Losers In Love ❁ d.j.h

• chapter twenty six •

A/N: Chapters twenty four and twenty five have been edited and rewritten. I'd suggest rereading that before continuing this one. And thank y'all so much for two thousand reads, that isn't something I ever expected for an idea I started on a whim. It means the world!

♡

Roughly two weeks ago, Dinah Jane was the talk of the town all over the world. But as of the past twenty four hours, Dinah Jane was the talk of the entire crew behind Lost Mechanism. And nothing could encapsulate why more than the sound of her crying.

"Someone needs to fucking talk to her!" Ivan gritted as he pointed to the drummer who sat in her seat with her hands rubbing her head. Not only was she red, but even the routines she knew like the back of her hand were devoid of its normal cadence.

Everyone didn't know what to do.

"She's going through something really heavy, man, you can't rush her." Isley reasoned, looking back at his best friend with worry. He did his best to talk to her and be there, but since the news broke, Dinah found herself wanting to do everything alone even down to her smoke breaks. She was a shell that he was stuck on how to coax something out of.

"Yeah, well, we have a fucking show tonight, and our drummer who begged to be back on this tour doesn't look ready at all! At this point, you should've just let her leave!" The frontman grumbled to their manager who frowned at the ground.

"Ivan, if we let her leave, we risk the press having a field day."

"Clifton, if she plays this show, we risk the press having a field day!"

"We can't afford to have her sit out another one." Alexander fiddled with his Rubik's cube while everyone talked. "Hey, do you think she knows we're talking about her?"

"Considering the fact that we're all standing in a huddle and she's on drums by herself, you tell me, dickhead." Ivan snapped, his nostrils flaring. He shoved a finger in Clifton's direction with little concern over how far his voice carried. "We need to fix this. She is not ruining this tour for us. I'd rather we get a new fucking drummer than for something on this tour to go wrong. She's already cost us more trouble than it's worth. I'm gonna talk to her."

Isley grimaced, Alex slung daggers into the tall man's back, and Clifton shook his head before following with heavy footsteps. Isley couldn't help but get a feeling of being sick to his stomach. Nothing good ever came from DJ and Ivan facing off. Being in the band gave them both egos that were pretty hard to beat.

When both men walked up to DJ, a difference in aura seemed to surround her. Her eyes were blank as she picked her sticks up off of her lap and looked at each of them. "Are we playing or what?"

"We aren't playing shit," Ivan gestured between himself and the tall blonde. "If you keep playing like this. You're missing your mark in every fucking song, and we play in less than eight hours. We don't have time to do eighteen run-throughs on behalf of you. We can find another fucking roadie if you can't do your damn job right."

"I can do my job." DJ's jaw set as she looked at the set in front of her.

"Then play like it."

"I am."

"Are you? Because we've been here since four, and nothing's improving." He critiqued. 

The blonde slowly stood to her feet, brown eyes on him and her drumsticks in her right hand. "Do you even get what I'm fucking going through? Someone in my life just died and you're worried about whether I can play a fucking song that I wrote."

"There's other ways to deal with that. Fucking up this tour for all of us isn't one of them."

"Who is fucking up this tour, Ivan?"

He laughed incredulously. "You missed two fucking shows because you got drunk off your ass and fucked some girl in a club and got kicked out of a bar! We're still dealing with the comments on fucking Twitter! You brought all these ideas of what you were gonna do to the meeting and haven't done any of them - and you won't even take their advice on how to handle this either!"

"Alright, Ivan, maybe--" Clifton began. Before he could even get his words out something whizzed in between their heads and DJ was huffing in anger. Her eyes were bloodshot red as tears began to pool.

"Because it's my fucking mother! I'm not parading that on social media for everyone to see, with some stupid fucking letter that I didn't even fucking write! This band can't live my life for me. It's bad enough this shit controls when I eat and what I do every damn day. You're not gonna tell me how to feel too. And you of all people are not gonna fucking take it from me!" She yelled at the top of her lungs, moving around her drums to step closer. Ivan stood to his full height, and so did she, fully sizing him up. "And if you think my job is so fucking easy, come fucking do it! You don't know what it's like having a barely functional hand. You stand there all day and you act like you're so much better than us because you're the first person everyone fucking sees. You wouldn't be shit without me, or Alex, or Isley. Deep down, you know that."

Ivan stepped closer, leaning down to look directly in her eyes. "I am what makes this band. I turn those shitty songs you write into gold. I make us look good. Don't take what you do to heart just because you're our drummer. Anyone can do your job, and you being a girl doesn't make it fucking special. That's the only weight you have here. And yet, when that roadie stood in for you, no one even fucking noticed."

The blonde blinked, allowing the tears to fall from her chin as her lips trembled. She did her best to keep her voice strong and steady. "You're a fucking liar."

A small smirk crossed Ivan's face. He shook his head. "Two shows without you and we still made the news in your hometown. I bet it bruised your ego seeing how much we didn't need you. Truthfully, you could leave the band today and I wouldn't care."

"Alright, Ivan. That's enough." Cliff cut in with a gruff and heavy voice, pushing the man away from her by his chest. The younger man barely stumbled his smirk grew wider.

"I guess they still want you here. Maybe all that anger will translate to your drums. If not, I hope you got one last show left in you. You probably won't be here much longer."

The blonde's chest heaved up and down as her hands balled into fists. No one could pinpoint what exact moment it was that she snapped. But all anyone knew was that like a lightning strike, the blonde launched her injured fist forward until it connected with a bone in the taller man's face. Upon impact, her face contorted into one of pain, but there was so many feelings coursing through her that she couldn't focus on just one. She lunged forward to attack him again, this time using her nails to scratch at his face. Clifton did his best to interrupt the scuffle, as did the band members and some of the crew. Isley and Alex held back a furious DJ, and Clifton and a crew member or two held back Ivan.

The manager's voice boomed within the venue as he held onto the frontman's bicep. "Dinah Jane, go cool off. Now. I need everyone in shape for this show tonight and I don't have the time for any of your shit. We have one month left on this tour and I refuse to spend it with the two of you being fucking brats. Now, go."

She grumbled, glaring at him and then Ivan. After a grumble or two, she wrestled herself out of Isley and Alex's grip. And then everyone had no choice but to watch her retreating back on the way to her dressing room.