“Keely, Keely wake up!”

Moaning, she just rolled over in the tight space of her bunk, keeping her eyes tightly closed against Marco's voice in her ear. “No,” she said clearly, burying her face into the pillow comfortably, thankful for the sudden seclusion that it brought her.

“C'mon, I promise you want to see this Keel!”

“And I promise you that I want to sleep!”

“Just come watch this, please!”

This time she groaned, flipping over angrily in the bed. Musicians were never known for being quite happy after being arrested, bailed out, two hours of sleep and then dragged out of bed to jump on the tour bus then sleep on those crappy bunks. “One of these days when you wake me up I'm going to punch you in the face,” she told him sharply, kicking of the blankets and pushing herself upright. “Or better yet, I'll get Seth to do it.”

“Seth wouldn't,” answered Marco confidently, his face smug as he held a hand up to her.

“Yes I would,” called the bored voice of the man in question.

Chuckling lightly at the indignant look on Marco's face, Keely grasped the hand he offered, hopping lightly from the top bunk.

But when her feet hit the floor she gave a dangerous sway. Letting go of his hand abruptly, she gripped the edge of the bunk across from hers, attempting to steady herself. She may not have consumed enough alcohol to give her a hangover after her long sleep, but that didn't mean she wasn't feeling rather unsteady.

“Did you get new feet or something there, Keel?” asked Marco, grinning broadly at yet another display of her obvious lack of grace.

Feeling a bit too groggy to scowl, Keely rolled her eyes before moving down. “If you would have let me wake up on my own, like a normal person, I might be able to walk like a normal person too.”

“I sincerely doubt that.”

Hiding a yawn behind her hand, she pulled to a stop, looking in the direction of the voice. She found Colton sprawled across the black couch casually, a pillow cushioning behind his back with the remote controller in his hand.

After a moment she came to the conclusion that there would be no point arguing with them, they’d either make her laugh or give her a sudden urge to smother them with pillows. It wasn’t unheard of, truly, she had to fit back that urge quite a lot really. Crossing her arms across her chest, Keely leaned forward, peeking around to look at the television.

Her eyebrows flew up into her messy fringe of ginger hair. “You wanted to show me a commercial for genital herpes?”

“Shit, is it gone already?!” exclaimed Marco, rushing past her at such a speed she stumbled forward.

For a mere few seconds Keely watched the boys as they tugged the remote between them, shouting at each other while attempting to reassure her that everything would be fine, and they could show her their findings in naught but a couple minutes.

Blinking she pulled herself out of the reverie, not appreciating being caught in the stare. Tearing her eyes away from where they had began to wrestle over the remote; Keely caught sight of the back of a dark head sitting at the booth at the front of the bus. Stepping delicately over Colton’s legs that were flung across the small path, she made her way, dodging debris, to the front of the bus.

Casually she leaned her hip against the side of the booth beside him, resting one hand on the top of the bench behind him as she reached over his shoulder, snatching up the coffee that was next to his elbow.

“Hey, rebel,” greeted Seth, tipping his chin back to look at her. Holding a paperback in one hand, he stretched slightly giving a groan in the back of his throat.  Keely couldn’t help but bite the inside of her lip, holding the coffee in front of her forgotten as the muscles in his arm and chest clenched, the grey t-shirt he was wearing showing those muscles well.

Gulping slightly, Keely took an enormous swallow of the coffee, gawking had never been attractive on her. Not that she probably looked very alluring in the first place, having just rolled out of bed, but they lived on the same bus, there was no room for modesty. “Reading All Quiet on the Western Front then?” she asked, nodding down to the book.

“Nah, I finished that one,” he answered easily, running a hand through his hair, causing it stick up messily in the front. Why did that have to look so hot when he did that?

“You were only halfway through it last night!” she exclaimed incredulously.

His mouth tipped in that crooked grin. “You sleep a lot.”

Deciding that there was no point in pointing out that it was only two in the afternoon after their night out or voicing her concern that he didn’t sleep, she just took another gulp of his coffee. “So what are you on now?”

“The Birth of Tragedy,” he countered steadily.

Immediately Keely felt her nose scrunch up distastefully as her stomach tightened dangerously. “That doesn’t sound too cheerful.”

Yet Seth just snorted, flipping over the book so the spine bent dangerously as the table held it open while he leaned back in the bench seat. Keely hastily moved her hand back slightly as she thought it might be a bit peculiar if her hands had gotten tangled in his hair, as soft as it looked. “Its philosophy, rebel, it’s not supposed to be cheerful. It’s... you know what? I’ll just lend it to you after.”

She considered it thoughtfully for a moment, but then a frown creased between her brows as she looked down at him. “It’s in English, right?”

Chuckling, he rubbed a hand over the dark stubble that never seemed to grow any longer. “It’s written by Friedrich Nietzsche, so it’s originally in German too, but this is this is a translation. Another reason that I need to learn German, I need to reread all his work.”

Arching an eyebrow, Keely pointed out, “You do know you’re taking this whole lost in translation thing much too seriously, right?”

Before he could respond, Marco’s excited voice called, “Keely, we found it, come on!”

Not turning her gaze away from Seth, she posed the question, “Do I really want to see this? Because I can still remember the Pet Cemetery incident, and as much as I love the song and The Ramones, that movie was just damn creepy.”

“Trust me, you want to see this.”

Letting out a slightly apprehensive breath, Keely handed him back his coffee mug before spinning about to the other two boys. Feeling quite comfortable in her pyjamas of Seth’s baggy black Velvet Underground t-shirt and her habitual shorts, she squeezed herself in between the boys on the couch. “So what are we watching today?” she asked in mock excitement, clapping her hands to their legs to pair with her words.

“Just wait for it,” commanded Marco.

Resisting the all too tempting urge to roll her eyes, she fell back in the seat, resting her hands on her lap as she twined her fingers together. What was so important that they were waking her up? Well, that couldn’t be considered a good question, they’d waken her up so she’d settle an argument over the best Led Zeppelin song, she’d sided with Seth saying there was no way to determine that; the band was just too great. As another commercial came on, this time about bleach, Keely let her eyes wander.

When the tour had first started, the bus had been as close to pristine as humanly possible; the couches shining beneath the lights, the table giving off an almost disconcerting sparkle, the stainless steel appliances glinting brightly from the sun in the windows, and, to top it all off, the scent of pine. But now, after the time spent in it, the bus had taken on a more lived in feel to put in nicely.

There consistently not made beds had tangles of blankets dangling from them. There was a pile of mugs in the sink – very little other cutlery as they avoided that like the plague as using them on their fast food eating habits would just cause more dishes – Keely had implemented a schedule for the washing, but the boys still bickered pointlessly over who’s turn it was. Their clothes were spread everywhere; a sweater of Seth’s hanging off the handle of their mini fridge, what she suspected was Marco’s sock caught on a curtain pole and a pair of her jeans sprawled across one of the bench seats at the table. There were containers from their unhealthy diet strewn across the counters, everything from boxes of pizza to the little white containers that had once contained Thai food. Their music was probably taken the best care of, even though it too was all over the place, a Close All Doors CD sitting on top of a Chamber Brothers record beside Colton on the couch. There were posters tacked on the walls, everything from Seth’s Stevie Ray Vaughn poster to the Wicked flier Keely had nicked from Broadway. Yes, it was looking lived in.

“Here it is!”

Colton’s enthusiastic voice snapped her back to the present and her eyes back to the television. But the moment she saw the familiar put together, and all fake, face on the screen, Keely let out a loud groan. “Really, guys, this is just a gossip channel, do we have to-”

“Shh!” hissed the two boys in harmony.

That managed to silence her for only a moment.

But her throat died in her throat when a picture was shown on the screen.

It was the one she’d been seeing on countless tabloids of her and Seth. The picture that had taken in Vancouver as they sat across from each other cross legged on that small stone wall, acoustic guitars in both their laps with a song book between them.

Yes, that managed to get her attention enough for Keely to sit on the edge of the seat. She wished that she could ignore the gossip channels and magazines, she usually had been able to back in Bellingham, but now she couldn’t help herself. It was rather pathetic, wasn’t it? It did sound rather self-centered.

Yet she still focused on what the woman, whose years of plastic surgery had reduced her to a likeness of an alien, was saying.

“We’ve been seeing these two in the press a lot lately. Seth Ryan of NSR who has been developing his bad boy image from their first album and new cover Keely Staub who we haven’t been able to get a handle on, until now that is.”

The words had Keely’s eyes narrow on the screen.

“They’ve been in the headlines since the beginning of the illicit relationship between them while Seth was still with Rachael Gosling-” that time she just scowled up at the woman “- all the way to their already critically acclaimed writing partnership-” her scowl lessened at that point. “The questions about the two just keep building and building. Never have the two addressed each other in the press. What is going on between them to produce songs like Keely’s latest single Breaking Time or the song from NSR’s If I Have You? Not to mention the scandal of the shared tour bus!”

“Are kidding me?” Keely exclaimed resentfully.

However she was simply shushed again.

“But new evidence has been gathered from their latest exploit together.”

Before Keely could scowl again, two pictures were brought up side by side. It was their mug shots from the night before, how did they even get a hold of those so quickly? Seth happened to be sending the finger to the camera man while she was laughing, pushing a hand through her hair. She was also sure that those hadn’t been saved into the system seeing as she had been forced to take another picture where she was so simply holding the sign and looking at the camera. Shouldn’t those shots been deleted once they were taken?

The woman was speaking again though. “These two have been arrested before, back in New York for a bar fight and underage drinking. But that hadn’t taken on the label of a fully fledged outrage-” Keely snorted crossly, she could remember having to do a photo shoot because of the not ‘fully fledged outrage’ “-due mostly to the predictability of Seth’s actions, how many times have we seen that rock star sporting a black eye? But almost entirely on the almost humorous innocence that Keely’s face had been a picture of in her first arrest.” Her first mug shot flashed onto the screen, broadcasting her wide eyes and open mouth. Keely’s glower just deepened, since when had she been innocent?

“Still it was the video taken by an anonymous source while they were in the holding cell that has shown the destructive path the two are heading down.”

Keely felt her eyes widen as said video took up the screen.

They were singing loudly to With A Little Help from My Friends, the irrational part of her was pleased to note that they still sounded quite good despite all the negative factors pressing against them. The acoustics were good in the cell. As they sang “I get by with a little help from my friends” she dropped down on the bench close to Seth, one leg tucked beneath her and slung an arm casually over his closest shoulder, pulling herself even nearer to him, her mouth almost touching his ear for the line “Mmm, I get high with a little help from my friends” Seth smiling at her with the dimple in his cheek, his eyes almost smouldering in the bad lighting. The emphasis on the word “high” was as clear as they had intended it to be.

And that was what was sticking in even her mind when they sang the next line “Mmm, gonna try with a little help from my friends”. Not even when she sang “What do I do when my love is away?” and Seth took her free hand lightly in his; singing the backup vocals of, “Does it worry you to be alone?” did her attention differ much.

That ghastly woman appeared back on the screen before anymore could be shown. “That’s just a clip of their shocking confession of what has been the path of many rock and roll artists before them; drugs. Has that been what’s been influencing their song writing? It can’t be long until at least one of them ends up in rehab the way they’re going. We’ve even heard from a reliable source that Keely has put her name down for a rehab center for the moment the tour has ended. Which do you think will join the twenty seven club? We have a poll on our website for you all to vote!”

Feeling the white hot rage boil in her stomach, Keely snatched the remote up from Marco’s lap, slamming violently on the off button. When her hand began to shake, she vented some of the angry by throwing the remote down the bus. “What the fuck?!” she exclaimed, digging her hands into her hair.

“I know,” answered Seth’s calm voice. He hadn’t even turned around to watch, just continued to read his book. “They didn’t even play the best lines of that song, “Would you believe in love at first sight? Yes I’m certain that it happens all the time. What do you see when you turn off the light, I can’t tell you but I know it’s mine”,” he recited.

But she just ignored him. “How is that a confession to us being drug addicts all the sudden? We were singing a fucking Beatles song! Yeah, sure they were higher than hell for half the songs from that album, but we weren’t! Since when have I been signed up for rehab? I didn’t even know I was an addict, why didn’t anyone tell me sooner? Because I’m so far such a stoner,” she said sarcastically. “And are they serious? They have a poll over which one of us is going to join the twenty seven club?!”

“You two are about fifty-fifty for that on that one, if you wanted to know,” put in Marco.

Seth apparently couldn’t help but add, “Damn, I wanted to win that one.”

“I voted for you,” volunteered Colton, “But Marco voted for Seth.”

Keely covered her forehead with her hand, staring at them blankly. But the anger in her stomach didn’t dissipate. Getting up from the seat, she stalked away to the back of the bus, grabbing her clothes for the day and beginning to chew on her nail.

Even three hours later, Keely was still furious.

She’d spent the time pacing up and down bus as the boys tried to calm her down, but it was of no use wearing a pair of tattered jeans and another of Seth’s shirts because she hadn’t felt like anything more than stealing his Jimi Hendrix shirt that fell to mid thigh on her. So she was a drug addict now? Keely could only wonder how her father would feel about that one.

Her sound check had been one of the worst she’d fallen victim too. She’d been distracted the whole time, snapping rudely at her backup band that had for once not deserved her anger. The only point where she’d found some soothing relief was when she’d sat down at the piano, playing Georgia On My Mind, her mind giving her the memory of Ray Charles’ version from The Genius Hits the Road, trying to channel one of the best musicians of all time as best as she could. But when the song had ended, The Bitter Rivals had stomped away from the stage and her, making Keely lean her head against the smooth top of the black piano.

For how long she’d stayed there, she didn’t know. She had a sick feeling in her stomach.

But she’d been forced to move when the boys had shown up for their turn at the sound check. She’d fielded the questions of if she was alright, moving away to sit on the corner of the black stage cross legged. If anything could rid her of the pit inside her, listening to them could.

Yet she was soon to find that it didn’t help her any, if only it made it worse when she heard Seth tell the boys to do Simple Man. The steady guitar at the beginning tugging on her heart as she watched those once again dark and sad eyes as Seth moved to the microphone.

“Mama told me when I was young

Come sit beside me, my only son

And listen closely to what I say

And if you do this it'll help you some sunny day

Oh, take your time don't live too fast

Troubles will come and they will pass

Go find a woman you'll find love

And don't forget son there is someone up above

And be a simple kind of man

Be something you love and understand

Baby be a simple kind of man

Oh, won't you do this for me son if you can?

Forget your lust for the rich man's gold

All that you need is in your soul

And you can do this, oh baby, if you try

All that I want for you my son is to be satisfied

And be a simple kind of man

Be something you love and understand

Baby be a simple kind of man

Oh, won't you do this for me son if you can? Oh yes, I will

Boy, don't you worry you'll find yourself

Follow your heart and nothing else

And you can do this, oh baby, if you try

All that I want for you my son is to be satisfied

And be a simple kind of man

Be something you love and understand

Baby be a simple kind of man

Oh, won't you do this for me son if you can?

Baby, be a simple, be a simple man

Be something you love and understand

Baby, be a simple kind of man.”

It was becoming painfully obvious that it didn’t matter how many times she listened to them, they still managed to shock her. But her focus had been purely on Seth, and she had managed to forget about the gossip, and just watched him.

She was beginning to wonder if that mysterious light would ever leave. And she was also beginning to wonder how he could draw such emotion to his voice and his guitar playing when holding everything back. She’d felt her stomach and heart clench tightly at the beginning, and the pressure hadn’t released until the ending notes, that raw feeling coming from his voice not letting go. His voice had gone from raspy to smooth, from loud to soft and she’d been taken by it one hundred percent.

And it wasn’t until he’d stopped that she’d noticed the tears that had welled up in her eyes, and she brushed them hastily away.

“Did you hear that?” asked Seth abruptly, his voice sounding a touch hoarse as he swung around to his band.

All he received was confused looks. “Hear what?”

He looked around at the equipment with a slight frown for a moment, and then suddenly slid off the guitar from his shoulders. Seth placed the guitar on its stand careful before shouting, “Hey!” at one of the retreating sound guys.

Following in Seth’s actions, Marco took off his guitar, but instead moved towards her, falling to a sit beside Keely. Colton stayed at his drums, tapping on the cymbals lightly.

“Did you hear anything?” he enquired.

Biting her lips together, Keely nodded, trying to regain her voice so that it wasn’t shaking. She really was getting pathetic, it really shouldn’t have that much of an effect on her, so why did it? “Yeah, there was something off with the bass; it sounded a bit warbling when it was amplified I guess,” she answered when she trusted her voice.

“I don’t know how you guys do it, I play the bass and I didn’t even notice.”

She gave a little absent shrug, pulling herself around so she hugged her legs to her chest, dropping her head upon her knees as she watched Seth’s back as her spoke to the sound guy he’d yelled at. It was wrong how much that whatever he did was so consequential to her, wasn’t it?

Yet she still couldn’t help but put out the statement, “I thought he was feeling better.”

“He is better,” Marco returned, “Compared to last year, hell even a couple months ago. It’s just getting a little bit worse right now.”

“I tried to do something last night...” she trailed off slowly, her eyes not leaving as Seth made the gesture of playing a guitar.

Marco just sent her a kind smile, toning down from his usually joking self in the seriousness of the conversation. “You went out and got drunk in Vancouver when you were playing hermit, did it really help you that much?”

“Yeah... but not when I sobered up,” she admitted.

They lapsed into silence, hearing Seth still arguing with the man while Colton continued his steady light rhythm on the drums.

Unable to help herself as she felt the question burning on her tongue, Keely turned her head to Marco. “When did he start smoking?”

A smirk came onto his face and his eyes moved as if they were looking inward, probably seeing a memory in his mind. “Well he moved to Green Bay when he was ten, so really soon around then when we all started.”

“You guys started smoking when you were ten?” she asked disbelievingly.

But he just shrugged as if it was no big deal. “Yeah, we thought we were really bad ass back then, really gave us the rock star feeling. Seth would steal packs from his stepdad, I think he just really wanted to piss the guy off, well, we all did. But it came to a big halt when my mom walked in on us smoking in my basement; I’m still surprised she didn’t murder me. She told Colton’s mum, we lived in the same neighbourhood growing up so they were tight, and that was the end of that for him too. Only Seth kept it up. He actually hasn’t been smoking for a couple months, only every once in awhile.”

“Still not healthy for him, does he really want to join the twenty seven club?” she muttered rhetorically.

“Don’t worry me and Colton’s moms have been chasing him down for years about it.”

Feeling a smile spread across her face, she turned her head back in time to watch Seth walking back to them. He was looking quite smug as he announced to them, “Okay, they said that they’d-”

“Guys,” came a completely different voice, making them all look to the man standing awkwardly behind Seth, though Colton didn’t even cease in his playing. “You guys are going to have to clear out.”

“What?” Marco laughed, leaning back, his palms anchored on the floor. “We still have an hour if we want it.”

The guy grimaced, “That’s not it.”

“Then what is it?” cut in Seth sharply.

“The shows been cancelled.”

There was huge intake of breath, the four of them staring blankly at the man as if he’d spoken Russian. Or some language that Seth didn’t know. Even Colton stopped playing, his drumsticks skittering off the cymbals and hitting the ground.

“What are you talking about?” retorted Keely in a low voice, but she could feel the hysteria bubbling against her throat.

“I’m just telling you what I was told,” said the man, holding up his hands as if to prove his innocence. “Ms Jones gave us the call saying to pack up the stage and your instruments because this show had been cancelled.”

Now the panic reached her voice as she cried out, “But the show is tonight!”

“I’d say call Ms Jones,” he shrugged, “But we have to start taking down the stage.”

In a blink they’d all departed the stage urgently; Seth and Colton hopping down off the edge after them while Marco was already pulling his phone. He put the call on speaker, holding the phone between them, and it only rang twice before there was an answer.

“Hello, you lot,” greeted Maureen’s raspy voice sounding quite resigned.

Colton took over the speaking, his voice calm even as Keely felt her heart racing in her chest. “Why is our stage being taken down?”

“The show has been cancelled.”

“Yeah, we figured that,” snapped Seth, “Why?”

“I just had a business lunch with a severely pissed off Richard James-” Keely felt a shiver run up her spine at the very name of the slimy man “-and he has refused to let Marissa perform on the same stage as you, in light of the current situation.”

That was what set Keely off, and she snarled, “The current situation? Oh, you mean the one where me and Seth’s names, not Marissa’s, is getting dragged through the mud? We sang a fucking song, why the hell does it matter?”

“Keely,” returned Maureen with a warning tone, “We went through this before, but we were able to play it off. You have realized that the press don’t take the truth of anything into count most of the time? You two screwed up even worse this time. No matter what I said, he refuses to have her on stage with you guys; he wants me to throw you off the tour.”

“Me?” she responded indignantly, “Why only me? He does realize that I wasn’t alone, doesn’t he?”

Ms Jones sighed, “He knows that, but it doesn’t change anything.”

A roaring was beginning in her ears. And she knew very well why it was just her being thrown under the bus, and for the first time she really did mind about the double standard that was in the music business. Things were just worse for the female sex in this business.

“So that’s it then?” she asked, her voice suddenly going quiet and dispirited, “I’m off the tour?”

“You can’t seriously be taking her off the tour?” interrupted Seth, his tone dangerous. “She’s made you more money, not to mention him more money than you two were hoping for. It’s fucking bullshit if you do that.”

“Seth!” she barked stormily, “Is it impossible for you to stay quiet in something that doesn’t involve you?”

“It does involve me!”

“Then you can be happy to know that she isn’t off the tour!”

Keely wondered if her heart was going to be able to handle all the sudden marathon sprints and abrupt halts it was going through lately.

“I’m not?” she asked slowly, pressing a hand to her heart.

“No, you’re not, not yet. I’ve got him a bit calmed down. But he wants a public apology and explanation of your actions to the press. I’ve got you on an open space for a talk show for tomorrow, and if all goes well, the tour will be back on schedule by the time you reach Green Bay. You guys are going to have to get on the bus right now if you want to make it in time. The show is writing up the questions they’ll be asking you right now, they should have emailed them to you by late tonight or tomorrow morning. Seth, as her producer, you’re going to have to help her with the answers that will not offend anyone, that’s key at this moment. Do you all understand?”

“Yes,” they chanted together, sharing relieved and at the same time apprehensive glances between the four of them.

“Good, now go, Dave should be waiting for you by now.”

Marco hung up his phone, gave a sigh of relief and then a smile bloomed across his face, the answering one on Colton’s face. They walked away, chatting happily as if their entire tour hadn’t been in jeopardy for a moment there.

But Keely kept still, staring blankly in front of her, rubbing a hand over her heart. Yes, her heart was certainly going to collapse under the strain.

“You okay rebel?” asked Seth softly, making her gaze flick up to his worried one.

Mutely she shook her head, biting down on her lip.

With a sigh, he wrapped his arm around her shoulder, tugging her close as he pulled them to the exit of the stadium. Letting out a shaky breath, Keely buried her face into his side, taking long, deep calming breaths.

The day passed slowly.

In all they were still in shock despite the cheerfulness that Colton and Marco were trying to display.

They spent the day sitting on the couch together, Keely wrapped tightly with her legs to her chest, watching old eighties movies in attempt to keep their minds off things. Marco and Colton kept making jokes, but she barely cracked a smile as her stomach continued to jump. Butterflies, was it? Hell, no, it was more like a group of flamingos flapping around in her stomach.

As the day wore on into the night, they were brought Chinese food. But Keely could barely swallow any of it, the flamingos in her stomach not taking well to it. The little white boxes replaced the ones that had miraculously disappeared during their absence from the bus, cluttering up the counter tops.

Very early she found herself going to bed, and was more than thankful when sleep took over.

Yet she woke up very early. She would judge it was the very early hours of the morning from the darkness around her.

Letting out a steady stream of swearing at her wake up, she rolled over, hoping sleep would come back to her. The not thinking would be nice at the moment. Not only was her entire tour, and maybe even her future in a roundabout way, in jeopardy, but she also wasn’t appreciating the fact that her Christmas would be spent in Green Bay. The first one spent away from her father, it just felt wrong.

But as she rolled over, Keely caught sight of a glare coming from the end of the bus.

Narrowing her eyes she peeked out from the bunk. She’d thought everyone had gone to sleep by now and the light was too constant to be passing street lights.

A quick glance around proved that Marco and Colton were in their bunks.

So that left... Seth.

Without so much of a second thought she flung herself out of the bed.

Shaking her head at her renewed thoughts of her new found dismal behaviour, she straightened herself. There was something addictive about him – in him? She didn’t know – that made her gravitate to him constantly, all she ever did anymore was think about him or what she would tell him after their rare moments apart. Keely could only think that the crush was growing on the effects of the studio and song writing together.

Padding softly down the hall, she paused for a moment to grab the black hoodie strewn across his bed, pulling it over her head and messing up her already mused hair. Seth’s sweater was much too big for her, hitting her down at her thighs, but she liked the way it smelt, with that thought in mind she couldn’t help but take a giant whiff from the fabric.

She was about to pull pyjama pants over her shorts against the slight night chill, but then she heard the sound of soft strumming.

Forgetting about the almost indiscernible cold, she made her way to the front of the bus.

Seth’s back was to her. The back of his hair was sticking up untidily as if he’d run his hand through it as she knew very well was a habit of his. The only parts of him she could see was the back of the hand and arm that was moving across the fretboard, his back covered by a white t-shirt that showed the movements of his shoulder blades as he played.

“Hi,” she said gently, not knowing why she felt the need to whisper as she turned her lips up in a small smile. Dipping her hands into the front pocket of his sweater, Keely took up the seat across from him.

Seth slowly raised his eyes from the guitar and for a moment he just stared, making the breath catch in her throat. But then he blinked and the moment was gone, looking at her as if he’d just caught sight of her.

“Hey,” he replied in an equally hushed tone, his fingers playing a random chord. He sent her a short turn up of the lips, but it was far from even counting as a smirk, not so much as touching the darkness that was flooding his eyes steadily. “Sorry if I woke you up, I was trying to play quietly.”

Keely just shook her head, taking in the red Stratocaster. The electric guitar was quiet not hooked up to an amp. “No, don’t worry, it wasn’t you. I just don’t sleep like a regular person since the tour started.”

Once again he sent her that twitch of the lips, before turning back to the guitar.

Sighing, Keely leaned forward, propping her chin in her hand. It was amazing to watch him play, especially when they were alone. It made it feel more... special. She could hear the familiar sound of the masterpiece Lenny as he hunched over the guitar slightly, his eyes focused. His hands seemed to have a mind of their own, as if they knew without needing to be told from Seth’s mind, as if it was coming from his soul instead as they danced lithely over the strings, making the music without a word.

Breathing in her shaky breath she just watched him contently as he finished the song in front of her. She couldn’t help but feel that she would have been happy to watch him play forever in the peaceful moment between the two of them, she might have asked for an encore had it not been for that solid melancholy in his eyes.

Leaning back in her seat, she finally broke the silence that had settled over them. “Did you even try to sleep?” she whispered.

“I tried, I failed,” returned Seth softly, leaving the guitar in his lap, his hands at the ready even though he’d stopped playing.

“Are you okay?” she asked, already knowing the real answer as well as the one she’d get.

Seth turned his eyes away. “I’m fine.”

“You’re lying to me,” Keely murmured. She wanted to reach out and touch his cheek, but resisted the urge, clasping her hands together in her lap. “When are you going to stop lying to me, Seth? You know everything about me; my mom, my dad, my childhood, everything that’s important. When are you just going to be honest with me?”

Giving a short laugh that held no amusement, he finally looked back at her. “This is becoming a thing with us, isn’t it, the midnight confessions?”

Oddly Keely felt the sides of her mouth turn up. “For that to count, you’d have to be drunk.”

“You planning on taking advantage of me?” he retorted, a real, if tiny, grin on his mouth.

“Oh, yes,” she responded sarcastically as she chuckled lightly, “With your best friends in the bus to hear everything.”

“They’d just be jealous.”

There was another moment of silence where Seth started playing again, and, as before, she recognized the song even though he’d slowed it down and she felt her heart tighten familiarly. “Seth, I have the time to listen to you whine, about nothing and everything all at once,” she quoted from the song.

At her words he abruptly stopped playing, looking her straight in the eyes. “Do you really want to know?”

“I do,” she murmured.

“Fine.”

For a moment she just blinked at him repeatedly. After all this time, of all the hiding and secrets, he was finally going to talk to her?

He moved his hand away from the neck of the guitar, and for one awful moment Keely thought he was about to get up and leave. But he just pulled the dog tag he wore at all times out from beneath his shirt, tugging it over his head and holding it out of her.

Hastily she put her hands out, letting the tags drop first and then the chain pool into her palm. Bringing them back close to her, she moved the chain out of the way, looking at the words indented into the metal that was warm to the touch from being on his chest. The first line read Vaughn, then the second Michael F.

Her hands suddenly starting to feel shaky, Keely handed them back to him mutely.

Calmly Seth slipped the chain back over his head with one hand, not bothering to hide it beneath his shirt this time. “So those were my father’s, he died in the Gulf War in ’91, so I was about a year old then. They didn’t have anything to send back my mother, so they gave her these and I got them when I was about seven. I was too young to remember anything about him, my mom had one single picture when I was little, but that’s gone now too.”

Once again Keely wanted to reach out and touch him, yet she held her hands back. She didn’t want to spout out some useless saying like “everything happens for a reason” because she knew very well from her mother’s death that things like that ended up being more hurtful than anything else, as irrational as it was. And as she sat back, staring into his dark eyes that had lost all looks of glinting gold and were just a dull hazel, she found she had no idea what to say.

What could a person say in a situation like this to make everything okay? Because all she wanted to do was make it alright for him.

Yet it appeared it wasn’t done.

“So after he died my mom had to try and make everything liveable for us, she had to work to support us, we had no other family but each other. She wasn’t the strongest person around, to be honest, plus she still grieving over my dad. We moved out of Kansas really soon, I think we might have been Arizona when I was about four when she met Jack. I don’t remember exactly, I was a little kid. He was okay at first, I guess, I have this memory of him taking me and my mom to the zoo when they first were dating. I knew he drank more than a normal person, but by the time they got married, I was only five, I couldn’t exactly do much.

“So nothing bad happened until they got married,” Seth continued, rubbing his hands over his face and into his hair so that it stood up right on end. “But then you know, cliché things started to happen with my mom. Dark glasses inside places, wearing long sleeved shirts and sweaters when it was boiling outside.”

Taking in a trembling breath, Keely couldn’t even take her gaze from him as his never wavered from hers. She could feel the moisture building up steadily in her eyes.

It was a ridiculous thing for her to be so close to tears when they were speaking about something that was so far in the past, but here she was, biting them back. When she’d imagined the things that could have caused that light in his eyes, she’d never imagined this, and how he’d known even at that age what was going on. But it was beginning to make sense, how he’d punched that guy at the bar when the man had grabbed her arm, his exact words “he hurt you” or even when she’d gone to bail him out and that guy had tried to touch her. Still she didn’t want to cry, not when his eyes were dry and his voice emotionless as if he was telling her about the weather, she’d only make it worse for him.

“Well, things went on like that for while. At some point, I can’t actually remember when, Jack decided that beating up my mom wasn’t good enough so it was me too.”

Although he said it in such a carless voice, Keely felt the sudden flare of rage in her stomach.

What kind of person beat up a five year old boy? Really, who the fuck beat up their wife and then turned to her son?

“Did she leave him?” Keely asked quietly, trying to control the anger in her voice.

He just shrugged casually. “I don’t know, maybe, I can’t remember everything that happened very clearly. And you know what, it wasn’t that bad because he would lay off my mom a bit then. Maybe she did try to leave him, maybe she didn’t, I did say before she wasn’t a very strong person.”

Now Keely’s voice caught in her throat at his words, but she still thought vehemently, a mother should be strong enough to protect her son!

“So that went on, we moved around a lot, people would call the cops because of the fighting or seeing my mom all bruised like that, and since we were always renters we got kicked out of a lot of places. We moved to Green Bay when I was about ten, and that’s when I met Colton and Marco. We stayed there for a long time because Jack got a pretty steady job, he drank pretty much all him and mom made, but she always managed to keep us living in a place even if we moved around town a bit. Plus Jack learned to hit where it wasn’t quite so obvious.

“Marco, Colton and their parents figured it out eventually, but I got them not to say anything because I knew we’d just be moved again. And I think they wanted to make sure they could watch out for me, after all, I pretty much lived at their houses. If it hadn’t been for mom I would never have gone home, it would just get worse for her. I think the Stevenson and the Neilson’s tried to talk to her, but...”

When he trailed off, Keely finished for him in a low voice, “But it didn’t help?”

“It didn’t help,” Seth agreed, turning his attention to the window that was behind her. However his eyes were looking as if they were far away, making Keely doubt that he saw anything that passed the tour bus; he was years away.

“And, once again, that’s how it kept going, we got a pretty stable place to stay and it was close to Marco and Colton so that was better. I learnt how to play guitar on the crappy acoustics they had at school, and they learnt their instruments too. The Stevenson’s bought my first good acoustic and the Neilson’s got me my first electric, they were both Fenders. Besides the obvious exception of Jack, things were going better than they ever had.

“But then I came home one day from Colton’s one day, he was drunker than ever and beating up my mom, and I just wasn’t a little kid anymore-” he cut off, gulping.

Thickly, Keely just said, “Oh, Seth.”

Her voice appeared to remind him that she was there, because he shook his head, looked into her eyes and continued on, his voice forcefully emotionless. “I would have killed him if the cops hadn’t come, I was still a lot smaller than him, but he was drunk. I don’t regret it. I put him in the hospital, he pressed charges and my ass got hauled to juvie.”

“What?” she yelped abruptly, shocking even herself. “How could they send you to jail? Isn’t there something like defending others or something?”

Seth just gave another offhand shrug. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure there is, but I don’t know what was really going on to be honest. Plus I’d already gotten in some fights at school and there was this little vandalism thing, or things.”

“But that’s nothing...” she trailed off.

“It was enough for whoever decided I had to go to juvie. But, yeah, back to the point. I had to stay in there for two years, good behaviour or whatever so I got out at sixteen instead of eighteen. Apparently they liked the fact that I read a lot and kept up at school, I think they thought the guitar was heinous though...

“When I got out, I had no idea where my mom was, I couldn’t find her in town.”

It was almost as if there was white noise buzzing around in her ears. At the beginning of the story, she’d felt sympathetic to Seth’s mother. She couldn’t help the empathy although losing the person you were married to was much different from losing a parent, the relationship between her and Tony had almost been similar, although she knew without a doubt he would never have hit her and Keely would never have let him get away with it.

But now, now Keely hated his mother, with a blinding passion. Just the way he still spoke about her made it clear he still loved her, no matter what she’d allowed, even if indirectly, happen to her child. However she doubted she could loathe anyone as much as she loathed Jack. He was a monster. And she felt even more fervently when she was sitting across from Seth, seeing the effect that his childhood had on him, the demons that he was good at hiding from everyone else but his best friends.

Yes, she loathed Jack, but she felt no respect for his mother.

“So I moved in with the Stevenson’s, but it was only a couple months before I got the call. He’d finally done enough to put her in the hospital, and she listed the Stevenson and Neilson’s as her emergency contacts because she knew I’d be there.

“That was enough, I guess. She pressed charges that time; it was him that got sent to jail, I don’t know if he’s out or not now. But he’s not coming around ever again, even he’s smart enough to know that I’d fucking kill him this time. The Stevenson’s let us rent their basement, they would’ve let us live there for free but mom wouldn’t let them, so she paid rent. But I dropped out of high school to get a job because there were the hospital bills that had been racked up. Marco and Colton’s families would have helped, but they did enough. I just had to find a way to pay off that newest debt.”

He gave a deep sigh, rubbing one hand over his eye. “So that’s when Maureen discovered us, we were playing in some parking lot because Marco’s parents were trying to sleep. In two months we had a record ready, back to basic rock and roll album. But the owner of the label back then, you remember him as that old bastard, wanted us to give him a more pop sound because he thought it would sell better. We said no, he said he’d drop us from the label and I was supposed to be getting a bonus when the album dropped that would finish paying off the hospital bills. So in one day he had an album worth of crappy pop songs for us to record, we did in two weeks, did one track of everything for each song, we didn’t care it wasn’t what we wanted to be playing. And here we are.”

She could feel the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, thinking back to the first bit of time spent in New York when they hadn’t been getting along. How many times had she called him a sell out or a pop star? “So you did it, you sold out, all for your mother?”

“What else was I supposes to do?” he answered quietly.

Keely opened her mouth to speak, but Seth cut her off.

“So that’s everything, it all comes back to me. I screwed up.”

Her mouth dropped open, hanging agape for a moment. How could he even think that? It just wasn’t logical. “Seth-” she began, leaning forward, but he interrupted again.

“You don’t have to say anything, Keely,” he told her abruptly, turning his away from her. Seth refocused on the darkened window above her head. “It’s not your fault, you didn’t let it all happen, letting your mom get beat up, fucking with your best friends lives and becoming a fraud. Just don’t tell anyone, it’s not the easiest secret to keep hidden.”

“I won’t, I swear,” she promised hastily, “But, Seth-”

“You should go to sleep,” he continued, acting as if he hadn’t even heard her words. “You said that your sleep pattern is all messed up.”

Looking at him, Keely sighed. He wasn’t going to listen to anything she said, at least not tonight although he obviously needed to tell someone the truth about everything. “You should go to sleep too,” she told him, observing the shadows beneath his hazel eyes that held barely a hint of gold at that point. “You really need to sleep more, Seth.”

“I’ll try later,” he answered, beginning to strum again.

With a sigh, she pushed herself up, but couldn’t stop herself.

She placed a hand on his shoulder, feeling the warmth radiate through his shirt into her hand. Leaning down, Keely whispered in his ear, her voice only audible to him in the darkness. "It wasn't your fault. You were a good son, and you're a good man now. The best I know, in fact. You didn't screw up anything, you're just fixing it. You're a good man," she repeated softly.

Without a thought, she pressed her lips gently against his cheek, feeling tingles flow into her lips. Breaking the contact, she rested her forehead against the side of his head, feeling his soft hair brush her forehead as she breathed in deeply the nice scent.

But she didn't say another word, just stood up and walked to bed. There was nothing more she could say.

And she fell asleep, craning her ears for the sound of that soothing guitar.

- AND NOW DO YOU BLOODY WELL SEE WHY HE COULDN'T JUST BLURT OUT EVERYTHING WHEN THEY WERE FIRST GETTING TO KNOW EACH OTHER?

Lol, sorry for the outburst, I'm just so tired. I posted because I love you guys and I'd feel bad if I didn't. My best friend came back to town for the weekend since she moved last year, and I'm spending every spare moment I can with her, so sorry if there are lack of posts this weekend. But this is freaking long, it should tide you over haha.

And Seth's secrets - well, most of them - are out, happy now? Or sad? How do you feel about it? Only one other person besides me knew before you, so there you go.

And this is what Seth was refering to with Nowhere Man.

If you want to look at clues to everything he's hiding and feeling, look at what songs he does. The only song that had no meaning in this entire book was Helter Skelter. Oh, yeah, Simple Man in external link.

The only thing that annoys me about Jagger is that he says "bebe" live instead of "baby" bah.

I'M ONLY EVER GOING TO SAY THIS ONCE MORE, AND IF YOU ASK ME ABOUT IT I WON'T ANSWER. That makes me sound like a bitch, but forgive me, I'm tired and I finally understand why teachers are annoyed when people ask the same questions over and over again.

I have a bloody plan for everything in this book! I know she's not talking to Haley or Joe or her dad, THERE'S A REASON! I wouldn't leave open ends for no reason, I swear to you there's a plan for everything. As for Nick, well, Nick has no role in this story, in their lives, yes he does, but you'll probably never find out what that is.

It's bloody 6:29 in the morning and I've been writing forever. I only write in one go, I can't just stop writing and start again, I have to just sit down and write a whole chapter all the way through. Man I'm tired.

I hope I answered any questions, if not, tell me. 

I say bloody a lot at this time.

Damn, it's 6:31 now, I have to go out and muck stalls in like an hour and then after that ride a few horses and go out with my friend. SEE HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU GUYS HAHA?!?!?!

Okay, I'm going crazy now, please just ignore me. I almost hope you stopped reading this a long time ago.

La la la la la.

Goodnight to some of you. Good morning for me and some others. And for the rest, good afternoon wherever you are on the planet!

"I am me, as you are, and you are me and we are all together."

....

I think that's how it goes.

Bloody hell, I'm stopping this pointless ramble now.