All My Heart

(n.) the experiences, positive or negative, that we feel most deeply and through which we truly live; not mere experiences but experiences.

-

1st July 2012
Houston, Texas

"Howdy there, ma'am."

"Please stop."

"Howdy."

"Dan."

"How-fucking-dy."

"Oh my, God," Aria finally spluttered out, letting herself erupt into laughter at the ridiculousness of her best mate, shaking her head as he pouted at her, pulling the most offended look on his face though the corners of his lips were twitching – almost pulling up into a massive grin.

"Ma'am, are ya makin' fun of my accent?" Dan asked incredulously, bringing a hand to his heart in offence, still putting on the Southern accent that he thought was so good but was really... Not. It was terrible. Offensive to the people with the Southern accents, even.

Aria didn't say anything, only opting to stare at him with a raised eyebrow. He stared back at her – keeping a straight face, till the both of them couldn't take it and ended up in fits of laughter. They didn't even know what they were laughing at. They'd be willing to bet that it was because of the weather.

Summer in America and summer in England were two completely different things. They didn't even want to think what summer would be like in Australia, since neither of them had been whilst it was summer.

When they eventually calmed down, Dan grinned over at the younger girl. "You up for an adventure after our set?" He asked, waggling his eyebrows in her direction.

"Where to?" Aria asked, raising an eyebrow.

He shrugged a shoulder, "Anywhere we want to."

"Bus call's at midnight," she pointed out.

Dan rolled his eyes, "Exactly. Midnight. We're playing in an hour, and it's, like, half two in the afternoon now. That's plenty of time."

The younger narrowed her eyes over at him, "Well, where'd you want to go?"

"It's an adventure, love. We'll go wherever the fuck we want to."

-----

Aria blew out a breath between her lips and slid on her sunnies the moment she stepped out of the confines of the tour bus. You Me At Six had already played their set and they were amazing, as they always were. She'd been side-stage for the entire set, and since the guys had a quick signing afterwards, Aria had opted to head back into the bus. Dan had told her to get ready for their 'adventure' so she'd opted to changed out of her sweaty vest top into a different vest top – though this was dry and not sticking to her skin just yet.

"England!" A male voice called out and Aria turned in the the direction of the voice, lips falling into a smile as her eyes landed on the shirtless ginger with the cat tattoo walking towards her with a grin on his face.

"Pretty princess!" She called back, which earned a groan from the ginger and a laugh from her.

The first night she'd joined YMAS on Warped, about a week and a half ago, Alan (Ashby) had tried to hit on her. But that backfired massively since he was pissed drunk and possibly a little high which led to how he'd messed up his chat-up line. He had meant to say 'come join me in my bunk. It's called a ginger palace and you could be my queen.' It was a pretty smooth line, even she agreed on that. But due to the alcohol and drugs swimming in his system, the line that had come out was 'my bunk is called the ginger palace because I'm a pretty princess.'

That line didn't do him any good. Got him a new friend in Aria, though. However, even if he'd got the line out properly, she probably wouldn't have given him a second look. Then again, it was a good thing that he'd messed up because he sort of had a girl already and they'd had a fight, thus why he had gotten ridiculously drunk that night.

"Where are you headed to?" He asked, opening his palm to her and wiggling his fingers, signalling that he wanted her hand.

She placed her hand in his, letting him lead her over to under a large tree. "Dunno," she shrugged her shoulders. "Dan reckons we need to go on an adventure," she mocked and he chuckled, moving so that he was sat on the grass with his back leaning against the bark of the tree and motioning for her to do the same. "You alright?"

Alan smiled at her, shrugging a bit. "Yeah, kind of, I guess." She said nothing, just looking at him. They'd become close over a short period of time and she trusted him, as did he trust her. Alan, though rather closed-off about his emotions, actually trusted Aria enough to tell her things that he wouldn't tell anyone else. "The other English person and I got into another argument."

The other English person being the girl that he was sort of with. He hadn't properly asked for her to be his girlfriend, but it was an unspoken agreement between the two that they were kind of together and shouldn't hook up with anyone else. "S'my fault, really, and I apologised and she says she's forgiven me but it's like she's avoiding me now."

"So talk to her. Ask her what's wrong. Tell her you're sorry for whatever you did," Aria shrugged a shoulder.

"S'not that easy, Ari," Alan shot a lazy smile at the younger. "I wish it was, but it's not."

"Why not?" She asked, raising a brow as her eyes darted over to the pink-haired girl in cut offs and a loose vest top, camera hanging around her neck, watching the two with a slightly cocked head. Aria offered the girl a small smile when Alan was focused on picking at his skinny jeans and the pink-haired girl returned it.

"I messed up. I'm dumb. I actually really fucking like her, but, like, I keep messing things up because I'm so scared and – " he cut himself off with a sigh.

"You could just tell me, you know," the pink-haired girl spoke, a couple of feet away from where the two were sat and Alan jumped; head snapping up to look at her before he was scrambling to get to his feet.

"Haven," he breathed out.

Haven blinked at him, tongue darting out to dampen her dry lips. "I'm scared, too, you know," she said softly, voice carrying in the slight breeze that blew through the area.

Alan took a step or two forward to her and Aria took that moment to turn around and walk away. Let the two work their problems out. Honestly, Haven was a nice girl – from the two or three conversations she and Aria had had – and Alan was proper smitten with her, despite trying to deny it whenever Aria pointed it out. She walked back to the bus, since that was where Dan had told her to wait, only to see the door open and the man himself step out, looking in different directions; presumably looking for her.

His eyes must've landed on her for he broke out into a grin and started towards her. "Where'd you run off to?"

"Chatted with Alan for a bit," she said.

"Ashby?"

"Do you know any others?" Aria shot back with a laugh and Dan scoffed, bringing an arm around her shoulder. "So where are we going?"

"On an adventure."

***

6th May 2013
Denver, CO

Dan never thought he'd be more than happy to wake up to a face full of hair and a numb arm. He'd fallen asleep whilst spooning Aria before, yeah, but throughout the night, they'd eventually separate. And when he's with his one-night-stands, he never usually sticks around long enough to actually fall asleep with the woman he'd just had sex with.

On the rare occasion that he did spend the night at their house and stay spooning them the entire way, he'd be completely disgruntled with how his arm's sore and how he got hair in his mouth.

But when it's Aria... He likes the fact that his arm is numb because that meant that she stayed cuddled up to him the entire night, not moving away from him. He doesn't mind the hair that's in his face as much because her hair always smells nice.

He tightened the arm that he's got around her middle, moving his head forward so that his nose is brushing the back of her neck. She woke up from his movement, making small noises of discontent at the back of her throat before she was trying to get out of his hold. That only makes Dan hold onto her tighter, a lazy smile painted on his lips as he places kisses to her skin.

"G'morning, love," Dan mumbled into her ear, loosening his arm around her middle so that she could turn to face him.

Her eyelids, still heavy with sleep, manage to open the slightest bit before she's shutting them again and moving closer to him so that she's got her forehead tucked into his collarbone. Dan breathed a laugh, running his finger through her hair. He dragged his lips along the shell of her ear, "Wake up," he breathed softly.

"No," she groaned, "M'sleepy."

"Don't care," he mocked and she bit at his skin, earning a yelp of surprise from the elder before he laughed lightly. "Kinky in the morning, aye? Noted."

"Piss off," Aria laughed, rolling away and rubbing at her eyes as she propped herself up on her elbows. "What time is it?"

Dan shrugged, reaching out to grab his phone from where it had slid between the mattress and the side of the bunk. "Half ten," he read, then he darted his eyes back down to the girl in his arms. "Come on. Get up."

"Why?" Aria whined, pouting at him and pulling the most adorable face.

But Dan screwed his eyes shut, pushing her face away from him with his lips in a straight line. "Nope. Not gonna look at you. Nope. Not at all. Can't see you. All I see is darkness. I've gone temporarily blind."

"Dan,"

"Ari,"

The girl in question laughed, shaking her head and then dropping it down onto his shoulder. "Why do we 'ave to get up?"

"Because we have to get up eventually," he spoke monotonously and she hummed a 'good point' under her breath, earning a smirk from the elder. "And I wanna go walk around before soundcheck. Come onnn."

"Fine," she drawled out through a sigh, slowly unwrapping her arms around him and sitting up as bed as she could while in the bunks. "Where even are we?"

Dan pursed his lips, "Somewhere in... America..."

She snorted, "Yeah, no shit. Thought we drove to Edinburgh overnight, from Wisconsin."

"Can you even drive from Wisconsin to Edinburgh?"

"What do you think?"

"... Yes?"

"See..." Aria smiled at him and then patted his head in a patronising manner, making the elder laugh as he swatted her hand away. "This is why you're in a band."

"Dickhead," he scoffed. "No but like, driving and then taking like a few hundred ferries or something. Oh wait! I know!" Dan grinned excitedly and Aria raised a brow. "You can drive to the airport to get a flight to Edinburgh from Wisconsin," he grinned a completely shit-eating grin.

That was all it took for Aria to slump back down onto the pillows, hands covering her face as she tried to stifle her laughter so that she didn't disturb the other guys who might've still been asleep. Dan was laughing, too, though he wasn't trying to quieten himself. He didn't really give a shit if he woke them up. They'd gotten him drunk before and then woken him up with yelling the next day. So basically, fuck them and their 'beauty rest'.

He pried her hands away from her face, smiling down at her when he saw that she was still laughing lightly from behind her hands. A hand went to cup her cheek, thumb brushing small circles against her skin as he did so. Then they just smiled at each other.

"God," Dan mumbled ever so softly. "You're so beautiful," he whispered before he was leaning down, fully intent on kissing her.

Her small hands stopped him and she ducked her head down slightly, shaking it. "Morning breath," she mumbled.

"Don't care," he grinned before he was leaning down and pulling her top lip in between the both of his.

"I do," Aria mumbled with a small smile as she pulled away.

"I've been stopping myself from kissing you for so long now, and now that I actually can, I'm not going to deny myself that simple pleasure. So shut up and let me kiss you."

And that was all Dan really had to say before she was the one leaning up to kiss him on the mouth and he was kissing her back, his lips curling up into a smile as they kissed and kissed and kissed – tender touches and the soft sounds of lips smacking each other; welcoming the morning and the day that lay ahead of them.

It was just a simple exchange – the young man declaring that he didn't care about the little things like morning breath and the young woman realising how in love she was with this man that she realised that she didn't care about his morning breath as much as she probably should have, either. That was coming from someone who had a thing against morning breath; no matter who it was.

Love. It did strange things to people, didn't it?