you wanted a hero tonight

FRIENDS, I NEED YOUR HELP!!! I FEEL SO BAD TOO.

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 00:07:25 GMT

I know, I know, I'm sooo horrible, cause, well, I've deserted you.
But I'm still in the game, ya'll!!!
I've taken up quite a bit of P!ATDslash lately,
you can find it at my archive,
touchof_arsenic
If you really wanna read what I've been up to!
But, I'm going to start a kind of opinion poll.

I'M GOING TO CONTINUE ONE OF MY STORIES.
Either a oneshot you really liked,
or a chaptered fic that I've discontinued.
IT'S UP TO YOU TO TELL ME!!!
My entire archive is public,
go to the post that has the link of your pick,
and post a simple mesaage urging me to continue.

ON CHRISTMAS EVE,
The story with the most votes will be declared a winner,
and I will post a continuing chapter on New Years Eve,
if not beforehand.

SOUND GOOD???
Please, if you're still mad at me,
say so,
I feel so bad for leaving you all!

[ ♥ ]

Clocks Stopped (When You Came Back) [1/1]

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 15:30:54 GMT

Title ;; Clocks Stopped (When You Came Back)
Author ;; notmadeof_steel
Rating ;; PG-13
Pairing ;; Gerard || Frank
Summary ;; But, even with all the things I hate about you, I have to say that I love twice that amount of things about you. I love that you came back.
Author's note ;; Comments are teh shmex, I was in the middle of writing the third chapter to Alone In A Crowded Room when this popped up, so tell me how you like it!

These are all the things I hate about how and why you left me. I hate that you left a cup of coffee on my counter top with coffee still in it and a ring of your chap stick on the rim, because I keep my apartment at such a low temperature. I hate that you would stay and make coffee like we had all the time in the world, when really, we had but a few moments left before there was a knock on my door and it was something to break our dream.

I hate how the spot in my bed where you would lay is cold now. It wasn’t cold before; I could lay a pillow there, and not wake up in the middle of the night panicking because you were gone. I hate the cold in my bed.

I hated how you were so...free and laid back. Mikey said that if you were anymore laid back, you’d fall down; I laughed then, but I never knew how true it turned out to be. You fell down, deep, and I wasn’t close enough to catch you before you hit.

I hate that you left everyday. The reason I hate that you had to go was because you always told me that it was the day. It’s The Day, you always told me. Your eyes—those eyes—would light up and you’d look at your coffee (in the cup on my counter that I hate but will never get rid of) like it held the answers. Oh—and I hate how you never thought that I would give you answers; you thought that you were clingy. I hated that.

But, even with all the things I hate about you, I have to say that I love twice that amount of things about you.

I love that you play your music as loud as you want, never afraid about the knocks on the door at two AM with any adult ready to scream.

I also loved the music you played. Not only on your stereo, but on your guitar, from your lips, the music that only you could hear and that you danced and jived to all day long, well into the night. You danced to the beat of your own band, but you fit so well into ours when you wanted to. Your music was the best, but you blew a fuckin’ fuse when someone else touched your CDs.

I love that you came back. I love the hour that my clock stopped and I was sitting in the kitchen with a lit candle in my hand, seeing how far the melted wax could get before it scalded my palm, and you were knocking down my door. I love that it was you and not Mikey or Bob or Ray. I love that my palm was burned by white wax and you kissed my hand over and over again until it was my neck and then my mouth and then my soul.

Now I love that you’re sitting here, and I’m looking at my calendar and marveling that you had only been gone for three weeks, but it felt like years and I aged faster than I should have in that time. I love that you admitted you missed me, and you came back.

I love the make-up sex.

I love seeing you cry, and hate being the one that made you.

I love the way you chew your lip ring in concentration as you do the paper’s crossword puzzle.

I love that you’re here, and I love that you came back.

Alone In A Crowded Room [2/?]

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 04:01:50 GMT

Title ;; Alone In A Crowded Room || Spining On That Dizzy Air
Author ;; notmadeof_steel
Rating ;; PG, PG-13, MAYBE R
Pairing ;; Gerbert [Gerard & Bert] && Frank/Gerard
Summary ;; Bert's fuming for no good reason other than it feels great to have his insides burn, because then he can't feel hurt and sad when he brushes past Frank on his way out.
Author's note ;; I promised you guys I'd have it up tonight, except it's only been a few hours, not six. When I deliver, I deliver! :)

it's always been my thing, for better or worse

Gerard wonders what’s wrong with Bert as he paces his way back and forth in the bus, rubbing the back of his neck so that it’s raw and pink, but he can’t see it for his messy black hair. He has the letter in his other hand, and he’s thinking about Frank; his curious habit of chewing on his lip ring, laughing out loud at nothing in particular—all the little things that make him Frank Iero. And yet he’s wondering why Frank can’t be more open, more inane; like Bert is.

So Gerard pockets his paper heart and walks off the bus not a few seconds after his friend. His face is the perfect look of curiosity as he watches a sniffing Bert slam the door shut to his band’s own van, looking mad and sorrowful and hurt beyond belief. But Gerard can’t put two and two together, so he takes his time walking up to the convenient store.

“Hey, Gee, they have those Skittles that you like here!” Mikey Way shouts out, laughing and tossing a blue bag at his brother. It misses and hits him in the forehead.

“Where’s your head at?” Frank shouts from the soda coolers, and instantly every musician starts out singing rifts and choruses from the song.

Gerard tries to laugh and sing with Jepha Howard, who has grabbed Gerard and started spinning him in the aisle, but he’s confused as to why Bert was acting the way he did.

When the singing has died down (it was easy to see why the other members hadn’t taken up the vocals in either band), Gerard purposefully stands behind Quinn in the checkout line, which consists of ten grown men, none of them completely that mature yet. “Hey, has Bert been havin’ an off day or something?” he whispers low, head hovering above Quinn’s shoulder.

The blonde turns his head slightly, looking puzzled. “He seemed fine, but he sat there while we were driving, staring off for three hours.” Now, Ray, Mikey and Jepha have all decided that their banter is much less interesting that the low conversation these two are engaged in, and lean in, candy and money jingling musically.

“Dude, maybe he’s just not feeling that good,” Ray suggests, just to get the wrong answer out of the way.

“Or maybe it’s none of your business.” All six snap their heads straight like they’ve been caught talking in class, and Bert strides forward before them all and slams his water and Hershey’s bar on the counter, carefully setting the Pringles chips beside them, because, no matter how mad he’ll ever get, he won’t ever purposefully break a Pringle. Bert’s fuming for no good reason other than it feels great to have his insides burn, because then he can’t feel hurt and sad when he brushes past Frank on his way out.

“There’s gonna be an intervention on the bus tonight,” Branden mutters, standing aside to wait for his band mates.

“You guys should take Bob, he’s perfect for these situations,” Frank pipes up, nodding with his hazel eyes wide and glossy in admiration. “He listens and doesn’t judge—plus he’s straight to the point with no pussy-footin’ around.”

“What are you volunteering me for, pip squeak?” Bob asks with a slight friendly frown, resting his arm on Frank’s shoulder. By now the cashier has finished his fifteen minutes of Hell, and rung up everyone, looking with pleading eyes towards their buses in suggestion, but all the crowd does is move to stand in front of the door.
“Bert. We’re volunteering you for Bert,” Gerard says firmly, pushing his drummer to the door and then backing away quickly as not to get hurt.

“Will you get those fuckin’ cameras out of my face on the van?” Bob asks after a moment’s consideration, scratching his fuzzy blonde chin. All the My Chemical Romance members nod feverishly, and the tall man groans, taking his soda and walking out of the store.

“We love you Bob!” Quinn adds as an after thought and they all collapse into giggling like little school girls.

But Bob hasn’t heard them, or chooses to ignore them, because he’s busting open a glossy black door without knocking or shouting, because that’s just his way. Bert is sitting with his legs pulled up to his chest, back to the wall on the lounge couch that’s littered with wires and controllers and baled up pieces of paper with pizza grease stains. He’s sniffing but not crying; perhaps he’s sniffing to stop from crying, or maybe that’s the only think that keeps him from crying altogether. Either way, he’s not ready for thundering, passive but strong Bob to almost break down the door and shove the used man over to sit down.

“We wanna know what the Hell’s wrong with you,” Bob demands simply, poking at his own lip ring with the side of his tongue as he waits for Bert to explain; because Bob never prompts, he waits for his friends.

And everything falls out through tremoring lips, like there’s a hole in his mouth and it doesn’t hold secrets that well. One of the best and worst things about these ten minutes of confession is that the blonde doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t look judging, but he looks in no way sympathetic either. He just listened without talking at all, until he was positive that Bert was done.

There’s a raw moment where tears are making a pattern on the dark red Used couch, and Bert McCracken is completely exposed, naked in a way that involves trying to scramble to get his emotional clothes back on and his eyes back from an image of his favorite face.

Bob doesn’t say a thing. He just nods and stands up. “My drink’s cold,” he announces, and the singer almost burst out laughing because that was perfect. No judgment, no hate, no pity or sympathy or war, tight hugs that squeeze out the last bit of your patience.

The drummer leaves and almost whacks the other four members of The Used in the head because they’re trying to find out what’s hurting their best friend without directly asking.

“You guys are dumbasses” is all they are told before they fall over each other, pushing to be the first one on the bus. Bert’s wondering why he’s trying to keep secrets; nothing is hidden after falling asleep on other men and your bus driver quitting while claiming that “there’s way too much gay shit going on in that bus for my personal comfort.”

And a parking lot and a million miles away, secrets are being spilled, because there are no secrets when you fall asleep on your best friend.

Alone In A Crowded Room [1/1?]

Sun, 16 Jul 2006 15:38:32 GMT

Title ;; Alone In A Crowded Room
Author ;; notmadeof_steel
Rating ;; PG, PG-13, MAYBE R
Pairing ;; Gerbert [Gerard & Bert] && Frank/Gerard
Summary ;; He looks a whole jumble of emotions that kills Bert inside, his heart dropping to the floor, rolling down the steps and out into the parking lot where hundreds of cars can roll over it until he can't feel anymore. Bert wants to shake Gerard and shout at him, stock
off to kill Frank, roll up into a ball and cry, and then kiss Gerard. It's tearing him in all directions, so he does the only thing he can;
he smiles and laughs.
Author's note ;; Hey, it's my first EVER slash, not to mention
my first Gerbert baby. So...be cruel and nice? Heheh. And I WISH I owned
these two... :)

Wild drops of hot water splash everyone on the moving tour bus as Bert shakes his head in a whirl of red and black hair with brown roots. He laughs at Quinn who wipes his face off with a horrid look, and he assures the blonde that it’s clean water. He’s got a towel wrapped around his neck, but it might as well be a noose for the life he’s gotten himself into.

Music has become his all. His first thought in the morning is the play list he has for his iPod, for the show that day, for the radio on the bus. At lunch he’s humming new rifts, thinking over notes and words that, by themselves, aren’t that bad, but put together in his songs are the saddest thing, the angriest thing, the happiest thing you’ve ever heard. But, between these thoughts of music and songs and notes and choruses, there’s another lead singer who’s wrestled his way into The Used front man’s head. He’s also associated with music; singing, laughing musically, waving his next tune for Bert to read.

And Bert’s sick of this playing they’ve been doing. Stupid kisses for the cameras, who decide that it’s funny and cute, but what it really is, is Gerard Way toying with his friend’s heart and he doesn’t even know it. But, despite how much this hurts Bert, he still giggles oddly and pecks him on the cheek. It’s annoying to want to cry whenever he stops kissing Gerard, or when they give interviews together and make a joke out of it all.

“Yo, Bert?” Quinn Allman pokes his fellow Mormon in the stomach, leaning closer and setting down the controller to the XBox that was provided on the tour bus. “Bert!” he shouts again, and the front man snaps to, sitting up and glancing around. The scenery outside was a bit dull as the dark blue sky fell closer to the ground like a blanket, fluorescent lighting radiating from the gas station they had parked at.

“We’re stopping for a break. You’ve been sitting there for three hours, man.” And Quinn looks concerned, like he wants to know exactly what’s plaguing his best friend, but he’s a little afraid to ask. He extends a hand but Bert lightly pushes him away to show that he’s fine—at least, physically.

Taking the steps two at a time, Bert almost physically winces as he sees that the My Chemical Romance tour bus has pulled in before them, but he only falters in step and continues walking, tucking his hands safely in the pockets of his long black shorts. He lets his stringy black hair fall in his face and he tries to avoid looking at the other band, but it’s impossible to ignore his name being shouted across the deserted parking lot.

“Bert! Crack! Robert!”

A hand grips into his shoulder, and Bert slowly turns, swallowing the lump in his throat. He smiles, relieved when it’s only Frank Iero, the eccentric and energetic guitarist. “You gone deaf or something man?” Frankie jokes, throwing his full arm around the younger man’s shoulder. “Gerard’s on the bus, he wants to talk with you.” He threw a thumb over his shoulder and patted Bert’s back, jogging to leap on Bob Bryar’s back, making Bob shout in anger and surprise.

So, as slowly as he can, Bert walks to the steps of My Chem’s tour bus and knocks lightly on the black plastic door. He almost turns back around and answers the look he know Frank will give him with a, “He must not have heard me.” But before he can even swivel in his shoes, the door pops open and Bert’s all but dragged inside by Gerard.

The Used singer is tempted to ask, “What are you, high?” but considering the older Way’s past history, he just bites his lip and smiles fakely. “Yo, Gerard, need something?” He wants this over as quickly as it can be, so he can go back to his bus and hope that he’ll never see those beautiful eyes again, and face the fact that the tour’s not over yet.

Gerard’s face is lit up like a handsome Christmas tree with a gothic appeal, forgotten eye liner wearing out from under one eye and a bit of red smeared over his face from his eye shadow. “I’ve been in my bunk all day, writing, and...Well, Bert, you’re my best friend and I can’t tell anyone else...”

These words should have made Bert swell with pride, a warm feeling in his chest, but now it only irritated him beyond belief, and he wondered vaguely if The Used tour bus had razor blades supplied on it. “Go on, I’m here for ya!” Bert smiled encouragingly, tucking away all this inane torture for when he could cry about it at night with everyone else listening when he assumed they were asleep.

“I didn’t write a song at all, which was what I actually intended to do...” Gerard held now a worn piece of notebook paper with his own artwork on the front, and he held it close to his chest like it was of value and importance. Then he thrust it outward and took a shaky breath. “It’s a letter, and it...well, it’s for Frank.” He hitches his voice, like he has really thought this over and has a reply for every comment that he could get. “I know that he’s got Jamia, and he’s probably as straight as a board, but...I just had to, man!”

He looks a whole jumble of emotions that kills Bert inside, his heart dropping to the floor, rolling down the steps and out into the parking lot where hundreds of cars can roll over it until he can’t feel anymore. Bert wants to shake Gerard and shout at him, stock off to kill Frank, roll up into a ball and cry, and then kiss Gerard. It’s tearing him in all directions, so he does the only thing he can; he smiles and laughs.

“Gee, I’m sure it’s going to be perfect, really. Tell me after you give him this, I’ve just gotta take a leak.”

He tries not to feel bad when Gerard’s face momentarily falls, but, he argues with himself that’s he’s given a little allowance because, this is the man who broke his heart without knowing it. Bert shoves the older man’s letter back and gives a large grin. “Really, you’re enough to turn any guy gay, Gerard.” And he dashes off the bus and back onto his own, where he curls up into his bunk and wishes that he had kissed Gerard all along.

[Okay, so? How was it, yo? If you post enough comments I might make this a series, but for now it's standalone. Comments are teh shmex! PS;; extra prize for the person who can tell me the song the title came from!]

Sat, 15 Jul 2006 21:21:04 GMT

Title ;; Because You Can
Paiting ;; Frank Iero/OC
Rating ;; PG-13 to R
Summary ;; Ingrid Rivers is a witty, tragic nineteen year old who stays home to take care of her sick mother. She goes to college and works, but still finds time to go to the local Barnes & Nobles. Frank Iero--who just makes funny faces at his friends who work there--doesn't make the best first impression on Ingrid, and instantly regrets it; she has the vibe, the I know you're gonna wanna be friends with me vibe, except Frank wants more than friendship.
Author's Note ;; It's not mine, well, Frank isn't at least. Ingrid is. Have fun reading, replies welcomed and apreciated! Oh, and the POV's switch between Ingrid and Frank every chapter.

I think he only noticed me because of my hat.

It was brand new, and you always feel self-conscious while wearing a hat anyways, and it makes you feel like everyone’s staring at you. It makes everyone think you’re trying to be something special, something that you’re not. Maybe I was just paranoid, but I kept touching a hand to my new crimson-colored beanie, feeling like it was a sign that I was Wrong somehow.

But, like I said, I think he only noticed me because my hand was plastered to my head with age old glue called Self-Doubt. It wasn’t even my hat, but still…. I had timidly stepped into the library, holding my dark navy side satchel-bag to my hip with locked elbows, holding my words in with lips chapped from the wind outside. I licked them now anxiously, stopping to see if I had drawn the eyes of anyone away from their print. I hadn’t disturbed anyone, and that let me release a pent breath of relief.

At least, I thought I hadn’t disturbed anyone until he stared at me. It wasn’t a secretive stare, like people do when you’ve got pen on your cheek and you don’t realize. It was an out in the open stare; like he was so fascinated (or repulsed would be more like it) that he just couldn’t rip his beautiful eyes off me. He looked like the sort of person who made you doubt who you were. Everything about you seemed like a lighter shade when he was around. His eyes reminded me of the most springy summer grass, green from hours and hours in the sun. They weren’t pale green, or brown-green, or even bluish-green, they were grass green, factory-processed green.

For the first minute I copped glances at him at the corner of my eyes, but they weren’t the glances I wanted to give. No, I think my vibe was more of a “What are you starin’ at buddy? I don’t do lap dances” kind of vibe. I gulped and remembered the hat, and quickly snatched it off my head. It didn’t work. It wasn’t the hat, because he kept on staring, even as I turned past the nine-hundreds and into the fiction novels. He wasn’t there for and literary purposes I could see, because a musician’s magazine was splayed out inform of him opened to a two paged ad that showed a scantily clad girl advertising, of all things, birth control.

He was…There are really no words, at least not in the English language, that define him. Let me start off by describing the way he looked, then. Maybe that will be simpler. When he stood up, the first thing that struck me was he was tall, and powerful, but he didn’t flaunt it. If anything, he hid it; his walk was stooped, and he kept his shoulders relaxed and calm. It was unnerving the way he just kept staring, and then in turn, the old librarian staring at him as if he were street trash. And if he wasn’t, then he certainly looked like it. His leather jacket was tattered in many places, and a bit of the creamy-colored inside silk was poking out through a hole on his shoulder. Jeans, I would learn, were one materialistic item that he seriously couldn’t live without. Sometimes I’ve caught him praying to Levi, like he’s a real god. Okay, I was just kidding about that last part, but I’m sure it happens, if I haven’t seen it….But back to his jeans. They were decorated with rips and tears—some intentional, some not—and then pinned backed together with lines of perfectly straight safety pins. The shirt he chose to wear conveyed a picture by some underground punk-ska band that perhaps only seven people had ever heard of, but who he would rave constantly about. His eyebrow was pierced, and it was only his left one, in two places. In both those places were, like there’d be anything but, safety pins, but these were the decorated, fancy office kind, not the kind supplied to street trash.

I guess, then, that Street-Trash was the guy of my dreams.

Street-Trash, as I would affectionately name him until I found out his birth-certificate name, followed me about ten steps behind as I unloaded novels at the front desk to keep me busy for a few days. Then, he followed me outside, until I snapped, almost, with his staring and the ten steps.

“Is there anything you want or do you just have a habit of following random teenage girls out of libraries and to their cars?” I asked, whirling around with a whole lot of velocity. Apparently it was a bit too much velocity, because I and my books went whirling to the ground in a not-so graceful blend of paper, girl, and black skirt.

The next part was perhaps the worst. Street-Trash started laughing at me. And, not the polite, giggling laugh you’d expect after someone takes perhaps the most clumsy spill of their young adult life. No. It was loud, erratic, I-Can’t-Breathe-I’m-Laughing-So-Hard-At-You laughing. The kind that turned your face temperature up to a million degrees. And a million degrees is hot, in case you didn’t know.

I wanted so bad to sit there and cry, right in the middle of the parking lot, but I was too mad. Besides, tears would have just evaporated on my cheeks that could scramble an egg. All I could settle with was a pretty mean hate-glare, my eyes narrowed as far as I could get them and still be able to see Street-Trash. It took a minute for him to get to a rumbling laugh, which turned into a bit of laughing and allowed for me to speak and be heard.

“Are you done now, or have you decided to dwell longer on my public humiliation?” I snapped with a slight tremor to my tone, standing up on unsteady legs. Great. I had ripped my skirt down the entire left side. He would pay. If he hadn’t been watching me, I wouldn’t have been so nervous, and in turn angry when he followed me outside, and if no one had made me angry, I wouldn’t have twirled around to inquire about it in the first place. Hey, it made sense in my mind.

“You’re the one on the ground, I think I have a pretty valid reason to laugh,” he shrugged. Apparently something about the way I was looking at him was funny, because again he threw back his head and let out a short bark of a laugh, inflaming my anger again. I took short, angry steps to pick up the rest of my books and open my car door, jerking the handle with un-needed force. “Oh, hey, wait up.” His voice was mixed, with something like agitation and regret.