Sonata

The night was over; the performance, the drinking, and all the laughs, and once everyone had left from the bar, the whole group, including Evelyn and Corey, had helped with the moving of the equipment to the backstage area, due to the possibility of a cop just driving around and catching them with amps and instruments in their possession.

They never brought their stuff with them, because they had spares at their place of residence, which Oli never told Evelyn. She thought it was because he thought that she would use it against him if they ever broke up, which was actually a valid theory, but she never had the Gaul to ask him if that was why.
She just figured that it always slipped his mind, and he didn't find it important to disclose such information to her anyway, although he never hesitated to know all about her life.

They always did the same thing; never taking it to the next level and going over to his place. One for the obvious reason that she had to be home, but if he knew her well enough, he'd know that she didn't give a fuck about being home. She would have gladly accepted his offer to spend the night in a heartbeat in order to get away from home, so maybe it was somewhat suspicious.
They had been together for awhile now, and they still hadn't had sex.

Pardon the vulgarity.

But not wanting to start a fight with him, since Evelyn never had in the first place, she opted to keep her lips sealed and just wait til' the night would come where her boyfriend would turn to her and ask if she'd like to see where he spends the majority of his time.
To welcome her into his other world.
For now, she'd only be packing equipment.

Everyone was dead tired after all the heavy lifting, and only wanted to get to their beds and dream. Depending on who you were, that could consist of music or girls. The eight friends dusted off their jeans as they walked out of the club, said goodbye to creepy-guy Tony, and made a short walk to the van.

Once everyone had claimed their seats, and still outside stood Oli, who was looking at the driver's side in massive horror. It was as though he just turned Jewish in the eyes of Hitler, and was being pushed by invisible forces to enter the gas chamber and end his life, but he was profoundly resisting.

A quivering tension was stretching out his body parts, and the discomfort he felt as a result was far from bearable. There were many flashes of their deaths on the news on account of him, or even living through the pain and becoming cripples; moving into a house together and hiring a sexy maid so they could spend the rest of their time on Earth staring at her hot ass as she walks away to feed them lunch through the tubes in their stomachs.
He shook his head, becoming more irrational by the moment.

Without another unpleasant thought, he ruffled his hands above his head on each side, and once again when he was sitting in the driver's seat. Heart pounding and his peers' lives in his hands, Oli was actually scared. Oliver Sykes, the bad ass who's initial idea it was to go head to head with the government, was more intimidated by a hunk of metal.

They watched him with curiosity, and some of them scared and thinking up their epitaphs. To put lives in Oli's hands seemed careless, but that thought was hypocritical considering that they put full trust in him before.
They'd regret it if the median served as a serving block for a couple crushed skulls.

He grabbed all his hair with both hands and growled in a defeated frustration. He knew he was going to have to drive, and the time was on its edge.

And then they were off.

Roads were becoming easier to navigate through, along with the signs that told them to wait for the other cars beside you to get in the same lane, or watch out for deer in the dark.

"Like I need ah fuckin' sign teh tell meh tha'."

Oli mumbled as he gripped the steering wheel tightly.
It was his first time driving on the highway in the dark, and his bones were coming out from his knuckles. Curtis was sitting in the passenger's seat with a knowing smirk on his face; having experienced the same anxiety of controlling a 2 ton piece of machinery without much knowledge of the correct directions, but most likely with a .8 intoxication level.

His friend Oliver, on the other hand, decided not to drink even the liquid perspiring from a beer bottle, knowing that his turn to get everyone home would undoubtedly arrive. Little did he care to know that a shot or two would relax him some, for now he was nervous and jittery as fuck.

He was the slowest one on the highway, as other cars sped past while honking their drones of irritation and looking at him like he was some foreigner.
Haha, oops.

"Common mate, meh gran'ma's bones are like Jeff Gordon righ' now."

Evelyn glanced over at Matt Nicholls with a shocking curiosity that couldn't be met, and he stared at her the same.

"Wha'?"

"How do you know who Jeff Gordon is?"

He peered at her with puzzlement; not understanding the reasoning or content to her question, until it clicked and his mouth opened the slightest, a small 'oh' emitted as a keen smile followed.

"Americans think their celebrities are so exclusive."
He said with a laugh, and slowly, the rest followed suit and chuckled.

She and Corey were stuck on the other team, and looked from each person to the next; trying to find the humor in what was just said. There was a clear line between the two cultures, including the style in which they were raised, slang, opinions, and common misconceptions in general. There were turns between the Americans and the Yorkies, when something would make sense or be considered humorous to one group or the other.

In truth, there was absolutely nothing wrong with these exchanges and transactions. They were two very different types of people merged together, and since it was a voluntary combination from both parties, that was a clear sign that each had something valid to offer to the other; resulting in a communication-shaky camaraderie.

Just the basic rules of a pack.
The band was still chuckling until Oli barked at them.

"'ey, am tryin' teh drive, so shut it."

"You've been tryin' to drive before then, yeh git. Why 'aven't yeh been successful?"
Lee asked defiantly, everyone; Yorkie or not, found his statement to be funny.

Tom gave him a smack of a high five, and Oli's face grew redder.
Evelyn could view the reaction from the rear view mirror; worried that he would do something drastic that would endanger everyone in order to stun them into silence.

He hit the brakes, right in the middle of the road, and slammed his palms against the wheel. Whether by intention or not. the horn woke everyone's senses even more, and their eyes widened exponentially. He had their attention now.

When the van was halted on the highway, even though it hadn't been traveling that fast, all the cars behind could have very possibly hit them. There was more honking and dirty glares as they moved around, but this was an outside world compared to the tension in the vehicle. It was obvious that everyone regretted what had just happened, except for Oli, who was staring down hard at the road ahead. He had driven the least, and was having the most difficult time with adjusting.

The van would shift slightly as the cars passed closely; a desired speed that they could only wish to go. Oli turned the engine off and just sat like a dirty, angry statue. Curtis had curled back into the recesses of his crappy passenger seat; not feeling far enough away from the active volcano.

Everyone staring at the backs of the front seats were trying to process what had just happened, and how to calm the adrenaline pumping triple time through their veins. They were boys known to take many chances on their own turf, or at least what they perceived it to be, but this happened every now and then.

Meaning they shit their pants from time to time.

Lee, Tom, and Evelyn had been sitting in the next row of seats; Evelyn right behind Oli, then Lee in the vulnerable, middle seat, and Tom cowering by the sliding door, trying to decide if he should make a run for it or not. Their eyes were still wide; a bunch of ripe tangerines in a row that could be picked out by the customer.
Behind them were both Matts as they had been playing a couple games of rock, paper, scissors. Nicholls had been getting frustrated that Kean was winning every game by some sort of magical force called "strategy", though he had sworn that he was telepathic; a product of Satan, to which the winning Matt replied that the only product Satan endorsed was his stupidity.

A golden comeback.

Of course, Nicholls didn't understand and simply snorted, and it seemed that straight after, Oli had unleashed his breakdown. The entertainment chosen to pass the time on the long ride home was microscopic in comparison to an outburst. All eyes were on him, just like he unconsciously wanted, and a scarlet blush was spreading across his neck like an uncontrollable, furling forest fire.

"Come on Ol-"

"You drive," Oli muttered to Corey; completely ignoring what Curtis was about to say.

He didn't want to hear it, the statement was stamped on his face, so Curtis just shut his mouth again and held a demeaning expression contorted in his nose and mouth, wondering what possessed him to initiate such conversation. It was known that Curtis was the airhead of all the guys, mostly because his mouth ran faster than his brain, he made dumb jokes, and laughed more than the others. He was the liveliness and pulsator who kept the blood pumping in the veins whenever instances were dull. He was the easiest one to make fun of, maybe because he suffered from both visual and auditory problems; deaf in his right ear and going blind in the left eye.

Not one side of his profile was humanly perfect, and yet, the only thing that bothered him on any given day was when he couldn't find something he misplaced, or when some tart wanted on his gnads, which was actually what got to him most.

This was another area of his life in which his friends poked fun at him, because it was incomprehensible that any guy could be a one-woman man, and that temptation simply bounced off an invisible forcefield of, dare to say it...love. They all wanted nothing more than soft, perfume ensued fingertips touching everywhere, and candy-breathed whispers flowing through their cars and dirtying up their thoughts, and to deny such a thing was more sinful than the fantasies themselves.

It was always forgotten that Oli was identical in that situation alongside Curtis, but everyone sort of skipped around it in fear that he would humiliate them even worse or kick their ass. To single him out with the intent of attempting a negative social action never happened, unless it was for something minor and/or full-heartedly joking.

I guess you could say that was why everyone was mildly terrified when he slammed on the brakes in the middle of the chaotic street where much machinery was moving at high velocities. He stomped over to the passenger's side of the van, where Curtis was sitting in the first place, but instantly moved to the center on account of Oli's inability to compromise while under stress or severely pissed off.

Corey rubbed his hands together roughly, like you would if you were trying to warm up in the harsh weather, eat a good dinner, or face a task that was proven difficult. Since Corey was the other American in the car in the car, however, it couldn't have been the latter in the sense that he didn't know how to drive, but because he wanted to do his best to impress his new, famous friends. They had welcomed him with semi-open arms, and his idol; the Oli Sykes, singer and mastermind behind Bring Me the Horizon, gave him the mission to drive everyone home without fatalities on the way.

Under normal circumstances, this would have been very easy, and he could merely cruise on by without a second thought. But with the super vision of what he considered to be legends, or at the least "heroes", a whole new level of pressure was on his shoulders, and like the saying goes: With great power comes great responsibility.

His forehead had automatically gained perspiration, and clammy hands stayed stuck in his jean pockets. It was worse than having to drive with a driving school teacher by a long shot. Oli glanced back over with heavy irritation.

"Well, are yeh jus' gonna stan' there or wha'?"

Shaking his head roughly, he hopped into the van next to Oli and put it back into gear. Everyone was a breathing corpse as he stared straight ahead at the road, probably trying to burn a hole through the sign that was an informant of the speed limit. Curtis began humming a mysterious tune; one likely made up, and tapped his two index fingers against the dashboard, to which the glove compartment was located right beneath since he sat on the right side of the three-seater. He caught Oli's attention more intently as his toes began to tap a rhythm as a collaboration.

He was a one-man band.

This softly prompted the rest of the band to let their guard down and whisper among each other about how mental their screamer had become or their guitarist's gain in density. Lee was mumbling a joke to Evelyn, to which she laughed heartedly and slapped his closer shoulder. Both Matts were back to their tournament of childlike games as Tom cheered Nicholls on, even though he was losing consistently. Everyone was back in their own little worlds as fast as they were taken out, and they seemed to even forget that they were in a vehicle; for when it moved again, they gasped. Corey had input pressure against the gas pedal with too much force, and the van leered forward.

Oli glanced at him with the dirtiest disgust he could muster on short notice. He was still sore that he was defeated at something that had become easier to his friends, and something that his mind couldn't grasp just yet. Like a frustrated kid who still had to ask a peer or a teacher to tie his shoe while the boy next to him had achieved to do it independently with such an ease that he envied.

He was the kid that couldn't spell right, or could never go across a row of monkey bars. Add the humiliation of those said friends poking fun at him in an attempt to calm his anxiety, and anyone in his shoes would become steadily agitated. His reputation oozed the theory that he could even shit gold, and since one inability threatened that front, it killed his esteem to no end.

Now a guy who looked identical in appearance was completing a task contrasting his nature, which really pissed him off.

Corey would beat him in something, one thing, and that was enough for an envy to plant its seed and get watered by more degrading thoughts. Corey had the same eyes, the same hair, same skin tone, same composure, but better driving skills.

Oli didn't know why he asked him to take his place in the driver's seat. He should have ordered Curtis to; he already knew that he was able to drive them home, and yet still, in the heat of his anger, his sight was on Corey. Now he saw that he could drive, quite well actually.

Ignorance is bliss, and he should have kept his fucking mouth shut.

The new boy's hands held the steering wheel tightly, as though he were throttling an enemy, and his calloused fingers curled over the outlined circle like a python. He kept peering at Oliver looking at him with a range of emotions, from curiosity to disdain, as he cruised down the highway. There was an air of relief washing over as they realized that no, they were not in danger, and yes, everything was fine.

Corey was being lifted to a transparent pedestal of success, where in everyone's eyes, he was an angel for bringing them to the reigns of safety, and as he was cheered for and condoned, stood Oli in a metaphorical corner; where green monsters and red, blurry visions inhabited.

A Christmas laced in disaster.

Rage boiling beneath his colored skin once more, he turned to Curtis vehemently, where he was gleefully enjoying the music of his own by his phalanges and his toes. He whistled like a morning bird; eyes conquering facial expressions of their own by beaming in half-mooned grins.

"'ey, 'elen Keller, shut the fuck up," Oli spat in repulsion.

The happy boy to his right ceased his orchestra and looked at him almost unbelievingly; the most hurt expression on his face. He blinked and opened his mouth to explain himself. Oli rolled his eyes and continued for him.

"Yer fuckin' annoying Curt, so stop tha' tappin' shite 'fore I break yeh fingers, yeah?"

He was belittling him to an end that was borderline cruel, a place that only a mother should take their child when they've done the worst. Curtis was older than Oli, but he had a mind that was far more sensitive and young; lively, whereas Oli was boss and what he said went. He held such a distaste towards him that it made Curtis weaken in his presence.

Lee and Evelyn peered back, not believing the hostility in the man's voice. She had barely ever had the consequence of her ears tainted in such a way, and Evelyn knew that she should never have to hear it again.
'he was just having a bad night', she repeated to her conscience, which actually came to great avail. but months of knowing someone is simply not enough, and she didn't know exactly what kind of jealous motherfucker Oli could be.

Oli didn't like being sidestepped.
Not one bit.