.

"I hate it when you do that," she said.

Mikey bit his lip. He was frowning, Rae realized, and sat up. "What?"

"We're actually here to take you to practice," Gerard said. "Ma gave me the keys."

"No, I mean." She pointed at Mikey. "What."

"Frank broke his phone."

Дата добавления: 2015-10-21