⚠️TW// low⚠️
"Wow, it's actually kind of nice to be sitting in a green room again with all of you." Crystal laughs, glancing around at Michael, Calum, and Ashton.
"It's been a hot minute." Calum chuckles, "But it's nice to have you here too. Definitely better than the other one that's been with us."
"Yeah but can we really be mad at him now?" Ashton sighs, "If the rule was no girlfriend in Europe but we're all okay with Crystal being here, isn't it a little bit hypocritical that we're not okay with Amy being here?"
"No, Crystal was always coming to Europe. The rule was no girlfriends, Crystal is my wife, she gets special wife privileges, and is excluded from that rule." Michael grumbles, wrapping his arms around Crystal and leaning his head onto her shoulder.
"Plus, I mean, we'd all be less mad if it was one of your girlfriends." Crystal's cheeks heat slightly as she admits it. "I know I shouldn't hate any of your girlfriends, and I'm cordial to her face, but I hate the way Amy treats Luke and I hate that he lets her."
"Join the club." Ashton scoffs.
"Yeah, well at least Luke is allowing her to do it." Michael mumbles under his breath.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Calum asks, sitting himself up and eyeing Michael sharply.
Michael breathes out deeply, "Okay, there may have been an incident in Düsseldorf where I found a certain very quiet member of the team-"
"Elodie." Ashton interrupts, giving Michael an annoyed look.
"Possibly, Elodie." Michael nods, "Coming around the corner, seemingly frazzled when she literally ran into me, and I may or may not have noticed some pinch marks on her wrist. Now, we all know said person doesn't talk much, actually she doesn't talk at all, so I don't really know the whole story, but it had Amy written all over it. Then when I mentioned telling Luke she may have panicked. I mean besides the fact that we all know Amy doesn't like Elodie in the first place, you have to agree she'd be your first guess too."
"You've been keeping this a secret for a week, Mike? You need to tell Luke." Ashton insists.
"I know, but Elodie made it seem like she didn't want me to, and partly I'm afraid that Luke is going to take Amy's side. Especially because after ten minutes there probably wasn't any proof left on her arm."
"That doesn't mean Luke doesn't need to know, Mike. If his guest on this tour is being threatening and harmful towards part of the crew, the guest needs to go." Calum pushes.
"What does she have against Elodie?" Crystal asks, glancing between the three of them, "Isn't she the new guitar tech?"
"Yeah, and the only thing Amy actually has against Elodie is that the fans like her." Calum scoffs, "She does well at her job, she's attractive, and she's around Luke. Because she's new to the crew the fans have taken notice and have discussed who she is and such on Twitter. So now Elodie is a threat to Amy."
"There's something else." Michael says, combing his hair away from his face.
"Something else Amy did, or another reason Amy doesn't like Elodie, or something else Amy is doing that we should be aware of and Luke probably should be aware of?" Ashton inquired sharply.
"Okay, I don't have proof that Amy's the one doing it, but she's the most likely suspect when you put all the facts together. So in Düsseldorf again, when Peter and Elodie went to tune up the guitars for the show, mine were normal, only a couple needed a little bit of help here and there. All of Luke's were entirely out of tune, every single one, and not like a little bit out of tune. It looked like someone had gone in and just twisted all of the tuning keys one way or the other to mess them up. Elodie, Peter, and I were working on them for the better part of three hours, going through and re-tune all of them before the show. It took three of us, all experts, three hours together. Multiple of them have been out of tune and Elodie has had issues similarly at every show since then. They finally weren't this morning when we checked, but Peter also made Andrew make everybody give their key to the guitar cases back to him, including Luke and I. The only people that now have access are Elodie, Peter, and Andrew."
"And Luke didn't ask why he was giving his key to his guitar's back to the tour manager? Calum asks.
"I think he just assumed Andrew had his reasons. He was with Amy at the time that he was asked and just handed it over, he wasn't really paying attention. But my assumption is that Amy was taking his key and messing with the guitars to try and screw up with Elodie and make her have to work harder. And I bet she was trying to make one of the guitars go out on stage in the wrong key, to mess up the show so that the fans would think it was Elodie's fault and start making fun of her, or hating her. I mean that's just a guess but..." Michael shrugs.
"Yeah, well I believe you." Ashton groans deeply.
"And Luke's been oblivious to all of this?" Crystal asks slightly dumbfound, "I know he can be aloof, but he's not stupid."
"He is when it comes to Amy." Michael sighs, "She's been abusing him again. He told me it happened during some rough sex, but there's not really a plausible way for her to have bruised him the way she did during a passionate moment like that. He had her fucking fingerprint bruised into his wrist in Dublin. He told me it only happened one time but that was clearly not just one time."
"Did she hit him before?" Ashton asked, his eyes looking somewhat afraid.
"He showed up at our house three months ago? Maybe four? Before Liz came out in December. It was about three in the morning and he had a few handprints on his skin, a really bad one on his back and one across his face that made his eye swell for a little bit. The one on his face was gone by the time he got up late the next morning, but you could see it when he showed up at our house. He promised us that it was a one time thing, that he deserved it, that he shouldn't have asked her to do whatever it was that he did; he didn't specify." Crystal nods.
"I think it was when he found out she cheated, I think it was the argument where he confronted her. Obviously somehow she convinced him that it was his fault, and I mean all of it, the cheating, the arguments, everything. We've seen her gaslight him for a year now. It's not shocking right?" Michael elaborates.
"How do we convince him he needs to break up with her?" Calum's fists flex and release a few times as he asks.
"We can't unfortunately." Michael says bluntly, "He has to see it for himself, and she has him so tightly wound around her stupid little finger that I'm afraid he never will."
"I mean it's not the first toxic relationship he's been in, we can hope he sees similar signs from that one. I don't know if I can watch him go back to a place like that." Crystal half whispers, "He was so lost, for so long. He finally got out just in time to fall into another trap, it's heartbreaking."
"Honestly, I think the only way he will start to realize how bad it is, is if he actually caught her attacking Elodie. But there is no way in hell I will try to stage that, because I'm not asking Elodie to put herself in that kind of situation. I don't know her well enough, and she's obviously been through something that has caused her to become so petrifyingly shy that she literally doesn't talk to anyone." Michael says.
"I hope if he does catch her doing something like that, it's not something bad because if she's already threatened Elodie I can only imagine how much worse it'll get when Elodie doesn't go away." Calum admits.
"Hey guys!" They all jump slightly as Luke enters the room, "What are you talking about? It kind of feels heavy in here?" He asks quickly
"Where is Amy?" Calum cocks an eye at him.
"She's out on the bus finishing her makeup, she wasn't ready to come in yet, why?"
"Because, it sounds like she's been threatening Elodie and we just wanted to make sure that she wasn't doing that currently." Ashton throws caution to the wind, stating a fact.
"What? Amy hasn't been around Elodie, I know she's a little bit jealous of her, but it's nothing I can't handle guys, don't worry about that."
"Is it really something you can handle, Luke?" Michael asks sharply.
"Do you know something I don't? What's going on?" Luke asks, glancing between the four of them.
"Well it seems like your oh so lovely girlfriend has been making life rather hard for your guitar tech." Crystal states matter of fact, "Now obviously I haven't been here to witness any of this, but I definitely believe Michael and what he said has happened."
"Mike, what is going on?" Luke turns to his friend.
"I'm not gonna tell you if you're not gonna believe me, Luke." Michael groans.
"Just tell me, I know Amy has issues with Elodie. I'm trying to get her to work on it but what's going on? What has she done?"
"Well let's start with the fact that in Düsseldorf I found Elodie panicked and running from something, and she had claw marks pinched into her wrist. Only one person on this tour has claws and it's your girlfriend. Now obviously I didn't get the whole story, Elodie doesn't talk, but from what I witnessed, and the way she responded to what I asked, it was pretty obvious Amy had been the reason Elodie was petrified. Also in Düsseldorf, all of your guitars were out of tune when El went to set them up for the show. Even with Peter and I helping her, it took us three hours to get your guitars ready for the show. Mine were not all messed up and out of tune though, and there have been multiple of your guitars out of tune at each show since then until today, Elodie has spent so much time unnecessarily re-tuning so many of your guitars this week it's ridiculous, her workload has been almost double for the past week. That's why Andrew asked for your key to the guitar cases, and mine too, he took everybody's except his own, Elodie's, and Peter's. It's not fair to Elodie that someone, I'm assuming Amy, is trying to ruin her job and make her look like a fool. Now, obviously for the most part this is speculation, Elodie doesn't talk to any of us but Peter, but I'm pretty sure if you ask him, he might know something, something Elodie actually said to him about what has been going on."
"You need to figure this out, Luke. Your girlfriend seems to be causing issues with a crewmember, and that's not okay. It's also not okay if she's treating you anyway the same or worse. Also, just a thought to remember, if she's messing with your guitar to make Elodie look bad, it's going to embarrass you on stage when your guitar is way out of tune, is your problem too." Ashton adds.
"I'll talk to her, I'll see if I can figure it out." Luke nods sharply, looking rather uncomfortable.
"You better." Calum states matter of fact.
—--------------------------
Thoughts on the way the band confronted Luke?
Will he talk to Amy?
What comes from this?
Vote and comment!
I love you guys!!!
~M =)