Someone New-Hozier fanfic

Chapter 30! ***

"Wow. There's a bunch of fans here already..." I whisper softly. "Ehm... Let's take the back way around, Alice." I turn to creep quietly through the woods in front of the charmingly clumsy Andrew, who's making quite a racket tripping over fallen branches or getting tangled in overgrown vines. "You ok, Andrew?" I somewhat sarcastically ask, giggling. "Just a little... Ehm, klutzy, you know?" I nod while tripping over a log in front of me. "I'm the clumsiest person I know, besides you!"
      We emerge from the thick tree-line looking more like Louisianan swamp people than well-known ish musicians who'll be performing for a crowd of over 3,000 people tonight. Alex runs up to us. "I've been told that if you go too far south here in Nebraska," he's belly laughing by now, "you turn into a redneck swamp monster! How far south did you go?!" Andrew laughs sort of irritatedly. "Well, Ehm, we took the adventurous route backstage, didn't we, Alice?" Yup. Adventurous alright. "We sure did and now my hair's paying the price." I mutter. I walk off to go get ready for tonight, where I meet the girls.
      Mia can't stop laughing at me while she's helping to untangle leaves and sticks from my thick-asf, two foot long mane. "So, let me get this straight: you and Andrew wanted to avoid being recognized, so you went the adventure route?" Rachael can hardly breathe from laughter. I nod, mentally scolding myself for letting my doofus boyfriend pick the route.
When I finally look like a normal, functioning human again, I wander off, finding Andrew sitting cross-legged on a massive fallen tree, scribbling things in a notebook. He looks so majestic there, his messy hair shining in the faint sun, and his facial expressions soft and thoughtful. I stand and watch him until I physically cringe at the fact that I'm stalking my own boyfriend. He looks up from his work long enough to motion me over. I plop down next to him on the tree.
"What are you writing, baby?" I question, very excited to see. He smiles, and points to a nearly illegible sentence. "I'm, Ehm, working on a new song, actually a couple new songs." I lay my head on his shoulder as he explains each of the other sentences. "This one is kind of a bluesy song. It's the story of a man who gets offered to trade places with the devil because the devil fancies his missus." Andrew reveals to me. "One of the verses is: 'I'd walk on cloven hoof if you were the home I was walking to/ I'd burn every soul I knew/ If I thought the fire was warming you/ I'd be what men fear in the woods/ I'd piss on Heaven's gate if I could/ I'm straight on the level/ But I'd be the devil/ As long as your lovin' was good.' Something like that!" He excitedly bursts. I think about the lyrics, tasting each syllable of every deep, beautiful word. Damn Andrew. He's so deep and poetic in his writing.
He smiles, but turns serious. "These aren't to be told to anyone until I'm done, ok?" I nod. "Yeah. My god, Andrew! It's beautiful! I adore the lyrics, and gosh, I fancy everything about it!" He hugs me. "Thank you, Alice." I twist a piece of hair between my fingers as he is writing out some barre chords for the song and which guitar he'll use on it.
      I pull out an immensely tangled pair of earbuds out of my pocket, putting one in my right ear because my left side was to Andrew. My phone turns on 'In The Woods Somewhere', one of my absolute favorite songs. Andrew sees me jamming out like the socially awkward dork I am, and takes up the left earbud. "Nice choice of music." He comments with a joking smile.
      I grin at him. "Yeah, some super tall Irish dude with Fabio hair wrote it. He has a hell of a voice and I hear his girlfriend is a weirdo." Andrew laughs at this and a mischievous grin climbs across his face.  "I hear his biggest fan is this crazy girl named Alice who ditched her hot boyfriend for a blue guitar named Gibby." Hiccups overtake me at this razz of Andrew's.
"So it's true about you and the guitar!" The leaves rustle obnoxiously as Alex shoots out of a nearby bush. Andrew, startled, looks confused as to what just happened and Rory is standing 20 feet away laughing his butt off. "Alex, have you been here the whole time?" He nods. "Yes, Fabio." Andrew chuckles and puts the earbud back in his ear after it falls out.
My phone is lifted out of my hands as Andrew sees a text message pop up on my phone. "OooooooOooOo, Alice! Who's texting you?" I furrow my eyebrows kiddingly. "Well I can't see if you are the one holding my phone." He looks awkwardly at me and hands the phone over. "Ehm..." I cover my mouth with my hand. "Holy sh*t. This weird kid I knew from high school is flirting with me over text!" Andrew gently lifts  my phone out of my hand and types a pretty long message to reply back to the dude. "Here... Ehm... Is that ok?" I nod, laughing at the protective, yet not too clingy nature of the text of Andrew's.
"You're welcome to send this if that's what you want to do." He taps the screen and I receive no other texts from the guy today. Andrew carefully slips his song notebook out and scribbles down a few more ideas for songs. "What should our nightly duet be?" I ask, thinking myself which songs I'd like to do. "What about 'Do I Wanna Know?' By the Arctic Monkeys?" Andrew suggests, eyes cast down at the half-written lyrics on a particularly wrinkled page in the songbook.
      "That song is one of my very favorites!" I grin, remembering back at the beginning of touring when we covered that song at BBC's Live Sessions. Andrew is tapping his pencil on the toe of his faded Doc Martens, as he's sitting cross-legged on the ancient fallen tree. "This is a most... Inspiring spot, here! I'm getting some promising lyrics down." I glance down at Andrew's progress in his much-anticipated next album. The deep and poetic words dance across the college-ruled pages, in small and messy handwriting, Andrew's style.
      I can't help but be a little bit jealous of Andrew's innate ability to scribble down such meaningful music. When his voice comes onto the radio, it doesn't sound like anyone else; he's not out there singing about hotline blings or looking good for someone, or even simply a ridiculous dance about "nae naes". He's conveying meaningful things about life, sex and sexuality, all of which he calls 'beautiful things'.
We can hear the beginnings of our expected crowd of over 3,000 gathering beyond the stage, excitedly chatting and creating a soft, low lull of voices. Andrew slips a hand over my left thigh, hand in between my legs. "What are you doing, you dingus?" I ask, with a small smile. He embarrassedly ducks his head, chuckling. That's Andrew for you; smooth and suave one moment, and super awkward the next.
      He pulls his hand away as our manager walks quickly over. "Get up, tree-huggers! We have to start getting ready!" Andrew groans childishly, like a kid who's refusing bedtime. "But why... Our set isn't for another hour and a half!" She plants one high-heeled foot. "I'm not fighting you over this. I'm the manager. I make the rules." Andrew flops dramatically off the tree, landing directly at our manager's feet. "Up. Now."
      I roll off the log, getting covered in leaves, dirt, and god knows what else with Andrew. "You look like a swamp monster!" Andrew is towering over me, shaggy hair partially hiding his eyes. He reaches a hand out and takes my hand, helping me up. I shake out my hair and dust all the stuff off myself. Tonight's show was pretty special for me, so I dress up a little more than usual. A pair of sparkly black shorts and black tights underneath complement my lacy black top with sleeves.