Right Now, I'm Anyone's

It was officially the last day of the festival – I was both happy and sad about that little fact. Happy, because it meant the end of the awkwardness that had settled over me and Dean for the last couple of days. Sad, because I wouldn’t see a lot of the friends I’d made for a long time after it.

I had remembered to bring the four designs I had for Alexisonfire – I kept them in a black, A4 portfolio, feeling a little amateur that I’d only filled four out of twenty sleeves. I made sure each page was as straight as it could be and totally uncreased, before Dimitri gave me and Georgia a lift to work. Georgia nudged me when we were sat together in the back seat.

“Can I murder your boyfriend yet?” she said, a tiny hint of anger completely evident in her tone. “Jake told me about what happened yesterday.”

I groaned loudly and blushed. “Why does everybody seem to know about that?”

“Jake was the one to stop Dean from killing him before I could,” she said. “Obviously, Dean told him everything.”

I sighed. “I’m just glad you weren’t there; Jake wouldn’t have held you back if you asked him not to.”

“Precisely!” she exclaimed. “How did it even start? You two seemed all happy families on Sunday.”

“He just started talking out of his arse,” I said dismissively, shrugging my shoulders. I was glad she seemed to accept that answer, without asking for any further information – like what he was talking out of his arse about. Dimitri glanced up into his rear view mirror at the both of us. I caught his eye and he smiled, just before he took the right turn up the side street that lead to the back door of Flux. Georgia and I exited the car and called a goodbye to Dimitri as he drove off.

“Jake said something about Levi being violent,” Georgia spoke as we walked together to the back door. “Did he hit you?”

I shook my head. “No, of course not.”

“Then, what did he mean?” she asked softly, linking her arm through mine kindly.

“Levi grabbed my wrist for like, a minute,” I answered. “He didn’t hurt me.”

Georgia just nodded her head. “I suppose he was exaggerating a bit – he was angry.”

I smiled lightly and let her lead the both of us through the back door and up the stairs, arm in arm with one another. We walked to the staff room together and hung up our coats and bags near the lockers. Georgia waited for me by the door, while I messed around with my phone – obviously, to check in case Levi had called me and I’d missed it. He hadn’t.

“Leila,” Georgia sighed as we made our way slowly back to the stairs. “I’m sorry we haven’t really been around each other much lately, but you know I’m still here if you need to talk, don’t you?”

I nodded and gave her a smile. “I know, Gee.”

“I love you, kid,” she laughed, giving my shoulders a squeeze. “Don’t think about him, and before you know it, I’ll have ripped his head clean off of his shoulders.”

I shuddered. “Please don’t.”

She laughed and rolled her eyes, before turning to leave me at the top of the stairs so she could go to the office a little ways back. I walked down the stairs and through the main room, noticing that Zoë wasn’t behind the bar where she normally was – maybe she didn’t have to be in so early. Gary and the other techs were busy farting around, fiddling with the light fixtures on the brackets above the stage. Light fixtures that didn’t need fiddling with, might I add.

I climbed up onto the stage and walked along the corridor, all the way to room eleven to see if I could find any or all of Alexisonfire. I thought I might as well get the whole portfolio – if it could even be called that – thing out of the way. If they were all there, I’d run back upstairs and get my folder, then hand it over. I felt a lump form in my throat when I reached the door.

I tapped on the wood of the door, but there was no answer. A part of me felt a little bit relieved that there was probably nobody in there, but I let myself in anyway, just to check. I thought room eleven was empty at first, but upon closer inspection I noticed there was somebody lying on the sofa in the corner, eyes closed and the volume on his iPod turned up loud.

He was pale and skinny, with close-cropped ginger hair and tattoos covering his arms and parts of his head. I recognised him as the lead vocalist of Gallows – Frank Carter. Eventually, he seemed to sense that there was somebody else in the room with him and jumped when he opened his eyes and saw me.

“Sorry about that,” he said, his cockney accent thick in his throat. “Thought I’d relax while this place was empty.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I was looking for George or Dallas, have you seen either of them?”

He shrugged his bare shoulders and sat up straight, swinging his long skinny legs around so that his feet were on the floor. “Can’t say I have, sorry, love. They’ll probably be asleep still I reckon.”

“Ah,” I said, chuckling awkwardly. “I’ll come back later or something.”

Frank nodded his head and leaned back into the couch, cracking his neck loudly. “Sound. Good to meet you, by the way...?”

“Leila,” I provided, laughing slightly.

“Right,” he laughed too. “Good to meet you, Leila.”

“You too,” I smiled as I backed out of the door into the corridor again. I closed the door behind me and sighed, deciding that maybe it would be a better idea for me to go and see if anybody was hanging around in room five. Hopefully, it’d be somebody I could get on with easily – like James, or Lee for example – rather than somebody I felt awkward around at all times – i.e. Dean.

I bumped into Sierra on my way down the corridor. She stopped jogging briefly to explain that she couldn’t stop to chat because she, her band and the boys from All Time Low were playing hide and seek and she was it. I laughed to myself once she’d disappeared and kept going on my way.

I opened the door of dressing room five and almost immediately jumped back out into the corridor, slamming the door behind me. I stood there for a couple of minutes and tried to process what I’d just seen, before bursting out into fits of almost silent laughter. Basically, I had just walked in as Tom was putting his underwear on – to say that I saw nothing would be a lie.

I waited outside, snickering to myself and then trying to control myself because I was acting like a teenager, until Tom cracked the door open again with a sheepish grin. I could tell he was trying hard not to laugh, but the second we caught each other’s eye, we both collapsed against the wall in fits of laughter.

“Sorry,” I apologised through my now calmed laughs. He stepped aside to let me in and I immediately sat down on the sofa next to the refreshments table. He laughed and picked a black vest out of the Nike hold-all that sat underneath the table and pulled it over his head, before taking a seat next to me.

“No skin off of my nose,” he laughed. “You very nearly gave me a fucking heart attack, but it’s alright.”

I rolled my eyes and felt a bubble of laughter come back up. “Why were you naked, though?”

“See, Leila, there’s this thing called a shower,” Tom said, his tone patronising. “When you get all sweaty and covered in filth, they’re quite necessary.”

I gave him a look and slapped him hard on the arm. “Shut up, smartarse. Couldn’t you have gotten dressed in the bathroom or something?”

“Could’ve,” he shrugged. “Everyone was still asleep, so I didn’t think it’d matter.”

I just laughed again. “Have you seen Alexisonfire at all? Any of them?”

“I saw Dallas about half an hour ago,” he said. “But I think he was going to get a coffee somewhere. You finished those designs then?”

I nodded my head. “Yep, they’re all done. Even though there’s only four.”

“Well, better than nothing,” he laughed. “Our best piece of merch has our tour manager on it.”

I laughed and shook my head. Tom and I sat around in his bands dressing room for close to an hour before people started popping their heads in to see who was there. Jake called a good morning through the door briefly before going to get Edie some breakfast, and half an hour later we were joined by Lee, Daniel and Dean.

I felt the atmosphere in the room change almost instantly – I don’t know if anybody else could feel it. Daniel, Lee and Tom seemed completely at ease. Dean looked like he might want to be somewhere else, and me, well; I looked like I wanted to bolt. I was perched on the utmost edge of the sofa, my back poker straight. Daniel was saying something about Carcer City talking about everybody going out the next night; Halloween.

“They reckon it’ll probably be us, Deaf Havana, Abrogation’s Crown, Gallows, Architects, The Blackout and Asking Alexandria if they’re all up for it,” he explained. “There’s this place in Liverpool called the Krazyhouse that apparently go mental on Halloween.”

I watched them as Dean nodded in approval. “That sounds decent actually. I’m up for it; I don’t have to be back in London till the third at the latest anyway.”

“Owen said we’d get the train down and get a cheap hotel room for the night or something,” Daniel continued. “Most of the American bands have flights early tomorrow morning. And he mentioned something about dressing up.”

I found myself laughing at that one. What kind of club or bar or whatever the Krazyhouse was allowed people that dressed up on Halloween inside? I heard Dean laugh too.

“I’m definitely up for that,” he said. “Tom?”

Tom nodded in agreement. “Definitely. We deserve a good night out after this festival, and the Krazyhouse is decent, we went last year when we toured with We Are The Ocean.”

Daniel and Dean kept on asking Tom questions about the Krazyhouse – as neither of them had been when they had to chance to go. I sat and stared into space for a while, until Daniel waved his hand in front of my face.

“What about you?” he asked.

“What about me?”

“Think you’d want to come too?” Tom clarified, laughing.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, trailing off. “It’s a bit short notice and I don’t have much money.”

“Come on,” Dean laughed. “It sounds great, you have to come.”

I gave Dean a look. Why was he insisting I went with them? I was hardly his friend at that point, since we’d only just started speaking again the previous day.

“It isn’t that I don’t want to,” I sighed. “I’ve got no money and nothing to dress up in really.”

“I can sort you with train fare and you can share a room with someone,” Dean said. “You can pay me back when you can.”

I sighed in defeat. “Fine, I’ll think about it.”

Dean, Daniel and Tom all smiled at me and I excused myself shortly afterwards. I walked along the corridor and back over the stage towards the door leading to the staircase. Somebody behind me called my name and I stopped in my tracks, turning my head.

“Hey, George,” I said when he’d jogged to my side. He smiled at me and gave me a small hug.

“You got some stuff for us?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yep, it’s upstairs if you want to see it.”

“Nah,” he said, holding his hands up. “Wait till after the show; I dunno where the guys are at right now.”

I laughed and nodded my head. “Okay, no problem.”

George and I parted way and I ran upstairs, so I could sit in the staff room on my own for a while.

*****

“Right,” Dean said, the microphone making his voice bounce off of every wall in the crowded main room of Flux. “This is the last show tonight, do you people realised how privileged you are?” – the crowd cheered loudly and he laughed – “Good. Since it’s the last show, we reckoned we’d play something different.”

I leaned back, my shoulder blades against the wall at the side of the stage, behind the curtain; trying to keep my eyes trained on the band as a whole, rather than just the front man. Dean performed fantastically, yet again – as did Max, Craig, Daniel and Jake. Jake was sweating from using all of his energy, beating seven shades of shit out of the house drums, and his usually straight hair was curling from the moisture and heat.

Eye Witness started to play and I knew the song almost instantly – it was Welcome To My Family by A Day To Remember. Again, Dean’s voice didn’t resemble Jeremy’s in the slightest but he still managed to pull the song off spectacularly. The crowd clustered below him were going crazy, as per usual, and reached for him, grabbing onto his shirt when he got close enough to the barricade. Gary had to go down and help the security staff, as one girl kept trying to climb up onto the stage to get to him.

“Move!” Dean growled, before moving with the following breakdown and continuing to sing. “I don’t believe that everything you’ve known about me is gone forever.”

I found myself smiling as I watched him carefully for a couple of moments. The times when I saw him on stage were probably the only times that I could look at him properly without feeling guilty and without feeling anything but dazzling admiration for him. I didn’t feel any bad karma about thinking what I was thinking. When he was on the stage with his band, nobody else existed but them. Once the song had ended – each member of Eye Witness stopping exactly at the same time – Dean laughed.

“Change of pace, we know,” he said. “No offence to Jeremy and the boys, course.”

In the back of my head, I had an amazing mental video of John and how much he would be fuming over the amount of stage time Dean was adamant in wasting for his band. He announced that Architects were up next and bounced off of the stage while I chuckled to myself – I must’ve looked insane. Jake walked up to centre stage and threw his drumsticks down into the crowd, making each member scream in ecstasy and make blind grabs for the pieces of wood.

I grabbed one of the fresh bottles of water from the floor beside me and threw it to Dean as he approached. “Good show.”

“Thanks,” he smiled, after taking a long drink from the bottle. “I thought you might’ve liked that last one.”

I sat down on an amp and mockingly made a face at him. “It was okay.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he laughed, rolling his eyes and shoving me very lightly. “Mind if I sit and watch the rest of the show with you?”

I nodded. “No problem.”

Dean sat and waited for me to get back from replacing the water bottles. I took my seat back on the amp when I was done and we sat together in silence, watching Sam as he skipped on stage like a complete idiot – I think he was hyper, since it was the last show – picked up his microphone and announced that his entrance was his Dean impression. I laughed while Dean cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted ‘dickhead’ at Sam.

“Shut it you,” Sam said. “Ladies, Dean’s mobile number is...”

Dean’s face went pale – as far as I could see in the dim light – as Sam read out the first couple of digits of his number and then stopped. “Get to fuck, just messing,” he laughed, almost instantaneously breaking into their first song of the set. Dean shook his head and gave Sam’s back a dirty look while I laughed again. We watched Architects’ set in silence and managed to sit all the way to halfway through The Blackout’s performance.

“You’re all fuckin’ mental!” Sean shouted. The opening notes to It’s High Tide Baby started up and I felt Dean shift uncomfortably beside me. I turned my head and looked at him, just as Ian Watkins entered the stage for the chorus of the song.

“What’s up?” I called over the music.

“Nothing,” he shouted back, shaking his head.

“Dean, tell me,” I laughed. I swear it looked like his cheeks flushed red for a second. I’d never seen him embarrassed before, never mind seen him blush. I suppose it was a bonus.

“Okay,” he said. “But please, don’t laugh. As cliché and stupid as it sounds – and feels to say it – this song always used to remind me of you.”

He’d asked me not to laugh, but I did anyway. But on the inside, I felt my stomach jump in something loosely related to excitement. It was extremely sweet of him to tell me that, but it was also something very wrong that I felt bad for relishing in. I mean, as far as I knew, he was still with Zara and hadn’t mentioned what happened. I wasn’t as sure about Levi and me anymore.

“I told you not to laugh,” he grumbled in the brief silence between the end of It’s High Tide Baby and the opening of The Blackout’s version of My Generation.

*****

Ryan roughly pushed his sweat soaked hair away from his forehead and took a deep breath, lifting his microphone up to his lips and speaking. “Okay, this is going to be our very last song. Before we start, we want each and every one of you to give it up for every last fucking amazing band playing this fucking festival for you guys!”

The excitable crowd went insane for the umpteenth time that night, jumping and lurching forward, crushing the people at the front into the barrier. Ryan laughed and said, “This last song’s always been one we loved to perform, and to enforce the song we inviting some friends up here to help us out.”

Dean stood up from where he sat beside me and flashed me a small, mischievous grin, just as Max and Craig walked back on stage. They all walked out together, shortly followed by Brennan Taulbee and Denny Agosto – who had hugged me briefly before rushing after Brennan towards where Chris stood. Sean Smith, Ian Watkins, Danny Worsnop and Sierra Kusterbeck appeared and walked on stage after them.

I watched as each of the members of different bands paired up with a member of Deaf Havana; Sierra perched herself on Tom’s bass drum and he pushed his microphone towards her, while Dean and Danny were handed microphones of their own. Brennan and Denny were already standing with Chris and talking, while Sean and Ian joined up with Lee near the centre of the stage. Dean stood near James while Danny stood up front with Ryan.

Johnny climbed off of the stage to the photographer’s pit, his camera hanging around his neck, ready to be used. Slowly, a smile spread across my face when Deaf Havana started playing Friends Like These. I don’t think anybody was aware of what Ryan and the rest of Deaf Havana had planned – other than the other bands taking part – so it was a nice surprise. Ryan started on his vocals and Danny took over after James’ first verse.

Dean joined James on the chorus, adding more range to the vocals since their voices were a little different. I felt myself starting to move with the song, which was generally something you grow out of when you work in a place like Flux – bands coming and going at least once a fortnight. After the guitar solo, Ryan and Danny lifted their hands up in the air and clapped along with Tom’s drums.

“Everyone!” Ryan shouted. And then, every single person on stage and everybody in the crowd started to bellow with the chorus. It was actually undeniably one of the most fantastic things I’d ever seen. They brought the song to an end, the lights onstage extinguishing completely, before turning – bright white – onto the crowd who cheered in complete bliss and screamed.

Once the crowd died down – and he had managed to stop laughing – Ryan spoke again. “Amazing, completely fucking amazing. Everybody give a hand to Brennan and Denny of Oceana!” the crowd erupted again – “Sean Smith and Ian Watkins!” – another eruption, only slightly louder – “Danny of Asking Alexandria!” – another slightly louder eruption – “the lovely Sierra Kusterbeck” – there were a couple of wolf whistles amongst the cheers, which made Sierra laugh – “and last but not least, Dean, Max and Craig of Eye Witness!”

At the mention of their names, the crowd screamed louder than they had for any of the other band members. Max bowed low to the ground, his long dreadlocks brushing against the wooden stage beneath him. I watched Dean clap his hands and laugh before he raised his microphone and said, “Deaf Havana, everyone! Best performance yet; agree?”

The crowd cheered and whooped and I laughed when James punched Dean hard in the arm, slinging his guitar off of his shoulder afterwards and standing it against the nearest wall to him. Ryan announced Alexisonfire – who, I hate to say, would have a hard time living up to that – and the stage dispersed quickly. Jake appeared, leaning against the wall beside my amp and grinned when I looked at him, giving me a hug.

“That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” I laughed.

“It was pretty fantastic,” he said, bouncing on the balls of his feet a bit. “I’m sorry I missed it; I had to get Edie to Daniel so he could get her into bed.”

Jake offered to stay for five more minutes, to help me replace all of the water bottles on the stage before Alexisonfire came on. He disappeared shortly after the set began to check on his daughter, leaving me sat on the amp again. I sat through the entire set and enjoyed the performance, making myself forget about everything else. Just as they came offstage, I got up to leave. I bumped into Jake on my way up to the staff room, and he walked me as far as the staircase leading to a balcony that overlooked the stage – where Georgia had been with a couple of the bands’ tour managers.

I collected my portfolio from my bag and made my way back downstairs, my heart beating in my chest as I walked through the almost empty main room and onto the stage. Lee and Chris were sitting together, legs dangling over the side of it as they talked to a couple of their fans. I tried to walk slowly to room eleven, a knot tying itself in my stomach. Unfortunately, I was there and knocking on the door in no time at all, the knot getting tighter and a lump forming in my throat – like it did whenever I was nervous.

God, I hoped they liked what I had.