"it's such a shame, shame, shame.
you couldn't change,
look what it cost."

☆

narrator's pov
night of the first show
los angeles, ca

"you're overreacting." damien shook his head as he walked right alongside dahlia. the two led the group of instrumentalists behind them through the long hallway of their venue for the night. "he barely even looked at you."

"you were not paying attention." dahlia grumbled, eyes facing away from her brother after she ranted off about the events of about a week before. "i was standing in front of the stage with chris and when he walked in it was like.. it was like he was trying to get me to run over and punch him in the fucking face."

"he does have a pretty punchable face." eric chipped in, tucking his pair of drumsticks in his back pocket, after he'd been playing around with them in his hands for the last few minutes.

"don't feed into this, please." damien's light eyes turned behind his back. "none of us are gonna like him, lia." he focused back on his sister. "but you're gonna come out feeling like the better person if you just act decent to him. he'll feel like shit for being awful to you if you're cordial."

"yeah. uh. no. fuck that let your conscious be your guide bullshit, fawn." kurt added, shaking his head as the five of them reached the end of the hallway. he went ahead of the group and snatched the door handle, pulling it open harshly. "he's like, the douchey-ist of bags. treat him like that." he walked off having said what he needed to.

"no, don't do that." damien practically chased after kurt for his straight forward, cynical advice, leaving dahlia with eric and andrew.

"do whatever you want, lia." andrew slowly and gently approached her side. "i know you don't like to talk about all of the details with what happened there, but if you've held a grudge for this long, i think i know you well enough to say that it's probably for a valid reason. you shouldn't have to be nice to him. but i don't think stooping down to his level will make you feel any better, either."

"what he said." their gentle giant of a drummer pushed his glasses up, never really being one for words.

"thanks, guys." dahlia breathed in and out, folding her arms over each other and letting her eyes bounce around before they all approached the now open door to the large backstage area. both bands were visible from where they stood, gathered in little groups. she tilted her head towards andrew with eyes still forwards to the door.

"do you have anymore of that lavender shit we smoked the other day." she asked blankly without much expression to her voice, not trying to tell the entire world about her guitarist's drug supply.

"you're gonna make your brother hate me, kid." was all he said, grinning and shaking his head. he brought enough of a smile onto dahlia's face to get her to feel okay walking backstage. they quickly bumped their fists together, before taking the first few steps over the doorway and into the wide room.

the three walked on pace in a triangle, the two boys standing protectively behind dahlia as they carried themselves across the floor.

"hm." andrew muffled his laugh under his breath, trying not to be too obvious. "looks like you've got someone's attention." he grinned at the floor as he caught up with dahlia to mutter a little tip to her.

she lifted her chin up from looking at her shoes, immediately being caught in the same brown eyed spider webs she'd found herself in the day before. chris was standing across the room, leaned against the wall with his bandmates around him. the four others talked, but he couldn't seem to focus on anything but her.

she bit on her soft bottom lip and smiled sweetly, lifting her lightly tattooed hand to wave a little finger wave at him. he gave her a subtle peace sign back, grinning and quickly scanning her again before turning back to his band. they all made their way out onto the stage for their final rehearsal before the show tonight.

"tell me you're gonna do something about that." andrew's eyes widened once the two of them were far enough out of sight, hiding behind the storage for the spare and various key specific tuned guitars.

"if you think i'm gonna potentially embarrass the fuck out of myself trying to pursue chris motionless–" she kept her voice down when he pulled her to the side. "how do i know this isn't how he treats every girl he meets?"

"lia. that was not the 'you're attractive and i'm acknowledging that' look. that was the 'i'd like to take you back to my hotel room and eat you alive' look–" the guitar player's endlessly blunt nature came out with hesitation.

"okay, okay, okay." dahlia immediately jumped to speak overtop of him, blushing bright red at just the thought of it all. "i'm– listen. i'm here to play my music, make our fans happy and get paid. not to become some rockstar's entertainment for the next few months. if he talks to me, i will talk to him. but that's it."

"you're crushing my dreams for you, fawn." he said.

"i'm sure you'll get over it." she continued her strut away to catch up with her band. eric had left the two of them in the dust by that point. spotting them a little ways away, she pulled andrew along when she felt he was dragging his feet. what she hadn't noticed, though– was who was standing next to her drummer and bassist.

the two, rail thin and darkly dressed men from black veil brides who remained unnamed to her were already making conversation with her bandmates. she swallowed the fear in her throat and acted like it didn't mean anything to her, walking up to her brother.

"what're they doing over here." dahlia grumbled quietly to damien with her head hung low.

"hey." he stopped her, making her wonder when in their childhood he suddenly became the more morally responsible one. "they didn't do anything to you. be nice." her feet nearly slipped out from under her when he pushed her forward with a hand on the small of her back.

"oh my god." a male voice caught her attention, making her tense up and quickly turn her head. "i'm sorry. i mean, hi." he nervously spoke and messed with the mop of black hair on his head, looking down at her from his tall stature. "uh,"

"he's a big fan." the slightly shorter man with his light-the-room smile came to the side of his bandmate. he adjusted the dark bandana in his hair.

"of me?" dahlia hesitated, still not entirely used to the kind of attention she'd been getting for years as a musician.

"well, of your band." he stammered, but tried to laugh off how he must've sounded to himself. "but yeah."

"introduce yourself." his friend tapped two fingers against his tattooed arm, not so subtly whispering little instructions to him.

"oh, shit. yeah. i guess none of us really properly met, huh? i'm lonny." he held out his hand, dahlia accepting it for a little shake. "i'm bass for black veil brides. if you didn't already know that." he dropped his hand back to his side.

"no, i actually didn't." she replied, trying to make him feel at least a little less awkward about how formally he introduced himself. "i don't really know much about you guys at all, if i'm being honest." she explained in the nicest, but almost completely dishonest way possible.

"well in that case, i'm christian. drums. everyone calls me cc." he did the same, holding his hand out of dahlia to shake. without much warning, he leaned forward just a smidge and held her fingers up to his face like she was royalty. "but you can call me whatever you want, sweetheart."

"jesus. ignore him, please." a third, very similarly dressed man approached the conversation, pushing cc's arm away from her. "he hasn't seen a woman up this close in about two weeks." he jokingly glared at his bandmate. "i'm jake. and i play guitar, if you care." he shrugged with a touch of a smile on his lips, not really understanding this whole state your name and occupation thing his friends were doing. "i know you guys have been around for a bit, so i'm sure we've crossed paths and just haven't realized before." she swallowed hard at the sound of his seemingly harmless sentence. "our other guitarist should be somewhere around here."

"well, i'm dahlia. i, uh– i sing and stuff." she smiled and tucked a few strands of her platinum hair behind her ears, crossing her arms and dividing her eyes amongst all three of the men standing in front of her. she had quickly realized she had been left to her own devices, her band members scattered around the backstage.

"oh, we've heard about you." cc smirked.

"you have?" she hesitated, her brain immediately going to all of the worst case scenarios. has he been talking about me? there's no way they'd be being this nice if he has. maybe they're being sarcastic. fuck. her thoughts were suddenly running a marathon.

"lonny has not stopped talking about how we were gonna be on tour with you guys since the second we found out." the drummer replied with a chuckle, playfully punching the band's bassist in the arm.

dahlia's heart quickly settled. thank god, she thought, all while trying to play it cool on her face.

"i've just been following your guys' work for a while, is all. they make it sound like i stalk you or something, i'm sorry." lonny shook his head, clearly a bit embarrassed as he defended himself.

"don't sweat it." she turned her head slightly to the side to see who was around her before she spoke again. "if it makes you feel better, i'm honestly still working on getting used to being in such close proximity to chris and not acting like a freak." she leaned in to speak a little quieter, bringing a real smile back onto the shy bassist's lips.

"look who's finally decided to grace us with his presence." a fourth voice came from the open doorway that separated the hallway and the backstage space.

a slightly shorter man in a leather jacket walked in, looking straight to the three instrumentalists dahlia had been going back and forth with. along with him came the tall, slender figure she had been dreading seeing. stepping his loud, black boots into the room.

andy stared down at the phone he held to the side in his one hand, completely distracted as he entered the space with the rest of his tourmates. he immediately leaned against the brick wall next to the doorway, not bothering to look up.

"i can't deal with that anymore." the man he'd walked in with joined the group gathered around dahlia. "what're we doing over here?" he seemed eager to talk to literally anyone else but the lead singer that entered the room with him.

"we were just all introducing ourselves to the star of the show, over here." cc grinned, never taking too long to get warmed up to someone after he first met them, throwing his arm over dahlia's shoulder. jake almost immediately pulled him off, again.

"oh. hi, everyone calls me jinxx." the slightly more quiet guitarist smiled and took his hand out of his pocket to give dahlia a quick, friendly wave. "i've heard a lot about you guys over the years, it's weird we've never met. really excited to hear you in action." his genuine tone lightened the heaviness in the girl's chest for a moment.

"he's so fucking rude, i'm sorry." jake half-joked as he turned his eyes from andy to dahlia, immediately sending her heartbeat into a frenzy when she realized what was about to happen. "andy."

the singer's head shot up. his bright blue eyes seemed to darken as soon as they looked over the scene in front of him, blinking slowly. his chiseled face was completely blank, still holding his opened phone in the same position.

"come back to earth and come over here, please." jake innocently said, having no idea the fire he was about to ignite between the two singers.

andy chewed the skin on the inside of his cheek, even further exposing the tight, hollowed out look of his cheekbones. he put his phone away into his back pocket, pushing himself off of the wall and slowly making his way over.

dahlia's whole face went white; what seemed like a hundred times more than normal. she clenched her teeth behind her lips, straightening her back and trying to bring her body to a natural stance. nearly every part of her screamed to protect herself, appear vulnerable or look away; the rest urged her to just take off running.

she couldn't let herself listen to either of the voices in her head, taking every bit of nerve she had built up in her body to stand tall and confident. andy bit down hard on his bottom lip, immediately staring daggers at dahlia the moment their eyes aligned together. he was completely unmoving, taking this opportunity to intimidate her.

"yeah, like i said. rude." jake quickly said when he realized andy wasn't going to speak up for himself, despite knowing exactly what they all wanted him to do. "we were all just introducing ourselves to dahlia,"

"yeah, um. we know each other. are we done here?" andy spoke over his guitarist with a stern, disinterested tone in his deep, raspy voice.

"you guys know each other?" lonny jumped back into the conversation, half in disbelief that andy hadn't mentioned this to him sooner, half out of curiosity of how crass and instant his reply was. "since when?"

"since like, two thousand fucking eight. so if it's all the same to everyone, i have shit to do." his sarcastic sentence structure stayed the same. this time he started to walk away without regard for anyone's permission, only to be instantly caught my jinxx's hand and pulled back in place.

"how have we not heard this yet?" cc laughed, clearly not picking up on the tension between andy and dahlia, slowly building like a volcano getting ready to erupt and kill them all. "i mean, i'm sure you guys were on warped tour or something at the same time we were, but i don't remember ever–" he stopped halfway through his sentence, racking his brain trying to recall the bands ever meeting. "did you guys meet at a show?"

"we, uh– went to high school together." dahlia swallowed the lump in her throat. her eyes bounced around desperately for anyone a little bit more familiar to come to her defense. "we actually.. lived in the same neighborhood for about a year.. ish." she stuttered the halfway truth, suddenly realizing not one of her own band members was in sight, internally screaming for her brother, eric, andrew or kurt to manifest out of nowhere.

"oh, fuck." almost like he had read her mind from across the room, kurt turned his head to the scene that was going down. he immediately picked up on what was either about to happen or had already happened. "c'mon. c'mon." he looked to eric, the both of them not so naturally speed walking over to dahlia's rescue.

"you were— what?" jake's dark brows narrowed before his head shot to face andy. "how the hell have you failed to mention that?"

"have you considered that i wouldn't want to fuckin' talk about it?" the sharp attitude in the vocalist's tone seemed to climb a step higher with every word spoken in his presence.

"what's your problem, dude?" the guitarist questioned, getting a word in just before dahlia's bandmates came running into the conversation, desperately trying to interrupt the conflict.

"haha, hey." eric nervously sing-songed, clearly panicking and completely unsure of what to say or do to help. "what's, uh– what's goin on over here?"

"we were just– they've known each other since– did you guys know about this?" cc, who had already had plenty of bonding time with the two members of letters to your ghost in the last few days, questioned the boys.

"um." kurt seemed just as confused as the rest of them, seeing no reason why something like this would need to be a secret. "did you not?"

"andy." jinxx turned around, instantly triggering the lead singer and sending him off in the opposite direction.

"i think it goes without saying that i'm not in the mood to discuss this shit right now." he grumbled, quickly slipping away to escape the conversation and the crowd of people that was starting to form between the two bands.

"oh my god." cc watched his unusually moody friend angrily walk away, looking between the rest around him and andy the further away he went. "what crawled up his ass today?"

"did something happen between you two?" lonny tried to contribute in a somewhat productive way. he leaned towards dahlia, looking for an answer or a solution.

"it's kinda complicated, i–" she stopped herself, not able to hold herself back much longer as she watched andy attempt to disappear from the room completely. "give me a second." her previously planted feet went running.

"lia. lia. no." kurt's eyes went wide as he instinctively followed after her, knowing right then that the next few minutes weren't going to produce anything good.  he ran up closely behind dahlia's quick footsteps, breaking quickly when she finally caught up with andy's much longer legs. she reached up to grab the back of his shoulder, realizing her mistake as soon as she made it. he whipped around, the hard look across his face speaking for him. dahlia took one small step back, feeling the nearly skipped beat of heart but doing all she could to ignore it.

kurt kept his distance from the two. andrew and damien had found their way back to eric, while the remaining members of black veil brides stared; completely lost on what was going on or what might happen next. beyond the clicks and little noises from the sound check going on beyond the curtain, silence became the only sound in the room.

"what the fuck do you want." andy broke the quiet with an almost growling tone to his voice as he spoke through his teeth. he vied for the interaction to be over as soon as it began.

"you know, the least you could do is.." she nearly let her emotions get the best of her, before quickly realizing how unhelpful that would truly be. she allowed her breath to travel in and out once as she collected her thoughts.

"i don't have all goddamn night to wait for you to come up with something intelligent to say." andy rolled his eyes and shook his head at the space next to them, before turning reluctantly back to the short girl in front of him. "what?"

"look. i know this isn't the ideal situation for either of us. believe me." her eyes widened a bit she tried to level with him. "but i'm willing to be decent if you're willing to do the same." despite flinching at her own words, she swallowed her pride and spoke with an open mind. she held her hand out and showed her vulnerability to the darkly dressed, ghostly man that towered over her.

he scanned her up and down, stared at her outstretched hand, and brought his eyes back to line up with hers. "what the hell have you done to deserve my decency, fawn?"

"oh my god." she began. "would you please drop the act just this one time?" that bit of anger made its way into her dialogue, despite her potentially better judgment. "this isn't about us. this is about everyone else here and whether we want to subject them to all of.. whatever this is us between us. i'm tired of it."

"good for you." andy nodded condescendingly. "you couldn't pay me fuckin' ten times what i'm getting for this whole goddamn tour to act like i like you."

"i'm not asking you to act like you like me." her emerald eyes darkened and narrowed. "i'm asking you to not try to rope our bandmates into our issues or stare at me like i'm the spawn of satan."

"like you are?" he asked, sarcastically implying the obvious just to make her slowly deteriorating patience fall to pieces as fast as possible.

"jesus." her eyes rolled, letting out an exasperated sigh as she drug her hands down her face in frustration. "you're impossible. i don't even know why i try. just don't talk to me and leave my friends alone. i won't hinder your perfect life with my presence any goddamn longer." she extended her arm out with her palm sticking up, as if to create an imaginary barrier between the two of them as sarcasm flowed her words line venom in veins. she began her walk away back to her bandmates.

"mmh. that's what i thought." andy huffed, speaking purposely just loud enough that she could hear him from the distance. "cunt."

dahlia stopped in her tracks, pivoting and turning right back around to face him. her eyes filled with a fire she was so tirelessly trying to keep away. if the room wasn't pin drop silent before, it was now. "excuse me?" she stared him down, but he didn't break.

andy stepped forward slowly with all of the worst kind of confidence radiating off of him. his long, tattooed arms were crossed perfectly over each other. he belittled her by bending his back over to make real eye contact. "i said.. that's what i thought, cunt." he enunciated every syllable, doing just about everything he could to get under her skin besides spit right in her face.

"yeah, that's it." a new voice entered the conversation, everyone's eyes shooting to kurt as rage filled his scrawny body. he went stomping towards andy with full intentions to swing his arm hard enough to bring him right to the ground in one punch.

"kurt. stop. stop." dahlia pushed him back while she could, while damien came running to stand between him and andy. as the attempted fight broke out, the rest of black veil brides and letters from your ghost hurried to be up close the scene.

"you self obsessed motherfucker." kurt growled, still pushing forward past damien despite his friend's strong hand being planted on his chest. andy kept his head held high, half a smirk still on his lips. "who the fuck do you think you are?"

"i would ask your little friend the same thing." andy glared between the enraged bassist and dahlia.

"what the hell was that?" jake took it upon himself to shove andy's shoulder; the first thing that seemed to shake him at all in the last hour.

"you don't know the fucking half of it." andy immediately defended himself as his mouth turned to a snarl, turning to his bandmates and getting caught in an argument of overlapping voices.

"c'mon." andrew grabbed dahlia's little wrist as the rest of the band started to pile into the doorway leading to the hall, doing what they could to keep kurt from mauling the pompous rockstar.

not another word left her lips. time slowed down for a moment as her lead guitarist dragged her along and away from the backstage. her feet slid on the tile floor as she met those poisonous, diamond like eyes one more time. the purest form of anger filled both of the singer's chests and burned like wildfires as they were forcibly pulled away from each other.

☆