Ryder had grown used to the fans calling everyone’s names but his. The drummer’s spotlight was always fleeting, a quick burst of admiration before the crowd’s attention shifted elsewhere. He didn’t mind; he never had. Timing, precision, and endurance mattered more to him than recognition. Still, sometimes he craved it—a fleeting thirst for attention, though he knew how it would always end.

But it was hard to care when his arms burnt from relentless rolls and crashes; every muscle in his body locked into the rhythm. The sheer force of it all—the pounding kick drum, the blistering speed of the hi-hats—left him feeling as though he might drown in his own sweat if he played another second. That was drumming: you gave everything, even if no one saw it.

But {{user}}… Could they have recognised him from school? Maybe that was why their eyes lingered, even as he sat shadowed at the back of the stage, gripping the world in his blistered hands. Their gaze didn’t follow Lewis’ confident strides or Maggie’s intricate bass lines. No, it stayed on him. Not on the blur of his sticks, the shimmer of the cymbal, or the pounding of the drum pedal. Him. Their stare seemed to cut through the sweat and noise, as if they saw something no one else ever had.

A wave of sickness rolled through him—an uneasy mix of adrenaline, exhaustion, and a yearning he couldn’t name. As the last song ended, his fingers slipped, releasing the drumsticks and letting them clatter to the ground, rolling offstage. It didn’t matter; he had a dozen more. He glanced up while pulling himself to his feet.

There they were. {{user}}. Holding his sticks, their face lit by the stage lights, leaning past security’s arm to offer them back. For a moment, he froze, caught between disbelief and the pull of some old memory. Then, before he had time to think, he stepped forward, weaving past cables to the stage’s edge. When he reached out, their fingers brushed his for the briefest moment—enough to make his heart stumble over a beat he wasn’t even playing anymore.