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Never Without You	By : SolusNemo Category: Singers/Bands/Musicians > Good Charlotte Views: 1342 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not know the members of Good Charlotte. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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- 3
note: Benji’s song (as yet untitled) is mine. It’s copywrited so if you even get half the thought of stealing it at the back of your mind I hope you go choke on a chicken bone…or tofu dog if that’s what you’re into.

Chapter Three

“Careful what you wish, careful what you say. Careful what you wish you may regret it, careful what you wish you just might get it. Then it all crashes down and you break your crown and you point your finger, but there’s no one around. Just want one thing, just to play the King, but the castle crumbled and you’re left with just a name. Where’s your crown, King Nothing?” - Metallica’s “King Nothing”

Kingdom. When that reverberates through one’s skull images of wide open fields, rolling green hills, and beauty invade the mind’s eye. Acres upon acres of the greatest things known to man, scenes so amazing that one must think one went completely daft. Kingdom. The word alone promises all the beautiful things in the world.

So why was Benji looking at ugliness as far as his eyes could see?

Maybe this was still nothing but a dream. Maybe he’d wake up at any moment and be in his old house, his alarm going off, the sun barely beginning to rise. The wondrous dream had quickly turned into a nightmare and sooner or later the fear would wake him, eyes snapping open to stare at the yellowing white paint on the ceiling. Benji would be freezing under his blankets because of the sweat evaporating into the still air, Joel would be quietly snoring in his cave of bed sheets, Sarah and Mother down the hall out like lights in their bedrooms.

This all had to be a night terror, one that seemed to have been going on for years when in reality it was only a few hours. When awake, Benji would try to clear his mind of all the vivid images burning themselves into his mind, focus on all the tasks at hand and realize that the band was still getting only prank phone calls from fictitious record labels. He would find out that a man named John Morris was never born or at least born but not in the music industry. There would be no battle of the bands at Between a Rock and a Hard Place which meant no interns hiding in the crowd with tape recorders and no girl – Benji still couldn’t recall a name – to cause all the trouble between he and Billy.

It was a pathetically desperate prayer and God was too busy watching the soap operas of other people’s lives on His television screen to even stop to think about helping Benji out a little. Had the rock star been slightly less mature (or mature in his own eyes at least) he would have turned his head to the sky and called his creator a lot of bad names his mother would disown him for using.

Benji was almost beyond the point of saying that God had done him an injustice, was only a sick asshole hellbent for making people miserable. It wasn’t His fault even though Benji sometimes caught himself trying to stick them blame on Him. Benji had only received what he had asked for; a way to make his family comfortable and not have to worry about how bad their life was getting.

Though he had stopped blaming a higher power for his shit hole of a life (not fully, but he was getting there) Benji was still angry. He didn’t even know why he was so enraged at everyone and everything anymore, but the rage only seemed to grow.

Gradually he became aware that Billy’s lips were moving, soon after the words found sound.

“—want to do this, you know?”

How long was he in another world?

Benji blinked himself into reality and looked across the table at Billy. He noticed a burrito sitting on a plate by his right hand, but his appetite must have left him along with his silent brooding. “Pardon?”

The wiry man smirked, as if he knew he’d have to repeat himself. He did so without any complaint. “MTV wants us to preform at the Video Music Awards, but I think we have a concert date in Japan then. Not that I don’t like preforming for fans, but it really sucks because I want to do this.”

Benji had only half heard what Billy had said. Instead of replying to what his lover had stated, he thought he’d say something that had nothing to do with the current conversation. “Do you regret anything?”

“That ‘anything’ is pretty elastic, there, babe,” Billy replied, then took a sip of his soda. Taco Bell. Not one of the actual restaurants, but the small chains set up in the food courts of malls.

How long had they been hiding out in the mall? Benji furrowed his brow, looked around the spacious court at the other people sitting at the table; more than half were staring back, giggling and pointing and whispering something the rock star couldn’t hear, but he knew it was about him.

“What the hell has gotten into you, Benj?” Billy asked, now leaning forward with his elbows on the table. “You’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days if you keep doing that.”

Benji turned his gaze back to his boyfriend. “Doing what?”

Billy waved his right hand in the air – he did that often and it meant a lot of things, but Benji didn’t feel like matching a meaning with the turns and twirls his lover’s hand took. “That. You retreat into your head, go so far back that you’re not aware of what’s going on. I’ll bet my soul to the devil that a shotgun could go off an inch away from your ear and you wouldn’t even flinch.”

“Don’t be silly, your soul belongs to me.”

With a sigh, Billy leaned back in his wrought iron chair. “So what am I suppose to be regretting?”

Benji shrugged, tossed his cold burrito into a trashcan not far from where he was sitting. Thankfully he was a pretty good shot. “Anything, everything.”

“Of?”

“The choices we’ve made. You know, with the band,” Benji elaborated. “Like, do you think we never should have moved so fast? We’re running around like race horses around the track, we might not have had the time to think things all the way through.”

“Benj,” Billy started. He moved a stray hair from his face, looked at Benji with those eyes. “We’ve talked about this before. If you’re unhappy just leave the band, take a break. You’re not accomplishing anything by sitting around and whining about it every single day, I’m getting sick of it. In fact, why don’t you just write up a song about how pissed off you are at this whole star thing so that the fans will know to back off – at least the one’s with enough brain cells to understand what you’re talking about.”

He was about to reply when Billy cut him off.

“No excuses. It kills me to see you so unhappy, you know that. I’m not going to throw you to the wolves if you decide to take a break from the band for a while, I’m not going to throttle you if you talk to Joel about calling it quits.”

▪▪▪

To say that he hated radio shows would have been a lie. There was still a rawness to the whole shebang that captivated Benji, it was as if the radio booths were the bare light bulb and he was the fly – only Benji never burned to death when he reached the light.

As it was with most of the interviews Benji and Joel had been asked to come and answer the questions, sing an acoustic song for the listeners. Needless to say the brothers had agreed and were currently sitting at the table with their earphones on, looking at the DJ across from them.

The DJ, a thirty-ish man with a handlebar mustache, bottled tan, and bleached hair smiled back at the twins. When the new Nine Inch Nails song had ended, the man “pressed” a button on his computer screen and started talking into the microphone set up in-between the three guys sitting around the table.

“Nine Inch Nails putting the end to our one hundred and three minute rock block with ‘The Hand That Feeds’. I would be Rocky and your name I do not know, so call me up and tell me along with your requests. If you have hate-mail like a—” he read the name on a note card “—George just sent to me you’d want to send that to Fish, he just left an hour ago – someone obviously didn’t set their clocks forward. But why’d you want to send me hate-mail when I have Benji and Joel of Good Charlotte here in the studios is beyond me. Say hey, guys.”

“Hey, guys,” the twins said in tandem.

Rocky smiled. “It’s great that you two took the time out of your busy schedules to come talk to us. I didn’t interrupt a worldwide tour, did I?”

“Nah,” Joel replied. “We’re not going to be going on any tours for another month or two.”

“Downtime, huh? Speaking of which, do you guys ever really get time to relax?”

Benji let Joel answer that one, he was too busy writing in the notebook he had carried along with him to talk.

“We do, but it’s never any set time. Like, we’ll have just finished a show or something and have a few hours to kill before getting back on the bus so we’ll go to a party. Whenever we can squeeze some fun time into our day we’ll act on it, you know?”

In fact, Benji was too busy writing to even pay much attention to what was going on. If he needed to say something he figured that Joel would elbow him in the ribs.

“You sit there and encase me in solid gold,
You’ve got me tied down to the table so I can’t run away,
And while I’m screaming my story to you you make me such a pathetic sight to behold.
But I guess you haven’t realized that in this shining tomb I’ve already started to decay,
Or maybe you have but keep your eyes blind, keep your heart cold.

So tell me what I’ve done to deserve this, I’m begging you.
All I’ve ever done is give you something to believe in,
I’m sorry if that makes me someone not true.
Don’t treat me like I’m some fallen god because, more than you think, we’re akin.

I’ve—”

Joel had kicked Benji lightly in the shin. Benji raised his head to meet Rocky’s grin.

“Brunettes,” Benji stated. “I like brunettes. There’s just something about them that seems more intriguing than blondes or red-heads. I think my brain is still back in the olden days when everyone in the movie industry used to connect dark hair to dirty, naughty, things like that.” He smirked and went back to his song.

“I’ve come from the same crop of weeds as you lot,
Don’t crucify me because I’ve finally become more than just a shell of a man.
If you’d just stop your moaning long enough you’ll know that all roads are fraught,
with ruin and you can get out of it, too, if you have a battle plan.

I’m not the star you’ve made me out to be,
I’m nothing like the grotesque portrait you’ve all painted,
So for the love of God get away from the razor blades and pick up the debris,
The debris of the little boy you long ago sainted.

I never wanted any of this,
I was a naïve child looking for a way to cease his family’s starving.
Hate me for all I care, but before I lean down and take this poisoned kiss,
Know that I hate you for your sickening self-loathing.

These bones—”

Benji hated being interrupted like this, but he stifled the urge to scream and smiled instead. “It’s a new song I’m working on, that’s what I’m writing down in here. Sorry, but I can’t tell you what it us. You’re just going to have to wait like everyone else, Rocky.”

“These bones, under the weight of your ideals, are breaking,
And you keep swallowing those bitter pills.
For so long I’ve lived with the disdain for you by my side my soul is aching,
Let me break free of your bonds and hide in the fear made black hills.

I have never been the man you wanted me to be,
I’m just a coward with the rock star’s boots on.
I’m not the genius who wants to spend the rest of his life with thee,
Honestly I’d rather swallow my tongue than raise your heartless spawn.

I’m not the star you’ve made me out to be,
I’m nothing like the grotesque portrait you’ve all painted,
So for the love of God get away from the razor blades and pick up the debris,
The debris of the little boy you long ago sainted.

I never wanted any of this,
I was a naïve child looking for a way to cease his family’s starving.
Hate me for all I care, but before I lean down and take this poisoned kiss,
Know that I hate you for your sickening self-loathing.”

Reading his words over again Benji frowned and shut his notebook. He’d have to go over the song again, add and take away some things, but that was a better start than none.

He turned to Joel and grinned, catching the last of Rocky’s sentence. “Watch, when she turns eighteen he’ll be like: ‘yeah, I was so all over that ass!’” Benji’s smiled faltered. “I can say ‘ass’, right?”

Joel punched his brother in the arm. “You’re suppose to be on my side, man! You’re a traitor!”

“He never could take a joke. Joel’s wound so tight he’s going to snap like a toothpick if a stiff breeze comes along,” Benji explained.

“Screw you, Benj.”

Benji made a gesture with his hand. “After you, bro, after you.”

“Ah, brotherly love,” Rocky quipped.
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Never Without You