Calibrations

New Jersey 2002

When Youngblood opened his eyes, he saw that he hadn't gone anywhere at all. He was still in New Jersey, a few blocks away from the album release party. Something must have gone wrong, but surely, Figment would have some answers. "Hey Figment?" he said, but his future self was gone. Youngblood looked around, wondering where he was supposed to go from here.

No, not Youngblood. Here, he was all alone. Here, he was just Gerard.

There were a few lingering visions, but they weren't quite visions. They were too real for that: they felt more like memories than visions. There was a luxurious mansion, a city street, a car with a spider painted on the hood, a drawing of Frank, but they were all disappearing fast. Gerard tried to hold onto them, but it was like waking up from a dream. The visions faded, and soon, they were gone.

Gerard searched for Figment, but there was nobody else around. As he realized just how alone he was, he collapsed onto a bench and sighed. Just as he was starting to get some answers, his future self had vanished once again. This had been a waste of time. He could have been drawing comics in the basement, writing some new songs, or drowning his sorrows at the album release party.

He got up and started walking back toward the house where the party was. He wasn't sure if that was really where he wanted to be, but at the very least, he could get his car and drive home. Between kissing Frank on the balcony and running into the mysterious man again, a lot had happened that night, and he needed some time to process it all.

As he headed back to the party, Gerard thought about what his future self had said about Frank. Figment said that he would die in 2016, and Gerard had no idea whether or not they would be able to save him. He suspected that it wouldn't work, that they would fail somehow, that Frank would die anyways. It hurt him to think about, but he was afraid that he was right.

Then again, none of that changed how he felt about him. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw Frank's beautiful face, he heard crashing guitar chords accompanying his voice, he tasted his kiss on his lips. Knowing that Frank would die didn't change any of that. Gerard was afraid of Frank rejecting him, afraid of his band falling apart, afraid of anyone else finding out just how obsessed he was with his rhythm guitarist, but he wasn't afraid of death. Besides, maybe his future self was right. Maybe they would manage to save Frank somehow. Maybe he had nothing to worry about.

Gerard returned to the party, but he couldn't find Frank. He looked everywhere, from the bar to the backyard to the table where they were passing out copies of I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. He even climbed upstairs and checked the balcony, but he wasn't there either. Gerard leaned against the railing, but somehow, the view didn't seem so picturesque without Frank.

Eventually, he gave up and looked for his brother, who was much easier to find. He was on the first floor, drunkenly chatting with a blonde-haired woman in her twenties.

"Hey Mikey, it's getting late," Gerard interrupted. "We should probably leave."

"Fuck off, Gerard," Mikey said. "You're just mad that Frank left."

He wasn't wrong, but Gerard wasn't about to admit that. "No, I'm just tired, and I want to go home," he said.

"Then leave me alone," Mikey said.

"Fine," Gerard said. "You're not going to have a ride home, but I guess that's your problem."

He stormed off, got into his car, and started driving home. As he drove, he put on a Black Flag album, but it reminded him a little bit too much of Frank. He still wasn't quite sure what he was going to do about his tattooed guitarist. He wished that he had asked his future self about that while he was still here. Maybe he could have given him some helpful advice, something to ease the butterflies in his stomach.