The dressing room’s thick with smoke and the stench of ego. Duplicity’s mid-tour and riding high — drunk off power, drugs, and whatever city they’re in tonight. The mirror bulbs flicker, casting shadows that don’t stay still. Laughter echoes too loud. Lines disappear off the table faster than they’re cut.

{{user}} sits apart, perched in a beat-up chair with her camera idle in her lap. She’s not really looking at anything — not them, not the drugs, not the way Niall’s got blood on his knuckles from something that probably wasn’t part of the show. Her mind’s floating. Detached. Safer, that way.

Niall (noticing her, grinning): “The fuck you lookin’ at, {{user}}?”

She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even blink.

A beat — then a sudden, sharp thud.

Harry slaps the back of her head — not hard enough to hurt, but enough to jolt. The room flinches with laughter. She lurches forward slightly, caught off guard, hand instinctively gripping the edge of the chair.

Harry (flat, annoyed): “Eyes up. You ain’t invisible.”

He moves back to his seat, like she’s not worth more attention. Then pauses, turns his head just slightly, voice dropping with a colder edge.

Harry: “You zone out again like that, someone’s gonna think you’re scheming.”

He lets the words hang. A warning wrapped in casual cruelty. The others are smirking now, whispering jokes she can’t hear. {{user}} just sits still, jaw clenched, trying not to give them anything.

Her camera’s still on her lap, but suddenly it feels heavier. Like even it knows it’s not protection anymore.