As Long as You're Around, I'll be Safe and Sound

“Fuck you,” Sam screams as she walks through the bus to the bathroom, she would storm off the bus but would rather not present herself to the other bands in the booty shorts and tank top she slept in.
“It’s not my fault your boyfriend dumped you,” Owen laughs because he’s an asshole
“Shut the fuck up Owen, nobody wants to hear what you have to say.” Josh spits as he follows Sam through the bus to find her pulling clothes out of her bag
“Ignore him, he’s a prick,” he says placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. The mixture of being violently dumped via text message and Owen’s harsh words had forced her to the verge of tears, and Sam hates to cry. She doesn’t even know how he found out.
“I just need to cool down before I hit him.” She mumbles
“You’d have to beat me to it,” Josh laughs to lighten her mood and it works slightly because the corners of her lips turn up as she pictures the scene, there isn’t much she’d like to see more
“I’ll see you on stage, I’m not coming back before that,” she says as she brushes past her best friend and into the bathroom.

Leaning over the sink she takes deep breaths. He’s not worth it. She tells herself, because doing anything to him would be giving him the satisfaction, and that was something she wasn’t going to do. She changes into black skinny jeans and a plain white shirt which was the first she’d picked up and luckily it’s clean. She takes one final deep breath and steels herself as she walks back through the bus
“Never could manage our temper could we sweetie,” Owen purrs as she stalks through the lounge of the bus
“Piss off Owen.” She hisses
“You should really stop using that language, it doesn’t suit you,” he smirks
“I really couldn’t care less,” she tells him as she walks past
“No wonder he dumped you, you’re always so worked up, relax a little” Owen had a funny way of crawling under people’s skin, and he found it especially easy, and entertaining, to crawl deep under Sam’s
“Fuck off.” Is all she can get out because the tears are so close to edge of her eyes, she’s about to step off the bus when Owen continues
“You’d better get used to being single because no one in their right mind would be with you, look at yourself. Your life’s a mess.” He laughs and that’s the final push she needs to get the tears coming. She runs off the bus, slamming the door shut behind her.

She’s curled up on a random patch of grass around the back of Jack’s bus when he first sees her, Sam is a naturally independent person, she hates relying on people and trust doesn’t come easily for her; some people say she’s antisocial or just not a nice person but they’re lying, she has a good heart it’s just hard to get to. Jack on the other hand is the most social any one person can get, friends with anyone and everyone, he’s always happy and the girl who’s curled up in a ball round the back of his bus, clutching her legs to her chest has caught his attention.
“Hi,” he says as he sits beside her, she says nothing but silently wishes she’d found a place further away from people, especially ones that would try to talk to her.
“Are you crying?” Jack asks, his thick eyebrows knitting together. People shouldn’t cry; a fact that Jack has lived his life by from a very young age. Sam just turns her head away so this strange boy can’t see her tears
“You are! Why are you crying?” he demands and leans round to try and look at her face, she just turns further and essentially has her back turned to him now. Jack continues anyway
“You’re at Warped, girl! You’re supposed to have fun! Awesome bands, hot weather and hot girls, even though you probably don’t appreciate that as much as I do, but still!” he grins and she lets out a small laugh at his enthusiasm, he has this air about him that just makes her want to laugh, not at him, but with him.
“Now that I got you to smile, will you tell me why you’re crying?” and suddenly she wishes he would leave her alone again, but of course she doesn’t tell him that and decides to just stay silent.
“Just go watch a band, any band. Doesn’t matter if they’re the one you came to see, I promise you getting lost in it will help, if it doesn’t you can come and beat me up,” he says with a smile.
“I’m not a fan.” She says so quietly Jack’s not sure she even said anything
“What?” he asks
“I’m not a fan, I- I’m in a band.” She says again, embarrassed that she had to repeat herself, and even had to say it in the first place
“Oh,” Jack says, realising how stupid his mistake must have made him look, the fact they were in the bands only section of the venue completely slipping his mind, but then his grin grows because he got her to talk, and talking’s better than not talking.

“What band?” he asks and she doesn’t move her eyes from the ground
“Aftershock,” she says in the same quiet voice as before, only now Jack’s listening out for it so he hears her.
“What do you do?” he smiles at the progress
“I play guitar and sing a bit” Jack thinks this is really, really cool
“That’s cool,” he smiles; he likes to speak his mind.
“What’s your name?” he asks then because it’s the logical thing to ask next.
“Sam” she tells him and then realises that the strange boy who genuinely seems quite interested in her knows more about her than she does about him.
“What about you?” she asks, verging on urgently
“I’m Jack, I’m 20 years old and I play guitar in the band All Time Low,” Jack replies, determined to keep her talking
“Cool,” she returns the response
“You’re not crying anymore.” Jack states with a smug grin. Sam has to put her fingers to her eyes to realise that Jack’s right, her eyes are dry; she lets out a small laugh and smiles up at Jack whose big brown eyes look straight back into her blue ones
“Apparently not,”
“But why were you crying in the first place? You know who I am now so there’s no reason not to tell me,” To Jack, his reasoning is sound, to Sam its bullshit. She decides however that he’s being too nice to her to blank him completely and shakes her head as compromise.
“Why not? I’m a good guy,” he grins because he’s made more progress
“Because it’s stupid,” she says in an attempt to get him to drop the subject, a part of her doesn’t want him to leave anymore though, a small part that’s actually enjoying his company.
“How about this, you tell me and I’ll tell you a story that’s equally or more stupid. If I don’t have one then you win and I’ll buy you pizza or something” he smiled, nudging her with his shoulder in a way that was almost comforting to Sam. When she didn’t say anything Jack revised his plan
“Or we could get pizza now, and then you tell me” there was another pause and Jack just looked at her, awaiting an answer
“Why are you so determined to know?” she asked in the strongest voice he’d heard her use, which was still weak by most standards
“Because it made you cry, and you’re too pretty to cry,” Sam smiles a little and blushes at the compliment and Jack smiles at the way her cheeks colour light pink. When she doesn’t say anything Jack continues
“Come one, let me get you some pizza” he smiled, nudging her should with his own
“Okay” she murmured because she figured it wasn’t often you experience this kind of genuine kindness, and Jack doesn’t seem like the sort to take advantage of a crying girl. It's only when they both stand that the height gap becomes really noticeable, Sam just reaching Jack’s shoulder. She isn’t even that short for a girl; standing at five feet six, she’s just about average but Jack, eight inches taller, is above average and stands at six feet two. Neither mention it, because neither really notice it, Jack’s always been tall and Sam is used to being around Josh who’s at least six feet tall.
“There’s a stall thing near here that sells the best pizza ever, as soon as you eat it you’ll never be the same again. I’m a changed man since my first time.” He tells her as he leads the way into the public area of the venue, she giggles at his seriousness

“So,” he begins with a smile as they walk “have you ever played Warped tour before?” he asks, glancing back at her as much as he can while still managing to keep an eye on where he is and where he’s heading
“No” she answers simply but truthfully and Jack nods. When he realises he isn’t going to get much more out of her, he continues
“We played back in 2007, god it was tough then. We didn’t have as big a fan base, so we had to walk round and convince people just to come and watch us to make it look like we had a crowd, and we had to sell a ridiculous number of CDs everyday just to cover the cost.”
That’s how they go on, Jack asking a question which Sam answers, then Jack talks for a while until he thinks of another question. Sam likes talking to him like this, learning about him without really having to give opinions like most people would expect her to. Jack’s also content with just talking to her, as long as she keeps smiling at his words and giggling at his jokes like she is. They eventually reach the stall and it’s quiet because it’s away from all the main stages and Jack is secretly rejoicing that a fan hasn’t found them because he really is enjoying talking with her, or to her. He buys a slice of pepperoni pizza for himself and a plain one for Sam, she does go to protest against him paying but remembers that she doesn’t have any money on her, and Jack has already ordered so he has to pay now, and that has her blushing again which has Jack smiling again. They eat as they walk back somewhere without fans which cuts off the conversation though it’s not quite awkward, it almost is but neither want it to be so it’s not. Also, Jack hasn’t had this pizza since he came to warped as a fan when he was like sixteen and it had nearly made his day when he’d found the stall on the map and then made his week when he tasted that it was just as good as he’d remembered.

The two guitarists find a little mound of grass in the car park that’s free of other band members and sit. This time Sam doesn’t turn away from him, instead sitting with her body slightly turned to him. She doesn’t even notice. They eat quietly for a few minutes as Jack finishes of his slice, Sam still barely half way through hers.
“I told you it was good pizza” he grins when he spots her smiling down at it, but she’s not smiling because of the pizza, even though it is good. She’s smiling because she can’t help it, she likes Jack’s company.
“Who else is in your band?” he asks and he knows this question needs an answer more than one word, and that’s exactly what he’s hoping for
“Josh sings and plays bass and Owen plays drums” he doesn’t miss the look in her eyes when she mentions Owen but he doesn’t quite understand what it means so he files it away somewhere in the back of his mind with the intent of figuring it out later, though it’s more likely that he’ll actually just forget all about it by the next morning.
“What about you?” she adds because she wants to be polite
“Alex sings and plays guitar, Zack plays bass and Rian drums. We’ve been a band for about five years now” he tells her and she nods in approval.

When he’s comfortable he’s got her talking in full sentences, pizza plates discarded to the side, he asks her
“So what were you crying about before?” he smiles a little and hopes to make it seem like he’s not thinking lightly of the subject, but also not pressuring her into answering if she doesn’t want to. Her eyes break from Jack’s and she looks at the ground for a few moments, drawing her knees up to her chest before speaking
“My boyfriend dumped me this morning” it’s not the full story, she hadn’t been crying over that, because she’d known that relationship was over a while ago, he was an old friend of hers and they’d hooked up for no real reason and kind of just mindlessly followed through with it for a few months. She was crying over what Owen had said to her, what he always said to her though she doesn’t want to tell Jack that because that’s the stupid part.
“That’s not stupid, Sam.” He says in a serious tone now “it’s okay to be upset when you break up with someone, it can be really hard”
“I guess” she shrugs and that’s all they say on the subject. Jack swiftly moves on to other topics of conversation that have Sam smiling and even occasionally laughing.

They keep talking for what feels like ten minutes but is actually more like an hour and now the conversation is less one sided, Jack is still doing most of the talking and Sam most of the listening but now she’s giving longer answers and asking question of her own. It only ends when Jack gets a phone call from Danny asking him where the hell he is and why he wasn’t at their stage five minutes ago. Jack swear multiple times before getting up as he pockets his phone
“I totally lost track of time, I need to go play my set now” he laughs a little, looking down at her with a goofy grin that she kind of likes and she’s not sure why
“It’s okay” she smiles back because she feels a little bit like he’s apologising to her
“See you around?” he phrases it like a question, he’s sort of asking permission to talk to her if he does indeed see her around and asking her to talk to him again at the same time. Sam likes that thought.
“Yeah” she answers simply because she’s not one to ever say to much and he just smiles at her for a moment before turning away and heading for where he’s actually supposed to be.