Diluted ☻ FRERARD ONE-SHOTS

Battle Of The Bands

Pencey Prep should be climbing the charts - kind of. The up-and-coming rock band were doing well at making a name for themselves until guitarist Frank Iero had an unfortunate incident involving a cliff and some seriously bad mental health, but issues aside, a new opportunity awaits. With the possibility of merging bands with the infamous My Chemical Romance (and its arrogant frontman Gerard Way), Frank is given the chance to climb the charts once again - and off of his high horse, and up that metaphorical cliff.

WARNING: Mentions of attempted suicide (past).

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"Where's my bass strap?" Ray kicks empty cardboard boxes so they fly across the room, the afro on his head bouncing at the action. "I'm not sitting down with the thing for two hours."

I slump against the wall and fiddle with my own guitar strap. The pattern on it consists of white and pale blue waves behind a repeated middle finger emoji. Ray gave it to me as a joke for something morbid I did three months ago... or, at least, tried to do.

Ray and I met a couple of years ago and recently put our love of music together to form a band called Pencey Prep. I'm unsure of the name but Ray insists, 'it will have to do for now'. This is our first gig, in which I'm balancing vocals and guitar, Ray - mysteriously the unofficial frontman - is on bass for now and...

"Shut up; I'm trying to fix these lyrics." Our temporary drummer, Matt, is furiously scribbling in blue ink on a torn, lined piece of paper. He's made it his mission to censor out inappropriate material, despite we're playing in a bar with twenty-ones and over only.

Matt can be a nuisance. Most days, he threatens that if we don't 'pull our act together', he's taking off in his Volkswagen Camper to the Grand Canyon or wherever he can be alone. Other days, you can see the twinkle in his eyes when he talks about the band, how much it means to him. Maybe he's bipolar.

"And where's the set list?" Ray groans and starts to bang his head against the wall. "This is a disaster. Frankie, this is a disaster."

"I have the set list." I wave about the poster for the songs we plan on playing and Ray snatches it and holds it above his head, dramatically sobbing, "We have been saved."

"I'm done. Can we do a run through?" Matt asks. He discards the pen and smooths out the crumpled paper. We plan to hide it on a thick mic stand because I haven't memorised all the lyrics yet.

"Man, we've got no time for that! There are—" Ray quickly sticks his head through the curtain to see the stage then faces him again, "—at least fifty people out there and we don't do tasters." His eyes suddenly go wide and he runs over to the other side of the room, near the cupboard containing various types of musical equipment, and pulls out his favourite strap from amongst at least a dozen others. "Thank Christ, I found it!"

I feel uncomfortable and panicky around rowdy people but Ray is my best friend so I could never even flinch at him. I just have a naturally shy attitude.

"And, as usual, I'm going to go and set everything up." Matt rolls his eyes and storms off with a speaker tucked underneath his arm.

Ray and I stand and sit respectively in a semi-awkward silence. After getting so close in such a little amount of time, there's little we hide from each other, and he definitely has his suspicions about what happened to me three months ago. He hasn't brought it up yet, understanding it's a touchy subject, but Ray's the type to organise an intervention when I least expect it in the friendliest yet most naïve fashion. He doesn't know all of me, not really.