Author’s Notes: I’m back. After a very nice long break from writing with my newest epic. That I’m totally ripping the plot for. I’m admitting it now. The title of this story and the plot come from a WB show that was on a very long time ago for about like four episodes, called ‘Dead Last’. It was about a band that saw dead people. It was funny but not that great. So I thought maybe I could make it work with Linkin Park.

So forgive this first chapter, its just laying the foundation for the little world I’m setting up here. It’s a little different than my usual stories, and you’ll see what I mean. Hope you like. If not, well… then I’ll just crawl back into my little corner and try to come up with something better. See ya’ll later.

“For the last time, Brad. They have people that are trained to do that sort of thing. In other words, stop before you blow yourself up and we have to find a new guitarist in three hours!”

The guitarist in question barely spared the nagging bassist any attention as he continued his futile attempts to repair his blown out fuse. Phoenix rolled his eyes and turned around in his seat to face his silent fellow observer.

“Well, Rob, don’t you have something to add to this madness?”

The drummer peered over the top of the book he was studying to get a better perspective of the situation. He shrugged and returned his attention to S.A.T study guide. He waited a big before speaking again, a grin forming on his lips. “If he dies, I get his guitar and his car.”

At this Brad finally looked up, eyes narrowed and glaring daggers at the younger teen. “When did we decide this?”

“It’s the least you can do after seventeen very long years of being related to you,” Rob retorted from behind the book. “You’d be a better then than you are now.”

“Stepbrother!” Brad corrected automatically.

“You share a father, Brad, so its half,” a new voice amended. They all turned to see Mike walking down the theater aisle looking slightly confused. “Have any of you seen Chester around?”

“You check the van?” Brad asked, glancing up at the emcee. Phoenix was starting to wonder if maybe it was just him that Brad ignored. Maybe he had some kind of anti Brad voice.

“Um, yeah, Joe’s there,” Mike rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “And he had some company of the female persuasion.”

“Oh so Joe’s banging groupies again,” Rob nodded in understanding. He smirked and returned to his studying.

“And yet you wonder why your dad thinks your brother is such a bad influence on you,” Phoenix chided.

“Step!” Brad yelled over his shoulder.

“Half!” Phoenix and Mike retorted in unison. The guitarist muttered something probably not too flattering about his two friends and continued his repairs. With another shake of his head, Phoenix turned back to Mike.

“I think I saw Chaz walking around backstage. That’s the only good place to get reception in this dump.”

“Ahem,” someone cleared their throat behind Mike. Phoenix peered around the emcee to smile at their manager. “Dave,” he said in a warning tone. H e had his arms crossed over his chest and was giving him the look.

“I meant to say in this wonderfully preserved historical landmark,” Phoenix altered his original statement with a false smile.

“It’s a regular museum,” Rob commented absently. “A tribute to the best that asbestos has to offer.” He glanced down at the insect that was currently skittering over his shoe. “Let us not forget the vermin.”

Bob Dallas sighed wearily as he looked at the trio. “Look I know it’s not the best place in the world, but when you want to make it big, you have to start small. And with all of you being under twenty one and one that’s not even legal, it sort of limits you as to where you can play.”

“Told you we should just drop Rob!” Brad interjected.

“I wonder how it is that he can’t hear me tell him to stop being a retard but he can hear us vaguely mention something about Rob,” Phoenix mused. He saw the exasperated look on Bob’s face and decided to take pity on their overly stressed manager. “I promise to keep all negative comments about this place to myself. Or at least just to Brad. You know it only goes in one ear and out the other anyway.”

“Alright,” Bob nodded gratefully. “Now if only we could get Joe and Chester back in here, you could run through sound check. Uh, where are Chester and Joe?”

“Uh, Ches might be backstage, I was just going to get him,” Mike said hurriedly. “I think I saw Joe near the van. Why don’t you go get him? He listens to you more than us.”

“Okay, I’ll be back,” Bob nodded and headed out to retrieve their missing DJ. Phoenix shook his head in disbelief at Mike.

“You’re supposed to be the nice one,” he pointed out with a smile. Mike smirked and shrugged.

“What can I say? When you hang out with a gang of social deviants, you tend to turn into one yourself. I’m going to go get Chester. I can’t wait to see the look on Bob’s face when he gets back,” Mike grinned once more. As he made his way backstage he heard Phoenix yelling at Brad once again. He rolled his eyes knowing how pointless it was to try and change Brad’s mind once he settled on doing something. Having known Brad practically all his life, he knew that the guitarist was an unusually stubborn person. He clearly had decided that he was going to repair this fuse with or without any actual electrical expertise, and nothing was to persuade him otherwise. Not even the inevitable painful death he would most likely experience.

“Yes, tomorrow at nine would be good.”

Mike arched an eyebrow and rounded the corner to find his missing friend with the phone plastered to his ear. The emcee’s eyes narrowed as he listened to the tail end of the conversation. “Yeah, it was nice talking to you too. Thank you. See you tomorrow morning. Alright, goodbye.” Chester hung up and turned around to find Mike standing behind him. The older man smiled slightly. “Hey, Mike. How long you been there?”

“Long enough to know you made plans for tomorrow at nine in the morning with some mystery person,” Mike replied, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the wall. “Isn’t that way before your usual waking time? Who could possibly be so important that you would get up to meet them? Who is it, Chester?”

Chester’s smile twitched before giving way completely. He sighed and rolled his eyes. Hiding something from Mike was damn near impossible. He should have known better. “James Fulton.”

“As in the record executive that came to our show last month and only seemed to be really interested in well, you,” Mike nodded slowly, a frown forming on his lips. “So you’re bailing too?”

“I’m not quitting,” Chester protested. “I’m meeting with him to see if he would reconsider the whole band. That’s all.”

Mike still didn’t look convinced and honestly even Chester couldn’t blame him. Things had been extremely tense amongst the six friends despite their attempts to pretend that the same sense of solidarity was there. It seemed like they hardly even knew each other anymore. Phoenix was dropping hints that he might leave the band for awhile to pursue playing in his cousin’s band, Snax. Rob was hiding behind the ruse of studying for an exam he wouldn’t take for another year. Joe found his solace in groupies while Chester found his in his ever increasing ego. Mike and Brad at the very least had each other but there were some days that Mike wondered about even that.

At the moment though Chester was giving him his patent pending puppy dog eyes that showed his obvious need for Mike to believe him. With a sigh and hope that his trust wasn’t once again misplaced in the vocalist, Mike nodded. “Fine,” he mumbled. “Bob wants us to do a sound check.” He spun on his heels and started to walk away.

“Mike.” Chester put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “Are we cool?”

The emcee sighed heavily and looked his friend in the eye. He saw the desire for him to pretend that things were still good, even though they obviously weren’t. Mike nodded and slipped on a false smile. “Yeah, Chester, we’re cool. Come on before Brad blows himself up.” Chester gave him an equally false smile and paused.

Wait, why is Brad blowing himself up?”

“Because that genius thinks that he can fix his own fuse,” Mike retorted shaking his head. “If we’re really lucky he’ll only break a leg or something.”

Chester snickered. The tension between them faded as quickly as it had appeared. They slipped back into their old pattern, complete with the casual arm Chester slung over the emcee’s shoulder. “Let’s look on the bright side, maybe he’ll actually fix it.” At that exact moment the lights in the place flickered wildly, there was an electrical hissing sound immediately followed by a loud crash and a series of expletives. The two front men exchanged glances and nodded slowly. “Or he’ll blow himself up.”

They joined the crowd that had formed on the stage. Mike noticed with an evil grin that Joe was standing next to a very red faced Bob. The DJ did not seem pleased with having his activities cut short to watch their guitarist blow up a fuse. The resulting explosion created a giant Brad shaped hole in the stage that traveled through the floor beneath them and ended somewhere in the basement. His friends stood over the hole and called down to him.

“Brad, are you alright?”

“Oh yeah, sure,” Brad yelled, sitting up carefully. He flexed his arms and legs and found that they were simply a little sore. “My ass broke my fall.”

“Good to know you have a sense of humor about the situation,” Rob rolled his eyes before retreating back to his study guide.

“Rob! Brad just fell through like two floors and that’s all you have to say?” Bob chided him. “He is your brother!”

“Stepbrother!”

“Half brother!” Rob looked up and nodded in their general direction before once again tuning them all out. Several floors beneath them, Brad huffed and stood up slowly. He rolled his sore muscles and groaned.

“That’s going to hurt in the morning,” he muttered. He grimaced as something pulled in his back. “Okay, and that’s going to hurt right now.”

He heard one of the others yelling something about finding a staircase and coming to get him. He shrugged it off and decided to take the time to snoop around. It took a grand total of forty seconds before he became bored with the idea of snooping and desperately wished whichever one of his friends was designated to be his rescuer would hurry up. Suddenly something caught his eye. He walked over to the corner where a bit of light was glinting off of something golden. He reached down for the shiny bauble and found that it was an amulet. It was circular with writing around the red stone in the center. The amulet dangled off a golden chain.

“That’s pretty,” the corners of his mouth twisted at the sound of the voice behind him. “You going to give it your girlfriend?”

“Funny, Mike,” Brad rolled his eyes. “If you want it, all you have to do is ask.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. By the way, the others want you to get your scrawny ass upstairs post haste so we can attempt to do a sound check before the show tonight.” Mike paused and grinned. “And the maintenance guy fixed your fuse.”

“One word about it, and I’ll make sure you accidentally fall through the hole!” Brad hissed. He looked at the amulet once again. “It has writing on it.”

Mike moved closer to inspect it as well. “It’s Latin. Oh hey, didn’t your dad make Rob take Latin awhile ago?”

“Yeah, but you know how Rob is. He picks up things like a sponge which is why dad made him take it in the first place. I swear he’s like the only person I know who is fluent in Spanish, French, English and Latin. By the end of his first year taking it, he knew enough Latin to curse everyone out. And let me tell you, nothing sounds cooler than a disgruntled fourteen year cursing you out in a dead language.”

“And you claim you don’t have any happy moments with your brother.”

“Stepbrother.”

“Half brother,” Mike sighed. “Anyway save it, maybe Rob could figure out what the inscription means.”

“Sure, whatever,” Brad slipped the amulet into his pocket and followed Mike back to the stage, where the others were waiting. As they finally got around to doing sound check, they were all blissfully unaware of the fact that their lives would never be the same again.

*So what did you think? Be gentle. I know I’m a bit rusty but I’m warming up again. Alright. Let me know what you think. Next chapter can be up as soon as Saturday if anyone is interested.