another you ✧ irwin

one

✧THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING 
340 days before moving in together✧

Instead of being at home and writing fanfiction and drinking coffee and being comfortable, I'm in the most punk-rock clothes I managed to scrounge beneath piles of knit sweaters, and in a goddamn oven that is The Downtown Bar. I wouldn't have entered this bar if it weren't for Ashley; it's her birthday today. And seeing that she's an extrovert, it's no surprise that she would be spending her 18th birthday in a bar. She even brandished her ID at the bouncer in triumph, as if turning eighteen was the best thing to ever happen.

Watching her bump and grind on that fucking dancefloor makes me feel like I'm decades older than her. I'm twenty-two, just freshly wrung out from college. And Ashley always makes sure that I'm reminded of that, along with a snide little comment along the lines of, "You're the only twenty-two year-old that still writes fanfiction and reads smut, ya know. " I'm not ashamed of it. To hell if I'm too old to be enjoying erotic and gay fanfictions of my favourite band members.

And as that thought passes in my mind, I'm reminded again of the better time I'd be having if I were at home right now. I'd have the house all to myself, and Ashley would be here, doing the things eighteen year-olds do. But sadly, she insisted I come and threatened to change the wifi password if I didn't.

She may be four years younger than me, but boy, does that girl know how to wind up my buttons.

I check my watch and grunt. It's just twenty minutes past ten, which means I still have two hours before I can justifiably drag Ashley out of here. I look around the bar and try to find at least one appealing thing about it. Nothing. All that peeks my interest is the small little stage on the far corner of the bar with stools and acoustic instruments on top of it. I'm a sucker for live acoustic performances, but that's not available here at the moment either.

Before I could decide to just bail and return two hours later to pick Ashley up, somebody with a nice fluffy beard steps onto the stage and pats the microphone twice. "Is everybody having a good time?" he asks the crowd.

"Fuck no!" I say, but my voice is drowned out by the voices of a hundred enthusiastic people who were exclaiming drunken affirmations.

"Are you guys ready for the live performance?" the guy announces again. My eyebrows arch up. So there is a live band tonight. Thank god.

The crowd whoops once again. At the entrance of the bar, people begin dispersing to let a group of men clad in black to pass through. They're probably the live band, I presume. They have huge grins on their faces, and they high-five some people and I wonder if they're famous enough to be sauntering through the crowd like that. I scrutinize them, my first instinct being to find an attractive member. There's a skinny blonde guy with visible stubble and a lip ring; there's a tan guy with a jawline for freaking days; there's a guy with crazy hair, and I wonder how many tubes of hair gel it took him to make it stick up like that; and finally, the last member is a very tall and well-built guy with hair ranging between blonde and brown. He most definitely looks older than the rest, but his smile is what brings back his youth. I silently gawk at him, wanting nothing more than to hug the living life out of him and poke his dimples until his face breaks off.

After their attention-attracting entrance, they finally hop onto the stage, and the emcee announces, "Let's hear a round of applause for 5 Seconds of Summer!" which sends the crowd into another frenzy, and then the band stars to tune up, and then I squeeze my way through the throngs of people until I reached Ashley.