Make Me (Remdy)

We All Crave Attention

Trigger warnings: Mentions of death

The graves are next to each other. Small headstones that match. Remington knows they'd probably hate that. They never liked sharing things.

He crouches beside Emerson's grave with a bottle of water, unscrewing the top and carefully pouring it into the flowerpot, like he does every week. The flowers are pink and white, delicate, cheerful. A contrast to the grey headstone which they mark. Sebastian's flowers are yellow. Remington waters them with just as much care, picking out a dead leaf that's fallen from the tree above.

Then he sits on the grass and sighs.

There's a gentle breeze. Remington likes to think they can feel it but he knows the reality is that they can't because they're just bones in a box. They don't feel anything anymore. They haven't felt anything since the car accident three months ago. Sometimes Remington wishes he could feel nothing, too.

For a while, he sits with his brothers without saying anything. He isn't one to talk to graves; he finds it does more harm than good because they're still dead whether he's telling them how much he misses them or not. It won't make them come back, no matter how much he tries to make that happen every time he's on his own in the house that used to be theirs and not just his and he realises how depressing it is to be alone and to have no one to talk to about any of it. Not the car accident, not the trauma, not the loneliness, not the heartbreak, nothing. That's what you get when you isolate yourself from everybody you know.

That's what you get when your only real friends die.

When he begins getting cold, Remington gets off the ground, looks at the graves one more time with a sad, close to tears expression, and walks away. His house is a twenty-minute walk from the graveyard. Remington lets himself in with the key that's connected to a keychain with a laminated, miniature print of one of the ships Emerson drew. He closes the door behind himself and sits in the living room the television on for the rest of the night, until he's falling asleep. Then he goes up to bed.

Andy is in a foul mood the following day. It's obvious. He skips any sort of greeting when his band turn up for rehearsal, mumbling that they're late even though they aren't, and sings so angrily that Remington fears he might spontaneously combust at any given moment. He finds himself holding back a humoured smile at the thought.

Towards the end of rehearsal, Andy decides it's a good time to criticize Remington's backing vocals, stopping the song to say, "have you ever heard of practicing?"

The drummer rolls his eyes and puts his sticks down. Remington turns to Andy. "I sound better than you," he retorts, "at least I ain't yelling like a maniac."

"The fuck did you just call me?"

"A manic, got a problem with it?"

"You-"

Remington shakes his head and laughs. "It's a miracle you still have fans. You're a cunt."

Andy scoffs. "And what would you know about my fans, huh? You've only been here five minutes princess, don't get ahead of yourself."

"They're not your fans," Remington says, "they're the band's fans. Get over yourself."

"You think they're your fans?"

"No, I didn't say that. Use your brain. You're in a band. That means you are just one fifth of what your fans support. Without these guys you'd literally be an average singer with sever selfishness issues."

"You're calling me average when you fucked up that whole song?"

Remington laughs dryly. "You're the one who fucked up the words to your song, so who's fucking it up really? 'Cause it ain't me, princess."

"Don't call me princess!"

"Why not? It's okay for you to call me that, is it? And why's that? Because I'm wearing a skirt? Because I like makeup? Because I'm not full of toxic masculinity and shit?"

"Don't get smart with me!"

"You're a joke," Remington spits.

Andy glares at him. "I'm not the one people will laugh at when they see you dressed like a girl."

"Clothes don't have genders, shit head, get over it! Sorry I just look better than you ever will!"

"In your dreams!"

Remington scoffs, rolls his eyes, and says, "whatever makes you feel better," under his breath. "Now fucking sing the song like you're supposed to and shut up with your rude shit or I'm quitting and you can find a guitarist who's as self-involved as you, fucking cunt faced fucker."

"Get you-"

"Fucking leave it," the bassist says, fed up with the singer's constant narking.

Remington sits on his own at home in the evening, looking up again Andy Biersack and Juliet Simms-Biersack, discovering that they married when they were young and that many people think she's only with him for his fame, that her music wouldn't be popular if he didn't introduce his fans to her. Remington finds it sad that she felt she had to use Andy in such a way, but then remembers what a rude man Andy is and decides he probably deserves it.

He recalls the fight he accidentally heard part of and the strange way that Andy looked at him when he realised that they had been overheard. Remington thought for a second that Andy was going to cry.