Deal With It - Sidemen Fanfiction

Chapter 9 - Deception

Two Weeks Later

You know you haven't got enough sleep when it is as dark when you wake up as it was when you drifted off. The sun was still hiding beneath the horizon when I dragged myself out of bed to the sound of loud voices in the kitchen. Of course, at the ridiculous time of three o'clock in the morning, surviving on just four hours of sleep, it was surely an argument that had pushed any of the sleep deprived residents of the house to raise their voices.

I collected my bag and checked over the final plans. JJ had made the plan clear to me; either Upload went well for another year or something bad would happen. Despite the respite in recent weeks, I could see the other boys on edge, not daring to step out of line around our unpredictable ex-friend. The voices somehow grew louder (if that was even possible) as I reached the kitchen, tearing through the tired fog that had clouded my brain.

"I'm not keeping up this act any longer!" Ethan burst out in my face as I walked into the room, met by a collection of facial expressions. I patted the 22 year old on the back without questioning his anger and led him to a seat, watching him drag his feet reluctantly.

"What's going on?" I asked, having resumed my usual duty looking after all of them. The explosion of accusatory voices attacked my sleep-ridden mind once more and I struggled to make sense of the rushed explanations and arguments.

"Right!" I called out, "Can we all just stop for one second and sort this out like adults?" My voice dropped considerably. I was conscious of JJ's presence at the door and I could feel his annoyed gaze trained on my back. The other five people in the room ducked their heads like young children, most of them turning back to their breakfast with resigned sighs.

"Sort this out," Jide muttered from the door before turning away and walking back up the stairs briskly. I rolled my eyes to myself before pouring some cereal and trying to make sense of the conflict that had left a stale silence in the air.

"Ethan and Harry are disagreeing over how much longer we should put up with all this," Vikk quietly told me as I sat next to him, "Ethan says the event is the perfect time for us to come clean with what's going on. However, Harry thinks we should keep playing along, you know, keep on his good side?"

"And they found it necessary to shout about it at 3 am?" I asked frustratedly before adding, "And why were Tobi and Simon involved?" Vikk shrugged, looking as fed up as I felt. As happened often with larger events, I was mainly responsible for most of the organisation, something that had only added to the stress of looking out for five other people besides myself who all seemed to be competing to get themselves into trouble first.

"What do you think?" a calmer Ethan directed his question at me with a genuine look of helplessness. I considered Vikk's reply of a shrug but thought better of it and contemplated a more reassuring answer. The expectant stares grew until everyone was waiting for me to answer. I wished my opinions had less weight to them within the group.

"There isn't much we can do now," I said with a pointed look at Ethan, "I think we just need to concentrate on keeping all of this out of the way of the event today and tomorrow. It isn't fair on the people who have paid to come if all they get is a bunch of tired, stressed and anxious people. We all need to find some energy from somewhere and, if you can't, fake it until you make it." Luckily, everyone in the room seemed to relax a little, looking forward to allowing themselves some time to have fun, something that had become a commodity in the last month.

As the kitchen began to grow empty, with people collecting their bags from various rooms in the house, Simon came up behind me as I stood at the sink. My bowl was long since clean enough to be put on the drying rack but I still had my hands pressed into the warm water, looking out of the window wistfully. He leant his head on my shoulder with a contented but concerned sigh and I flicked my eyes up to look at him.