The Road To Nowhere (Matt Tuck Fanfic)

3

"Are you sure you're ready?" Padge called out to me for about the sixth time.

Yep, you guessed it. Being the big softy that I was, Matt had convinced me to perform in place of him for tonights show. As we had walked back to the bus, I could tell he was in no right state of mind to perform, so I gave in and agreed to his idea.

I nodded at Padge and waited for him to run out on stage, making the crowd go even crazier. Moose and Jay were already on stage so once Padge had gone out, I ran after him, taking a breath in and hoping that the audience were cool with tonights arrangements.

We kicked straight in with Pleasure and Pain and got the crowd running around and going crazy. I missed being on stage in front of crowds like these ones.

I smiled as I continued singing the words, with us heading straight into Scream Aim Fire as soon as Pleasure and Pain had finished.

"How's everyone doing on this very fine evening?!" I yelled out once we had finished the second song. The crowd responded by screaming out and I smiled, continuing what I was saying.

"You've probably noticed the lack of Bullet members here tonight on stage. Matt isn't doing so well today so I'm here to take his place just for tonight, and also tomorrow in worst case scenarios. You guys Ok with that?"

Once again, everyone cheered out and shouted. I guess that was a positive response. I smiled and done a few random string bending on Matts guitar that I had placed around me before introducing the next song.

"Ok, ok, I'll stop that now, this next song is called Riot and I wanna see all you motherfuckers starting exactly that in the middle right there!" I called out, pointing at everyone in the middle of the crowd, who began forming a mosh pit as the song kicked in.

*****

"Thank you everyone for an amazing night! You've all been absolutely fantastic, see you soon!" I yelled into the mic as the crowd cheered one last time.

I ran off to the side of the stage and placed my mic on one of the tables in the small room that I entered. Once there I turned and felt someone hugging me, recognising the familiar smell of body spray and cigarettes, I smiled and hugged Matt back.

"Thank you so much, you were fucking brilliant out there," He mumbled with his face buried in my hair.

"Thanks, I'm glad you think so."

"Maybe you should just take my place, you seem to fit in quite well with the other boys."

I laughed a bit and smiled, watching as Matt half smiled at me and stared into my eyes.

"Uh, Matt? You're kinda staring, is there something wrong?" I asked. He blinked and looked away quickly, lifting his hand to scratch the back of his neck.

"Ah, no nothing wrong I just uh..." He trailed off without finishing the sentence.

Looking up at him, I realized how dull his eyes still looked. He seemed absolutely shattered, I knew truly he wasn't happy at the moment.

Matt took my hand and led me out to the back of the building where the other boys were waiting for us with a few fans.

"Finally arrived, these guys have been waiting to get pictures!" Moose called over to us as we got closer. I peeked up at Matt who instantly threw on the happy face, although he didn't make any attempt in hiding the sadness in his voice.

"We really loved the concert tonight, Crystal was great at taking your place. What was wrong if you don't mind me asking?" One of the fans asked after having a picture taken it Matt.