My first show was more than nerve-wracking. With the short time I had to practise the songs, I was afraid I was going to screw up every guitar part I could. And then I also had to memorize all the lyrics. Those two things combined was a nightmare. It was already difficult enough to play the guitar and sing, but I had to learn how to do it in a matter of weeks. I had already fucked up multiple times during our rehearsals, the odds of it happening during a live show was pretty great.

Oh, and don’t forget that stage fright I had. I always absolutely refused to sing up on stage without my brother up there with me. So, there wasn’t exactly anything I could do about that problem. He couldn’t just appear and help me through it. If that were the case, I wouldn’t even have been there in Oregon to play in front of a crowd. It was an internal dilemma. I so badly wanted to keep up Cam’s legacy, but at the same time it was making me go way out of my comfort zone. I was fine teaching myself how to play the guitar, I was fine writing songs with his former bandmates, but going up on stage was making me flip near shit.

Everybody around me seemed to notice how nervous I was. I thought I was hiding it pretty well, but I apparently wasn’t. Carter, Charlie, and John kept giving me the evil eye as we were in our dressing room. Luckily we weren’t the first band to go up, but the second. But how was that supposed to calm me at all? It only meant that more people had found their way into the venue. It was supposed to get me excited, but I felt like I was going to faint. The only thing I could think of doing was pacing around, acting like I was looking at things. The others were just on the couches provided for us, scrolling through their phones.

“Ok, I can’t stand to watch this any longer.” John sighed, shaking his head at me and standing up. “You need to get over your nerves.”

“Yeah, just stand there and say that. It totally helps, thank you very much for that input. To think I never thought of that!” I scoffed and rolled my eyes. Ok, maybe I was being a little bit mean because the butterflies in my stomach were going insane, but his comment really didn’t help, if anything it made it worse. Maybe being on my period didn’t make the situation any better either.

“I was actually going to suggest something to help you,” he told me as if he was scolding his own daughter, using careful and clear words. “Something Cameron always used to do if he got nervous.”

I froze up when he said my brother’s name. No, I wasn’t sure why I had done so, and I was expecting to hear it a lot over my career, but it still threw me off a little. I just wasn’t prepared to hear it that day while I was thinking so much about him. I was literally living Cam’s life.

Charlie looked up from his phone, also noticing what John was saying, but alert for other reasons than I was. “I’m already setting it up."

He proceeded to walk over to the Bluetooth speaker that he had brought along with him, and turned it on. After it beeped to signal that the phone had connected, he starting scrolling through things on his phone, searching for whatever he had planned.

“Unlike most people, Cameron wouldn’t drink his nerves away because he was afraid of going up on stage drunk and fucking something up,” John started to explain like he was giving me a mission and trying to explain a secret society. “Instead, he’d blast music and sing along loudly to get rid of his nerves. Not only did it get him hyped up, but it would also make him feel more confident about his vocals.”

“We’d join in,” Charlie continued, looking at his phone and smiling at whatever he had chosen. “I’d do the backing vocals, and the others would just do what they felt like. It could be screaming along, drumming along, whatever. But it always worked.”

Before I could ask any further questions, he tapped something on his screen and the room filled with loud music. Our door was open, meaning that everybody else could probably hear everything and be annoyed with us, but Charlie only increased the volume. I immediately recognized the song from the drums and the bass instruments playing:

Oh!

Charlie joined in immediately, speaking along with Brendon and started singing with no shame.

A moment you'll never remember
And a night you'll never forget!
Oh!

He seemed so carefree, not really caring that he probably couldn’t hit all the notes that were to come. As if that wasn’t enough, he also started dancing weirdly along with the beat of the song. If it weren’t for the fact that the song was already unrealistically loud, I would have called him out on it. But the whole thing was already so silly.

All you sinners stand up, sing hallelujah
Show praise with your body
Stand up, sing hallelujah
And if you can't stop shaking, lean back
Let it move right through ya
Say your prayers
Say your prayers
Say your prayers
My life started the day I got caught
Under the covers
With secondhand lovers
(Oh, tied up in pretty young things
In a state of emergency
Who was I tryna be?)

“You’re going to have to sing with me if you want this to work. I’m not going to be the only one here doing this, am I? Save me the embarrassment, please,” he said during the last three lines of the verse.

But I was too stubborn and stood there, my arms crossed and watching him as he jumped back into the song. I felt way too awkward to join, thinking that everybody around me would judge me. I wasn’t fun like him. This wasn’t going to work.

Then the time for being sad is over
And you miss 'em like you miss no other
And being blue is better than being over it (over it)
All you sinners stand up, sing hallelujah (hallelujah!)
Show praise with your body
Stand up, sing hallelujah (hallelujah!)
And if you can't stop shaking, lean back
Let it move right through ya (hallelujah!)
Say your prayers
Say your prayers
Say your prayers

“Come on!” He encouraged, tugging at my hands to try and get me to dance as well.

I rolled my eyes. If I was just going to stand there and do nothing, I was going to seem like an asshole and a buzzkill. Even if I sang along terribly, at least I tried. It was going to be way more fun if I tried. Honestly, I wasn’t going to know if it worked or not without trying. So, I started to sing along with him. What harm could it do?

I was drunk and it didn't mean a thing
Stop thinking about
The bullets from my mouth
I love the things you hate about yourself
Just finished a daydream
Who were you tryna be?
Then the time for being sad is over
And you miss 'em like you miss no other
And being blue is better than being over it (over it)

John and Carter started hollering and clapping as I hit the high notes along with Brendon, something I never thought I was capable of. I just wanted to try it and was taken aback myself when it didn’t sound half bad. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, but even I was impressed. So, I just got into it completely and started dancing -- which was more like swaying and clapping -- along with Charlie.

No one wants you when you have no heart and
I'm sitting pretty in my brand new scars and
You'll never know if you don't ever try again
So let's try, let's try, let's try
All you sinners stand up, sing hallelujah
Show praise with your body
Stand up, sing hallelujah
And if you can't stop shaking, lean back
Let it move right through ya
Say your prayers
Say your prayers
Say your prayers
All you sinners stand up, sing hallelujah
Show praise with your body
Stand up, sing hallelujah
And if you can't stop shaking, lean back
Let it move right through ya
Say your prayers
Say your prayers
Say your prayers

Charlie couldn’t stop smiling when the song ended, turning down the volume as the next song started playing. John and Carter were clapping, but for some reason the sound wasn’t coming from those two pairs of hands. I turned around to look at the opened door and saw people from Pierce The Veil and the other support acts clapping as well. A soft blush that was barely visible spread across my cheeks. I hadn’t realized that more people were watching us. But maybe that was actually helpful, I sort of already played in front of a crowd, I was going to be able to play to the few people already in the venue.

“Ok, serious question,” Vic popped his head in a little more, putting the phone he used to record us with away, “would you be up to singing with us when we play ‘Hold On Till May’?”

I choked on my own breath. Not because of the question he was asking, but because I couldn’t imagine walking out when the entire venue was full. Well, of course him asking me that question did surprise me quite a lot, but it wasn’t the reason why I started coughing. If it was already afraid to play in front of the small crowd we were getting, how was I going to be able to survive a way larger crowd?

“Yes, she will,” Carter decided to answer for me, not even bothering to let me form my own opinion and choose if I wanted it or not.

“Awesome.” Vic grinned and gave us the thumbs up. “We won’t do it today, but we can practice it at the next soundcheck and maybe even perform it at the next date.”

----

I stared out at the crowd as we were standing side stage. We were ready to go up, our small group of crew having set everything up after the other support band had already played. John, Charlie, and I had our instruments, while Carter’s drums were ready to be used up on stage. All the people out in the crowd were talking to their friends, singing along with the songs that were playing in the background. Slowly but surely, people were still coming into the venue, filling up all the empty space.

The singing we had done to get rid of my nerves had worked really well up until that moment. As I stood there, realizing that nobody knew who I was, that I had no clue what I was doing, I froze up again. The people who did know this band didn’t even know me. We had put up something on social media about me joining, that the band wouldn’t want to continue if it wasn’t me taking Cam’s place, but that didn’t know they knew me. All they could find was that I was Cam’s sister, a couple of my barely used social media accounts, and that I made many appearances on Jack’s social media.

I didn’t want to go out there.

What the hell was I thinking when I decided to message the guys that I had tried writing some songs? This was a mistake. I couldn’t do something like this. Cam was always the one to be brave enough to do things. We were so different, how could I think that I could do anything that he was capable of?

I didn’t want to go out there without Cam.

“Hey, it’s going to be ok,” Carter whispered behind me as he pushed to the front so that he could be the first to run up on stage. “Just don’t overthink it.”

I looked at him as he now stood in front of me. How the hell did he know I was reconsidering everything? It didn’t matter to me that we had gotten this far, I would have turned around and quit right at that moment.

“I know that you refuse to go up on stage unless Cameron’s there with you. Just think of it this way, he’s always going to be here with us, especially when we’re up on stage. He’s the one that brought us here, now we are the ones to take that and continue it for him. Of course, he won’t be there physically, but he exists in everything we do,” he continued in a serious tone.

“I don’t know…” I mumbled, biting my bottom lip as I looked out over the crowd again.

“If you won’t do this for yourself or for Cam, at least do it for us.”

I looked him in the eyes, seeing how desperate he was to go out onto the stage again. His pleading face was almost enough to get me to give in. But it wasn’t enough. I turned around to look at Charlie and John, who seemed oblivious to what was happening, and saw how excited and happy they were as well. The last time I had seen them smile so much was when I said I was considering joining the band. I couldn’t do this to them. As hard as it was for me, I signed up for it and couldn’t give up now.

“Ok, let’s do this.” I tried my best to put on the biggest smile I could.

“Woo!” Carter yelled with a fist bump before running out to sit at his drum kit.

Notes

Sorry for not updating in soooo long! (Well, it's been just over a week, but still). I was busy working on a one shot, which you should totally check out: http://www.alltimelowfanfiction.com/Story/89198/Glad-To-Meet-You-Again/

This is just another filler chapter, but I already promised that later chapters will make up for it :D This one is basically just lyrics of a Panic! At The Disco song,