Smoothies, Cigarettes, & Alcohol.

"Do you smell that?"

"... What?"

"The smell of sweaty people and lack of hygiene," Tino says dramatically, taking in another deep whiff of air, only prompting laughter from the five men in the band. The bus hadn't even properly parked itself into a parking spot at their first venue and of course Tino was already smelling the unhygienic nature of Warped Tour. Hell, Warped Tour hadn't even officially started yet.

The bus finally pulls to a stop – the bus driver's voice calling out from the front that they were allowed to leave. The guys are quick to abandon whatever had captured their attention for the time being, in favour of snatching up their sunglasses and then rushing (as best as they could on a goddamn bus) towards the door. Being stuck on a bus for hours on end makes one appreciate being outside a whole lot more, really.

Tino's the first to reach the door, pulling it open and then dramatically taking in a deep whiff of air. "Ahh," he sighs dramatically. "Smells like summer camp," he says dreamily, making the youngest amongst them snicker in amusement from behind him.

Alan shoves his mate forward, then, so that he stumbles forward and is off the bus. Tino raises his sunnies from the bridge of his nose to bring his narrowed gaze over to the ginger, only making the latter grin sheepishly whilst shrugging in mock innocence, "Was getting claustrophobic."

Aaron snorts from behind him and it's, apparently, his turn to shove the person in front of him forward – a.k.a. Alan tumbling forward and off the bus this time. "Didn't even know you knew the word claustrophobic."

They love each other, really.

"Contrary to popular belief, I'm actually not that stupid. Huh. Funny," Alan mocks, flipping Aaron off as a punctuation for his sentence.

Austin snorts then. There's a lot of mocking snorts going on, Alan realises. How they were in a band together and able to not kill each other for months on end was a mystery to him, honestly. "Children, children," he calls dramatically, "Don't fight. It's our first day of – wait, it's not even the first day and you guys are already fighting. Stop."

"Alri', sorry, mum."

"Damn right you're sorry," Austin sasses with an over exaggerated roll of his eyes, making the others laugh.

"C'mon," Phil grins then, slinging an arm around the ginger's shoulders. "Let's go find our tent."

Warped grounds are always massive, and this year's no exception. The two main stages were already set up and the men of Of Mice & Men could see the roadies working on setting up the smaller stages. A large majority of tents for the bands were also already set up – Of Mice's tent ending up beside Bring Me The Horizon's – a couple members of the aforementioned band sat chilling under their tent with bottles of water in hand. The multiple portable toilets – a.k.a. the place that no living creature would dare step into after a long day at Warped, no matter how bad they may have needed a wee – were lined up side by side, and the large tent for catering not far away (though far enough from the portable toilets).

The members of the band end up getting separated on their little adventure around the ground. But it honestly didn't matter, for that was the fun thing about Warped. It was basically a summer camp that was a hundred times dirtier and probably a thousand times more fun, considering the fact that you would get killer live music every day. And, like, even if it was your first time coming to Warped (which it definitely wasn't for Of Mice but still), you'd be okay because everyone was friends with everyone there and you helped each other out over there, even if you'd just met, like, two seconds prior.

As Alan continues to walk around the grounds, he bumps into multiple friends. Some from bands, some from crews, some just from the Warped tour itself, those people that worked to set the tents up and shite. He ends up having short catch-up sessions with each of them, whoever he bumps into and recognises, before they part ways again because they know that they'll see each other again in a few hours for the first barbecue dinner of the tour and also probably for the rest of the entirety of the tour.

Alan glances out at the horizon. The sun's shining brighter than ever, but it's due to set soon. Alan, being in his soppy mood, decides that he'll spend this time alone (not like he hasn't been alone for the past how many days, before the tour, but) and watch the sunset. He roams around the grounds a little longer, eventually finding this wooden banister thing – kind of like a railing – that was on raised ground and would give him a near to perfect view of the sunset.

Since the wooden banister-railing-type thing was beyond Warped grounds, it meant that he'd have to get through the plastic mesh fencing thing. Luck must've been on his side then since there was a large enough hole that he was he'd be able to squeeze into.

A couple of swear words later, he was through and with his bum planted on the wooden railing, back hunched in terrible, terrible posture, eyes hidden behind his sunnies that were locked onto the sun that was slowly descending and filling the sky with beautiful hues of orange and yellow and pink. The soft shutter of a camera makes him turn, a confused frown on his face. He's half expecting to see Adam (Elmakias) but he's instead met with the sight of a young woman, no older than himself probably, instead. She's clad in ripped black skinny jeans, full black Converse high-tops, a laminate hanging onto one of her front belt loops and a t-shirt with cuffed sleeves. One couldn't miss the large DSLR camera she's got in hand – the one that she's smiling at the screen of.

Mystery and probably a little creepy photographer girl looks up then, bright green eyes piercing into his own brown ones (that were hidden behind sunnies), "Sorry," she says with a little smile. "Couldn't resist. You're really photogenic," she shrugs her shoulders lightly, an accent that most definitely wasn't American rolling off of her tongue. Sounded English. Could even be Australian, because lord knows Alan's shit at telling accents apart.

Alan raises a brow at her statement, giving her an unsure half-smile, "Um. Thanks. I think."

"It's a compliment, mate," she reassures him, smile still in place. She gestures to the empty spot next to him then, "Mind if I join you?"

"Uh...," he shrugs, "Sure," he ends up saying as he turns back to look at the sun setting again. True, he wanted the time alone, but it would've been proper rude of him to just ask her sod off, wouldn't it?

The corner of his lips turn up as he hears her swearing under her breath. He glances over his shoulder, biting on his bottom lip to keep the chuckles at bay as he takes in the sight of the girl frowning at her laminate and cursing it for "being a stubborn bitch" since it somehow got hooked onto the fencing. He shakes his head lightly in amusement, though he turns back to his view. He could help her, but pretty sunset.

She makes it through eventually, but he barely hears her as she settles down beside him – though not too near for it to be weird neither too far for it to be well awkward. He doesn't look at her though, because he's too preoccupied with the thoughts in his mind. It's what he does best and one day, it's going to be his downfall – he knows this but he just can't stop thinking. He can't help but feel just a tad bit proud of himself, honestly. He'd (sort of) gotten over Maddie, and he didn't have to turn into some man-whore for it to happen.

But... then again, he still wasn't fully over her, was he?

If he was, he wouldn't think of her when he can't sleep, he wouldn't be beating himself up over how much he fucking misses her, he wouldn't think about how things could've been different if he'd tried harder, or maybe if he wasn't even in the band. Although, he did meet Maddie at a local, low-key show, so maybe they wouldn't even have met if Alan wasn't in the line of profession that he was currently in.

Alan liked to believe that everything happened for a reason, because they did, didn't they? Every good thing, every bad thing. But, like, he's searched and searched and fucking searched and he still cannot find that one particular reason as to why that happened.

He shakes his head, as though the physical action could literally throw out the thoughts in his mind. It works, sort of. He glances at the girl sat next to him from the corner of his eyes. She's got her camera pointed towards the horizon and he can hear the multiple snaps she's taking of it. Alan had his own fancy-schmancy camera but he'd left it back at the bus. He'd have to ask for some of those pictures or summat, because he doesn't know when's the next time things would be hectic at Warped and he'd be able to just sit and do this. A light breeze blows through the area – making her pin straight, pastel pink hair blow in the wind. She scrunches her nose up in annoyance as her hair goes all over her face, and he's almost tempted to smile because of it.

Then he found himself wondering if she'd gone through heartbreak. Not just any heartbreak, either, but, like, a bad one – as bad as his. So maybe his heartbreak really wasn't as bad as he was making it out to be, but to him... To him it was the worst thing in the whole goddamn world. He'd only ever properly loved one women and to have her break his heart and just give up on him so easily... Jesus fucking Christ. It hurt.

His brown eyes dart back to the horizon as the sun slowly descends, finally going out of sight and enveloping them in semi darkness.

The silence, accompanied by the sound coming from the crickets, surround them afterwards. Neither of them make a move to leave, but neither of them make a move to initiate conversation with the other.

Alan clears his throat finally, making her turn to look at him, a little startled expression on her face. "We should probably, um. Head back. Go to the barbecue," he says with an awkward grin, pulling off his sunnies and then ruffling his hair with his hands.

She smiles, "'ve heard that the barbecues are one of the best things about Warped," she chuckles softly, getting to her feet and slinging her camera across her chest, over her shoulder, then watching as Alan did the same – getting off the railing thing and to his feet.

"First time?"

She nods, then goes to start crawling through the fence. Nothing gets caught up this time. Alan crawls through next and when he's cleared through, she smiles, "M'afraid I might die."

"You'll be fine. Just, like. Drink lots of water and... yeah. That's about it. Drink lots of water and make loads of friends because some people have connections you might need," Alan half-jokes with a laugh, earning a light chuckle from her. "So you're an official photographer, or something?"

"Yeah," she nods again, still smiling. She's got a nice smile, he'll admit to that. "What band are you in? Or, like. What band do you work for? Or are you one of the Warped roadies?"

Alan laughs lightly, "M'in Of Mice & Men," he smiles back at her. She makes a sound of familiarity at the band's name and his smile widens a little more. "I'm, uh. Alan, by the way."

"Haven."

"Cool name."

"Thanks," Haven grins then, "Got it for my birthday."

Alan laughs, "Same."

"Well, I'll see you around, then."

Alan nods, "Yeah. Uh. See ya."

And if, for a brief moment, Alan has this weird hallucination that it's actually Maddie who he's watching walk away instead of Haven, then, well. No one has to ever find out. (He's not going crazy, he swears he's not.)


"There he is!" Jack (Barakat) yells drunkenly, grin as wide as ever as Alan approaches the group of them sat huddled together, all with bottles of beer in hand.

Alan chuckles, letting himself be hauled into a bear hug by the skunk-haired male, "Hey, man. Alright?"

"Fucking fantastic!"

"How much has he drunk?" Alan laughs, unwrapping his arm from around the elder's shoulders. He slides his gaze around the group, to anyone who might've been watching drunk off his arse Jack interact with him, for an answer.

"We did shots of tequila before we even got here so... a lot. He's drank a lot," Rian laughs as he pulls a bottle out of the cooler and hands it over to the ginger, who accepts it with a grin, a nod, and a "thanks."

"I say," Jack hiccups, lifting his bottle in the air. "– we propose a toast!" He slurs, letting his arm linger in the air as he, presumably, ponders over what he wants to toast to. "To alcohol!" Of course that's what he proposes to.

"To... To playing amazing, kick arse shows," Austin grins next, playing along with the whole 'toast proposing' thing.

"To meeting as many fans as possible," Rian chimes in next.

"To getting the crowd to chant my name for one," Tino butts in, smirking when they laugh.

"To not passing out on stage. Or off stage," Jenna (McDougall) adds as an afterthought, laughing.

"To... To Warped tour," Vic (Fuentes) beams then, lifting his bottle in the air slightly.

They all turn to Alan then, since he's the only one left who hasn't proposed a toast to anything. Alan's eyes dart down to his feet for a moment as his teeth nibble onto his bottom lip. And when he looks up again, he's got a weak smile playing along his lips. He lifts up his bottle, nodding once, "To moving on and letting go," he finally says, earning confused glances from his mates but expressions that almost look proud from his bandmates.

"Let us cheers to this, my friends."