edge's girl
Acrobat
I don't know how many people remember this story, but I started it back in June and posted the first three parts then but my summer was crazy so I didn't have too much time for writing and posting. However I've started writing it again because I'm determined to finish it, so here's the frist 3 parts re-posted and the 4th part should be up tomorrow.
Disclaimer: yeah, didn't happen
Part 1
DARYL:
I’m probably the last person anyone would have thought to become a spokesperson for gay rights. Hell if you’d told me I’d be one a couple years ago I would have laughed you back to where ever the hell you came from. But that was before I found out my brother, Jake, was gay. It took him just over 30 years to figure it out and tell us, though it does explain why he’s never really dated girls.
I had arrived home for Christmas, we always spent Christmas at mom’s, having just come off a stressful few weeks of touring due to the fact that someone had been trying to kill Beth’s boyfriend, The Edge. We caught the guy and Beth and Edge were able to get married, so I could slink off home and rest. Then my brother showed up with his boyfriend and announced that he was gay, had known it for a while but had been to frightened of our reactions to tell us.
Now I’m not a homophobe, I’ve never been one, so other then being kind of surprised I was relatively okay with this. However I started really following all the gay rights stuff, and a lot of the prejudice really started to bother me, especially since it was now directed at my brother.
“So speak out against it, if it bothers you so much,” Beth had said to me when I’d mentioned it to her.
I’d been hesitant at first, after all I’d always been the one who rolled my eyes at Bono when he went on about ‘The Africa Issue’ as I liked to call it. But a few months after discovering my brother was gay I was just as heavily involved in gay rights stuff as he was in Africa stuff.
I’m lucky that I have a girlfriend who believes in equality for everyone as much as I do because she came with me whenever I had to make a speech, which dispelled any rumours that I was gay. I think it did some good to have a straight rock star acting as the spokesman for gay rights, it made people pay a little more attention anyway.
But purely for the fact that I had been such a huge spokesman for gay rights for the past year is what got me into this mess in the first place. Actually it got both Edge and I into this mess, I always seem to drag other people into the middle of what should be just my problems.
It had all started when I’d pulled Edge out for a word about Beth. Normally I stay out of what happens between them, after all they’re married so it’s not really my business even if Beth is my best friend. But Beth hadn’t been feeling well lately and I’d assumed it was because she was pregnant and she told me not to jump to conclusions, after all she was on the birth control pill and I’m a guy so what do I know about being pregnant? However I’d bugged her about it enough for her to book an appointment to get a pregnancy check, which is tomorrow, but she hadn’t told Edge. The reason, they hadn’t discussed kids beyond Beth mentioning that she wasn’t interested in having any. In any case I thought that was a poor reason for not telling Edge so I thought I’d warn him what was happening and that’s how we ended up in this mess.
“Edge, can I have a word with you?” I had asked. Beth had just gone in too bed and we were still up, though he was planning to go in and join her shortly.
He’d looked at me questioningly when I’d beckoned him outside combining my trip to the corner store to get juicy fruit gum, my privet addiction, with the discussion I felt was necessary.
“You’re starting to worry me,” he’d commented as we walked away from the hotel in silence.
“It’s about Beth,” I’d said shortly. “You’ve probably noticed that she hasn’t been feeling great and, well, I’d had a theory that it was because she was pregnant so she’s going for a pregnancy check tomorrow, at my insistence, but didn’t want to tell you. I, however, thought you should know.”
Edge looked shocked. “Why didn’t she want me to know?”
I shrugged. “I think because you guys hadn’t talked about kids and she’d displayed no interest in them she’s worried about your reaction.”
“I’d love kids, I just hadn’t said anything because I thought she didn’t want any.”
“Don’t tell me, tell her. She is the one who was worried after all.”
“Why would she be worried? It’s not like I’d be upset. After all I did play a part in getting her pregnant.”
I slammed my hands over my ears. “I took biology and I know how it works thank you very much, so spare me the details.”
Edge laughed and it was that moment that I noticed the shadows moving in around us. Kyle (my security guard) had warned me against going anywhere unprotected here, and for the first time I remembered it. But by then it had been too late, a group of eight or nine guys jumped us and forced us into the back of a small truck. Which is where we are now as they drive us out into the desert and for the first time in a long while I feel really uneasy.
Part 2
DARYL:
I kept awake the entire trip. I don’t know if Edge did, we didn’t talk. I guess there was nothing really to talk about since we’d only make ourselves more paranoid by speculating on what was going to happen. Suddenly the truck jolts to a halt and the back doors a thrown open.
I try to fight my captors, but one of them had the ingenious idea of shinning a bright light in my eyes so that I can’t even see them.
I’m thrown unceremoniously to the ground and a thud a second later makes me believe that Edge has just received the same treatment.
“What the fuck do you want?” I snap, managing to force my head up off the ground.
“Shut up, fag,” one of them says forcing my face into the dirt.
I twist around enough so that I can speak without getting a mouthful of sand. “What the hell do you want anyway?”
“Faggot, you don’t deserve the right to speak,” one of them says coldly, kicking me in the shoulder. “Hell is the only proper place for sinners like you.”
‘Great,’ I think ‘I just found a religious freak who wants to make me pay for standing up for gay rights’.
Out loud I say, “I’m not gay.”
“Sure,” says another voice. “Tell us another one.”
“I’m not, and if you had any sense you’d know that.”
My face is forced back into the ground, and I wind up with a mouthful of sand and gravel. Deciding that since I’m already eating the ground there’s no point in trying to avoid it I continue talking;
“You wont get away with this you know…”
“And what are you going to do,” one of them sneers. “The deserts a big place, it’ll take them a while to find you.”
“You’re underestimating the reaction when they find out we’re missing.”
“You’re overestimating the importance of you and your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend…”
Someone laughs cutting me off, “Sure, tell us another one. I just hope you both don’t enjoy this too much.”
It takes me a moment to realise what he’s just implied, then I panic. Forgetting that I’m being held to the ground by a couple guys much bigger then my 5’8” frame I try to fight my way out.
“You know that studies show that males who participate in gang rapes do it because they’d rather be fucking one another but would never admit it.”
I’m surprised at how calm Edge sounds, I don’t even trust myself to speak for fear of my voice cracking and making me sound like I’m 12 again.
* * * * *
BETH
Edge is gone when I wake up, that’s odd because normally if he’s not still asleep I can hear him moving around. My insides go cold when I realise that the other side of the bed doesn’t look like it’s been slept in. Getting up I look around for a clue as to where he went. I vaguely remember Daryl asking Edge if he can have a word with him last night jest before I went to sleep so I phone Daryl’s room but get no answer. Knowing that if he hasn’t answered he’s not there I get dressed and make my way down to the hotel restaurant where the rest of the band is having breakfast.
Not only has the band not seen Daryl – they assumed he’d just been still sleeping – but neither has anyone involved in the gay rights rally that he was supposed to be speaking at today.
“People just don’t disappear off the face of the earth,” Daryl’s girlfriend, Stacy, says to me. She’d come down to support Daryl today, having just arrived this morning, and is more worried then I am about his disappearance.
I have to agree, there’s too many signs that they should both still be here, and yet they’re not. My worry only increases when one of the rally organizers reports that there’s a very anti gay rights group here that they’d expected to cause trouble, especially for Daryl because he’s so famous.
Part 3
DARYL:
“Daryl…Daryl,” the voice sounds very far away.
“Daryl,” this time it’s louder and more instant and I’m vaguely aware of a hot light beating down on me.
“Daryl, wake up.”
“Go away,” I mumble and my throat feels raw.
“Daryl.” The voice is stern and I slowly become away of a gritty substance coating a bunch of my skin.
Slowly opening my eyes I see Edge leaning over me, and the sun glaring over his shoulder. Last nights events come back to me in a rush and I roll onto my side curling into a ball with my arms over my head. I hurt in places I hadn’t thought could hurt and at the moment my stomachs rebelling and I have a sinking feeling that I’m going to be sick any second.
“Daryl, get up.”
“Fuck off.” Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best choice of words under the circumstances.
Edge sighs and grabs me by the arm in an attempt to pull me into a sitting position and my stomach decides that right now would be a good time to be rid of its contents. After I’m finished vomiting I remain on my knees with my head down and eyes squeezed shut tight, shaking and unable to stop.
“Daryl,” Edge says softly. “Calm down. We have to get moving or else we’ll be killed by the heat out here in the desert.”
“Don’t care.”
“Daryl…”
“I’d rather be dead.”
He snorts. “Well I can leave you here and you can get your wish, or you could get up and come with me. It’s your choice.”
I’ve stopped shaking. Truthfully I don’t want to be left here, I don’t even like the thought of being left here, but I’m not sure I can find the strength to get up and walk for a long time in hopes of rescue.
“Wouldn’t it just be better to stay in one place?”
“No one knows we’re missing yet. And when they find out later today they wont know to look out here. If we follow the trucks tire tracks we can get back to the road then we just have to hope someone comes along to pick us up.”
Slowly I raise my head and look around. Desert in every direction, not even another landmark that I can see. I don’t have my glasses on but I have a feeling I wouldn’t see anything even if I did, and that’s a depressing thought.
“We’re going to walk for miles in the middle of the desert without any water?” I ask incredulously.
“Unless you have a better idea.”
“Maybe we should just stay here.”
“It would accomplish the same thing as walking by the time they find us, if they ever find us. The way I see it is we have a better chance of getting ourselves rescued by walking to the road then just sitting here hoping for rescue.”
I don’t like it but I get up and follow him anyway. “You know Beth will look for you as soon as she finds out you’re missing.” I look at my watch and see it’s just after 8 o’clock so Beth’s probably up already. “I bet she’s looking for you now.”
“Nice thought, but she probably wouldn’t get worried about me that fast.”
“You didn’t see her last time you went missing.”
“She doesn’t know where we are. And I don’t think she could prove something had happened to us in enough time to get a search and rescue team out here.”
I give up arguing with him since his minds already made up and save my energy for walking.
Disclaimer: yeah, didn't happen
Part 1
DARYL:
I’m probably the last person anyone would have thought to become a spokesperson for gay rights. Hell if you’d told me I’d be one a couple years ago I would have laughed you back to where ever the hell you came from. But that was before I found out my brother, Jake, was gay. It took him just over 30 years to figure it out and tell us, though it does explain why he’s never really dated girls.
I had arrived home for Christmas, we always spent Christmas at mom’s, having just come off a stressful few weeks of touring due to the fact that someone had been trying to kill Beth’s boyfriend, The Edge. We caught the guy and Beth and Edge were able to get married, so I could slink off home and rest. Then my brother showed up with his boyfriend and announced that he was gay, had known it for a while but had been to frightened of our reactions to tell us.
Now I’m not a homophobe, I’ve never been one, so other then being kind of surprised I was relatively okay with this. However I started really following all the gay rights stuff, and a lot of the prejudice really started to bother me, especially since it was now directed at my brother.
“So speak out against it, if it bothers you so much,” Beth had said to me when I’d mentioned it to her.
I’d been hesitant at first, after all I’d always been the one who rolled my eyes at Bono when he went on about ‘The Africa Issue’ as I liked to call it. But a few months after discovering my brother was gay I was just as heavily involved in gay rights stuff as he was in Africa stuff.
I’m lucky that I have a girlfriend who believes in equality for everyone as much as I do because she came with me whenever I had to make a speech, which dispelled any rumours that I was gay. I think it did some good to have a straight rock star acting as the spokesman for gay rights, it made people pay a little more attention anyway.
But purely for the fact that I had been such a huge spokesman for gay rights for the past year is what got me into this mess in the first place. Actually it got both Edge and I into this mess, I always seem to drag other people into the middle of what should be just my problems.
It had all started when I’d pulled Edge out for a word about Beth. Normally I stay out of what happens between them, after all they’re married so it’s not really my business even if Beth is my best friend. But Beth hadn’t been feeling well lately and I’d assumed it was because she was pregnant and she told me not to jump to conclusions, after all she was on the birth control pill and I’m a guy so what do I know about being pregnant? However I’d bugged her about it enough for her to book an appointment to get a pregnancy check, which is tomorrow, but she hadn’t told Edge. The reason, they hadn’t discussed kids beyond Beth mentioning that she wasn’t interested in having any. In any case I thought that was a poor reason for not telling Edge so I thought I’d warn him what was happening and that’s how we ended up in this mess.
“Edge, can I have a word with you?” I had asked. Beth had just gone in too bed and we were still up, though he was planning to go in and join her shortly.
He’d looked at me questioningly when I’d beckoned him outside combining my trip to the corner store to get juicy fruit gum, my privet addiction, with the discussion I felt was necessary.
“You’re starting to worry me,” he’d commented as we walked away from the hotel in silence.
“It’s about Beth,” I’d said shortly. “You’ve probably noticed that she hasn’t been feeling great and, well, I’d had a theory that it was because she was pregnant so she’s going for a pregnancy check tomorrow, at my insistence, but didn’t want to tell you. I, however, thought you should know.”
Edge looked shocked. “Why didn’t she want me to know?”
I shrugged. “I think because you guys hadn’t talked about kids and she’d displayed no interest in them she’s worried about your reaction.”
“I’d love kids, I just hadn’t said anything because I thought she didn’t want any.”
“Don’t tell me, tell her. She is the one who was worried after all.”
“Why would she be worried? It’s not like I’d be upset. After all I did play a part in getting her pregnant.”
I slammed my hands over my ears. “I took biology and I know how it works thank you very much, so spare me the details.”
Edge laughed and it was that moment that I noticed the shadows moving in around us. Kyle (my security guard) had warned me against going anywhere unprotected here, and for the first time I remembered it. But by then it had been too late, a group of eight or nine guys jumped us and forced us into the back of a small truck. Which is where we are now as they drive us out into the desert and for the first time in a long while I feel really uneasy.
Part 2
DARYL:
I kept awake the entire trip. I don’t know if Edge did, we didn’t talk. I guess there was nothing really to talk about since we’d only make ourselves more paranoid by speculating on what was going to happen. Suddenly the truck jolts to a halt and the back doors a thrown open.
I try to fight my captors, but one of them had the ingenious idea of shinning a bright light in my eyes so that I can’t even see them.
I’m thrown unceremoniously to the ground and a thud a second later makes me believe that Edge has just received the same treatment.
“What the fuck do you want?” I snap, managing to force my head up off the ground.
“Shut up, fag,” one of them says forcing my face into the dirt.
I twist around enough so that I can speak without getting a mouthful of sand. “What the hell do you want anyway?”
“Faggot, you don’t deserve the right to speak,” one of them says coldly, kicking me in the shoulder. “Hell is the only proper place for sinners like you.”
‘Great,’ I think ‘I just found a religious freak who wants to make me pay for standing up for gay rights’.
Out loud I say, “I’m not gay.”
“Sure,” says another voice. “Tell us another one.”
“I’m not, and if you had any sense you’d know that.”
My face is forced back into the ground, and I wind up with a mouthful of sand and gravel. Deciding that since I’m already eating the ground there’s no point in trying to avoid it I continue talking;
“You wont get away with this you know…”
“And what are you going to do,” one of them sneers. “The deserts a big place, it’ll take them a while to find you.”
“You’re underestimating the reaction when they find out we’re missing.”
“You’re overestimating the importance of you and your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend…”
Someone laughs cutting me off, “Sure, tell us another one. I just hope you both don’t enjoy this too much.”
It takes me a moment to realise what he’s just implied, then I panic. Forgetting that I’m being held to the ground by a couple guys much bigger then my 5’8” frame I try to fight my way out.
“You know that studies show that males who participate in gang rapes do it because they’d rather be fucking one another but would never admit it.”
I’m surprised at how calm Edge sounds, I don’t even trust myself to speak for fear of my voice cracking and making me sound like I’m 12 again.
* * * * *
BETH
Edge is gone when I wake up, that’s odd because normally if he’s not still asleep I can hear him moving around. My insides go cold when I realise that the other side of the bed doesn’t look like it’s been slept in. Getting up I look around for a clue as to where he went. I vaguely remember Daryl asking Edge if he can have a word with him last night jest before I went to sleep so I phone Daryl’s room but get no answer. Knowing that if he hasn’t answered he’s not there I get dressed and make my way down to the hotel restaurant where the rest of the band is having breakfast.
Not only has the band not seen Daryl – they assumed he’d just been still sleeping – but neither has anyone involved in the gay rights rally that he was supposed to be speaking at today.
“People just don’t disappear off the face of the earth,” Daryl’s girlfriend, Stacy, says to me. She’d come down to support Daryl today, having just arrived this morning, and is more worried then I am about his disappearance.
I have to agree, there’s too many signs that they should both still be here, and yet they’re not. My worry only increases when one of the rally organizers reports that there’s a very anti gay rights group here that they’d expected to cause trouble, especially for Daryl because he’s so famous.
Part 3
DARYL:
“Daryl…Daryl,” the voice sounds very far away.
“Daryl,” this time it’s louder and more instant and I’m vaguely aware of a hot light beating down on me.
“Daryl, wake up.”
“Go away,” I mumble and my throat feels raw.
“Daryl.” The voice is stern and I slowly become away of a gritty substance coating a bunch of my skin.
Slowly opening my eyes I see Edge leaning over me, and the sun glaring over his shoulder. Last nights events come back to me in a rush and I roll onto my side curling into a ball with my arms over my head. I hurt in places I hadn’t thought could hurt and at the moment my stomachs rebelling and I have a sinking feeling that I’m going to be sick any second.
“Daryl, get up.”
“Fuck off.” Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best choice of words under the circumstances.
Edge sighs and grabs me by the arm in an attempt to pull me into a sitting position and my stomach decides that right now would be a good time to be rid of its contents. After I’m finished vomiting I remain on my knees with my head down and eyes squeezed shut tight, shaking and unable to stop.
“Daryl,” Edge says softly. “Calm down. We have to get moving or else we’ll be killed by the heat out here in the desert.”
“Don’t care.”
“Daryl…”
“I’d rather be dead.”
He snorts. “Well I can leave you here and you can get your wish, or you could get up and come with me. It’s your choice.”
I’ve stopped shaking. Truthfully I don’t want to be left here, I don’t even like the thought of being left here, but I’m not sure I can find the strength to get up and walk for a long time in hopes of rescue.
“Wouldn’t it just be better to stay in one place?”
“No one knows we’re missing yet. And when they find out later today they wont know to look out here. If we follow the trucks tire tracks we can get back to the road then we just have to hope someone comes along to pick us up.”
Slowly I raise my head and look around. Desert in every direction, not even another landmark that I can see. I don’t have my glasses on but I have a feeling I wouldn’t see anything even if I did, and that’s a depressing thought.
“We’re going to walk for miles in the middle of the desert without any water?” I ask incredulously.
“Unless you have a better idea.”
“Maybe we should just stay here.”
“It would accomplish the same thing as walking by the time they find us, if they ever find us. The way I see it is we have a better chance of getting ourselves rescued by walking to the road then just sitting here hoping for rescue.”
I don’t like it but I get up and follow him anyway. “You know Beth will look for you as soon as she finds out you’re missing.” I look at my watch and see it’s just after 8 o’clock so Beth’s probably up already. “I bet she’s looking for you now.”
“Nice thought, but she probably wouldn’t get worried about me that fast.”
“You didn’t see her last time you went missing.”
“She doesn’t know where we are. And I don’t think she could prove something had happened to us in enough time to get a search and rescue team out here.”
I give up arguing with him since his minds already made up and save my energy for walking.
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