July 1st, 1991

Madison Square Garden, New York

Fifth concert of Ari Peiderezek's King tour

Backstage

'Fuck me...'

Ari Peiderezek, who had held a concert approximately an hour prior to approximately twenty-two thousand people, lays sprawled out on a couch in a non-descript backroom, starved and very nauseous. His head is pounding and his ears are ringing from how loud everyone was screaming. His entire body aches from all of the light dancing and movement and choreography he did. His voice hurts, so he probably oversung, so he shouldn't talk. Pizza's going to take forever, maybe he just won't eat today. Well there's not much left of "today", it's probably almost 8 or 9. He can't muster any social energy right now.

Maybe he should go outside and wave or something. He should be talking with a roadie.

Where's the advil...

July 1st, 1991

Madison Square Garden, New York

The thousandth time Violet wanted to bash her head in because of her popularity

Backstage

Violet has travelled everywhere around the world, and now she's opening for this artist named Ari Peiderezek. A punk rock artist opening for a dubstep artist? Violet never thought she'd sink this low, but she didn't care, she didn't like being popular anyway, she just released her third album "British Invaders" to no success. At all. Violet smirked, let the critics say what they wanted, she did take on a more abstract sound these days.

After the show, Violet was sweating like she was the very asscrack of Satan itself.

Then, she saw him, Ari. He looked pretty cute to be honest.

Ari had said nary a single word to Violet before the show. "Hi", if that. He had no idea who she was but he was told that she'd be playing, so, whatever. This rushed bullshit. He hated it all, but of course contractual obligations. He'd just run off and go to Cancún if he could, but alas...

Ari sighed and rolled over, holding his head and groaning quietly from the pain. Ari thinks about what next to do. Perhaps take a shower and then pick up some fast food if the pizza that they said would be here right after the show would ever come. Maybe get shot in the street like a dog a la John Lennon. Hopefully. Where the fuck was his painkillers -- he sat up on the couch, frantically searching around the room for the bottle of painkillers, which weren't there. Shit!...

...Ari sees Violet looking at him. Ari stares at her for a couple of seconds while he pieces together who she was in his mind.

'Oh, um, hi...' Ari mumbles, looking away from Violet and delibrately avoiding eye contact. His voice was somewhat raspy, and did not resemble his singing voice in the slightest. Another person he needed to talk to -- how wonderful.

"Hey," her Mancunian accent was very clear in her voice. "Looking for something, mate?" she said as she leaned against the doorframe.

Fuck! Now he needed to talk to her?! Ari let out a quiet sigh or groan and nodded. He looked in Violet's general direction and opened his mouth, but no noise came out for a few seconds. 'Ah.. ah...'

'..Um, yeah, my advil. My entire body hurts like hell. Why the fuck do I need to do all the god damn choreography...' Ari covered his head with his hands and then rolled onto his side and groaned again.

Violet smiled slightly, it seemed genuine than from all the fake ones she had to put on at award shows. "Hm, want any help?"

Ari stopped for a second and frowned. She was actually going to be nice to him and considerate and also nice... and help?.. he has no idea why he's even continuing this conversation. Ears ringing and his head hurts... he almost feels like he's about to meltdown or go nonverbal or something like that. But at the same time he doesn't want to be rude.

'Yeah...' Ari nodded. 'I'll, um... go find it somewhere maybe, I--you don't need to, I--I...'

Ari's voice trails off. He sighed again.

"God, it's so damn hot in here..." Violet peeled off her torn leather jacket, revealing her equally-messed up crop top, she also had a belly button piercing, the fake diamond glinting from the dim light.

Violet rummaged through cupboards for a few minutes, then tossed a bottle of Advil in Ari's lap. "Here you go, mate."

'Oh!'

Ari took the bottle, looking at it for a second to see if it was an actual advil bottle or something else. Wow!.. Ari looked back at Violet for a second, seeming genuinly surprised. He scoffed. 'Oh--wow, um... thanks. You're a damn life saver... of course they have advil for me here, fucking...'

Ari forced the bottle open -- it had a childproof top but he was never able to figure out how to open those. Once the bottle was open, he scooped out a handful of the little tablets and shoved them down his throat. At least 12 tablets Ari has just swallowed in one sitting. He definetly would be overdosing on this soon.

Ari groans and wipes his mouth, before groaning again and leaning his head back. He doesn't even have any allergy medicine or zoloft, so he can't create his concoctions. Dissapointing.

'God...' Ari says to himself, holding his head. It'd take a half hour to work anyways. But then he'd feel great! Just make it through the next half hour and you'll be fine.

Violet ran a hand through her hair, tousling her already messy hair, she looked really pretty doing it. But Violet never really considered herself attractive, she'd rather be a notch in somebody's bedpost rather than an actual partner, but looking at Ari, she started getting butterflies in her stomach. She decided to add a little more eyeliner to her already sloppy dark blue eyeshadow.

'Mm..' Ari sighed and looked away. For a minute or two he didn't say anything as he tried again to take a nap or something.

But maybe he should get up and stop rotting and meet his fans and talk with his staff and get yelled at by people and then go.. wherever the fuck was next.

Ari sat back up. He turned and glanced at Violet as she applied the eyeliner.

'Uh... why here..?' Ari asked. He probably came across as confrontational or something of the sort, but it was a genuine question. He figures she'd get upset or mad or yell at him, because that usually happened when Ari asked a genuine question that seemed confrontational, or obvious, and so on.

"I just wanted to meet the artist I was opening for." Violet didn't tear her eyes away from the mirror, but she still looked at Ari from there. She couldn't take her eyes off him, for Christ's sake.

'Oh... I don't know if, um, I'm an artist per se but whatever, I guess..' Ari said. Of course he was critizing himself. He had no self esteem. Never had one to begin with. He needs to work on that but fuck his shoulders hurt so much. 'I don't even make good music anyways.' Ari shrugged.

'Why, um.. do you keep staring at me...?' Ari timidly asked Violet.

"I'm not." Violet quickly denied it as she looked back at herself, and starts doing her lipstick, and a very visible blush appeared on her cheeks. Fuck, now he's probably going to know she has a crush on him.

'No..?'

Ari is very confused. She isn't -- atleast she says -- and now she's blushing? His brain can't handle this. He's so confused. He really wants to ask a lot of questions but at the same time he doesn't want to come across as rude or weird or anything. Ari pauses for a second while his brain works, and then timidly asks 'But you're blushing..? I... wh...'

He emits a series of speech-like sounds as he tries to process what was going on. Then he just sighs and mumbles, 'I'm really confused...'

"I-I... uhm..." Normally, Violet would find herself dashing out of the door, but she found a hat on a coat hanger and immediately covered her face. "I'm not blushing anymore, am I?" she said, her voice wavering with anxiety.

Ari shakes his head. Ari doesn't know why she's covering her face with the hat. Ari sighs and responds earnestly, 'No, you still... you, um, you still are. This is really awkward. I don't even know what's going on anymore. I hate doing concerts so much. I hate touring, and I don't know why you're, I..'

'Ech...'

Violet slowly put down the hat, the blush still staining her cheeks. "Well, you caught me. And yeah, I kind of hate touring too, everyone just knows me as the Overdrive girl."

'It's... yeah, I... yeah.' Ari thought that it might seem a bit ingenuine but he genuinly agreed. Ari's mildly comforted to hear another artist that he's certain that he listened to at some point that thought similar to he did. He genuinely enjoyed that particular song, as well as British Invaders, but he figured he shouldn't talk about that right now.

So she was blushing, that was weird. Ari began to bite his nails as he thought. Maybe talk about music with her. 'Um. I really like your music, um, all of it. I like punk rock, and, um, alternative or indie rock and stuff...'

"Really? Name one of my other songs aside Overdrive." she said with a playful challenging in her eyes.