Day 1: Early Night

The beginning of a grin was blooming across Maka's face as she looked around incredulously at the crowd. My Chemical Romance was closing out their show with a fourth encore song, "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)", and the energy of the crowd was helping her build a more fluid understanding of what everyone meant when they talked about music. When MCR had first left the stage, she'd been a little disappointed with their overall performance, she'd seen better throughout the day, but as she packed up to leave, Soul had grabbed her wrist and pulled her close to whisper in her ear, "Nah just wait." He'd grinned mischievously, "they're big enough to mess with us like this." Maka turned her head to ask what he'd meant, and was disappointed to find he'd already moved away. The goosebumps he'd conjured from his whispered breath on the back of her neck refused to settle though, as his proximity to her made her skin tingle.

The crowd had shouted and called and begged for upwards of 3 minutes, before each member cheekily made their way back out. However, Maka's mind was preoccupied and vacillating between whether or not he even noticed her at all. The majority of her knew that she wasn't the main attraction tonight, and that MCR was much more interesting than some possible vibes with a girl he'd just met, but every once in a while during the three minutes of the crowd begging for an encore their eyes would meet, and she could swear the excitement clustered in the corner of his smirk and in the crinkles of his eyes were there just for her. MCR continued on to play three more songs before the crowd had drowned out the lead's small interludes with calls for this final song.

With their group's own pell mell run for the Mainframe stage, they'd only made it mid-way up through the crowd. So, when the final notes were strummed, the picks and sticks thrown into the crowd, and the roadies had begun to pack up the stage, the crush of people moving toward, beside, and around them meant a lot of momentum in various directions. As well as a lot of people in different stages of inebriation. They themselves had quickly gone through BlackStar's beers, and because they had been running late they hadn't been able to get more. So, in Maka's estimation, everyone was a little tipsy, but only Tsu was truly drunk. Patty had even mellowed out.

"Hey, watch it!" Tsu's tone was a little sharper than usual, which Maka attributed to her inebriation, when a huge group of people carrying a flag and singing loudly off-key pushed through their group. They were followed by another, then several more individuals, and Maka and Soul were pushed further and further from their group.

She felt a hand gently touch her elbow when she tried to push through the stream of people to get back to them. "Look, let's just go with the flow, and we can meet up somewhere else, yeah? I'll call BlackStar."

Maka nodded, but her face fell. She hated leaving Tsu when she wasn't at her best, and Patty was still a little off and…

"Yo, dude." Soul shouted with one hand holding his phone up his ear, and the other motioning for her to follow him. She grabbed the back of his shirt as he followed a group through a stream toward the back open part of the field. "Yeah, I agree." She saw him nod, before looking back to make sure she was there. "Yeah, she's with me. Alright. Uh-huh." He hung up as they made it to the edge of the masses of people.

"Jesus christ." He ran a hand through his hair before falling back against a convenient post and breathing deeply.

"So, where's everyone else?" Maka pulled out her phone realizing she didn't remember the row and number of their camping space in BingLand. "Fuck, my phone's dead." Shit, shit. Tsu's gonna kill me. She told me specifically to remember the lot number.

"Yeah, no problem. We're gonna meet up at the campgrounds. You guys are in BingLand, too, right? You know which plot?

"Uh, yeah of course."

"Okay, so which one?" He said, raising an eyebrow quizzically at her and quirking the left side of his mouth in a half-grin, "Because Liz said she didn't put it in her phone, and she'd expected to be blacked out and hadn't bothered to remember, and BlackStar and Tsu have apparently been drinking from his flask. So, she can't remember either."

Fuck. "Okay, so maybe I don't exactly remember either."

Soul snorted, before pinching the bridge of his nose. "Incredible." He pulled out his phone, "Yo, dude. Go to ours." He paused, " No, I don't know if it's further." He sighed and paused as he listened again before interrupting, "Well because apparently none of these chicks can remember where they fucking camped." He laughed when he got off the phone. "Liz says she's going to murder you when we get to camp if this is more than a 20 minute walk." He patted her on the back, "I hope she doesn't hit as hard as she looks like she can for your sake."

BlackStar shifted his weight and readjusted the way he was helping to support Tsu. How was I supposed to know she was a lightweight? I warned her it was moonshine, and she shot it back like she'd been drinking it forever. He shook his head and bit his lip to keep from smiling. He glanced across his shoulder at her, where she walked unsteadily, if happily, from where his arm snaked under hers and around her shoulders, singing snippets of songs to Liz across the road. As if she felt his eyes on her, she turned back to him and her smile was so secretive, holding whispers of answers and longings he didn't even know he'd wanted.

He returned it and felt another set of eyes burning into the side of his from across the road. He looked over Tsu's head to see Liz glaring at him, before mouthing "Are we there yet?" and heavily rolling her eyes. He held up his other hand with two fingers and motioned forward with it. He also mouthed "Ask Kid!" She just shook her head and rolled her eyes again before barely catching Patty as she stumbled over what must be another hidden hole in the grass on the roadside.

The last two camp spaces took almost as long to cover as the the entire walk from the Mainframe stage, but when they finally collapsed in front of Soul's small concession to a marketing strategy in the form of a thin sheet spray painted with a staggered HH and an Ohio flag, and BlackStar glanced at his watch he realized it'd only been a few minutes since he'd last checked.

"Sit wherever's dry." A night chill had settled on the grounds and an early dew had crept into their partially open 'front room' where they had set up a small table, several coolers, and a couple of folding chairs. He pulled his shirt from the back of where he'd tucked it into his belt and wiped the canvas seat down before depositing Tsu into it. "Lemme get you a water. I think we stocked some?" He looked over to where Kid was helping Liz wrangle Patty into another folding chair.

"Patty, just sit down and chill for a minute. We're not saying we're done. Just waiting for Maka." Liz was laughing as she said this, as Patty was absolutely beaming, while she wrapped her arms around Kid and tried to alternately pull him into the chair with her or pull herself up using him for stability.

"I just wanna dance, Liz! You know they have the sunrise electronica set starting at 2am. We should go!" Patty freed Kid , who stepped back quickly and dropped his hands, breathing in and out quickly, before running a hand down his rumpled shirt. Liz shot him a concerned glance as he moved further away before turning back to Patty as she began moving fluidly in her chair, her arms held above her head, her torso twisting smoothly to music she could only hear. "I'm sure there'll be a ton of people out on the first night too!" She dropped her hands into a pleading clasped position in front of her chin.

"Love, it's only midnight now. We're going to chill for a minute. You're at least evened out enough to drink if you want. We need to wait an hour or so for Tsu to settle or until Maka gets here, so we can figure out where our camp is."

"Technically, it doesn't matter where our camp is if we just party til 2 and then go to that set that goes until sunrise anyway…" Patty placed two fingers over her lips as if trying to hide her grin, but she still couldn't contain the smile underneath.

While this exchange was going on, Kid was wordlessly moving around the camp. He'd straightened some miscellaneous items, moved a few things from the 'front room' into the tents, wiped down the table, and pulled out a small wireless speaker from his Jeep. He handed it to BlackStar, before moving to the farthest cooler, grabbing a water bottle from inside and tossing it to BlackStar as well. Finally, he turned to look at the group but BlackStar noticed he continued to avoid direct eye contact or at least avoided looking at him, "anymore waters? Otherwise, we've got a shit ton of Michelob and Yuengling. Plus, I've got a few bottles of soju, Soul probably has some type of nasty ass whiskey, and BlackStar has moonshine obviously."

"In the interest of honesty, when we do find out our campground number, I have a bottle of tequila. We have a shit ton of seltzers. And Maka has a bunch of weed." Liz had moved behind Patty and was now running her fingers through her hair slowly from her forehead to her crown and then down toward her ears. "I also do have some more molly, but that's for me tomorrow night. Since someone," Here she coughed and looked down pointedly at Patty who was humming contentedly as Liz stroked her fingers through her hair, "took their turn out of order. Cough Cough Patty."

Patty just waved a hand up at her sister as if brushing a fly away before giving a little heart with her pointer and thumb finger.

"Oooo me next, Liz." Tsu turned sideways in the chair, laying her legs over the arm, and resting her neck on the arm of the other side before reaching up and pulling her long high ponytail out of its tie. "I also have a bottle of gin, a bottle of vodka, and a bunch of mixers." she murmured with her eyes closed. "But I don't want anything to drink right now."

"Uh, I can try if you don't mind me drinking with one hand." BlackStar stumbled over his words as if he didn't know what he wanted to say. He'd moved away after giving her the water. He'd been fiddling with the speaker, and he'd finally connected his phone, and was playing a mix of music he and the rest of the band were hoping to see tomorrow. He grabbed a beer from the cooler, before turning back toward Tsu. "I mean rubbing your head… that is if you want. Not umm drinking for you. I mean if we play any drinking games… I could drink for you too…." Smooth. What the fuck is wrong with you? You're a god, you don't get mixed up like this. Get it together, dude.

BlackStar was thankful Kid had only turned on some of the cheery colorful light strands because they had to be hiding his blush. Tsu opened an eye, cocked her head on the arm of the chair, and said, "I don't mind," before patting the cooler near her chair.

He sat gingerly, as if the cooler might tip. When he looked up to mimic Liz's motions, she simply smirked at him and rolled her eyes, but also went on to ask, "Kid, do you mind handing me a beer?" Before sighing and with a slight lift at the corner of her mouth, showing him how to hold a drink with one hand, while continuing to run the other through Patty's hair. He switched his beer to his right hand, and with his left, he carefully brought his fingertips to the edge of Tsu's hairline. As he moved his hand back toward the crown of her head, he let his fingers spread out into little rivulets of hair that he watched rise and fall over his fingers. Then he watched as Liz moved from the center to the left and then right of Patty's head. His hands were bigger than hers, so he was only missing the slight line over her ears, so he adjusted and made sure to try and get each section accordingly, with every other drink.

"You can go a little harder."

Just as she said this, BlackStar had taken a huge drink of his beer, and for whatever reason the way she'd murmured it to him was such a turn on it made him choke.

Soul was good at many things. However, directions were not one of them. He knew exactly which plot they were camping in. He knew the way he'd gotten to their camp from the Cache stage. So, why in the world was he having so much fucking trouble now.

"Are you sure you know where you're camped?"

"Look, at least I know my fucking camping number." He didn't mean to snap, but Jesus they'd been walking in circles for the past 10 minutes.

"You said J10, right?"

"Yeh." His reply was curt. But he just wanted a shot and a beer and to fucking sit down. He'd done a show, and he'd been up for more than 16 hours at this point.

"Alright, there's the campground map. Give me a second." Maka moved toward the posted campground map, looked at it for a moment, and then returned. "We came in on the wrong side, I think." She pointed to the left, "We need to head that way for 8 rows, then go up 5 rows, and that should be J. I don't know which numbers we'll be in though. We can check it there."

"You're brilliant!" He grabbed her in a quick hug, lifting her and spinning her around. "Shit, sorry!" Soul grimaced and rubbed his left shoulder with the same hand, and avoided looking at her, "I- I'm just really fucking tired, and I wanna sit down. I'm only good with landmarks. Can't fucking read maps to save my life."

He couldn't tell, as the light above them was dim and yellowed from age, but her cheeks looked a little pink, and he'd be lying if he wasn't secretly pleased to think that they might be. With Maka's direction they made it row J in about 30 minutes. After going the wrong way down the row for about 2 minutes before realizing the numbers weren't going toward 10. They turned around and Soul finally saw some landmarks he recognized in the surrounding vehicles, tents, and various paraphernalia that people used as displays.

"Nice! When we reach the goose sheet, we're gonna veer a little left, and our spot is 3 down from there."

"The goose sheet?"

"You'll know what I mean when you see it."

Shortly after this proclamation, but cautiously as the grounds were darker over here, and there were several areas with hidden holes, which they found out when Maka tripped and rolled her ankle in one right before the goose sheet, Soul shifted her up on his back and leaned forward to balance so he could point with his other hand. "See. It's that goose with a knife. The goose sheet."

He felt rewarded by her laugh as they veered leftward and he strode the last few spaces into their unofficial front room, just in time to see BlackStar spit his beer out, barely missing Tsu's chair where he sat stroking her head. Soul raised an eyebrow in question, but BlackStar just shook his head slightly, and jerked his own head at Maka on Soul's back. He bit his lower lip before he caught himself and smoothed his face out, and shrugged nonchalantly, "I'll set you over there on the cooler for a sec, and get the other chair. Give me a moment."

"It's alright, Soul. I got it." Kid appeared quietly and carefully placed the chair in between Patty's and Tsu's. "Everything alright? You guys took a minute."

BlackStar snorted and then laughed outright, "You're joking right?" He flipped his head back to look at Kid, who smiled, even if Soul could tell it was slightly strained.

"Yeah, I guess. I was just trying to give him the out." Kid laughed, and Soul was grateful to hear it was closer to the energy level of Kid's normal. He knew that the show had stressed Kid out, but usually Kid was good with partying it out. After setting up the chair though, Kid moved back to the table across their small tarped off area and began to rearrange something on the table. Soul sighed; something was up.

He set Maka down in the chair, stood up, walked over to where Kid was standing, and stretched both arms over his head and back to stretch out his shoulders. He knew there'd be a little lift in his shirt, and he glanced over to see if Maka's eyes were drawn to it. He was a little disappointed to see that she was grimacing at Liz and holding two hands up, with the music playing in the background he could only hear snatches of the conversation.

"Are you fucking -"

"Liz, I had it - my phone -"

"Ugh, you know - You're not an id-"

"I already rolled my -"

The conversation seemed to come to a close with Liz flicking her friend in the forehead then ruffling her hair and getting her a drink.

Soul leaned back against the table opposite where the chairs had been set up next to the coolers. "You good, Kid?" He didn't reach over to stop him from cleaning the table. He knew that it helped Kid to complete these tasks, but he also knew Kid needed to process something different than the usual after show jitters.

"Fine, fine. I'm fine." He scrubbed hard at a burn spot from their camping mishap several years ago and a poorly placed metal hot dog prong. "Just need to do better next time… that's all. It's fine. I'm fine. We're fine." He attempted a smile. "I think I'm gonna do a bump. I need an up. That's all probably, I think. You know? Be right back."

"Kid, wait! I think…" But Kid had already moved off to his tent.

"Where's he off to?" BlackStar shouted toward them from his spot on the cooler.

"Just grabbing some more soju, I think." Soul said loudly enough for Kid to hear.

"Oh, thought he had that in the back of his Jeep, not his tent."

Kid came out a moment later sniffing and rubbing his nose. "Fuck, yeah you're right. I thought I moved it to my tent but it was so hot earlier I must have left it in the Jeep." He rubbed his nose one more time.

Soul closed his eyes and pushed off the table to join the others on a cooler near BlackStar with the hope that the night would resolve itself from the chaos it seemed to be devolving into.