Unholyverse

~Part 9~

When they reached the venue, Mark stomped off the bus and disappeared immediately, presumably to find his brother, or complain to Pete about the unscheduled religious presence on his vehicle.

It was really weird, watching all these people streaming out of the buses, some of them carrying equipment or talking into radios, and the others just kind of milling about aimlessly, stretching their legs. A bunch of identical big dudes in yellow security T-shirts were lining the entrance to the parking lot, and Mikey could see a few kids already straggling around on the other side, holding cameras and handmade signs.

Gerard was looking around him like he'd just landed on Mars. "Where should we go?" he said, curling his fingers into Mikey's sleeve. "Who should we start with?"

Mikey didn't know either, and they all stood around like lost scouts for a minute, before Pete came bounding over, this time with a guy who had sleepy eyes and hair to rival Toro's.

"I brought your first customer," he told Ray gleefully. "Guys, this is Joe, our resident guitar hero. Joe, this is Mikey, Ray, Bob, Brian, and uh..." he trailed off, looking curiously at Gerard. "I guess...Father? Is that what we should call you? I gotta tell you, man, it's really bizarre to call a dude Father when he looks like he still gets carded."

"Gerard's fine. Whatever you're comfortable with, really."

Pete nodded and then added, "And the little one is Frank," grinning when Frank gave him a dirty look.

"The little one?" Mikey looked Pete up and down. "This coming from someone who probably needs a booster seat at the movies."

Pete laughed, delighted. "I told you he was funny," he said to Joe.

Charlie took them inside the venue and got them set up with passes, and Mikey knew it was lame to be excited about a piece of laminated plastic, but he couldn't help it. Bob was pretending to be all cool and over it, but Mikey saw him examining his own pass closely when he thought nobody was looking.

Ray wasn't pretending to be cool at all. "Mikey, how awesome is this?" he said, waving his pass so it clicked softly against Mikey's. "I feel like I'm in Wayne's World."

"But in the cool room," Mikey said, just to make sure. "The one with everybody's girlfriends."

"Obviously," Ray snorted. "Not the crappy room with the weird dudes who rode the bus."

"I hate to piss on your parade, guys," Brian put in, "But I'm pretty sure we are the weird dudes who took the bus."

"Um, excuse me, guys?"

Mikey turned around and there was the kid with the red backpack. He was wearing bright orange sneakers that clashed with it, and a pretty cool design shaved into the side of his head.

"Hi," said the kid – Danny, Mikey thought. Danny. "Um, there's a room you can use to set up? I'm supposed to show you."

They followed him through about fifteen miles of hallway, and finally the kid led them into a room with a mirror and a sink and some chairs.

"Thank you," Gerard said to Danny, holding out his hand.

"No problem," said Danny, shaking Gerard's hand quickly and then shoving his own hands into his pockets. He rocked from foot to foot, darting curious glances at Gerard's collar. "Um, so, I guess Pete said he's gonna bring Joe around? I should probably get out of your way."

Gerard gave Mikey a quick nod, and moved to block Danny from leaving. "Hey, I don't suppose you could show me around a little, could you? I'm just gonna be in the way here, and you seem to know your way around this rabbit warren pretty well."