Calum's POV:

I was constantly seconds away from having a panic attack while telling the story, but Claudia knew exactly how to prevent it, luckily. It took up the rest of our session, and now that it's over I feel weirdly relieved. It feels good to have talked through it with someone. Maybe I should have tried it earlier.

I get out of the building and start walking towards Aunt Claudia's house. We're staying at her place until we get everything settled in our own house, and let me tell you; they are really annoying to live with when they're together. They talk and laugh loudly 24/7 regardless of what time it is or whether I'm trying to sleep or not. They never knock on the door before they enter my room, and they won't let me play my music out loud anymore. When it was just one of them, they never said anything, but now there's two of them and they've obviously had enough of my s.hit. I can't blame them though, I am pretty annoying.

I feel my phone vibrating and sigh as I put my hand in my pocket to get it. I always have it on silent because I can't stand the obnoxious ringing tone and I'm too lazy to change it. That, and all the other ringtones sound obnoxious to me as well. It's a struggle.

I fish up my phone and answer without even looking at the caller ID. It must be my mom, I mean, who else could it be?

"I'm on my way home now," I say immediately, guessing that she's calling to see where I am. Much to my surprise, however, it's not my mom on the other line.

"Thanks for the info, but that's not really why I called," a familiar male voice replies from the other side. I quickly remove my phone from my ear and read the name on the screen. 'The Crayon (or Mikey)'.

"Michael?" I ask, not bothering to hide my confusion. Why on earth is he calling me?

"Well, that took you long enough," he chuckles, making me roll my eyes. "Anyways, I—or we—desperately need your help."

"With what?" I ask suspiciously and narrow my eyes as I put my other hand in my pocket. Is this d.amned cold ever going to go away?!

"Well, we have this upcoming gig in a couple of days at a local café—our first, not to mention—but we still don't have a bassist and it sounds stup-"

"No," I say instantly, cutting him off. I'm not going to do that. No way.

"Please! Just help us out this one time! Please!" he nearly begs, dragging out the first 'e' in 'please'. My face remains stone cold, even though he can't even see me.

"No."

"Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease! Just this once! We're f.ucked without a bassist!" he says way too quickly. I sigh and rub the bridge of my nose.

"Michael, I really don't-"

"Please! We'll do anything Calum, just please help us out!" he begs again. I sigh even heavier and shake my head slightly.

"Fine, fine, but only this once, and only because I'm tired of hearing you say 'please'," I say in defeat. I can't believe I'm doing this. What's happening to me?

"Yes! Thank you so much!" he nearly yells in excitement, causing me to distance myself from the phone to prevent losing my hearing. "I promise you won't regret this!"

"I'm already regretting this," I mutter, mostly to myself, but he hears and chuckles.

"I know you love us," he replies and I roll my eyes again, but I laugh nevertheless.

"You wish."

"I don't need to," he replies and I can almost hear him smirking on the other end. "How far are you from Carol's place?"

"I don't know, maybe five/ten minutes?" I say more as a question than an answer.

"Okay, well grab your bass and come over to Ashton's house; we're in the garage," is the last thing he says before he hangs up. I put my phone back in my pocket and rub my hands together, trying to regain the warmth in the hand that has been holding the phone. I hurry back to my aunt's place and let out a relieved breath once I'm inside in the warmth of her house.

"Hey honey!" my mom yells from the kitchen.

"How was your session?" my aunt calls out right after.

"Good!" I reply, not feeling like telling them what actually happened. I quickly go to my room and lay down on my bed. I know I'm supposed to be going to Ashton's house with my bass right now, but I just need to lay down a little bit.

I sigh quietly and avoid looking at my bass that's in the corner of the room. I haven't played it in ages, and I was kind of hoping to keep on going like that. I'm not sure whether I feel ready enough to play it again or not. On one side, it'll be good for me to play it again, but on the other, it'll be painful as h.ell. S.hit, maybe I should just call and cancel? But that would be rude, wouldn't it? But since when do I care about that? But then they won't have a bassist for their gig. But that wouldn't affect me, would it? But then they will hate me forever, and they're pretty much my only 'friends' at the moment...

I shake my head vigorously as if it'll push away all the thoughts and stand up. I grab the bass and put it in the bag before I go out of the room again.

"I'm going over to Ashton's!" I yell while I put on my shoes. My mom comes out of the kitchen and raises a brow when she sees the bass. She doesn't comment on it, however.

"Will you be home by dinner?" she asks instead.

"I'm not sure," I reply and put on my jacket before slinging the bag over my shoulder. "I probably will, though."

"Okay, have fun, then," she smiles softly and dries her hands on the towel she's holding.

"Thanks," I mutter with a smile before I leave. I pull my hood over my head once I'm outside (even though it's only a one minute walk) and put my hands in my pockets. It's no surprise that it's freezing outside, but it doesn't make me hate it any less. I'm tired of winter, and short days, and cold, and this dirty, ugly snow, and I just want summer again. I wonder how the summers here are. They probably s.uck.

I hear music playing from Ashton's garage, and I figure that they won't hear me if I knock. I still knock slightly on the door before entering and seeing them all positioned and playing their instruments. It sounds really good, but it's obvious that something (bass) is missing. Michael is singing, and I must admit that he's good, but they all stop once they see me.

"I told you he'd come!" Michael yells at Luke and points at him almost accusingly, but I just laugh at them. I see why he thought I wouldn't come, I wouldn't have thought so if I was him either. Luke blushes slightly and just shrugs in response.

"I told you I'd come," I chuckle quietly and shrug. I put down the bag and start opening it to take out the bass.

"Okay, so, don't take this the wrong way, but we kinda need you to, like, have an audition of some sort, or just really play something so we can see that you don't, you know, suck," Ashton says and scratches the back of his neck nervously.

"For f.ucks sake, Ashton, we're not going to force him to have an audition after forcing him to join us in the first place!" Michael replies quickly.

"No, it's okay, I'll play something," I say and connect my bass to one of the amps. I tune it quickly (it was so out of tune I almost wanted to cry) and let out a deep breath.

You can do this, you can do this, you can do this, you can do this...

"Can you guys play American Idiot?" I ask them. I can't come up with any songs that won't sound stupid if I play them alone right now, it'll sound better if I play something with them. They all nod and get back in their places.

"One, two, three, four," Ashton counts before they start playing. I take another deep breath and quickly find Jake's plectrum from my back pocket before I start playing as well. He used to consider this his lucky plectrum, perhaps it can work as my lucky plectrum now.

Michael starts singing, and I can't even describe how good it feels to play again. I've missed this so much more than I had realized, and now that I'm doing it again it feels so good! I thought I would be a bit rusty, but the second I start playing everything comes back to me and it feels like I never even took a break at all. Memories of Jake and I playing this song comes back to me, but they don't make me sad, they actually make me smile. We used to love playing this.

At one point Michael signals for me to sing, and without hesitation I start singing the chorus. I usually hate singing in front of people, especially strangers, but in this moment, I couldn't have cared less. For once, I feel really, really good again. We finish the song and by the time it's over, we're all smiling like huge idiots.

"That was awesome," Luke says, putting pressure on 'awesome' to emphasize it.

"Holy s.hit, welcome to the band, mate," Michael says to me.

"I'm just helping you guys out this once," I remind him, but he completely ignores me and grins widely as he just repeats his last sentence.

"Welcome to the band, mate."

A/N: I've had this written for days without updating wth

So this was a bit Malum I guess bc I'm Malum trash (just like basically everyone else lol)

What do you think about Calum helping them out?

Any other thoughts?

ily guys