Desperate Lies

Prologue

A/N: I started writing this story pre-covid so I'm not gonna try to bother incorporating the pandemic into this story or I will literally have to rewrite the whole thing.

Old readers of mine will know that yes, this IS a re-write of The Immaculate Misconception; more details on this in my A/N at the end of the chapter.

It began in 2015.

Motionless in White were in the middle of their tour cycle for "Reincarnate" that had come out a few months prior. This had been their most successful album to date by a long shot. They'd gained thousands of new fans thanks to the album's release, and so far, a majority of the feedback had been positive.

They'd been all around the globe, and were currently in the middle of a tour that allowed them to do a show in their hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Hometown shows were always fun because they were able to invite friends and family from the area to see them perform, and the band always made sure to make a stop at Sheetz before getting back on the road to their next location.

On this particular occasion though, it was slightly less pleasant.

"Umm..." The band's tour manager hums, "This doesn't look good."

The bus had just parked outside the venue. Korel had looked out the window at the crowd of people already beginning to form in front of the building, and was the first to see the beginning of nearly a five year long trend. They were all dressed pretty much the same, with the men in button-up shirts and slacks in a variety of colors, and the women wearing either modest blouses and long skirts, or dresses that covered nearly inch of them. Not that there was anything inherently wrong with modesty, but there was something bizarre about the majority of group dressed to look the same. They were yelling, they looked angry...they were holding up signs.

Ricky turns and looks out the window as well, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion, "Protesters?"

"What?" Chris asks, almost laughing. Sure enough, there was a - very small - group of people standing outside the venue holding picket signs saying things such as Sinners burn in hell! or God hates you! and other things of that nature.

"Is this a joke?" Chris asks, "It's a joke, right? That's pathetic."

"Should we be worried?" Ricky asks.

"It's just a bunch of old people holding up signs," Balz says, still in the band at the time.

"Let's maybe get a security guard out there so they don't fuck with the fans waiting outside, but we don't have anything to worry about," Chris says, "C'mon, let's start getting ready."

x

Admittedly, getting inside the venue was a little more difficult than expected. The band didn't at all feel threatened by the protesters as they were, as Balz had so eloquently put it, just a bunch of old people holding up signs. However, when the protesters saw the band and crew leaving the bus to set up, they did try to run over and somehow stop them, which security quickly put a stop to. The band didn't at all feel threatened by this group of people, and there were only a few of them, but it was still annoying. Especially because the band had never once done anything wrong, and especially never to any of these people. They didn't even know these people, and these people didn't know them. What even was there to protest?

They'd made fun of this kind of crowd in their music video for "Immaculate Misconception", but it was almost as if this group of people had gotten this idea from that video. Chris just didn't understand, especially because in his opinion, Motionless in White wasn't even a big enough band to be seen as protest-worthy.