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It all started when Ethan finally took possession of the camera. He had snatched it jokingly in the bathroom, not expecting Manuel to casually give it to him for the rest of the journey. Instantly a newfound sense of nervousness must have swept his face because Damiano let out a small laugh as Manuel responded “Relax, we’ll just edit out anything we don’t want to show the public. Just don’t record us naked and you’ll be fine.”
Damiano adds on. “Il nostro bellissimo regista” (Our beautiful director.) He quips as he jokingly gives Ethan a soft slap on the cheek.
He’s too exhausted from all the traveling to ask anymore questions so he just stares into the camera with a confused expression and begins filming. “I have the camera. Mu ha ha ha” He lets out a slightly forced comical laughter.
For the most part, Ethan actually begins finding the fun in taking the camera with him. In a way it has the same effects as reading, getting to observe people, and taking notice of certain moments that make people smile. It doesn’t make it as weird when he asks people to explain the situation or a joke to the camera instead of himself. He begins turning it on almost every time he’s allowed to and as soon as they board the train from a tiring business trip, he excitedly pulls out the video camera and clicks record.
He fiddles with the settings as he sits up straight, his neck feeling irritated at the rough texture of the headrest, the sensation threatening to crawl down his spine and make him shiver. It’s only when he’s started to record, does he look over to Vic perched on her train seat in front of Damiano, who’s leaning against the wall as if he might fall asleep any second.
“Is it a matter of pride?” She hisses at him as she leans forward to rest her elbows on his knees. Ethan looks across to Thomas, who’s looking down at his phone. He takes that as a ‘it’s okay’ signal, seeing as Thomas would usually step in if anyone got angry. Damiano looks up at Victoria and responds with an exasperated tone.
“It’s not a matter of pride, it’s about how relationships between people work. Because I’m not the one who has to tell you that-”
“But you are not sacrificing! Vic interrupts and Ethan scrunches up his face as he wills his hands to not fly up to his ears. Damiano aggressively clicks his fingers in front of her face to silence her.
“I’m not the one who has to tell you that when you have fucking problems you don’t have to say ‘let’s talk about it’ but it is me who comes to your room. Because I see it, I understand it, and I come to help you.” Damiano bangs his fist on the wall and Ethan subtly taps his thumb methodically against his leg, hoping that the anxiety gnawing in his gut would be a momentary wave that would wash over once they stopped shouting. “So obviously I expect the same things that I do.” Damiano begins to plead and Victoria lets out a frustrated sigh that feels like sandpaper on Ethan’s ears.
“Well then we need to find a solution because this is getting really fucking annoying.” Victoria tries to plead as Damiano begins to obnoxiously kick his legs up onto Victoria and Ethan’s arm rests.
“No, there is no solution, there will never be a solution until I die, there is no solution.” The whole room goes silent as Damiano finishes his sentence, everyone’s eyes on him. Ethan can see Vic nervously suck in a sharp breath as she bites her lip shut, twirling a strand of hair from the back of her head. “My problem is that I feel too much responsibility but I don’t want to delegate my responsibility to someone else. So how do you solve this problem? In No Way!”
Victoria sits up in her chair, trying to find the right words to say to that. “Damiano, I’m so sorry but- I don’t realize what you do but anyways I thank you for what you do. You can’t fucking say that, you can’t say that because it’s not so.” Damiano rolls his eyes as he inspects the beds of his finger nails. Victoria begins to raise her voice as she leans further forward.
“You said: ‘there is never a time that you say thank you to me or that you realize what I do. Or that you tell me to take a rest because you’re very tired.’ But that is not true! You just don’t listen because you like acting like you’re the wisest.”
“During the tour I was afraid that we would not be able to get to the end.” Damiano continues tapping on his frustration on the wall and Ethan can feel a small tear ready to fall and sniffles quickly to try and hold himself together, desperate for the train to go any faster. He can’t take his eyes away from the screaming match despite the desperate urge to curl up into a ball and close his eyes forever.
”This happens when I go crazy and I start crying and in those moments I want to kill myself and I swear in these fucking months.” Suddenly Damiano’s eyes flash in anger as he points directly at Ethan. “Turn off that shit!” Ethan feels heat flush through his entire body as he scrambles to turn off the camera. “Seriously do you think this is some fucking joke Ethan?” He looks over to Vic who almost looks even more furious and the world begins to feel heavier and heavier with each breath.
“Let’s calm down-” Thomas tries to appease the group and Damiano is quick to shut it down.
“No! Because you all never do shit to help me but I am always, ALWAYS helping you.” Damiano turns to Thomas and points a finger directly into his shoulder. “You run around like a clown and you haven’t been focused on this entire project because you can’t understand atoms.”
Victoria rolls her eyes and he sharply turns to her, throwing his hands in the air. “Victoria acts like a primadonna whenever she think she might not like the way one little note sounds and then she orders all of us to change the song like we’re fucking worker bees.”
Damiano turns to Ethan with such anger in his growling voice that Ethan can feel the sting of tears slide out from him. “And Ethan barely has a clue what’s going on half the time like some fucking lost alien.” He tries to respond but he feels like his brain has forgotten how to move his jaw and just looks down to the ground. Damiano laughs as Ethan looks away from him.
“And whenever you say or do something that makes us feel annoyed or frustrated, do I say anything? No! Because it’s Ethan and he doesn’t mean it. But the second we say something as a joke that you don’t get, you’re immediately upset and it’s exhausting!” Vic slowly reaches a hand to Ethan’s shoulder but as soon as it reaches him, it feels like pins stabbing a pincushion all over his arm, he lets out a small yelp and retreats in on himself. “See! I’m fucking exhausted!” The train begins to slow down and the carriage door suddenly swings open as Leo pops his head into the room.
“Andiamo!” Damiano storms out of their little space so fast, a small gust of wind punches Ethan in the chest. Every part of Ethan feels like it’s on fire and he desperately wants to tap, hum, cry, scream, do anything to get the growing pain out of his system. But he knows Damiano is right. He’s still the shitty drummer who likes aliens and has a ponytail and right now he hates himself for it.
He can feel his tether to the surrounding world snap as Thomas and Leo’s footstep boom in his eardrum like ceremonial drums. Before Vic can even ask him if he’s okay, he stumbles out from his seat and makes his way to the rest of the team, focusing on the rhythm of his breath, not caring for the chaos of moving parts around him.
Inspira, due, tre, quattro.
Espira, due, tre quattro.
Ripetere.
When they all reunite in the car, the buzzing in the back of his mind has grown to full blown static explosion. The welling of tears in the back of his eyes being held back by the ever-more powerful feeling of guilt forcing him to squeeze his eyes shut.
Once they arrive, Damiano strides angrily out of the car and Ethan bolts directly to the small room he shares with Thomas. Collapsing onto the bed and burying his head under the pillow until the cool blanket of darkness began to reach his floating mind. He lets the salty sting of tears begin to melt into the mattress.
—
“Etan. Eeetan.” He can hear a whiny voice call out to him from a distance. He feels a sudden poke on his shoulder and groans.
“Wakey Wakey Etan.” Ethan peeps out from his refuge and the bright morning light feels like an electric shock jolting him upright. When he sees Thomas with bedhead standing before him, he realizes he must have crashed out from the close call yesterday. “Let’s go. Band meeting.” The guitarist quips as Ethan rubs his eyes.
“What about?” Ethan’s voice croaks and he has a painful realization he might have been sobbing last night rather than the silent tears he thought he had executed. Thomas’ raised eyebrow doesn’t comfort him at all.
“Just have a shower and come downstairs okay?” Thomas leaves Ethan to get ready and he’s never felt more nauseous for a band meeting in his life.
Damiano stands up from his seat and begins to speak. “Look, the way I acted yesterday was a bit over dramatic and I'm sorry for that. But I'm not sorry for what I said because we all know it’s true to some extent.” Damiano turns to Thomas. “You’ve been a little too distracted. And this cannot happen.” With one hand tucked in his pocket, he drums a melodic calming rhythm onto his hip. He keeps his eyes on a spot on the wall where he could pretend he’s looking at the others but not daring to use the scrap of energy getting him through this meeting to initiate eye contact.
Thomas groans in response. “We were all distracted, that’s what I don’t-”
“It’s not fucking true!” Damiano interjects and Victoria’s voice overlaps. “That’s not true!” Ethan massages his clenched jaw with his other hand as he momentarily squeezes his eyes shut, relishing in the momentary darkness.
Damiano continues, “I know you are more prone to distraction. I mean, who fucking cares!”
Thomas rebuttals “But for some things, it is a question of concentration and for others it’s not concentration.”
Victoria adds on. “True. For example, Ethan wasn’t focused at all and you weren’t either.” He feels the nerves rise and forcefully swallows it back down before trying to apologize.
“My head just wasn’t in the game.” Ethan mumbles as he rubs his hands up and down his neck. Wiggling his toes under his shoes in a desperate attempt to get rid of the excess stimulation, stupid studio lights.
Vic’s response almost sounds like a puppy “Exactly, but stay merry! We’ve already said this before.” The statement feels like a punch right in the gut, the rising voice level in the room begins to feel like sandpaper.
The lecture continues as a blur for Ethan as he rubs his hands along the smooth texture of the mic cable, trying to soothe himself without proving that he is distracted. He wouldn’t be able to take another screaming match like yesterday.
As Ethan bends down to fix up the tangled cabled that his shaky hands are starting to cling onto for dear life, all the voices clash at once and Ethan freezes on the ground, letting out an unexplainable whimper.
EthanforfuckssakeEthancanyouhearmeEthancomeonEthanfocusEthanpleaseEthanEthanjusttalktousEthanwhat’swrongEthanwhatswrongwithyouEthanpleaseWaiteveryonegetoutWhatareyoudoingHeneedsspaceButOutTurnoffthelightsWhyJustListenListenListenidiotEthan.
The world begins to blur together, memories morphing into the present morphing into one confusing nightmare. He tries to stop himself from spiralling but just starts crying more as his mind begins to scream out and his chest feels like it’s about to explode.
When he finally dares to look up from resting his head on his knees, the room is empty and dark, all the lights switched off, a part of him feels so isolated that he just wants to start crying again as he slowly rocks himself calm. Slowly the door creaks open and Ethan prepares to stand up until Victoria whispers.
“It’s just me okay?” Ethan rubs his eyes in a poor attempt to compose himself. “Can I sit down?” She asks him gently, as if she hadn’t been furious with him a minute or so ago. “I have some water if you want some. Thomas and Damiano are just talking outside.” He’s too exhausted to say anything and looks down to the ground in embarrassment. When she gages that Ethan isn’t going to respond, a frustrated sigh involuntary comes out from her. “Ethan, are you okay?” The crack in her voice makes him look up enough to notice the redness in her eyes.
“You’re crying?” Victoria quickly wipes away the last few tears on her face and curses under her breath. “I’m sorry.” He spurts out the apology, hating himself for making Victoria feel so bad.
“What? No Ethan.” Vic tries to comfort him but the sharp response almost feels like a knife blade. He can feel his chest begin to shrivel again as the breath in his lungs gets smaller and smaller.
“It’s just sometimes I can’t compute everything as well as you guys and that makes me look slow and stupid but I”
“Ethan, take a breath okay? In. And out.” She helps him get his breath back underneath him and he looks up at her with red patchy eyes. “I think we need to try and talk with everyone else, can I bring the other two in here?” He freezes until Victoria’s gentle voice tries to reason with him. “If it gets too loud we’ll stop immediately I promise.” He thinks for a moment and realizes it’s probably best to rip the bandaid off by this point. Victoria gets up and he can hear a brief squabble, most likely between Victoria and Damiano, before they all trail in and find their usual spots.
Damiano is the first to speak out in the awkward silence. “What was that?”
“Damia.” Victoria hisses into Damiano’s ear.
“No, I don’t mean that in a mean way, it was just a little scary. We’re all worried about you.” No one speaks up after that, which makes the guilt in Ethan’s gut grow tenfold.
“I’m autistic.” Ethan confesses, barely above a whisper but it’s still caught by everyone in the room.
“What?” The three of them overlap each other. Ethan begins to pace in his small corner of the room, letting his hands flap erratically by his hips.
“And I didn’t want to tell Victoria when I auditioned because I already acted and looked weird, so most kids wouldn’t talk to me anyways. And then I thought I’d tell you after but then you guys started treated like actual, real friends and I really didn’t want you to be angry so I didn’t and then X-factor came and I was worried you guys would kick me out for a better drummer so I tried really hard but sometimes I can’t control how my brain feels. So I get if you guys want me to leave the band now and”
“What!”
“Ethan.”
“Okay everyone just stop for a moment.” Damiano’s voice silences the rest of them. “If anyone here has a problem with Ethan, raise your hand.” No one raises their hand and Damiano claps his hand in success. “Okay, step one complete. Next, what do you need us to do so that we can help you.” I - um- what? His brain struggles to truly compute Damiano’s offer.
“You actually want to help me?”
“Of course we do Ethan. You’re our friend no matter what, understood?”
“Perfect, so lights. You don’t like them?”
“It’s just the main ones.” He mumbles softly, instantly flushing red as he finishes his sentence.
“So the softer lighting is better?” Ethan nods again, still terrified of a taunting response. “Well then that’s that.” Damiano responds calmly as he leans back into the sofa, all eyes still watching Ethan meticulously.
“I’m sorry.” He wipes the tears from his eyes and blinks quickly, as if it’ll help disguise the obvious wave of emotion that’s flooding him.
“Ethan, you don’t need to apologize. We do.”
“Why?” He questions in response as his brain struggles to grasp the wild idea of them genuinely caring about accommodating him.
“Because we’re your friends. We’re sorry you felt like you couldn’t ask us for help.” Victoria adds on and Ethan looks at them wide eyed.
“Okay.”
“Okay then.” Victoria responds with a nod. “Ethan, can I give you a hug?” He nods and soon he’s swamped by Vic’s tight grip around him, his body relishing in the calming pressure and her heartbeat. The relief of the hug must have been obvious because the others soon add onto it, forming a relaxing group hug that relinquishes any last negative thoughts from the front of his mind.
“You know I'm hungry.” Ethan announces as Victoria hands him a tissue to wipe away the last of his tears. They all let out a small laugh.
“No kidding, you haven’t eaten since yesterday at breakfast. Let’s go eat.” Thomas announces and they all trail out into the kitchen for lunch.