January 19th, 2005
The Astoria
London, United Kingdom
3:56pm

Elliot looked in the mirror.

Your face finally healed.

The bruise that once manifested half of her face had finally healed. Ellie smiled when she looked in the mirror, it was nice to see her face and not a yellowing bruise anymore. Her piercing blue eyes weren’t downgraded by the gross bruise and brushing her teeth didn’t cause pain anymore.

Hmmm, now your ribs?

Ellie slipped off the Misfits tee she was wearing to reveal her pale torso and a black sports bra. Her side either didn’t cause her pain or she had gotten used to it, she couldn’t tell. The bruises on her side were a faded yellow and moving side-to-side didn’t cause her to cry out anymore.
Ellie stepped back so she can take her full appearance in the mirror. Her dark washed jeans hung a little low on her hips, a sliver of pink underwear stuck out just above the button. She had gained some weight since being on tour; her bones still stuck out and there was nothing she could do about that, but she didn’t look anorexic anymore. Her arms didn’t look like tooth picks and her high cheek bones actually had cheeks on them. By anyone’s standards, she was radiant. She smiled her teeth white against her pink cupid lips.

She sighed contently. She had found balance, finally.

Stop. Don’t get comfortable.
-
8:45pm

“Chris, house lights!” Ellie shouted into her headset.
Brian—The Tour Manager—moved Elliot to Stage Manager/Bus-Keeper since their last stage manager from the last tour had a pregnant wife at home and wanted to be with her for the last trimester.

So she was in even more charge of the band than she had previously been. She also got her own bunk since they got a different bus with more bunks. And she actually got a check for being the Stage Manager. She was so sick and tired of living off of Frank, so getting an income was possibly the best thing that came out the tour.

Apart of Ellie’s new job, was that she had to make sure the entire show ran smoothly, so she was constantly yelling at their Sound Tech over her headset because somebodies monitors were off, or Frank’s microphone was off, and sometimes even Gerard’s microphone went out.
“Hey, I can’t hear shit out here, somebody turn up my monitors please?” Ellie heard Mikey’s voice cut through her head set. He was speaking into the dead mic, the mic that was hooked into everyone’s monitors/headsets but not the speakers. And sometimes, sound tech ignored requests for some reason.

“You got it Mikey,” Ellie said even though her head set wasn’t connected to his monitors, she yelled to Jeff the sound tech, “JEFF, TURN UP MIKEY’S FUCKING MONITORS.”

And that was how the show went for Elliot. Yelling and sweating just as much as the boys from running around and yelling orders. She loved it though she felt useful, Stage Manager—if she remembered correctly from the one play she was in high school—was the most important job for any show. Sound possibly yes for a concert, but the Stage Manager kept Sound in check.

“Thank you so much for this night, London!” Ellie heard, “This is our last song, this one is about mine and Mikey’s gramma, this is Helena.”

Ellie sighed out, the last song.

Exhaustion—let it consume you. Here is a battle. You don’t know you’re fighting. Elliot, I told you you’d regret this.
-
12:45am

“Shower, shower, shower,” Ellie sang in a ‘conga’ tune. She danced around the back stage grabbing what she needed humming her Shower Song, “I’m smelly and sweaty and so is Raaaaaayyy, shower, shower, shower—hey!” she yelled when Ray snatched her towel away from her and raised it high above her head.

“Dance monkey, dance!” Ray laughed waving the towel around.

Elliot stopped humming, stopped dancing, and looked up at Ray with glare.

“Give it baaaacccckkkk,” she pouted and crossed her arms.

“What are you, 5?” Ray laughed looking down at the pouting Ellie.

“Yes,” she grumbled. And then looked up at Ray with a sad puppy look… “You ruined my
shower song.”

Ray’s face softened and lowered his arm that was holding the towel.

“Don’t— I’m not immune to the eyes!” Ray cried out and handed the towel back to Ellie.

“Thank you!” She smiled and went on her merry way to take a shower.

She walked into the back where the shower room was. Frank and Gerard were emerging from the shower room, steam escaping out the top of the door. Their hair was wet and both of them only had towels around their waists.

Elliot froze.

Gerard is a white mother fucker, isn’t he Ellie?
“Shit,” she breathed out.

The two looked at her facial expression and started laughing.

“Come on Ellie, we’re wearing towels,” Frank giggled and wiggled his hips and then smirked at Gerard…

Are you sure he isn’t gay? I mean… you never showered with Marigold. Wait, never mind, there was that—

“Did you two shower together?” Ellie blurted.

The question only made them laugh even harder. Not to mention the complete bluntness of it.

“And if we did?” Gerard wiggled his eyebrows.

“Oh my God, go get dressed you nudists,” Ellie groaned walking past the gayest-straight men she had ever met.

“There’s more than one stall in there,” Frank called back to Ellie as he walked away with
Gerard.

Ellie rolled her eyes and walked into the humid room.

Frank was right, there were about six different shower stalls. Ellie picked one at random.
In the shower, Ellie was one thought of Frank’s body away from slamming her head into the tile. She scrubbed her head thinking if she washed her hair hard enough, her mind wouldn’t stray to the tattoos on his abdomen. Or the one on his chest or to his shoulders and collar bone. Frank was short, but he was built boulder-like. If you were to get tackled by him, it would hurt. He was broad, if he were to be Ray’s height; he’d be a lot more menacing.

Elliot shook her head, her wet hair whipping everywhere. She massaged conditioner almost apologetically into her scalp.

She was confused. Now that we’re arriving to the point, she had no idea what her and Frank was. She was exactly five years younger than him. But her mom was six years younger than her dad.

But look how that ended.

Frank was attractive, she was pretty sure that he thought the same of her. They had kissed, they cuddled a lot. He liked to play with her hair when she would lie down in his lap while he hummed different songs, sometimes even MCR ones. She liked to inspect his hands, and just hold them. The calloused extremities, she liked how they would graze down her arms…
When they were in Jersey during the time off, Elliot never even slept in the guest room Frank’s mom had made up for her. She’d find herself in Frank’s room every night and found herself waking up next to him every day. And it was usually him waking her up. He sometimes would just speak her name quietly and she would awake. Or he would poke her slightly to open her sleepy eyes.

“I really love how your eyes look first thing in the morning, they look innocent.” He had said one morning.

“Elliot?” she heard from inside of her daydream, “You’ve been in there for half an hour,” It was Bob’s voice.

“Shit,” she mumbled and rinsed her hair quickly, “I’m getting out right now!”

She stepped out of the shower and into the rest of the stall where she could get dressed.

She dressed quickly, tying her hair into the towel.

She passed Mikey, Bob, and Ray on her way out.
“You know there are different closed stalls in there?” she asked smugly.

She patted Bob on the shoulder, who was the closest to her, and walked away.
-
2:23am

Elliot and the boys were at a hotel that night, and jet lag had fucked their sleeping schedules eight different ways from Sunday. Technically they had been up for more than 50 hours by the end their first day on the European tour and they all felt like they needed about fifty hours of sleep just to become human again. The two shows they had played that day, they were really just running off of fumes at the few hours of sleep they got on the sixteen hour flight.

They were dropping like flies in random places. Bob had fallen asleep in Gerard’s bed, along with Elliot.

“Frank, she’s out cold, they both are—Bob looks cute, doesn’t he?” Gerard snorted, “And look at her, she’s the epitome of exhausted.”

Frank looked over from where he was laying in the bed next to Gerard’s. Ellie had fallen asleep in the weirdest and cutest position. She was curled into a ball right in the middle of the bed, and Bob was on her right side on his back, his left arm splayed out over Ellie’s blonde head. It was like a kitten sleeping next to a Great Dane.

“Blackmail,” Gerard sang and started snapping pictures with his phone.

“Should I move her?” Frank asks.

“She seems comfortable, leave her be,” Gerard slurs. He was exhausted as well. Frank could see it in his eyes.
“Go to bed,” Frank laugh.
“My bed is a bit occupied,” Gerard points out and flops into the other bed, next to Frank “I’ll just sleep here…” he yawns and closes his eyes.
Frank was positive that he was out for the night. He sighed out and rubbed his eyes. He shrugged and climbed into the same bed. His body relaxed the millisecond his head hit the pillow and he was out for the night.

6:09am

Elliot awoke. She didn’t know why but she was awake. She sat up slowly, some of her hair was stuck to the side of her head—she could feel it. She looked to her right where Bob was passed out.
Where’s Frank?

Who cares?

Really?

Just go back to sleep… he’s in the other bed with Gee. I swear Elliot, he’s totally gay.

Shut up.

Why, because I’m right?

No, because I am arguing with myself half-asleep self at six o’clock in the morning.

You’re not! I am not a figment of your imagination.

“I exist,” Ellie’s head shot up to see a man standing right in the middle of the two beds. He had darker skin, a scarred face, and was wearing all black. His face was a sunken face, with protruding cheekbones, and black pit for eyes, no life behind them. His hair though was white, not balding white, but his entire head of hair—and it looked to be—were a thick mane of snow.

“Who are you?” Ellie asked, “How did you get in here?”

“The door, that’s why you woke up; you heard me come in,” the man said.

He had a scratchy voice, like he smoked a lot.

“You see Ellie, I told you not to get close…” The Man said manically and turned his body to look at the other bed, “He’s going to leave you, like Elias, and your father,” The Man laughed.

Then he was gone. Just like that. No smoke, no mirrors, he just disappeared.

Ellie screamed herself awake.

The scream awoke Bob who yelped and jumped and fell out of the bed. Gerard and Frank awoke too from the commotion and looked over at Elliot who had sat up was looking frantically around, checking for The Man that had manifested itself in her dreams.

“Ellie?” She heard Frank coo, “Hey, are you okay?”

“You’re not going to leave right?” She blurted, her eyes still tired, but they had a light of fear behind them—the sleeplessness making her incapable of stringing up a lie. Much less reality.

“Um,” Frank grumbled tiredly, he rubbed his eyes trying to wake up, “It was just a bad dream Elliot—I wouldn’t leave you.”

Bob was now off the ground and standing awkwardly near the bed, still half asleep, Gerard had already fallen back to sleep. Bob got the hint that maybe he wasn’t needed for the conversation and shuffled out of the room to the one next door where there was an empty bed to fall into.

“Promise?” Ellie said loudly, the sleep still evident in her voice and her movements.

It was just a nightmare and she was half asleep. She was talking complete nonsense; her brain didn’t know what reality was and what wasn’t at that occurring moment.

“I promise,” Frank smiled tiredly, “c’mon, no nightmares are going to get my girl,” he mumbled and scooted over in the bed making room for Ellie.

Ellie clambered out of the bed clumsily and half asleep. She crawled into the bed already feeling the exhaustion washing over her once again. She just hopped that Frank would be there in her dreams protecting her from her nightmares.

Ellie slept the entire night away, without incident.

Notes

Besides the fact this was terribly short, I really liked this chapter. I'll tell you why... everything is falling into place :D

I am currently working on the next chapter, which should be up either this weekend, or early next week (this chapter was finished Friday night but I didn't have any WiFi access till this morning.)
If any of you guys have a tumblr and want to see what i'm up to over there...
www.echoes-of-related-verses.tumblr.com is my url! You can follow me and bug me about updating over there since I practically live on my dash. My ask is always open if you need to talk too, being a teenager sucks-- trust me, i know.
It's too early for anything but sleep...
ugh. Coffee.

Anyway.
Thanks for reading lovelies!
xo Taye