A/N: Amy takes in her first show of the tour and finds herself a bit turned on (more than a bit) and tries not to overthink, which leads her somewhere... (someone)... different.
The first time it happens, Amy never sees it coming.
The first show of the tour is in Louisiana - Shreveport, to be exact - and it's nothing like she expects, even if she isn't really sure what she expected. She saw enough shows when she was with Reagan to have an idea, but this band is different and this club is different and maybe, she thinks (when she lets herself think about it) it's not the band or the club or even the state.
Maybe it's her.
She tries not to think about it too much because that, she knows, is what she does. She overthinks. She gets an idea in her head and she worries it down to the nub, slowly whittling it down to nothing but a tiny nugget of anxiety that lodges itself in her brain like the pea under the princess's mattress.
It's good, Amy thinks, to know yourself. Even if that knowing doesn't stop you from doing what you know you shouldn't, and with her?
It almost never does.
But she's turning over a new leaf, even if that leaf turning is still just a work in progress, but she's trying and that's what counts. So, as the band preps and soundchecks and the crowds start to file in and Lauren disappears somewhere backstage with Amy's camera (the still one, not the video cause that one's seemingly been attached to Amy's hand by duct tape or superglue or the fucking force) she tries really hard not to think about it. To not ponder the changes she's going through and to analyze them all to fucking death bit by tiny bit.
And that lasts till just before show time, till the house lights start to dim and she starts panning the camera across the front row (not that there's really rows, more like disorganized lines zigging from slightly drunk and zagging to smashed out of their mind and back again) and she watches through the lens as the focus shifts as the camera corrects for light and distance and she's totally not trying to zoom in on the two (very) attractive young ladies in the front and definitely not on the chest of the… bigger… of the two or her t-shirt, stretched tight across her or the word there, in BIG and BOLD blue letters.
CLEMENT
And what was that about not thinking?
Somehow (and she totally blames Dillon and Lauren for this, though there's no rational reason why but this is Amy and whether it's new Amy or old Amy, rationality is never her friend) she hasn't thought of that little detail until right this minute.
"We're in Louisiana," she says, the camera tipping slightly and getting an extreme close up of the floorboards on the side of the stage.
"Have been all day, Sidekick," Dillon says. She's right behind Amy,rolling her neck back and forth and letting out little sighs that make Amy think of women in labor on TV. "You didn't do well in geography in school, did you?"
Amy turns and looks at her (and there's that tattoo again, sticking out just under the strap of her top - if you can call what she's wearing a top - and Amy still can't see it) and she tries to speak, tries to explain but she hears the words coming out of her mouth before she even says them.
You don't understand. We're in Louisiana. Home of Clement University. Home of the dream.
And yeah… she'll be keeping that to herself.
King comes up behind Dillon and they start going over the set list one more time - Amy's got the fucking thing memorized and she only heard it once - and that leaves her with just the camera and the stage and the blonde with the big… hair… under the too tight t-shirt that she probably wouldn't be able to take her eyes off of even if it didn't have… that… emblazoned on it.
She tries not to think about it, tries to remember that until about two minutes ago she didn't even know that they were so close to Clement (even though they're practically at the other end of the state but when you're talking about the dream, close is a relative fucking term.) Amy does her best to just focus on the show and the crowd and letting it come to her (thanks, Dad) but then there's another one - another shirt on another young (and attractive and why the fuck couldn't at least one of them be ugly?) woman - and then another and another and they're all through the crowd and she spends at least five minutes playing connect-the-breasts and almost misses the beginning of the show until King's screeching riff from some song she doesn't know (which, she later finds out, was the Dillholes doing The Pretty Reckless' Going to Hell, which she thinks might be appropriate.)
Amy manages to zone back in and stick with the show and the band, at least through the first couple songs but then she (and, by extension, the camera) start to drift again, setting sail into the crowd and it takes all of thirty seconds to find the Sea of Clement in the audience and she feels herself start to drown but she's got nothing (and no one) to hold onto.
They're all young, though not as young as her - even if she feels like she looks older, like she could be their big sister or their sorta cougar girlfriend - and they're lost in the music, shaking their hair and their hips and raising their cups and their bottles high. They're cutting loose and having fun and not a one of them, she's sure, is sparing a single thought for their future or how their school of choice will impact it and whether they'll still be friends three months (or three years) from now.
God, she's so fucking jealous.
There's a part of her (one that sounds an awful lot like Karma) that wonders, that whispers in her ear, asking if she thinks they're best friends, if they all planned on college together (and then life after it) for years, mapping it all out and knowing that they'd face it all the way they'd faced everything else.
Together.
Amy turns the camera onto King, soloing his way through House of the Rising Sun and beats that tiny part of her - the one that sounds so much like Karma - back with the biggest mental stick she's got. And then King moves up, right to the edge of the stage, dropping to his knees and he's right in front of them and they're screaming and grabbing at him like he's one of the Beatles (even if Amy's sure none of them could even name one Beatle) and she catches sight of them in the camera again...
And fuck all, that stick's not nearly big enough.
But the show is rocking and Dillon is killing it (and if she hears that in Reagan's voice, well that's only fair, right?) and Amy shakes her head and focuses back on the camera and the stage and does her best to ignore the Clementines (and yes, she thought of that on her own and yes, she is fucking proud) and just do her job.
A job Dillon and King seem determined to make as hard as possible, even if Amy knows they actually have no idea they're doing anything at all.
Her dad's advice aside, Amy already figured - logically - that focusing on the lead singer and the lead guitarist might make for the smartest plan. There will be, she figures, plenty of shows for her to get footage of Beef and Rodney (bass) and Lacey (guitar and sometimes keys) - the one Lauren called Bookworm - and so tonight, she thought, would be all about the Big Two.
And then that Big Two decided to spend half their night near the edge of the stage or out in the crowd or pulling a Clementine or two up on stage and Amy can't help focusing the camera on the other Big Two and fuck… it's the first show and she's already turned into Liam Booker with a camcorder.
Amy does her best - which for the first night isn't bad but leaves a lot (a lot) of room for improvement - to focus where she should and, in a lot of ways, that's not that hard. King has a magnetic quality to him (and Lauren, standing in the wings on the other side of the stage, snapping still shot after still shot - an alarmingly high percentage of which will turn out to be of King - certainly seems… attracted) and Amy catches herself getting lost a couple of times in the way he plays. A few songs end with him just riffing his way into the next one and she lets the camera follow the sway of his shoulders and the bobbing of his head and he navigates the music and, just for a minute, she gets why girls love guitar players.
But if King is a magnet?
Then Dillon is the North Fucking Pole. Or the tractor beam from the Death Star or a black hole or some other inescapable force because it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman or gay or straight or something in between.
Amy's sure (so fucking sure) that there's not a person in that club that Dillon couldn't have.
She doesn't so much move as she does stalk or hunt, criss-crossing the stage in long, deliberate steps that make her hips move in ways Amy didn't know they could, hopping up on speakers or amps, crouching down at the edge of the stage and even then her body never stops, and she's all shoulders and abs and hips and ass and none of it stops moving, not even for a second, swaying like a hypnotist's watch but she's not putting a single one of those fuckers to sleep.
She's like a panther - like a green haired, six packed, swivel hipped panther- and yes, Amy knows how cliched (and ridiculous) that sounds, but she's not all that well read on her jungle cats and there's no other… description… nothing not x-rated at least… that does justice to what Dillon does to that stage, so panther will have to do for now and that's fine because Amy has another word for her, maybe (not maybe) a better one.
Star.
So, yeah, it's a tiny little club in Louisiana (Shreveport, to be exact, again) and so maybe she's not Adele or Beyonce but she's already got the one name thing down and Reagan wasn't wrong about the voice. So she's not a super star (yet), maybe she's just a small one. A white dwarf - so like the size of Asia (and she might have sucked at geography, but Amy fucking aced astronomy) - but anyone with eyes and a brain (and a couple other parts) can tell that whatever 'it' is? That girl's got it.
Dillon's made 'it' her bitch and made 'it' like it.
And that, Amy knows, is good and not just for the band, but good for her because even if she wanted to (and she really doesn't, mostly) she can't move the camera off Dillon. She's everywhere. Leaning against King as he shreds a brief cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit, trying to steal Beef's drumsticks during Back in Black, teasing a dive into the crowd (and disappointing a lot of hands.) The stage is small but even if it was the size of Madison Square Garden, it wouldn't change the most basic fact.
Dillon owns it. Every fucking inch.
And that's before. Before the moment when Amy realizes that yes, she can want to fuck someone without being in love with them and the moment when she realizes she's not alone in that feeling.
That's before Gonna Get Mine.
Dillon is at the front of the stage and Amy's doing her level best (which is, for the most part, good enough) to keep the camera aimed over her shoulder, to show the crowd reacting to her, to give some scope and some depth and to not focus directly on the girl's ass and when Dillon crouches down right at the edge that makes it easier and harder all at once.
Amy's heard the song before (Felix was a huge Halestorm fan and once she's able to get past that unfortunate association, she remembers the song) and she knows the music is supposed to start first, that Beef and King and Rodney are supposed to lay down the beat, get the crowd stomping along.
But when you've got Dillon?
You use Dillon.
She starts it off acapella and if Pitch Perfect (and sorta Pitch Perfect Two,though really not as much cause Fat Amy and Bumper and ugh) didn't teach Amy an appreciation for acapella, the next thirty or so seconds do the trick nicely.
Dillon crouches at the edge of the stage, right in front of the Clementines, and starts it off, her head bobbing in time with the beat she hears in her head.
Naked pictures on my telephone
All my secrets that you weren't supposed to know
But I sleep just fine every single night
She leans into the crowd, the Clementines leaning up to meet her.
Cause I got a film tape
She reaches out one hand, ghosting a touch across the cheek of the Clementine with the huge… hair…
You will never find…
The band kicks in behind her and the crowd goes wild and Dillon stands, shooting devil horns to the sky.
And everybody wants to know what I got going on below
But then they'll never get all of me
Dillon runs a hand down along her body, slowly turning her back to the audience and then she's looking right into the camera and right through Amy and fuck, it's hard to breathe…
Na na nananana, I get what I want and I'm gonna get mine
Na na nananana, I get what I want and I'm gonna get mine
Imma get mine… Imma get mine… Imma get mine… Imma get mine… Imma get mine…
She turns again, walking to the edge, her toes over it and Amy knows what she's going to do even before she does it.
Uninvited to my fantasy
So get the fuck out of my legacy
Dillon steps off the edge, dropping right into the laps of the Clementines and Amy's got her doubts that any of them would pass up a shot with Liam (or Felix or even Shane for that matter) but in that moment, that's the hottest little cluster of lesbians ever caught on film and it's definitely a better soundtrack.
I'm pleading guilty
Dillon's hands find the hips of one of the Clementines who spins around, whooping and hollering, hands in the air like she just don't care, and then she's grinding and Dillon's right behind her and the camera might slip a little but Amy'll fix that in editing.
And my fate's been sentenced
Another of the Clementines comes up behind Dillon and they make the oddest (and hottest) (and most musically gifted) (and did she mention hottest?) conga line ever and they start moving through the crowd but it's not really moving, more like snaking and shaking and grinding and wiggling and God, how long is this song?
And if I had to do it all over again
I'd do it
Dillon leans back against the Clementine behind her, letting her head rest on the girl's shoulder as she moves in time with the beat, her abs shaking as she swings her hips from side to side
I'd do it
Another swing and Dillon's voice drops like a fucking octave and she's practically growling and Reagan so wasn't kidding.
I'd do it again
She stretches out the end, turning 'again' into at least eight syllables and the crowd loses their collective shit as she finishes the note and kisses each of her Clementine dancers on the cheek and heads back to the stage, hopping up on the edge in time to finish it out, her back to the audience.
And everybody wants to know what I got going on below
Amy only wishes she was out in the crowd for that view.
But they'll never get all of me
Na na nananana, I get what I want and I'm gonna get mine
Na na nananana, I get what I want and I'm gonna get mine
The band drops out again and Dillon finishes like she started, acapella and with the crowd eating out of… the palm of her hand.
Imma get mine… Imma get mine… Imma get mine… Imma get mine…
Imma get miiiiiiiiiiiine…
And the lights go down and the crowd erupts and just like that, Amy's first show is done and over and she barely has time to shut the camera down and give it to one of the crew to take to the bus before Dillon and King and Lauren (and how the hell did she get there so fast?) are next to her and tugging her out into the club and onto the floor.
"Meet and mingle!" King yells. "Best part of the gig! Free drinks!"
They all surge off into the crowd and Amy's left there but she's laughing and not freaking and the music's cranked and people are dancing and she's not thinking at all, much less over thinking and she lets the rush of the night take her and she throws her hands over her head and sways her way into the masses.
And right into one of the Clementines. The one with the hair and not the big hair, the red hair that sparks its way over her shoulders and down her back and it's not that she doesn't have big hair, it's plenty big enough but then there's those eyes - so green Amy feels Irish just looking - and those lips and those curves…
"Hi," she says.
"Hi," Amy says back.
And then she's kissing her and the Clementine (her name is Gabby and Amy won't know that for another few minutes and she'll barely remember it tomorrow morning until Lauren and Gabby remind her) is kissing her back and it's the first time Amy's been kissed since the pool and the first time she's kissed anyone since Reagan (cause she's so not counting Felix) and there's a whoop from the crowd and camera flashes going off all around them and somewhere, in the back of her mind, Amy knows this is gonna end up on Facebook or Snapchat or Tumblr and that can't end well for her.
But that's something to think about.
And Amy's just not doing that.