"What are we celebrating?" Alex asks, walking onto the stage. I was currently dancing around blasting out music on my blue tooth speaker.
"I dont know. Good mood. Join in!" I say, grabbing his hands and spinning him around. He laughs and we horribly dance to The Great Escape by Boys like Girls.
"Throw it away!" I scream and he smiles, continuing with the next lyric.
"Forget yesterday!" He adds and dances more.
"We'll make the great escape!!" We yell together and it harmonizes. I accidentally trip over my own feet and fall down onto my butt. We laugh and he pulls me back up.
"Did you hear that?" He asks and I shrug.
"Us screeching along to my playlist from 2009? Yeah."
"No, the harmonies. That was actually really nice." He slings his arm around my shoulder and looks out at the empty stadium.
"That was all you." I say, trying to see what he's looking at.
"I could never get used to this. The feeling of adrenaline right before we start a show. The passion from the crowds. The meet and greets. I could never get used to it. It's always so new and exciting and i still feel the same as i did when we first started. Absolutely overjoyed. You'd love this, Tori." He says using various hand gestures with his free arm.
"I'm perfectly content with just watching you live your dream, Alex." I say looking up at him. We both jump as the overhead lights suddenly turn on and shine down onto us.
"Lovely preformance lady and gentleman. Twitter loves it." Awsten yells from the balcony in the back. My eyes widen as i realize that he's posted us dancing.
"Knight I'm gonna kill you!" I yell and he shrugs.
"Be the death of me." He yells back, smiling.
My phone starts going crazy and i sigh, pulling it out to check it. Alex and I watch the video and cringe some, laughing. We looked like toddlers flopping around.
"Fangirls are soooooo gonna use this against you." I say and Alex sighs.
"At least I didn't make the face."
"Actually, you did the face and the leg thing at the same time. Double death for fangirls."
"Oops."
××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××
"Hey Tori are you okay?" Geoff asks and i look up from my phone nodding some. I was replying to Twitter notifications. We were hanging out in the dressing room waiting for all time low to finish practicing.
"I'm fine." I type out a response to a question from an ATL fan and post it.
"You've barely talked all day. You've barely ate either." He says and i sigh some.
"Just not hungry, okay?"
"For 3 days?" He raises an eyebrow and crosses his arms.
"Geoff i-"
"Victoria I'm not taking no for an answer. I know what you're doing and it's not okay. So. What do you want to eat?" He says sternly, pulling out his phone.
"Pizza?" I say and he nods, typing something. A moment later he looks back up.
"Stay here, I'll be back, if they finish earlier tell Awsten and Otto to practice without me." He says getting up and leaving before I get the chance to argue. I sigh, leaning back onto the couch.
"Geoff can i- oh where's Geoff?" Awsten asks, walking into the room. I shrug.
"He ran off somewhere after i mentioned pizza. Dad mode took over I guess." I explain, laying down, throwing my legs over the side of the couch.
"Are you okay? You've been kinda quiet." He says, mimicking my pose by laying on the opposite side and moving to where our heads are next to each other.
"Yeah, just got stuff on my mind I suppose. Don't worry babe." I say, typing another response on twitter.
"I still get butterflies every time you say that." He giggles some, kissing my cheek.
"You're too cute." I kiss his lips and he smiles. He moves to get closer but ends up falling off the couch. We burst out laughing and a moment later Geoff and Otto walk into the room holding pizza boxes.
"Awsten fuck off Tori needs food instantly." Geoff says, placing the pizza boxes onto the table.
"Geoff why did you get 4 boxes of pizza?" I ask, standing up. I pull Awsten up and he laughs some, running his fingers through his hair.
"Didn't know what kind you liked so we got 4 different kinds hoping at least one worked. Otto said you liked pineapple but I wasn't sure." He explains.
I open the box and grab a piece of pizza and my mind races. You don't need it. Don't. You don't need to gain weight. Awsten won't love you. He likes skinny pretty girls. Stop.
"Geoff i.." I look up at him and his stern expression fades. He sighs.
"Tori, please. You can do it." He says and i look down at the pizza. I can do this. We all start eating pizza and i manage to finish a slice. The boys get lost in conversation as All time low walks in and grabs pizza too. I shuffle out of the room to go for a walk, hoping no one noticed over the noise.
"Tori?" A voice calls out and i sigh, stopping. I turn around and see Otto.
"Yeah?" I say and he walks up to me, without warning he pulls me into a hug.
"I'm so proud of you. I know what it's like. Any progress is still progress. I'm proud of you, please don't forget that I'm here." He says, holding on tightly. I hug back, nodding into his chest.
"Thanks otter." I say and he laughs some.
"Don't thank me, that's what friends are for. I'll cover for you, don't let the demons win." He lets go and walks back to the dressing room. I know exactly what he means. I sigh with relief and nod. I can beat this. I walk out to the stage and sit at the edge with my legs dangling. I decided to text Nick.
Me: hey, it's Tori. :)
Nick: hey c: how's touring going?
Me: kinda exhausting not gonna lie. I feel like I've barely got to do anything but at the same time I've been super busy. How's life going for my favorite local alien?
Nick: I'm gonna start touring soon too actually :))) Do you listen to gnash?
Me: OBVIOUSLY
Me: ARE YOU TOURING WITH GNASH
Nick: >:)))))
Me: NICOLAS THAT'S AWESOME
Nick: I KNOWWWWW!!!
Nick: we should try to hangout whenever we are close c:
Me: yeah totally dude!
Nick: yaaaaay :)) ok i gtg food is here. Talk to you later! 💚
Me: okay 💚
I put my phone away and look out at the empty space, thinking. What's it like to see this absolutely packed with fans and people that love you? Obviously I see it from an outsider perspective but imagine a personal view. What would that be like? The adrenaline coursing through your veins and the preshow rush you feel as the crowd screams your name.
"What are we thinking about today?" Awsten asks, sitting beside me. I look over at him and shrug.
"A lot of things really. I guess I'm just curious." I look out at the arena and lay my head on his shoulder, holding his hand.
"Back before we were even noticed I would do the exact thing you're doing. I would sit here and think about the future and wonder what it's like. Now that I'm here, it's crazy how things never change. I still do this. I still think about the future and how things will be a year from now or maybe ten years from now. It's insane how fast things change but stay the same. After all the shows we've done I still wonder what's next." He says, looking out at the arena with me.
"What's it like?" I ask, looking up at him some. He focused hard onto the thought, closing his eyes.
"It's like... driving for the first time? Everything is new and exciting and such a rush and you're terrified to mess up but with each turn you realize that everything is okay and that it's not as scary as it seemed." He explains, pausing to collect thoughts.
"It's the feeling before a piercing or a haircut or something. You know you'll love it but there's still the thought of what if this isn't what I wanted. I feel like every artist feels that at one point or another. It's the feeling of hugging your loved one after a long day. It's a sense of peace knowing wow, i did this. All of these people are here because i was brave enough to stand here. Because I was brave enough to share myself with the world." He continues, looking down at me. "Does any of that make sense?" He asks, laughing some.
"That was super deep." I say, yawning some. It was about 2 hours before the show started and I was already exhausted.
"Have you been sleeping?"
"yes."
"At normal times and for more than 2 hours?"
"No."
He sighs, wrapping his arm around my waist. I snuggle closer and smile some. This was heaven. Just me, him, and the feeling of peace. Knowing that I could trust him with anything was such a relief. Knowing he wouldn't hurt me brought me peace.
"I'm stealing you tonight." He says and i look up, confused.
"Are you allowed to do that?"
"Lucas won't murder me if he doesn't know about it." He giggles some and I smile.
"It's a date night, knight."
"I hate you sometimes."
"I hate me too."
×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××
"Are you sure about this?" I ask Awsten as we sneak onto his bus.
"Absolutely positively sure about this." He says, opening the curtain to the bunk before climbing in. I sigh, climbing in beside him.
"Jack is gonna kill me."
"What Jack doesn't know won't kill him."
"You don't know Jack like I do."
"Yeah, i know. It makes me jealous sometimes.." He admits, wrapping his arms around me. I lay my head on his chest and snuggle close.
"Why? You know i want you."
"Just... past situations. Specifically male bestfriends being too close kind of situations. He knows you so well and sometimes I feel like I barely do. I don't know. You two are so close and have so much history. I feel like you'll change your mind about me."
"Never in a million years, Babe. Believe it or not, you're stuck with me."
"Stuck like glue, you and me baby we're stuck like glue." He quotes a song and I cringe.
"That was gross."
"Yep I regret every word of it."
We laugh and immediately stop when we hear the door open.
"You're so fucking loud. God. Secret sleepovers are supposed to be secret but you both laugh like hyenas." Alex says, walking over to the bunk. He rips the curtain back and we look at him, blushing.
"H-hey Alex I was uh-"
"Awsten if you lay one hand on her inappropriately I will personally steal your kneecaps and make you eat them." He says sternly making direct eye contact with Awsten.
"Y-yes sir!" He says and Alex smiles some before looking at me.
"Have fun sweetie, love ya." He says before walking away.
"Love you too???"
The door closes and we look at each other, confused.
"My kneecaps???"
"I'm just as confused as you are."