Gift of Song

The following night, the guys were all waiting as patiently as possible backstage with their gear for their cue to head on. Thanks to the leftover medication Ash’d brought with him, CC’s morning sickness was down to a minimum, so he wouldn’t have to skip out on their first date at the House of Blues. Aaron Stern seemed to be a bit relieved, although they weren’t entirely sure if it was because he was glad to see that the drummer was doing well enough to perform, or because he wouldn’t have to perform for two sets, or both.

Black Veil Brides would be taking the stage after D.R.U.G.S., even though they’d formed and started writing music at relatively the same time. John had already talked to the stage crew about extending their set by a few minutes so they could make their announcement to the crowd, although they weren’t saying anything about the drummer’s pregnancy, as of yet.

Halfway through the set when he looked over at his boyfriend to give him a reassuring smile, CC noticed that Ash didn’t seem to be doing so well. It appeared as though the bassist was struggling to stay on his feet, though why was a total mystery. About the same time, Andy looked over at his sweetheart and noticed something was wrong, too, so at least he wasn’t the only one to notice. At the end of the current song, Beautiful Remains, he had a roadie bring out a stool for him and forcibly removed his bass. He forced his sweetheart to take a seat on the stool, even though it was obvious he didn’t want to, and took over the role of bassist himself, which they knew had to be hard for him while singing lead.

Ash wasn’t happy that he’d taken his bass and forced him to sit down, but was still thankful since he was the only one to know how bad his back was killing him. Unbeknownst to the rest of the guys, he was in so much pain that he felt like he’d been kidney-punched, although he’d sworn to his duty by the band and go on, even if Andy had to take over playing for him. He was somehow able to keep the pain out of his voice and continued singing harmony, although the fans weren’t sure what was going on.

“Thank you, mother fuckers! That was Perfect Weapon!” Andy screamed into the mic, handing his sweetheart’s bass to the bass tech. “Now, before we leave, we have a couple of announcements to make.”

The crowd in front of them screamed for an encore, but they weren’t getting one.

“This may or may not come as a shock to you, but you guys knew that I have a significant other named Ashley, right?” the frontman asked.

Screams of “Yes!” followed and he chuckled.

“Well, I wanna introduce you guys to Ashley,” he told them.

Ash got up off his stool and walked over, wrapping his arm around his lover’s waist as he wrapped his arm around his shoulders.

“Bet you guys didn’t count on my sweetheart, mio deviante, being the same Ashley that plays bass for us, did ya?”

The crowd screamed again, most of the responses good while a few bad ones were mixed in.

“Yup, he and I have been together for over three years now. We met back in high school when we still lived in Ohio, and we felt it was finally time to tell you guys,” Andy said, then turned to give his sweetheart a gentle kiss. “I love this man, the mother of my two-year-old daughter, Rori, with all my heart, and nothing, not even the haters, will change that!”

Once again, the crowd burst into an uproar of screams and applause, and CC couldn’t help but smile at his own lover.

“Now, before we leave, we have another announcement to make,” Ash said, taking the mic from his lover. “Jake, Ceece, get on up here!”

With huge, shit-eating grins on their faces, the other couple joined them front and center.

“Jake, care to make this part of the announcement?” Andy asked, grinning as he passed the mic to him.

“The other part of our announcement is…CC and I are also together!” the guitarist said, wrapping his arms around his Animal. “I love Christian with all my heart the same way Andy loves Ash, and there’s no way in Hell I’m giving him up anytime soon!”

Like their frontman had done, he pulled him close for a sweet, gentle kiss of their own. The entire time the two couples were kissing, cries of “Andley!” and “Cake!” could be heard from the supportive fans while cries of “Emo fags!” could be heard from the haters. With grins so wide their faces hurt, all five guys that made up the quintet raised both middle fingers to said haters while screaming their thanks into the mics before turning and walking off the stage.

Backstage, they headed into a dressing room that had been designated as theirs, where they cleaned themselves up a bit and guzzled water like it was going out of style. CC was forced to take yet more anti-nausea medication, knowing it was going to be the only way he made it through the meet-and-greet to follow, and fanned himself with a folded-up sheet of paper. His lover walked over and started fanning him with another sheet of paper, already knowing that excessive heat wasn’t good for him or the baby, and even without the heat of the stage lights, it was hot enough in Texas as it was.

After the meet-and-greet was finally over a couple hours later, they immediately headed back to the bus. They had a show at a place called Emo’s in Austin the very next day, so they had to hit the road and get going while it was still early. None of them really wanted to travel as soon as they got off stage, but at least Rori and Logan were already in bed.

“You ready for bed, mon animale?” Jake asked, his arm wrapped around his sweetheart’s waist.

“Mmm hmm…” he murmured sleepily, yawning. “Being a pregnant drummer ain’t as easy or glamorous as some of the women make it out to be.”

“Let’s head on to bed then,” he said softly, gently kissing his temple.

“You okay, mio deviante?” Andy asked as they walked away, concerned about his sweetheart.

“Hell no, mio profeta,” the man in question ground out, finally doubling over. He’d put on a brave face all night and pushed through his pain, but now that he didn’t have to, he found he didn’t have the strength to.

“Let’s get you to bed,” he said softly, helping him to the bunk room. “There’s no reason why you should be in this much pain.”

“I think I just slept on my back wrong,” Ash whimpered.

“Hun, you’ve slept on your back wrong before, and you’ve never been in this much pain from it.”

“Maybe I just wasn’t letting you in on how bad it hurt so you wouldn’t worry as much.” He hissed as he finally got stretched out in their bunk.

“This almost reminds me of when you were in labor, mio deviante. And I know damn well you weren’t hiding anything then.”

“Let’s just go to bed and see how I feel in the morning, mio profeta.”

“All right. Buona notte e sogni dolci, mio deviante.”

Ash murmured his “good night” back to his lover, barely sparing the time and energy to give him a good-night kiss, and promptly fell asleep in his arms.


As the sun rose the next morning high over the Texas hill country, Ash crawled out of the bunk he shared with his lover as slowly and quietly as he could. The pain in his back was so bad that it’d taken him forever to get to sleep, and even then he didn’t sleep very much because he kept waking up from it. Now he made his way to the bathroom in the back of the bus, hoping he didn’t end up making a fool of himself if one of the other guys woke up within the next few minutes.

Things had been so crazy and he’d been so stressed out lately that, like when he’d first gotten pregnant with Rori, he hadn’t noticed he’d missed his period. When he finally realized that it was over a week late, he’d decided to wait a bit longer just to make sure it wasn’t due to all the stress he’d be under, but was finally forced to take a pregnancy test.

That had been the day they left for the tour, and with no time to go see Dr. Hill, he wasn’t sure what to do since it’d been positive. In the end, he’d decided to do the only thing he could do at the moment, which was to just keep his mouth shut, especially since he wasn’t having any of the symptoms he’d had the last time. There was no morning sickness, there were no odd cravings, nothing. The only symptom he had was his missed period, but if he kept his mouth shut, anyone who asked would’ve just thought he was too stressed out and would end up having it soon. Thankfully, no one asked about such intimate bodily functions, so he hadn’t had to tell anyone about his pre-tour discovery…yet.

Now he stood in the bathroom, yanking the ultra-sized tampon out of his ass, not only because it was in dire need of changing, but because he had to use the bathroom, as well. The backache he had wasn’t just from sleeping on his back wrong, as he’d told Andy the night before; it was because he was having a miscarriage. The massive amounts of blood he was pouring out his ass was because of said miscarriage, but the ultra-sized tampons and wearing two pairs of boxers kept him from embarrassing himself. He just felt so bad about being unable to tell his lover, his prophet, what was happening to him.

“Hey! Anybody in there?” someone called through the bathroom door.

“Yeah! Gimme a minute!” he answered. Thankfully, he’d just ripped open another tampon right before the question was asked.

“Finally! I’ve gotta piss like a Russian racehorse!” Jake cried in relief, slamming the door in his face.

“Sorry, man. Nature called me, as well,” Ash chuckled as he walked away.

“Mommy,” a little voice said sleepily.

Looking down at what was tugging on the leg to his Hello Kitty pajama pants, he saw his beautiful little daughter was awake. “What’s up, Princess? You’re never up this early.”

“I had a bad dweam,” Rori said pitifully, burying her face in the crook of his neck now that he’d picked her up.

“You want Mommy to make some pancakes?” he asked, trying to distract her. Hell only knew he needed a distraction from his backache, which was made worse by holding his baby.

“Yeah!” she answered excitedly, all memories of a bad dream long gone.

With a chuckle, he sat his daughter down on the couch in the living area and turned on the TV and DVD player. Thankfully, her favorite Dora the Explorer DVD was already in it, though it was surprising since he figured one of the guys would’ve taken it out to watch a movie the night before. He kissed the top of her head and ruffled her downy black hair before returning to the kitchen.

First things first, Ash grabbed a bottle of Motrin from the cabinet and dry-popped the pills. He knew it wouldn’t do much to help his backache, as it was pretty bad, but at least it would lessen the pain so he didn’t walk around all day like he’d been kidney-punched. Even though he was still in a considerable amount of pain, he set about making Rori’s pancakes before scrambling eggs and frying bacon for everybody else. He knew the scent would draw his lover, and probably every other person on the bus, out of the bunk room to fill their grumbling stomachs, and he really wanted to see his lover.

Just as he’d expected, one-by-one the guys, Sammi, Amy, and Shelby all came out of the bunk room, Logan in his mother’s arms, rubbing their eyes and yawning. Jake was the only one besides him that looked even remotely alert, probably because he hadn’t gone back to bed after waking up to take a piss. The looks on their faces told him that they were indeed hungry, although CC looked like he could eat a horse again. He chuckled as he handed him the anti-nausea medication and a glass of water to take the pills with.

“Daddy!” Rori cried, looking over the back of the couch at Andy.

“Morning, Angel,” he answered, grinning at her.

“Here. Take this to her,” Ash said, handing him the Dora plate covered in ripped-up pancakes and syrup.

“You realize she’s gonna be hyper as CC later, right?” Andy asked, questioning his sweetheart’s sanity as he took the plate.

“That’s what she wanted, and besides, she’ll wear herself out and sleep good tonight,” he answered with a shrug.

“All right. I just hope she doesn’t give Shelby any problems today,” his lover sighed.

“I’ve dealt with hyper kids before. Even in a space as cramped as this, it’s not that bad,” the teen told him, thanking Ash for her plate of food.

“And just how do you deal with hyper kids?” he asked curiously, settling down with his own plate.

“Simple: I just unleash my inner CC.” She grinned at him before taking a bite of bacon.

“Oh, dear Lord,” Jinxx groaned, sitting down across from them. “He’s bad enough when he’s not dealing with morning sickness.”

“See, that’s the difference right there.” She paused for a bite of egg. “He’s actually hyper when he acts like that; I’m not. I just act like I am so I can keep up with the little ones and, usually, wear them out and calm them down faster.”

“Seriously?” Jake asked, surprised.

“Yep. It’s a trick I learned from volunteering at the daycare in the hospital my mom works at,” Shelby answered. “The kids would get so hyper that the workers couldn’t handle them. Then I’d come in, act hyper with them, and they’d all be napping shortly thereafter. I’d still have plenty of energy and not be hyper once they were asleep, and the workers couldn’t figure out how I did it.”

“That’ll come in handy when dealing with hyper toddlers on a tour bus,” Andy chuckled.

“See? Told ya Rori wouldn’t be that bad for me later.”

Once everybody had finished breakfast, Ash and CC excused themselves from the mayhem that was living on a tour bus to go lay down for a while. The drummer was wanting to lay down to avoid having his stomach reject its contents again since it was fairly calm at the moment, which wasn’t surprising. The bassist could barely tolerate sitting up, much less standing, at the moment, and wanted to stay off his feet as much as he could before the show that night.

Concerned about his sweetheart, Andy followed him shortly after getting Rori and Logan settled with Shelby, who was gearing up to act hyper for when the sugar in the little girl’s system kicked in. He’d never seen him in such pain other than the day he went into labor with their precious daughter, and he knew something was wrong. He wanted to know so he could help take care of him, but wasn’t sure how to ask what was wrong.

Ash could hear his lover trying to be quiet as he entered the bunk room and closed the door behind him, locking the others’ insanity in the kitchen and living area. He’d locked himself in the bathroom to change his tampon again before actually laying down, unsure if he’d actually be able to fall back to sleep or not. He hadn’t slept well the night before, and he’d had nights that he slept so horribly that he fell asleep doing the most random things, regardless of how he felt physically. The worst was when he’d passed out on the shitter because he’d been up all night with a newborn…a newborn who’d been in his arms at the time.

“Ashes? You okay in there, mio deviante?” he asked, knocking on the bathroom door.

“I’m fine, mio profeta,” Ash answered, quickly flushing the toilet.

“How’s your back feeling?” Andy asked, helping him to their bunk.

“Like I got kidney-punched,” he answered honestly, trying not to wince as he helped him sit down.

“It’s still hurting that bad? You sure you don’t need to go see a doctor about that?” He could tell he was truly concerned.

“Nothing a doctor could do would help me right now,” he told him, laying down.

“They could at least give you painkillers, tesoro.”

“Yeah, painkillers that would leave me too stoned to play or take care of our daughter.”

“I know how to play bass; I wouldn’t mind taking over the role if you’re in so much pain that you need painkillers.” Tears welled up in his icy-blue eyes. “And Shelby’s already said she wouldn’t mind taking care of Rori if you’re in that much pain and I’m on stage or something. She just told me before I came back here.”

“What about the backing vocals? Yeah, I know Jinxx covers half of them, but he can’t sing mine and his parts at the same time.”

“The fans could do without and would understand.”

“Andy, I can’t just let our fans down like that. I’ve never been one to call it quits, be it for one show or twenty, just because I wasn’t feeling good, and you know it,” Ash insisted. He was feeling a bit hormonal because of the pregnancy his body was basically aborting.

“Ya know, you’re acting like you do when you’re PMS’ing,” his lover noted. “It’s just multiplied by a hundred right now.”

He clamped his lips shut, hoping he didn’t figure it out.

“When was the last time you had a period? I know you’ve been stressed out, and the build-up of hormones from missing a period can’t be good for you,” he said.

“I honestly can’t remember.”

“Could you be…pregnant? Again?” he asked,, brushing his hair back.

Unable to look him in the eye and lie to him, he closed his eyes and turned his head to the side. Tears welled up and slipped out from under his closed eyelids, even though he tried to hold them back.

“You are, aren’t you?” Andy asked, gasping in shock.

“I was,” he answered softly, trying not to start sobbing.

“What do you mean, you were?” his lover asked.

“I’m having a miscarriage,” Ash answered, trying not to be too blunt. “That’s why I’m so moody and in so much pain. The mood swings are from the pregnancy hormones. Don’t ask me why periods and miscarriages hurt so much, but they do.”

Unable to say anything to comfort him, the younger man just held him in his arms and allowed him to cry into his chest. He hadn’t even known about this baby, but it still felt like someone shot him in the heart. No, they hadn’t been planning on having another baby any time soon, but that didn’t mean the loss of one, whether he’d known about it or not, didn’t hurt any less.

Andy knew now that, regardless of what else happened in their lives, it was time to do some serious planning and grow some balls. He loved this man with all his heart, had one baby with him, and very well could’ve had another if he hadn’t miscarried. They’d been together for over three years and now lived in a state where gay marriage was perfectly legal, and they’d finally come out to their fans the night before. He was more determined than ever to pop the question to him, thankful he’d remembered the engagement ring before leaving for this tour, and was going to talk to Jinxx about helping him out as soon as he could.

Not long after coming to that decision, he looked down and realized that his sweetheart had fallen asleep in his arms. He knew he hadn’t slept well the night before, no doubt because of the backache he now knew was due to his miscarriage, so he gently kissed his forehead and left him in their bunk to sleep. He wouldn’t be able to overhear anything he and the multi-instrumentalist discussed, especially if he went to the living area or off the bus completely, so he decided that it was now or never.

Notes