A Tale of Outer Suburbia

[003]

"Hey man," a hand claps Alex on the shoulder, causing him to look up. Alex Shelnutt grins at him. "You done partying?"

Alex cracks a small smile, tilting the beer bottle over in the other Alex's direction, "Not in the mood, surprisingly."

"What?" Alex Shelnutt laughs. "I thought All Time Low was only known for two things: bras on Jack's mic stand and being avid partiers," he jokes and Alex chuckles, shaking his head in amusement.

"And while that is completely true..." Alex jokes and the other Alex snickers. "I just, I dunno. Not in the mood, I guess."

"First night was a success though. Things can only get better from here, right?" Alex Shelnutt grins again, tilting his beer bottle towards Alex with a raised eyebrow, before he's clapping the other on the back and walking back to the other guys.

"I sure as hell hope things won't get any worse," Alex mumbles to himself, bringing the beer bottle up to his lips and taking a massive swig from it.


Alex buries his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he walks. He's going back to the bus even though bus call isn't till two a.m., and it's strange, because he's usually the one cutting it close. He and Jack – they're the two constantly coming in at one fifty a.m. and effectively giving Flyzik headaches because of their close calls.

He knows that everyone else is inside, at the pub that the whole group of rockstars and crew members had basically taken over. Even the bus drivers are in there. They're all partying it up (the bus drivers are probably just getting something to eat and having some sodas because they have to drive) because it's the first official night of tour and they didn't mess anything up.

Alex should be in there, too, drinking and laughing and having a grand ole time. But he just wants to be alone.

Well, not exactly.

He wants to be alone, left to his thoughts, but he wants to have the physical presence of someone else with him while he does that. Someone that he can just chill with, not say anything and be complete content with the silence that surrounds them. And then he's back to thinking about Zooey. Whoop-dee-fucking-do.

"Gaskarth!"

Alex's head snaps up, looking left and right for where the voice is coming from. There's a whistle then and he follows his ears towards the sound. His eyes finally find the source of the sound – the silhouette of a female on the roof of a bus. Alex walks towards her and the moonlight illuminates her fact, making him crack the smallest of smiles. Nix has got her legs dangling over the edge and she waves back at him with a small smile when he raises his hand in acknowledgement of her.

"Hey," he calls up in greeting. "What are you doing up there? How come you're not inside?"

"Is exactly what I wanted to ask you," she calls back down. "It's not even eleven. How come you're already going back to the bus?"

Alex shrugs his shoulders, "Didn't feel like partying."

"Understandable," she nods.

"Your turn."

"Tour manager," she says with a weak smile.

Alex doesn't say anything; just looks at her. Observes her again – like he did the night before. He can't really see her face but he can see that she's hiding something. She's not not partying because she's the tour manager and has got to make sure that everything's set for the next day. His tongue darts out to run across the length of his top lip.

"Got room for one more up there?" He calls up instead, smiling at her.

"Yeah, sure," Nix responds after a brief pause. "Door's unlocked."

Alex flashes her a thumbs up before he's making his way into PTV's bus. The inside's the same as most tour bus so it's not anything unfamiliar. He goes to the back lounge, knowing that there's some kind of door that can be opened and given access to the roof. It would honestly make more sense if there was a ladder or something attached to the outside of the bus, to get to the roof, but then again, they would most likely get those overenthusiastic fans hanging onto the ladder just so they can stalk the band, or whatever.

He seats himself on the roof next to her – knees bent and arms hugging them to his chest. "S'nice up here," he mumbles quietly, eyes taking in the star-littered sky above them.

"Yeah," Nix mumbles in agreement.

"So..." he trails off.

She turns to look at him, eyebrows knotted together lightly, "What?"

"Why are you really not inside there?" He asks, a thick eyebrow arched.

She blinks at him, "I've told you why."

"That's not it," Alex shakes his head, eyeing her. "There's something else," he insists. "So what is it?"

"Why are all your smiles fake?" Nix asks evenly.

Alex just stares at her then. Stares at her. Dead in the eye. Wondering again, how could she be the only one to see right through his mask? His tongue darts out to dampen his suddenly dry lips and his tongue scrapes across his bottom lip. The lip's rolled into his mouth as he nibbles on it, looking at her. She doesn't waver – just looking right back at him.

He opens his mouth to say something, but he decides against it at the last minute. So his mouth just opens and closes his mouth, eye contact with her still staying strong. "I – " he starts, then he pauses. "I'm fine."

Nix gives him a half-smile, finally dropping their eye contact. "I never asked if you were," she says so quietly – almost like it wasn't meant for him to be heard – in response but due to the silence of the night, he hears it clearly.

Alex opens his mouth, ready to say something because that's who he is. Perhaps it was a bit childish, but he likes having the last word. Likes to defend himself, or prove someone wrong, or prove whatever someone had said about him wrong.

"I'm not asking you to spill your guts out to me, or anything like that," Nix cuts him off before he's able to say anything. She turns to look at him, "But if you're entitled to keep your thoughts to yourself, to lie to everyone about how you're completely fine when you're absolutely not, then... Why can't I?"


Nix narrows her eyes over at the four Mexican men who were grinning at her. They're being difficult on purpose, she knows they are. She'd been repeating the same piece of instruction about three times now, all phrased differently and they were still being little shits about the instructions she was giving them.

"I – fuck," she groans, kicking at a chair in the dressing room. Only, her sneakers wasn't tied properly, so it flew off as she did so, making her groan and making the grown men in the band she worked for, as well as the other band/crew members in the room, laugh at her flying shoe. "Dicks," she pouts her bottom lip, walking over to retrieve the shoe before slipping it on and tying the laces properly this time.

"Wait, what are we supposed to do?" Tony asks in a complete feigned innocent tone and the others echo his question.

Tony seems like the angel of them all, but he's really not. He's just shy in front of strangers but other than that, he's quite the asshole. A nice one, though, not those genuinely asshole-ish assholes.

"What's happening here?" Alex laughs from the doorway of the dressing room, eyes taking in the sight of the blonde throwing her hands up in exasperation and the other guys all just snickering to themselves.

"Nix is tryna tell us what to do for the show, but she's not saying it very clearly," Vic pulls his lips up into a shit-eating grin and the other guffaw to themselves.

"You guys are going on at like, seven. It's – " Alex pulls out his phone, pressing down on the home button. "– four twelve now."

"Ohhh," the chime in unison, stifling their laughter.

"Nix, why couldn't you have just said that?" Jaime asks with a teasing smirk along his lips.

"Because you guys are fucking children. That's why. You're children." Nix huffs in exasperation throwing her hands up in the air as the Pierce the Veil guys let go of the laughter that they'd been holding in. "I'm here – " she pointed to herself, "– trying to run my shit, and you lot are being assholes and... I hate you all." She huffs, shaking her head with the beginnings of a grin curling at her lips.

"No you don't," Mike teases before he's wrapping his long arms around her waist and picking her up to spin her around, just for good measure.

"Please stop," Nix manages to say in between laughter, making Mike snicker as he sets her down. "Thank you," she rolls her eyes, smiling at them.

"Hey, uh, Whiskey?" Alex speaks again, earning her attention and the glances of the others in the room before they're minding their own business.

She turns to look at him with a raised eyebrow and a tilted lip, "Yeah?"

"Mind if I talk to you for a bit?" He asks hesitantly, a hand going to the back of his neck.

"Um... Sure..." she nods, following after him as he walks out of the room, fingers fiddling with each other as he walks.

Alex stops walking once they're in the corridor and he's sure that no one's going to randomly pop up. He turns, biting on his lip. "I, uh," he starts, hesitating. "You, uh, you look nice."

Nix subtly raises a brow, eyes darting down to her outfit. Nike Janoski's, a daisy printed denim overall dress and a white bustier top underneath that. Nothing so special that he's got to ask to speak to her just to say that she looks nice. "Thanks," Nix says anyway. "But we both know that's not what you want to say so... Out with it," she encourages with a small smile.

"I, uh," he sighs. "I wanna apologise. For last night," Alex clarifies when she looks a bit confused. "I didn't mean to, like, be rude or anything. I guess I'm, uh, kind of used to people wanting to, like, talk to me, you know? So I shouldn't have assumed that you'd want to tell me things, because you obviously didn't and that's understandable because I'm a complete stranger, right? And yeah, I mean, I don't know. I'm sorry. You're right – you're entitled to your privacy and I shouldn't have, like, been so forward and – "

"Alex," Nix cuts him off mid-ramble.

Alex freezes, eyes wide and cheeks flushing with colour as he looks at her. "Um..."

"It's fine," she says with another small smile. "Honestly. You don't have to, you know, apologise. You didn't do anything wrong, really." Because he really didn't. After she'd asked why couldn't she be allowed to keep to himself, they stayed silent – watching the night sky and remaining immersed in their own thoughts. Personally, she felt a little awkward whilst with him, but he didn't make a move to leave so she just continued to sit and think; probably doing the same thing he was doing.

Alex lets out a single, uncomfortable laugh. "So we're, uh, we're good?"

She nods, shrugging a shoulder. "We never were not good."