Warped Tour was becoming like a routine. I’d wake up in my bunk, barely miss hitting the ceiling with my head, have breakfast, find out our schedule for the day including when we were playing, go out in the scalding heat and regret my clothing choice of the day, have people freak out about me before going up on stage, have them all praising me because I managed to play just fine to their surprise, I’d go to catering either by myself or with friends, maybe go to a party, and then I got back in my bunk.

It felt so distant that I even wondered if I had forgotten to take my antidepressants. But I hadn’t missed a single day.

The guys were still more than excited each day, having anticipated this lifestyle ever since they were kids. Warped Tour was living to their expectations and more. They’d go to way more parties than me, enjoying every single second of it. I felt like most people didn’t even know me that well just because I didn’t hang out every night. Charlie assured me differently, but I didn’t mind it all that much. Things just got a little overwhelming for me.

So you must understand my exasperation when I was lost in whatever town we were, none of the guys really helping me out. I was the one that was sent out because John had sprained his ankle, Charlie had a hangover, and Carter was actually still drunk from the night before. I was carrying a large box that I had to pick up for some awareness program that we were supporting. I felt like I was going to melt with the hot sun beaming right on top of me, while I was trying to give Charlie directions to find me since google maps couldn’t help me find my way back to the festival grounds.

“Look, I-I’m just trying to get to an easy-to-recognize place. We’re just going to keep walking in circles if you keep trying to find me while I-I’m still moving!” I groaned, trying to keep the large box underneath one arm while I kept the phone to my ear, speaking to Charlie.

“Just choose a place to stop and check if you can send me your location! Please, it’s way too hot for this! I should be in bed downing Advil and sparkling water!” he whined back, sounding like he was going to pass out.

“Okay, fine. Just hang on a minute,” I sighed and hung up, now going through even more trouble to hold the box. Now that I had to share my location with him, I actually had to tap things on the screen.

Being so focused on my screen and making sure I didn’t drop the box and caused myself some major embarrassment due to its contents spilling out, I didn’t really pay attention to my surroundings when I turned a corner. So, it wasn’t all that surprising when I slammed into somebody, but it definitely did give me a fright.

“S-- sorry,” I mumbled, still trying to figure out my phone, only to see that it couldn’t even find where I was. No wonder I couldn’t get proper directions back to the grounds. “The fuck? I-I’m not in the UK.”

“Ireland?” The taller person, who I had accidentally walked into, asked.

I looked up, half expecting some unknowing fan who could help me out, only to see Jack standing in front of me, Alex right beside him. They were both giving me curious looks. We were all confused that we happened to run into each other in such a big place. I didn’t even know we were going to be crossing roads. If I had known, I would have done anything to make sure Jack and I could see each other.

“Hey!” I smiled brightly, seeing my phone turn black before giving me the loading screen. “I-I’m lost and my phone just gave up, great.”

“Oh… but how are you doing?” Jack questioned, his initial surprise and excitement replaced with concern as he remembered what had happened just a bit over a week prior.

I tried to stabilize the box that almost fell out of my arms, in the process making my phone fall to the floor with a shattering sound. Sighing, I picked it up, not surprised that the screen had shattered, but there was a very high chance that I couldn’t even turn it on anymore, so there was no point to be upset. Honestly, I had been expecting it to break completely soon, it had been failing on me for a couple of days now. Luckily I had just recently backed it up.

“It’s going a lot better already. Haven’t had a seizure since,” I answered Jack’s question, stuffing my phone in my back pocket. “It only gets bad again when I… I… I… fucking hell.” I let out another breath; today wasn’t my dad. “Exactly that. When--subjective pronoun for me--think about it. So, there’s that. Otherwise, it doesn’t affect my s-singing. Usually--same pronoun again--don’t even have any problems with my s-stutter then and it’s barely noticeable otherwise, except now cause--pronoun--am thinking about it again.”

“Wait… what’s a pronoun?” Jack scratched his head, confusion spread across his face.

“Really, Jack, really?” Alex shook his head, taking the words right out of my mouth. “The one word she can’t say, the one word she can’t say…”

“Oh!” he exclaimed, realization hitting him. “It’s ‘I’, isn’t it? That makes sense. Still... don’t know exactly what a pronoun is, but I know ‘I’ is one now.”

“That it is, Jack, that it is…”

“Anyway, can I-I borrow your phone?” I asked them, remembering that I promised Charlie a location but had no way of sending it to him. “Hey, look. Wasn’t thinking about it, managed to say it just fine.”

“Yeah, of course.” Jack pulled out his own phone from his pocket, handing it to me without hesitation.

I unlocked it and searched for Charlie’s contact, which I knew he had. Surprisingly, their last text message was quite recent. It didn’t feel right looking at the old messages, but it was right there. I didn’t scroll or anything, but the main gist was that Jack wanted him to look out for me and asked him how things were going because I apparently often brushed things off. Charlie gave a pretty detailed account of everything, which probably sparked Jack’s first question after we had bumped into each other.

Acting like I didn’t see a thing, I quickly sent Charlie our location, making sure to mention it was indeed me using Jack’s phone, and that it wasn’t Jack just randomly saying that he was close by. Probably already waiting for ages, prepared for a message, Charlie quickly replied that he was just a few minutes away.

“So… what’s in the box?” Jack pointed at the thing I was still holding as I handed his phone back.

“Oh, we’re doing some safe-sex awareness thing.” I rolled my eyes, knowing I was in the possession of thousands of condoms. “I didn’t really get any say in it, just that I-I needed to pick up this box. I may have made sure that this band didn’t break up and got thrown away in the beginning, but that doesn’t mean I-I get to s-say or know anything about what we do now.”

That’s what it was like when I spoke whenever I didn’t think about my stutter or was really overwhelmed or surprised by something. Sometimes it would come back on the words, other times it didn’t even make a presence. It really did show promise; it wasn’t going to stay around for too long.

“Do you guys want any?” I offered, pulling open one of the flaps.

However, as soon as they gave a half nod, I squinted my eyes and closed the box on them. “Wait a s-second, no. You shouldn’t need any cause Lisa’s not around until way later in the tour,” I pointed at Alex, moving my finger over to Jack and giving him a more ‘aggressive’ point. “And you shouldn’t need any cause I’m not there at all!”

“You’re here now!” Jack argued, pouting at me.

“Hmm, and that’s why I-I knew you were here as well and we planned to meet up.” I gave him a look that showed him I knew that no matter what, I was going to win this one.

“Okay, unfair,” Jack gasped, “but we’re seeing each other during the APMAs again, so…”

Before we could go any further down that road, a very tired Charlie appeared from the same direction I had originally come from. His sleeveless shirt was creased and wrinkled, his pink shorts clashing with the orange tone. Despite knowing he had to walk around to find me, he was wearing flip-flops that only could be hurting his feet. But what finished the entire look for the dark sunglasses he was wearing.

“I shouldn’t be here,” he groaned as he trudged up, only acknowledging Jack and Alex with a sloppy hand gesture.

“Ooh, party a little too hard?” Alex chuckled, seeming way too familiar with Charlie’s composure.

As Charlie just rubbed his eyes behind his sunglasses, I shrugged. “I don’t know what they did. I passed out on our bus before they could actually leave.”

“Woah, what did you have to drink?” Jack asked with a light scolding tone, telling me I shouldn’t be drinking so much with this new found seizure thing.

“No, you seem to misunderstand,” I shook my head. “I-I passed out at s-seven pm since I-I didn’t get any s-sleep two nights in a row. I-I had no part in this.”

“It’s all a haze,” Charlie finally decided to contribute, having a very delayed reaction. “All I can remember is John saying he was just coming to look out for us, but it must have been wild enough for him to join in as well, because at one point he jumped off some bus’s trailer and sprained his ankle. Carter was gone in no time, and have no fucking clue how I even ended up back on the right bus. Nothing is helping this hangover, not even Ireland’s miracle cure!”

“Ireland’s miracle cure?” Jack raised an eyebrow at me. I just brought a finger to my lips to shush him and shrugged it off, gesturing that I would tell him later.

“You’re going to feel like hell when we play,” I nudged Charlie, not feeling any guilt for making fun of him. He brought it on himself.

“No, I’m just going to hate myself a little, Carter, however…” he retorted, emphasizing our bandmate’s misery.

“Oh fuck… he’s going to miss every beat.” I couldn’t help but laugh a little before jokingly asking Jack and Alex, “can we borrow Rian? Our drummer s-seems to still be a little drunk.”

“I disapprove of this,” Jack frowned, but it was all in good humor--with a little truth behind it. “We’re supposed to party like that. This is just bullshit.”

However, before our casual banter and making fun of Charlie could continue, Charlie’s phone dinged, the notification accompanied by the sound he used for our band chat. I could practically see him squinting at the screen through his sunglasses as he had to look right at the bright light that wasn’t much worse than the light outside.

“Ugh, Ireland,” he groaned, texting back something very short, “our set time was pushed forward. We’ve gotta go on in under an hour.”

“Okay,” I nodded, my eyes a little wide due to this sudden information, “well, we should probably go back then.”

“We’ve gotta get going too,” Alex agreed, giving Jack a small push since he knew that Jack and I would literally just stay here until it was completely necessary for either of us to leave.

“I really don’t feel like walking, though!” Charlie whined, pushing his phone back into his back pocket and slouching.

“I’ll carry you,” I sympathized mockingly and started turning him into the right direction, “come on.”

“But you’re carrying the box as well!” he exhaled.

I was about to just tell him to get over it and go. Seriously, I made the first couple of steps. That was until I realized I didn’t properly say goodbye to Jack. I quickly ran back to him and pecked him on the lips, also noticing we hadn’t even greeted each other with a kiss.

“I’ll see you in how many days it’s until the AMPAs, okay?” I said my goodbye and quickly scurried over to Charlie, who looked even worse than before knowing we had to go back in the scalding sun. “Hop on.”

He jumped on my back as I started giving him a piggyback ride while doing my best to hold the large box as well. It was completely out of proportion. He was both taller and heavier than me, yet I was the one carrying him.

But you know what? It wasn’t the first time we did this.

Notes

I"M BACK AND (not much or at all) BETTER THAN BEFORE!!! (I wrote this months ago cause I write ahead)

I got stuck in those earthquakes in Indonesia that were all over the news. Yay! But I'm alive and the place I was staying at wasn't damaged too bad (only the roof and the plaster).

Anyway, Ireland's relationship with Charlie is developing! What will this bring in the future?