Don't get me wrong, I love Richard like a brother but on days like this when he's being the bastard to end all bastards, I could gladly stick his head in the toilet and flush till he quits wiggling. I don't know what was up his ass that day, but he was driving all of us insane, slowly, and I could see that Till was getting there the quickest. Everything, from the weather on up was a cause for him to start bitching to high heaven, the most recent event his tech being a moment late for him to switch guitars between songs. Richard snapped at the poor guy, who shot me a stunned look, and snatched the guitar from his hands with not even a "thanks." Which was very unlike Richard; on his worst days he was always, always polite to the crew. Even when he was coked out of his head and snarling at the rest of us, he was nice to them. Sliding my guitar around to my back, I went over to Richard and said softly, "What in the name of God is going on with you Reesh? If my kids acted as bratty as you are right now I'd paddle their behinds and stick them in a corner."
"Oh fuck off, Paul!" Richard growled at me. "Nothing's going on, I'm just not in the mood right now and people are pissing me off."
"Piss you off? What the...Reesh, you've been ripping holes in your tech ever since we got started this morning. You snapped at Ollie for no reason over breakfast, you've been picking at Till for stupid stuff, I don't know what you said to Flake that he's glaring daggers at your back, and you've got me and Schneider about ready to beat some sense into you!"
Richard turned to me, indigo grey-blue eyes boring a hole in me. He backed me into the drum riser, hissing and looming over me like grim death, "Try it, pipsqueak, just lay one hand on me and I'll wallop you clear into your next birthday!"
"Hey!" Schneider yelled, leaning over his drum kit. "Cut it out, Richard! One more word out of you and I'm coming down there and walloping you into your next birthday!"
Oh, that did it. Pulling his guitar over his head, Richard shoved it under Flake's keyboard rack for safekeeping and hauled himself up to Schneider's level. He was halfway out from behind his drums when suddenly Ollie was behind him, holding him back, while Flake grabbed Richard around the waist and swung him off to the side. Schneider and Richard were screaming at the top of their lungs, going from German, to English and back again, filling the air with obscenities and threats. Ollie was having a hard time keeping Schneider from breaking free and Richard was trying to duck around Flake to get to him.
"You fucking stuck up shit!" Richard yelled at Schneider. "Keep your goddam pointy fucking nose out of this! This is between me and Paul and nobody else!"
"Fuck you, Kruspe! You've done nothing since lunchtime but pick, pick, pick on everyone and I'd tired of your mouth!" Schneider screamed back. "Ollie, please let me go so I can smack the shit out of that prissy princess!"
"Oh no you don't," Ollie replied. "Now stop wiggling, Christoph, and stand still. You two will kill one another if I let you near him."
"Let 'em go at it, maybe it'll teach Richard a lesson!" I said, partially amused by the sight of Richard trying to get at Schneider and vice versa. I knew from long experience, however, that both of them could do a lot of damage to the other and considering what we were now, might just be strong enough to kill each other. Which we couldn't have, but I was so tired of Richard being an asshole I probably wouldn't have cared otherwise.
The argument got louder and louder, our voices ringing off the walls and ceiling of the concert hall until all of the road crew was standing around staring at us. It was a second from reaching its peak as well as Richard and Schneider getting free of Ollie and Flake when Till stood up from his seat just offstage, took a long look at what was going on, and stuck his fingers in his mouth. I knew what was coming and shoved my fingers in my ears, not wanting to lose any more of my hearing than I already had. Till let loose a piercing whistle that could have shattered glass, causing everyone within earshot to stop what they were doing to plug their ears up. He did it again just to make sure he'd been heard, and shouted, "All of you, shut up! I don't care who started it, I don't care why, but that's enough!"
"But...!" Schneider began, only to back away and hide behind Ollie as Till turned around and stared him down. I caught a momentary look at Till's eyes and they were a deep greeny-blue with nearly-insane rage simmering under the surface. He turned to Richard, who'd shrugged off Flake's hands and was standing with his arms over his chest, glaring down at Till with every once of arrogance he could muster. Yeah, we were in for a donnybrook of epic proportions. I hurried to get past Till and on the other side of the stage, not wanting to be in his line of sight for all the money in the world.
The air crackled with anger as Till walked up to stand in front of Richard, who had come down from his perch and was standing on the stage, chin up, arms folded back over his chest again and radiating his usual "fuck you sideways I'm fabulous" attitude that he put on when he was pissed off. Stopping scant inches from Richard, Till said very softly, "Either settle your ass down, monkey boy, or we're going to have words."
Richard didn't budge an inch. ::Oh fuck you, Till! It's perfectly okay for you to have days where we're all running for cover because you got up on the wrong side of a groupie but one of us have a bad day? That cannot be! It's just you who can have a shit day, not any of us!::
"Richard..." Ollie began, only to come to a stuttering halt when he saw Till's face go red, then white. Flake ran down to try and push between him and Richard then stopped. I don't know what was said between him and Till but he gulped, nodded, and inched around them until he could dash over to my side of the stage. The four of us stood frozen, waiting for someone to throw the first punch; we'd been through episodes like this before and while it was nothing new, nobody wanted to see Richard and Till pummeling the daylights out of each other.
"Apologize, Richard," I whispered, sweat ticking down my back and making my shirt damp. "Apologize now or you're going to end up flat on your ass with a broken nose."
It was like watching two angry tigers facing each other down in an alleyway. Neither Till nor Richard moved; hell, they barely seemed to breathe! Something was going on between them, something they'd locked the rest of us out of. I tried to touch one of them through the link and got one hell of a static like "shock" along my nerves that told me to keep my nose out of things. I could tell by the way Schneider was shaking his head that he'd done the same and got zapped.
::Something or someone's got to give:: Flake said.
::I'm not going to try and break them up!:: I yelped. ::I like my nose unbroken, thank you very much!::
A blur of movement to my right pulled my attention away from my angry friends and I saw Ollie throw Schneider a length of broom handle. Moving silent as a cat, our drummer crept up behind Richard and without warning, smacked on the ass with the broom handle. Richard yelled, jumped a foot in the air and spun to meet his attacker. He saw Schneider behind him with the broom handle and flung himself at him, only to have Schneider catch him in the gut with the end of the handle. Richard folded over at the waist with a grunt of pain but stayed on his feet. I knew there was no way on this Earth he'd be able to get in range of Schneider to lay a hand on him. Schneider knew this and kept Richard moving, kept swiping the broom handle along the floor to try and knock him off his feet, went for his head a couple of times and every chance he got to swat Richard on the ass, he did. He chased Richard down off the stage and onto the main floor, never saying a word, just kept him from landing a punch. And it's not like Richard didn't try, he put in a good effort, I'll give him that.
By the time Schneider was starting to tire, Richard was stumbling, sweating and blowing like a horse that's been raced half off its feet. We were all in excellent shape thanks to the Changeling virus but Schneider had been working with the staff every day for at least an hour, plus his endurance from being a drummer for so long, so he had a lot more stamina than Richard did going into the fight. And Richard's strength was partially coming from being so angry, anger which when it burned out, left nothing to draw on.
The end happened almost too quick to follow; Richard tripped right into the path of a very showy down sweep Schneider was in the middle of and was on his knees, spitting blood from a split lip. He hadn't been hit hard enough to break teeth but it was enough to open his lower lip and leave a mark from the corner of his right eye clear to the chin. It was going to bruise vividly once it got started and no amount of accelerated healing was going to make it go away soon. He glared up at our drummer, who stood balanced on the balls of his feet, staff off to the side and one hand making a "come here" gesture.
"Get up, you little bitch. I'll give you one chance to try and hit me before I start breaking bones," Schneider purred, voice icy cold and almost too soft to be heard. Richard stayed on his knees, holding his arm to his lip to let the sleeve of his shirt soak up the blood. "You need taken down about ten pegs and I'm just the man to do it."
"Shit!" Flake snapped and ran for the back staircase with Ollie and Till hot on his heels. I couldn't move, I was frozen in place. I'd never heard Schneider's voice so cold and cruel and it honestly scared me senseless. The look he was turning on Richard was every inch the "Frau Schneider" character from our "Mein Teil" video. Any other time it would have been hilarious because he used that face when someone said or did something stupid (like a reporter who asked him if we were Nazi sympathizers for the millionth time) but now, not so much.
"Get. Up. Kruspe. Hell, who needs a stick to knock your sorry ass around," Schneider said, throwing the broom handle to the side. "Get up, now."
Richard didn't need another invitation, he came up from the floor like a shot and plowed into Schneider, who hit the ground with a "whuff!" and rolled to his feet. By this time Ollie, Flake and Till were running across the floor, yelling for them to break it up but they might as well have saved their breath. There was no separating the two combatants without anyone else getting hurt. I hadn't seen either Schneider nor Richard fighting like this in a very long time and it was awful. I was debating whether or not I wanted to try to pull them apart or grab a bucket of water to throw over them like you do when cats or dogs are fighting and won't break it up when my phone buzzed. Not taking my eyes off of the fight, I pulled it out of my pocket and said, "What!"
"Paul, it's Lilly! What the hell is going on over there? I just got a call from Emu saying that Richard and Schneider are attempting to beat each other into the ground!"
"Damn, woman, get your ass over here and now! Richard has a black eye and a split lip and if Schneider gets his wish, he's gonna have more than that!" I yelled. Lilly broke the connection with a garbled word, leaving me standing in the middle of the stage hoping that someone, anyone, would be brave enough to bring the brawl between my two best friends to a halt, and soon.
Thankfully, Till came to the rescue by reaching down the linkage and shoving them into unconsciousness. Richard, who was on his knees (again) slumped over and was still, Schneider took a couple of staggering steps, and slowly knelt, then toppled over to flop down on top of Richard. I ran to the edge of the stage, sat down and scooted forward until I could put one foot on the edge of the front firework truss. I hopped down onto it, then used it as a ladder to get me close enough to the ground that jumping off wouldn't hurt my ankles, then ran over to where Flake and Ollie were kneeling next to our fallen band members. Till was hauling Emu to the side, speaking rapidly to him in an undertone, while the crew people who'd been watching the proceedings stood uncannily still, as if they were frozen in time. Ollie's eyes were distant, the black pupils of his eyes almost covering their usual forest-green and gold, and I knew without being told that he'd grabbed the minds of everyone around us and was holding them still so they couldn't move nor see what was going on.
"Lilly's on her way," I said, going to Ollie's side and touching his arm. He blinked, very slowly, and whispered, "I can't hold this for too long, not this many people. Give me a hand?"
Laying my fingertips on his broad shoulder, I lent Ollie all the strength I could muster. The sheer amount of strength he was using to keep over a hundred people in suspended animation as well as being unable to see or hear what was going on was impressive. He was burning through it as fast as I fed my strength to him and I knew we were going to need to do something, soon, or we'd be joining Richard and Schneider on the floor. My knees were beginning to tremble when Till dropped into the link, relieving me so I could stagger backwards and sit down on the floor, soaked with sweat and shaking. Too tired to see what he and Ollie were doing, I closed my eyes and flopped down on the floor, not giving a damn if anyone saw me or not.
::Hang on Ollie, let me get a grip on these people and I'll finish off what you've started:: Till said. I felt Ollie's nod, then the sensation like I was falling off the top of a tall building. I sat up in time to see Ollie carefully sitting down on the floor at Till's feet, just as sweaty and white-faced as I figured I was. The crowd, still eerily silent, broke apart and left the arena, shutting the doors behind them. Once the place was empty, Till sighed and said, "Paul, did you say Lilly was on her way?"
"I'm right here," she called, bursting from the side of the stage and hurtling over the barrier like it was only a few inches high and not the seven feet it really was. She was at my side first, running delicate fingers over my head and across my face, then went to do the same to Ollie. Till shook his head, saying, "I'm okay, you need to see to Richard and Schneider. They're going to have awful headaches when they wake up, I think I overdid it when I knocked them out."
Lilly nodded and knelt next to Schneider, laying her fingers on his forehead. A breath or two went by and he was awake, pushing himself up on shaky arms to stare about him. "What the fuck? Till, what the hell did you do?"
"It was either knock you out or watch you and Richard kill each other," Till said, helping Schneider to his feet. Richard came around with a groan, rolling to his side and saying, "What did you hit us with, a piece of girder? 'Cause that's what it feels like."
"Sit still and let me finish looking you over," Lilly said, getting Richard to roll over onto his back. She took in his split lip and blackened eye with a grunt, then went back to look Schneider over again. He hadn't gotten bashed about as badly as he'd beaten Richard but his knuckles on both hands were split and bloody, he had two black eyes and was holding his right side gingerly. "Pull up your shirt and let me see," Lilly said, examining the dark bruising that was beginning to spread across his rib cage. She clucked her tongue and said, "Bruised but not broken. Both of you. You're gonna be sore as hell for a day or so, accelerated healing skills or not."
"Well, fuck," Richard groaned, standing up slowly and making sure he was steady on his feet before finally standing up completely. "There's no way we're gonna be able to play tonight. I'm already stiffening up and I know Schneider can't see out of one of his eyes, if not both. I can barely see out of mine."
"You sure I didn't break your fingers, Reesh?" Schneider asked, walking gingerly over to our guitar player and gently lifting one of his hands. "I walloped your knuckles pretty hard if I remember."
"Yeah, they're fine. It's my ass that's broken," Richard replied, trying to smile and stopping with an "ouch" when he remembered his lower lip was split. "What in the hell were you hitting me with?"
"A broom handle," Schneider replied with a half grin. Richard returned it with raised eyebrows and a snort-laugh that made me stare at him like he was insane. "You two going to start going at it hammer and anvil or are you going to behave?" I said, not moving from my spot on the floor. "Because if you are I'm going to leave before the bloodshed starts again. That was fucking nuts, you two."
"Come on folks, let's get the wounded backstage so I can take care of this mess in relative peace and quiet," Lilly said, taking Schneider by one arm and Richard by his hand. Till and Flake had Ollie on his feet by this point; he came over to me and got me on my feet with a gentle tug. I slung my arm around his skinny waist, not wanting to fall down and do any more damage to myself, and we wobbled our way towards the backstage and the green room.
Once Richard and Schneider's cuts were cleaned out and bandaged, and all of us had some aspirin and sports drink in our systems, Lilly said, "I can't leave you boys alone for five minutes. What in the world happened?"
Richard, who couldn't have looked more ashamed and sheepish than if he tried, scrubbed his face carefully as not to bump his black eye and muttered, "I started it. I shot my big mouth off to everyone because I'm an asshole. I got in Paul's face, Schneider came to the rescue, and we went at it from there."
"I've noticed that we've all been on edge for about a month or so," Till said, combing his fingers through his fringe and staring down at the floor. "It's like having spiders walking on your skin but not touching."
Schneider went white at Till's comment. "Not spiders. Don't mention spiders, okay?"
"Sorry. It's like...well, like someone holding their hand over your arm to the point that you can feel their warmth but it makes your hair stand on end. Like that."
"Yeah, that's how I'd describe it," I said. "I've been able to ignore it somewhat but after a bit it breaks your concentration. I've been scratching at myself like a dog with fleas; I thought it might be an allergy to something."
Flake, who had been quiet the whole time we were getting patched up, said, "Someone's making us itchy, on edge, on purpose. I can't tell who, but it's someone in the crew. I've tried to have an excuse for bumping into the people I suspect might be the person making us edgy but I haven't had any luck."
"It can't be!" Lilly exclaimed. "There can't be anyone out there like us, I know there can't be. Flake, are you sure?" He nodded, white-blonde hair swinging down into his face. With an irritated huff, Flake shoved the hair from his eyes and continued, "There's a person out there who's got our kind of talent and intentionally developed it, or has a touch of it and someone's boosting them the way Paul's able to do. Whoever it is did this intentionally and when I find out who it is, I'm going to hang them by their toes from the rafters and use them as a pinata."
I laughed softly, meeting Flake's wink with one of my own. My friend didn't show his temper normally and the thought of him swinging away at a faceless person hanging upside down from the arena ceiling was funny. Eventually everyone else broke and laughed, with Till saying, "I want to see this. You couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a brick before and I don't think you've gotten any better, Flake!"
"Oh, I think I'd surprise you," Flake replied slyly. "Wait and see, Till, I've got more than a few tricks up my sleeve."
We managed to do the show that night despite Richard and Schneider looking like raccoons with their black eyes. Lilly solved the problem by dabbing concealer around the edges of their eyes to even the bruises out a little, then smudged black eyeliner around Richard's non-bruised eye to make them match. I did the same to keep in the spirit of the moment, and after a bit of nudging and teasing, Till did as well, only not as much. Ollie kept to his usual white foundation with a swath of scarlet color and royal blue eyeliner, saying that he wanted to be different and Flake nearly had to climb up on top of the back line lights to keep me from painting him up like I was. The teasing, messing about and minor roughhousing settled our nerves nicely, and by the time we were ready for our pre-show tequila shots, the ill feelings that had been rampant all day were gone. Lilly gave each of us a careful hug, kissed Richard on the nose, and was gone, stealing away to her usual hidey hole near the stage with her e-kit at her feet, ready to go.
Towards the end of the show, I looked out over the sea of faces, remembering that we had one tour date left and after that it was home for a month before setting out to tour Europe and the rest of the world. Up until the past couple days, it had been one of the best tours I'd ever been on, almost trouble free and for the most part, fun. I hated for our run in the US to end on such a bad note and I thought to myself as Schneider counted us in for the next song that if I got my hands on the person who'd caused us to go momentarily mad, I'd do more than use them for target practice.