Calibrations

Kentucky 2004

When Youngblood opened his eyes, he found himself inside the tour bus at Warped Tour again, with Figment and Revenge by his side. Revenge stood there for a while, already looking a little disoriented, while Figment glanced out the window. "Youngblood, follow me," Figment whispered as the tour bus door started to open. He ran to the back of the bus, and Youngblood and Figment hid behind an amp as Frank climbed on board.

Youngblood had said a lot of goodbyes since leaving 2016. He'd watched Alien, Poison, and Pepper lose their memories. He'd seen them suddenly forget what they'd been through, what they'd seen in the future, the people that they'd become one day. He'd seen the confusion on their faces. He'd watched them struggle to remember. Alien and Poison desperately wanted to know whether or not the plan had worked, while Pepper simply assumed that the ghosts in the Paramour were messing with his head again. Youngblood wanted to help them somehow, but Figment told him that he couldn't, that they needed time to sort this out on their own. Youngblood could only imagine how much it hurt to lose those memories, those visions of the future.

Now, it was Revenge's turn.

There was a long period of silence as Revenge tried to figure it all out. "What just happened?" he finally asked. There was another pause, and then Revenge said, "Figment? Youngblood? Why didn't we go anywhere?" When neither of them answered, he reached for his bottle of vodka and said, "Did you guys leave without me?"

"Gerard!" Frank shouted as he looked around the bus. "Are you in here?" All of a sudden, he spotted Revenge, ran over to him, and gave him a hug. "GERARD!" he screamed. "There you are! I've been looking for you!"

"Hi Frank," Revenge said with a smile.

"Who were you talking to?" Frank asked.

"Nobody," Revenge answered.

"Okay," Frank said. "We have to be onstage soon. Ray, Mikey, and Bob are already backstage..."

"I can't go onstage right now," Revenge said.

"Why not?"

"I just...I can't. Not right now."

"It's because you're sober, isn't it?" Frank said. Revenge stayed quiet for a long time and then nodded. "Listen Gee, I know you don't think you can perform without your drinks and your pills, but you can. I've seen you do it before. Can you please just stay sober and sing for us? It's just for tonight."

"Just for tonight?" Revenge said. Frank nodded, and Revenge sighed. "I guess so," he said. "I really don't want to though."

"I know, but you can do it," Frank said. "You'll be okay."

Revenge took a deep breath and said, "You promise?"

"I promise," Frank said. He took Revenge's hand, quickly kissed him, and then said, "Come on. Let's go find the others."

Frank ran off, and Revenge followed him, desperately trying to keep up with his boyfriend's boundless energy. Once both of them were off of the bus, Figment and Youngblood stepped out from behind the amp. Figment immediately started typing something into his watch, but Youngblood stopped him. He didn't want to leave quite yet, not before he got some answers.

"You lied to me, didn't you?" Youngblood said.

"Lied to you?" Figment said. He seemed confused, but Youngblood could tell that he was just acting.

"Yeah, you lied about Frank," Youngblood said. "You said that he died in a bus crash in 2016, but he didn't. We saved him, didn't we? So unless there was another bus crash later in the year or some other crazy shit like that, you didn't lose him. He's alive in 2019. So why did you tell me he died?"