“How long is tour suppose to last?” you groaned in the sweltering heat as you watched mini heat waves boil off the pavement outside the venue.

“Forever and a day,” Katie replied from beside you as she sipped her iced coffee.

You shot her a look.

“Do you really not know? Didn’t you take the time off of work?” Katie asked skeptically.

“The days bleed into weeks and somewhere along the line I’ve lost track of time. I don’t even know what the date is much less how long I’ve been stuck on a bus or how much longer I’ve got left to be stuck on that damn death trap on big wheels,” you groaned as you sipped your iced vanilla latte.

You cast your eyes over at Katie as she started choking on her iced coffee from laughing at something you had said.

“What?” you asked staring at her through the corners of your eyes.

“You said big wheels,” Katie giggled.

You rolled your eyes at her and flicked your straw towards her face, getting iced latte on her cheeks.

“You’re so a four year old boy. Do you want to take a trip to Toys ‘R’ Us later?” you asked teasingly as you rolled your eyes once again.

Katie simply stuck her tongue out at you.

“I am not a four year old boy,” Katie huffed playfully at you.

“Suuure,” you dragged out as you sipped your drink.

“And we’ve been on tour for a month and it’s a four month tour, so we’ve go three months left miss can’t remember what day it is because she’s gone senile with old age,” Katie replied looking awfully full of herself, in that Ha-I-so-got-you-back kind of way.

You groaned again.

“It’s only been a month? It feels like a lifetime,” you sighed as you chipped some toxic green nail polish off your pointer finger absentmindedly.

“Well technically it’s been a little bit more than a month but I was rounding for your simple mind. And if I had been a part of half the antics you’ve been a part of so far I’d feel as if it’d been a lifetime too,” Katie answered, flicking at her own nail polish of pale blue.

Only Katie could wear that color blue on her nails and pull it off. It just seemed to work for her.

“The Used boys sure know how to tour prank,” you said smiling.

Bert was the captain of schemers and Dan and Quinn could hold their own. Same with Jeph. You had made it your job to always help out, and the lot of you had reeked havoc on not only each other and the other bands you played with on occasion but also on the poor souls who worked the tour. A few fans even got caught in the cross fire on occasion.

“Your Avenged boys don’t seem to be lacking in that department any either,” Katie added with a sour face.

You chuckled to yourself. The last time you had joined up with your guys to prank, Katie had been caught in the cross fire. She hadn’t been the joint target, Dan and Quinn had been but knowing your brother poor Katie was more then likely included in his mind. There had been a lot of lube and fake feathers involved and it had made a huge mess, sticky feathers all over the place. The venue managers had thrown a fit but had his people clean it up regardless. Katie had been walking with a coil of cords, headed in some official direction to direct her underlings that she counted as equals when Dan and Quinn had walked past the target area. She got caught in the cross fire and ended up being covered head to toe in sticky lube, that smelled of strawberries, and loads of itchy fake feathers. She had not been too pleased, she even said something at breakfast this morning of still finding pointy itchy feathers in her bed. Matt had made a sad face and pulled her into his lap and placed a kiss on her forehead, to which Katie promptly turned forty million different shades of red and looked down at where Matt’s hands were wrapped around her and resting happily in her lap. Over her own.

“Feather-less yet?” you teased playfully.

Katie simply scowled at you and absentmindedly picked at her blue tipped hair to check for feathers that were no longer in it.

“But come on, lube? Uh, eww. Couldn’t you have used something else instead?” Katie asked as the both of you watched people gather, more than five hours early for the show.

“Johnny had originally suggested super glue, would that have been better?” you offered with a raised eyebrow.

“Uh, no,” Katie answered quite strongly.

“Exactly. So we decided on lube because we couldn’t figure out what would be sufficiently sticky enough to hold onto the feathers till Syn pulled out a tube of lube from his bunk. And wha-la! We had our answer. Though why he had a tube of strawberry lube in his bunk I don’t want to think on,” you said with a shudder.

A shudder which Katie mimicked as the two of you fought off impending thoughts and visuals.

“You should have seen the look on the poor sex shop owner when we asked what he had for quantity in the store room of the lube. Especially since me, Jimmy, and Matt were incognito so as not to be recognized. And then when we told the shop owner that we wanted all of it his jaw dropped but then he mentally calculated the sale and his eyes lit up. It was hysterical, we were so sketch,” you laughed at the memory.

“Where were the others?” Katie managed to ask after she caught herself from blowing iced coffee out her nose from laughing.

Or that’s what you assumed at least as she made a choking sound mid laugh and her hand went flying to her nose to cover it.

“Duh Syn and Johnny had to buy feathers! Dumb ass. We weren’t going to pluck a million chickens and assorted birds to get all those! Weirdo,” you teased as you knocked her shoulder with your own as you then slurped out the rest of your iced drink.

“And Vengeance?” Katie asked nonchalantly as she too loudly slurped out the last of her cold beverage.

You felt your hand crush around the empty plastic cup before violently throwing it into the trash can, it now resembling nothing close to what it use to be.

“Don’t know, don’t fucking care. Probably out screwing some whore in the parking lot,” you said flatly, no longer feeling the heat as your body had gone ice cold.

“Sorry,” Katie said with a roll of her eyes that you barely caught.

“Whatever,” you said and turned to walk, no storm, off back towards the back of the venue.

“Hey you know I didn’t mean anything by it,” Katie called after you as you stormed off.

“I know,” you shouted back, feeling bad that she had thought it was her you were mad at for any reason.

You weren’t. You weren’t even mad at her for mentioning him like he should have been a part of the fun, like he should have been a part of the family. It was just him in general.

“It’s not you Katie, I’m, well you know. I can’t fucking stand the polluted ground that puss bag fouls by, oomph,” you shouted back before walking into a wall.

A strangely soft wall.

You looked up and felt a snap reaction sneer take over your face but you kept your mouth shut.

“Oh no, don’t mind me. Continue. Please,” Zacky dripped at you venomously.

“Slithering it’s way across as it makes everyone’s life a living hell because it’s so worthless that it must drag everyone else down with it,” you finished, totally forgetting that Katie was a part of the conversation or anywhere near you.

You just let it out at him, letting your eyes convey most of what you felt about him, towards him, since your eyes could always express more then your words ever could. And strangely enough it felt like you and the person you despised were the only ones standing on the planet at that moment in time. And as you let it out you could literally feel the strong emotions around the two of you become tangible enough to almost touch as you bore daggers into his flesh with your eyes and your feelings. Zacky’s sneer seemed to creep farther up his face as he lifted his large sunglasses off his face with his fingerless gloves covered hands and placing them on top of his head.

“And you’d know all about being worthless wouldn’t you. Know all about slithering. Because if I’m the lowest of the low you’re right down there with me sweetheart, always have been and always will be. You’re just as bad as me, if not worse. You’re a cheap fuck who can’t come to grips with it and plays themselves off as high and mighty to deal with the truth. At least I’ve come to grips with it while you’re still parading around in lies,” Zacky sneered at you, eyes boring into your own.

You felt your pulse race with hatred so fast that it blocked out all surrounding sound. All surrounding sound except for Zacky’s foul breathing, except for Zacky’s words. And deep inside you something made an internal clicking sound as if something had fallen into place.

“I’m nothing like you Zacky. Never have been and never will be. You are all alone down where ever it is things like you eek out an existence, if you can even call it that. And besides, don’t kid yourself, you don’t even have enough to get a grip on,” you spit at him, face closer to his then you had started just to be able to rub it in that much more.

“Oh I most definitely have enough to get a grip on, and have been told numerous times just how much I have to get a grip on. And I know you’re just dying to find out for yourself,” Zacky sneered at you, his words dripping off his tongue.

You could almost feel them physically hitting your face and burning themselves onto your skin. Like a permanent mark to remember your hate for him by.

“I would rather die then touch you anywhere that didn’t involve you and my fist coming into contact. And you damn well know that. You fucking disgust me,” you spat at him, not even paying attention to how close you were to him.

All you were concentrating on was controlling yourself, concentrating on clenching your fists and keeping them at your sides so as not to break your deal and slug him in the face. The urge for your hands to come in contact with his face, violently, was so overwhelming that it was taking all your will power not to make him a walking black and blue mark.

“I’d almost believe if it if I hadn’t seen you react otherwise before. If I wasn’t listening to your pathetic heart race and watching your ears burn red right now I might believe your disgusting pathetic lies. But I don’t. I know you want it,” Zacky sneered at you though it came to your ears sounding less convincing than usual.

“You disgust me,” you replied not being able to come up with anything else at the moment.

“You said that already,” Zacky growled softly at you softly, mere centimeters from your face.

You found yourself speechless as you felt his soft hot breath hit your face as you stared directly into his eyes. Inside you were screaming and calling him every name you could come up with but outside you were shocked still as he stared right back at you. You felt his hand come up into your black, white and green hair, you felt his fingers twine in it softly as he pulled you another centimeter closer. You watched as if not in control of your body as he leaned in, eyes still staring into yours, and brushed his nose softly against your own. You felt your body react on autopilot, you felt yourself brush back just lightly with your own nose and heard your breath catch in your throat when his lips brushed your cheek on their way towards your neck.

“I knew you wanted it,” Zacky sneered before moving his head back just enough so you could see the evil gleam in his eyes that you could have sworn was not there a second ago.

And in that instant you snapped back into reality. And your knee snapped upwards right into Zacky. You sneered in glee as he doubled in half, his hands grabbing his now throbbing crotch as he groaned in pain. Then just for effect you punched down, hard, directly into his left kidney, dropping him almost completely to his knees on the pavement.

“The first one was for everything, everything you’ve ever done. The second was simply to make me smile. And not a one will leave marks to get me into trouble for breaking the rule,” you spat down at him as you turned to walk away from him.

Your feet were walking fast but you were trying your damnedest to not let your body take over so you wouldn’t start trembling and running away.

“Don’t you ever fucking touch me again Zacky or I swear to god I will damage you!” you shouted over your shoulder as you briskly walked back to the buses, still unaware of the world around you.

“You get back here you fucking whore!” you heard Zacky snarl loudly some ways back behind you.

Notes

So close, and yet so bloody effing far!