~Aubrey's point of view~

I sat idly at my vanity, staring at my reflection. My bodyguards were supposed to arrive before I could leave for the tour. My back up singers and instrumentalists had already stacked into the bus and I was waiting for my bodyguards. I hated waiting. I hated the idea of living in a crowded bus with no privacy for a few weeks. I hated not being near my boyfriend for weeks at a time during tour.

"Hello? I'm here as a bodyguard for Aubrey." A woman's voice called as my dressing room door opened.

"Finally. I'm Aubrey." I greeted her. She held out her hand to shake my hand, but I refused. "What's your name?"

"Eva. Eva Neilson. You have another bodyguard, but he was too shy to come in here for you. Not very vocal either. He looks really threatening." She informed me.

"Well, we gotta leave soon, or we'll be late. Did you pack your bags?" I asked, checking my watch.

"Yes. I am supposed to move in with you to keep you safe." Eva pointed out, her slight British accent catching onto my ears.

"Good, let's go." I said, putting on my shoes and grabbing my purse. Eva grabbed the sleeve of the man she told me about as we passed, dragging him. We got seated in the bus, where the people outside of it couldn't see me. The man was pale, with long white bangs covering one eye. He looked human other than his single red iris in a sea of black, looking like a red rescue floaty ring over the void. When his bangs shifted, I saw that his other eye was pure black all the way through. He wore a mask over his lower face, concealing how the rest of his face looked. I noted his odd choice of clothes: a hoodie over a turtleneck shirt with black jeans and high-tops. His hands had gloves on them.

"Does our tall, pale, and quiet one have a name?" I asked. The man looked up in surprise, his gaze flitting from the air around him to me.

"Patrick." He said quietly. His voice was small and kinda deep, like how the bass singers sound in a full choir.

"Patrick?" Eva asked, trying not to start giggling hysterically. "Like Patrick Star? From Spongebob?"

"Eva, stop. I know it doesn't seem to fit him, but we don't know him very well yet." I warned, eying Patrick's pretty skin that had started to flush from embarrassment. "Nice to meet you, Patrick. I'm Aubrey."

"Nice to meet you too, Aubrey." Patrick's soft voice emerged again. I decided I liked his voice, but I had to ask how he tolerated clothing that hot down here.

"Aren't you too hot?" I asked. "Your clothes look really warm."

"No, not really. Regulated body heat, normally low temperature."

"Huh." I said, not knowing what else to say. "Well, wanna play War with me? I got a deck." I fished my deck of playing cards out of my purse.

"How do you play?" He asked as I started shuffling and dividing the cards.

"Okay, so, you hold your deck face down in your hand, so neither of us can see what cards you're holding, kay? We both draw one card off the top of our decks and put them down in front of us. The bigger card wins, so the one with the bigger card takes both cards. When you get the same card as the other player, you have to battle it out. I'll explain when it happens the first time. We keep going until one person has all the cards." I explained, knowing War wasn't as common a game to play anymore. It wasn't common before I was born either. I passed Patrick half the deck.

"Okay." Patrick said, taking off his gloves to reveal long skeleton hands. He understood fully what we were playing, though I didn't explain some of it. I left out the discard pile part, for example.

We played for hours on end, fighting for cards in a friendly nonchalant way that this game brought with us.

"I win." Patrick mumbled. I realized that he had taken off his mask to reveal that the rest of his face was skeleton. It was either realistic skin-prints or real skeleton but either way, I thought he looked cool.

"So you did. What time is it?" I asked, trying to figure out where I put my watch.

"1730." Patrick mumbled.

"Ah, thank." I said. "Time to eat. Hunter, where are we?" I shouted at the bus driver.

"Still in Hell. We're now in Droxan, and there's a Waffle House, a Denny's, DQ, Wendy's, Burger King, and the only Greasy's Diner in Hell. What do you wanna eat?" Hunter bellowed back.

"Let's get DQ!" I yelled before sinking back into my seat. I retracted my spare set of arms easily, altering my appearance so I looked more like my sister, tying my hair back in a scrunchie. I surveyed my appearance. I had vibrant red hair now and brown eyes. My ears still stood atop my head proudly. I put on a loose hoodie over my crop top and some rain boots on instead of my fancy shoes.

The tour bus pulled up at the Dairy Queen and we all stumbled out of the bus, heading inside. I made my order quickly before patiently waiting at my table.

Patrick came to my table hesitantly with his own tray of food and mine. His face was slightly flushed behind his mask again and he sat down, passing me my tray.

"Foodfoodfoodfoodfood." I chanted as I popped the gravy cup open and started ripping my chicken strips apart out of habit. I'm used to having to share my gravy and not being able to double-dip for sanity reasons. So, ripping the chicken up to have more to dip in the gravy is a good idea. I stuck a piece of chicken into my mouth after dipping it into the gravy, savoring the taste. Patrick seemed to smile as he tugged his mask down and started eating his burger.

"I thought you wouldn't be enthusiastic about food." Eva said, making Patrick scoot over so she could sit.

"Not all pop stars have eating disorders. My family loves food. I love food. Gumbo and Jambalaya and spaghetti and fettuccine Alfredo and stroganoff and...I could go on for days. Food is delicious. Are you quite done having me explain that food is delicious?" I scolded.

"Yes ma'am." Eva whispered fearfully. I stuck another piece of chicken into my mouth, happily settling back into my seat.

"What's gumbo?" Patrick asked cautiously. My jaw dropped.

"Now I have to teach you about cooking from Louisiana, don't I. Maybe I can get Bones to send me a bowl of gumbo via empty-eyed child." I muttered, texting Bones.

Me: hey, sib. mind sending me some gumbo? if you did make it today.

Bones⚒: Oh sure thing! Where are you?

Me: Droxan. At the Dairy Queen.

Bones⚒: I'm gonna get a disposable bowl to put it in and I'll send it to you by empty-eyed messenger child. It should be there in five minutes.

Me: thank you sooo much. i have to introduce it to my new body guard.