The Fear Of Falling Apart

-33-

I love you all so much oh my god. Thank you all for being so accepting and loving of me, it literally means everything to me and ahhhhhhh I love you all so so much. I hope this chapter's alright!

Fin's POV

"I don't think I can play tonight." Gerard sniffs, re-emerging from the bathroom. "I just threw up everything I had left to throw up." Tanith and I look up from the notebook filled with the final lyrics and chord progressions for our song.

"This doesn't look good." Mikey murmurs, pulling his beanie down further over his head.

"I think we're gonna have to call off the show." Ray admits with a sigh.

"No!" Frank croaks from beneath his pile of blankets.

"Frankie, what else are we gonna fucking do?" Gerard asks, collapsing onto the sofa. "Three of us are too sick. Mikey can't just go up there and play bass for the entire set."

"I could so do that." Mikey mumbles.

"We could play the set." I say suddenly. "Me and Tan, I mean."

Tanith nods her head slowly. "Fin's right, Gee. The two of us is better then no show at all, and we literally just finished this song."

Gerard shrugs his shoulders. "If you guys are up for it, sure. But you gotta get to soundcheck right now and tell Jess whats happening. I'll tweet the news out."

We thank him and leave the dressing room. "What songs do you wanna play?" I ask her quietly as we walk through the corridor.

"Dunno." She sighs, messing with her hair. "Um, some Green Day for sure, maybe Holding Onto You? Oh, and we should play the tour song!"

"Guys, whats going on?" Jess asks as we head onstage. "Where are the others?"

"Sick." Tan says. "We're gonna fill in and play the show tonight."

Jess nods, grabbing a note pad and a pen out of thin air and poising, ready to write. "Set list?"

Tanith rattles off song titles, ranging from Green Day to My Chem, and I nod along, pretending I knew what I was doing.

---

Preparing for a show is hard.

I've always known that, but I've never experienced it. I've always just watched from the sidelines. But actually being the one performing is so very different.

I had to warm up my voice, which Gerard helped me do, and I had to warm up for bass, which Mikey helped me do. And Jess had to mold some ear pieces to fit, which was probably the most uncomfortable thing I'd ever experienced. Having someone poke and prod around your ear is not an enjoyable fun.

But when the doors opened, the crowd flooded in. Sure, it was smaller then the crowds My Chem got, but it was pretty massive.

"Wow, this is real." I murmur as someone hands me my Squire Jaguar bass.

"Very real." Tanith grins at me, thanking the tech crew who handed her the custom Fender. "It's gonna be okay, Fin. It's gonna be better then okay, it's gonna be pretty fucking awesome."

"Yeah." I whisper, smiling to myself.

"Alright, Fin and Tanith on in one minute!" Someone calls.

"Hey." Tanith says, putting her hand on my shoulder. "We're gonna go out there and we're gonna rock it."

"Lets do it." I grin.

We walk onstage together and the crows erupts into applause. Tan leads me over to the two microphones that are already set up, and I stand behind one of them. "If you haven't already heard the news, My Chemical Romance are really, really sick." Tanith says. "It's pretty gross back there."

"So, just for tonight we're gonna play you a few songs. Is that alright?" The crowd cheers, and I smile a little. "Awesome. This first one's called Dammit, by a band we love very much called Blink-182."

We play through the song, using pedals to overlap tracks and get the sound correct. At the end the crowd goes nuts, and I see a whole bunch of cameras and phones being held up to film us. Woah. This is insane.

We play through another collection of songs including Thnks Fr Th Mmrs, Far Too Young To Die and Bulletproof Heart. We decided to play the tour song after Boulevard Of Broken Dreams.

"We have one last song for you guys tonight." I say into the microphone. "Tan and I started working on this in the bus a few days ago, and we only just finished it so it might be a little rocky in parts. But this song is called Tour Song."

I step away and smile at Tanith, who smiles back and starts to play short, sharp bursts of guitar.

"I found a pile of Polaroids

In the crates of a record shop

They were sexy, sexy looking back

From a night that time forgot, hmm"

The crowd begins to clap along, and I do too. We don't have any bass parts worked out yet, so I hand my instrument off to a crew member and clap along.

"Boy he was something debonair in 1979

And she had Farrah Fawcett hair

Carafes of blood red wine, hmm"

I sing the next part, putting my focus into perfecting the words as they roll off my tongue. "In the summer time...In the summer time.."

Tanith takes a deep breath and smiles into the next few lines.

"Oh don't you wonder when the light begins to fade?

And the clock just makes the colors turn to grey

Forever younger growing older just the same

All the memories that we make will never change"

Her strumming picks up and I sing the next part too.

"We'll stay drunk, we'll stay tan, let the love remain

And I swear that I'll always paint you!"

She uses her all to sing the chorus. "

"Golden days!

Golden days! "

We finish off the song after a few more verses, and the crowd goes crazy. "Thank you so much for hanging out with us!" I call. "We'll see you again soon."   

We walk offstage and find the rest of the band clapping for us. "Man, you guys pulled that off well." Mikey cheers.

"Yeah." I smile at Tan. "I guess we did."

This is a shit chapter, I know. And I apologies. I was originally going to skip this, but I really wanted to write it, and I feel like I owe you guys one more drama free chapter.

I'm afraid to tell you that this is the calm before the storm, my friends. This may well be the last happy chapter in the book. So for now, just enjoy it while it lasts.

I've already got a lot of the next one written, so it should be up within the next few days.

ily all so much <3 thank you for everything.