Electric Touch ϟ 𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙣 𝙂𝙧𝙖𝙮

e i g h t - 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙞

𝙄𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙁𝙧𝙞𝙙𝙖𝙮 𝙣𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨, 𝙞𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙫𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙤 𝙜𝙤𝙡𝙙, 𝙞𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨, 𝙞𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙧𝙤𝙘𝙠 '𝙣' 𝙧𝙤𝙡𝙡

- The Band and I by Maisie Peters

【☆】★【☆】

March 1st, 2022

Sitting in the back of the tour bus, surrounded by his band, Charlie was having a full blown panic attack. Leaning against the window and knees pulled to his chest, every single thought in his head felt as though it was going to make him jump out the window he was leaning against.

Not only was Charlie still spiraling over accidentally grabbing Conan's hand on the plane, he was terrified for the show tonight. Dallas, Texas at the South Side Ballroom was going to be the first show on tour. It was also going to be the largest amount of people Charlie had ever played in front of. With its capacity of 4,000 people, Charlie kept trying to tell himself that it would be no different than playing to a crowd of all of his YouTube followers in one room since before he had been announced as the supporting act for Conan's world tour that was the amount of people who watched his videos on average. Despite his best efforts though, he knew it couldn't be more different.

As the bus began to pull in behind the venue, Charlie couldn't help but feel the worst case of imposter syndrome he had ever felt. What was he doing here? He didn't deserve any of this. Biting his bottom lip, he couldn't decide whether he felt like sobbing or throwing up.

In the seat across from him, looking up from his phone, Kai couldn't help but notice the singer's very obvious distress. "Are you okay, Charlie?" asked Kai, his normally sarcastic voice laced with concern. Looking over at Veronica and Jackson who sat on the seats to Kai's left, he could see they both shared his concerned look in Charlie's direction. They could clearly also see that Charlie looked on the verge of a breakdown.

"Perfectly fine, Kai. You don't need to ask me that." snapped Charlie, making Kai's eyebrows jump. He knew Charlie detested talking about his emotions but even for Charlie this felt like a harsh reaction. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to talk to you like that. I'm just..." sighed Charlie, running his fingers through his hair, "I don't really wanna talk about it."

Kai shrugged in defeat and began to stand up from his seat, realizing the bus had parked and the other musicians on the bus had begun to move from their seats and were picking up their equipment.

Charlie swallowed hard, attempting to push down his fears. He refused to look like more of an idiot to Conan or anyone else than he felt he already did. Stepping out of the bus, Charlie's first observation was that it was really incredibly hot outside.

"Jesus Christ." he muttered, "How does anyone live in this heat 24/7? I don't think I like Texas very much."

"Uh excuse me, I'm from Texas. I don't accept this slander, you're off the tour now. Go fly back to LA or something." said Conan, appearing behind Charlie from what seemed out of nowhere. Noticing Charlie's panic, Conan quickly added "I'm joking I'm joking I promise. I mean not about being from Texas since I am actually from Texas but I don't particularly care if you insult it and you're obviously not off the tour and-"

"Conan. It's fine. It was funny." laughed Charlie, cutting off Conan's rambling. "I just gotta ask though, things aren't like...weird between us now after what happened on the plane, right?"