Origin Story
The others – Spike’s story – episode 1
Mar 21, 2026
The Box smells the way it always does: hopeful antiperspirant, tepid beer, and the metallic tang of old cables baked by stage lights. I’ve played this room before. I know the exact creak in the floorboards and the way the monitors whistle if you stand half a step too close to the edge.
Seccelles are already mid-setup.
Their reputation precedes them. Four chicks who play like the amps owe them money and look like trouble while they’re collecting. There’s always a ring of guys hanging around the periphery—the ‘zygotes,’ they call them. Groupies still waiting to hatch.
She’s behind the kit.
Messy dark hair, a plunging neckline, and a bored expression as she twirls a drumstick. The sound guy is faffing with a roll of gaffer tape at her feet. I’m halfway through tuning the E-string when she looks up.
Straight at me.
It isn’t a glance; it’s a hold. It lands low in my gut, heavy and heat-mapped, like a hand pressing just under the beltline.
My jeans are tight tonight. Her eyes drift down, slow and deliberate. They stop. They stay there just long enough for the heat to climb my neck and prickle at my hairline.
Then she looks back up.
The corner of her mouth hitches—a tiny, private victory.
Something shifts below the belt.
Soundcheck ends. The stage clears. Everyone scatters into the shadows, but the air between us stays charged.
Later, she’s perched on the edge of the stage with a poke of chips, one leg swinging like a metronome. The grease paper crackles under her palm; there’s a dusting of salt on her fingertips.
I’m at the bar, the blue light of my phone a mask for the fact that I’m watching her.
When I look up, she’s already caught me. Again. She grins, her voice cutting through the hollow, post-soundcheck quiet of the room.
“You hungry?”
I wander over, keeping my pace casual. “Depends. For what?”
She lifts a single chip, moving it with agonizing slowness. “Hot. Deep-fried. Loaded with flavour.”
I hop up beside her, the chips sitting between us like neutral territory. I take one, held by her gaze as I eat it.
“Your band’s solid,” she says, nodding toward the gear. “Rhythm section’s tight as fuck.”
“Cheers. I guess.”
She glances sideways, a flash of amusement in her eyes. “You’ll do well. The girls’ll eat you alive. My advice? Never be without a johnnie in that guitar case.”
“Speaking from experience, are we?”
She snorts, a sharp, genuine sound. “Cheeky cunt.” Then, her voice drops a gear, turning softer. “I just know the scene better than most.”
She nudges the poke closer. “Have another.”
She tilts her chin toward the bar, where Milo is already deep in conversation with a leggy blonde.
“Your singer’s a pure minge magnet, eh?”
“Aye. He’s a good-looking bastard.”
She studies me for a long moment, her head tilted.
“You’re not half bad yourself.” A casual shrug. “I wouldn’t kick you out of bed for dropping an air biscuit.”
“High praise indeed.”
“Bunker after the show?”
“Maybe.”
Her smile widens, becoming something more dangerous.
“Would be nice to bump into you there.”
She slides off the stage in one fluid motion. Starts to walk away, then half-turns, the stage lights catching the edge of her silhouette.
“I’m Tia, by the way.”
“I’m Spike.”
Her eyes flick down—that same deliberate, heavy hold from earlier.
“That on account of the hair? Or something more… substantial?”
“The hair,” I say, though my voice lacks conviction.
She laughs—loud, bright, and knowing. “I don’t believe you.”
Then she’s gone, vanishing into the shadows of the wings.
She plants herself right at the lip of the stage during our set.
Every time I glance down, she’s there, watching. Not shy about it, either; her gaze tracks the movement of my hands fretting the guitar before snapping back to my eyes. Once, she bites her lip—slow, deliberate, like she’s tasting the notes. When I tear into a solo, she throws up the devil horns and grins like she’s the one who started the fire.
Then it’s their turn. I watch from the wings, leaning against a stack of flight cases.
The moment Tia slides behind the kit, the playful version of her vanishes. Her shoulders tighten, posture shifts into something predatory, and her eyes fix on a point somewhere far beyond the crowd. The sticks snap through the air with a violent precision. The rest of the band locks around her rhythm like gears finding teeth, relentless and loud.
They’re sharp. They’re professional. By the second song, I’m standing there thinking we sound like some shite pub band compared to this.
Between songs, while the bassist is tuning, she glances over.
She catches me watching—wide-eyed and impressed. A slow, knowing smirk creeps across her face as she runs her tongue along the tip of her drumstick, her eyes never leaving mine.
Then she turns back to the kit, drops the count, and the floor begins to shake again.
Right then, I know.
I’m done for. I want her.
After the gig, Milo tries his luck with the leggy blonde. She shuts him down in about twelve seconds flat—surgical and cold. He heads home to his fiancée with a wounded ego and a quiet taxi ride.
Me, Wullie, and Dexi head for the Bunker.
The place is rammed. It’s a fever dream of sweat, bass, and bodies throbbing under the jagged pulse of strobe lights.
I spot her almost immediately. She’s on the dance floor, locked into the rhythm with some blonde guy. For a split second, the years melt away and I’m sixteen again, staring at the popular girl from the back of the classroom, already convincing myself not to bother. The old familiar sting of “out of my league” pricks at my chest.
I retreat to the bar.
It seems we’re all inextricably pulled into the Seccelles’ orbit tonight. Wullie is already spellbound by Shell; she’s perched on a barstool looking like a snack, and his eyes are eating her up. Dexi is cornering Laine, and I overhear them shouting over the kick-drum about Flea’s slap-funk techniques.
I sit in the middle—a gooseberry nursing a lukewarm pint, watching the shadows.
Then she’s just there, appearing beside me like she’s stepped out of a drum fill.
“So, you’re blanking me now, are you?”
“Thought you were dancing,” I say, trying to keep my voice as level as the horizon.
“He was boring.” She leans back against the bar, claiming the space. “You not a dancer, Spike?”
“Only when I need to exorcise something.”
She laughs—a low, throaty sound—then reaches out and hijacks my pint. She takes a long pull, hands it back, and runs a slow finger along the sticky bar top. “Your singer fuck off home, then?”
“Aye. Wounded ego.”
“You lot did alright tonight,” she concedes, her eyes hooded.
“Cheers.”
“Saw you watching. During our set.”
I feel the heat prickle at my neck again. “Aye. Well. You were good.”
“I know.” She grins, sharp and predatory. “I was watching you, an’ all.”
I gesture vaguely toward the optics. “You want a drink?”
“Only if I can have you for the chaser.”
I can’t help it; I laugh. “Always this direct, Tia?”
“When I see something I want? Aye. Always.”
Her hands land on my thighs—warm, heavy weight through the denim. They slide up, slow and deliberate, until the air in my lungs feels thin. She leans in, and I meet her halfway.
The kiss hits like a dropped amplifier: all feedback, teeth, and sudden, electric noise. My body reacts instantly, a visceral ‘yes’ that drowns out the club’s bass.
“Come back to mine,” she murmurs against my mouth. It isn’t a question; it’s a command.
I glance over her shoulder. Wullie’s eyebrows are doing cardio at the other end of the bar—I can see him practically praying for Shell to drop a similar invite on him.
I hop off the barstool, my pulse already frantic, and smile at her. “After you.”
Her flat is a twenty-minute taxi blur. By the time we hit the pavement, our tongues are on first-name terms.
The bedroom door clicks home.
She drops to her knees without ceremony, fingers already worrying my belt. Jeans down. Pants down. A small gasp hitches in her throat. She looks up, then looks down again, eyes widening into dinner plates.
“Jesus, Mary, and the seven dwarfs,” she murmurs. “What have we got here, then?”
She lets out a delighted laugh. “You, my boy, are hung like a treat.”
She’s a woman who knows what she wants; she insists on a sixty-nine. She tastes like wine gums—deep, artificial sweetness. I wonder if she flavours herself before she hits the tiles, some secret ritual I’ve never encountered. Whatever it is, it’s addictive.
I almost lose it twice. I have to summon the mental image of a dry, grey spreadsheet just to keep from overshooting the runway before we’ve even truly started.
She’s the director here. Intense. Energetic. Wholly present. None of that starfish routine where you’re doing all the heavy lifting. Tia puts in a shift. She doesn’t leave a single crumb on the plate.
When we finally collapse back into the mattress, we’re drenched. My heart is thumping like one of her drum solos, erratic and loud in the quiet.
The room smells of sex and wine gums.
“Well,” I manage eventually, the words still catching. “That was… something.”
She grins into the pillow, one eye visible. “Good?”
“Aye. Good.”
We lie there for a long beat, breathing evening out. The silence is heavy, but not uncomfortable. Then she sits up, suddenly sincere, the playfulness stripped away.
“I’m not looking for anything serious,” she says. “But I’d like to do that again. Sometime.”
“Same,” I say. “And yes.”
I hesitate, the ghost of a dozen past exits hovering over the bed. “You want me to leave?”
She tilts her head, studying me. “You want to leave?”
“No. Just thought maybe you weren’t into the… after bit. The staying over. The waking up.”
She shakes her head, a stray strand of hair falling over her face. “I’m fine with that. Just not monogamy.”
“Fair enough.”
She leans down and kisses me again—slow, proprietary. My spine goes soft.
We settle back into the dark. Her hand drifts to my crotch, resting there like it belongs, like it’s found its home. Skin on skin. Quiet breathing. The city humming somewhere beyond the glass.
And already, I know.
I’m in trouble.
Sunrise Salute
The others – Spike’s story – episode 2
Mar 28, 2026
The sun hits the bed in heavy, golden slats. Her jet-black hair is glistening against the pillowcase, and last night’s eyeliner is slightly smeared—a dark, beautiful mess. She looks lovely.
I want to kiss her awake. Make love to her until the city finishes waking up.
As she turns, her soft breasts brush against my ribs, and she slings an arm over my chest, pinning me there. She’s still dead to the world, mumbling some half-dreamed thought I can’t quite catch. I lean back and scan the room. It’s an artist’s space—cluttered, deliberate. My eyes snag on a vibrator sitting casually on her bedside table. Right. Not shy, then.
I find myself imagining her using it, which is exactly the wrong thought to have in this position.
Then I feel it. The duvet begins to rise. Just a fraction, right by my crotch.
Fuck.
I freeze, pretending to be deep in sleep. There’s nothing I can do; her head is a warm weight on my arm. I’m anchored to the mattress with a morning glory to end all morning glories, lying next to a girl whose bones I want to jump but whose boundaries I’m terrified of tripping over.
I shift an inch, hoping the movement might stir her. She doesn’t even twitch.
I realise I’m going to have to handle this myself. I try to regulate my breathing, staring at the ceiling and trying to think of anything but the heat of her skin.
Then, a voice—clear and amused.
“You want me to help you with that? You look almost pained.”
I look down at her. She’s watching me with one eye open.
“I didn’t want to wake you,” I say. “You looked so peaceful.” My voice comes out sleep-crusted, rough as a gravel path.
“So you were just gonna negotiate with the sunrise salute all by yourself?”
“Sorry. It’s just—it gets a bit achy if I don’t.”
She grins, the playfulness from last night returning in an instant. “Don’t apologise, Spike. I understand. But now that I’m awake…” She reaches under the duvet, her hand cool and certain. “Let’s put him to good use.”
The way she arches her back to receive me makes my whole body spasm. My breath hitches in a way that feels dangerously like a confession.
“Wow. You feel fucking amazing.” The words gush out before I can censor them. “I wish I could stay in you all day.”
She doesn’t answer with words. She makes short work of me, treating it like a high-stakes game—a challenge to see how fast she can make me unravel.
The answer is fast. And hard.
I’ve never been with a woman so sure of herself. So dominant, yet able to slip into something submissive the moment it serves the gameplay. She tells me exactly what she wants. No shyness. No crumbs left on the plate.
It’s exciting. She’s exciting. And I’m definitely in trouble.
After. Coffee. Toast. The morning is functional now; we both have rehearsals to get to, gears to shift back into place.
I run into Fan in the hallway on my way out. She’s wrapped in a dressing gown, one eyebrow arched in a silent, mocking salute. She smirks.
“Hi,” she says, the word loaded with everything she heard through the walls.
I feel my face go a sudden, violent red. I mumble something that isn’t even a language and disappear out the door before the embarrassment can anchor me.
I’m shellshocked for the rest of the afternoon. It’s a good kind of shock—soft at the edges, the kind I know better than to lean into. But God, she’s already got me in the fall.
Milo clocks it the second I walk into the studio.
“Well, someone had good sex last night,” he says, leaning against his amp. “Lucky bastard.”
Wullie grins, looking up from tightening his snare. “Aye, this jammy prick slunk away with Tia.”
Milo’s eyebrows shoot up. “You shagged Seccelles’ drummer?”
“Guilty as charged,” I say, trying to sound casual, like it’s just a conversation about the weather.
“Good lad.” Milo nods, approving. “Seeing her again?”
“Aye, well. For fun. Nothing serious.”
“Perfect.”
“Aye, sweet,” I say. “She’s a sound shag.”
Milo studies my face for a beat too long, then shakes his head. “Spike, looking at you, she was a lot more than ‘sound.’ You know your face doesn’t conceal your secrets for shit, right?”
“Just as well I don’t keep any, then.” I shrug, pivoting away from the heat. “Nah, it’s just—she’s hot as fuck. A thoroughly good night was had. That’s all.” I turn the spotlight on the others. “What about you, Wullie? You get your hole?”
Wullie sighs, the sound of a man defeated. “Not from Shell, I didn’t. Her and Laine were swallowed up by a group of lads on the dance floor before I could even make a suggestion.” He looks genuinely gutted. “I did bump into Leanne later, though. A bit of a cluster, to be honest. I wasn’t even gonna to go back with her because she was sloshed, but she insisted. Then, right in the middle of it… she literally passes out on me.”
Dexi’s eyes go wide. “Is she alright?”
“Aye, she’s fine. I put her in the recovery position and left. Told Louise to keep an eye on her. She just texted me there—apologising for blacking out mid-coitus.”
Milo bursts out laughing, a loud, sharp bark. “Fuck’s sake. That’s harsh. Only you, Wullie. Only you.”
After rehearsal, I check my phone.
Hopeful. Stupid.
Nothing from Tia. Not that day, and not the next.
It stings—a dull, localized ache I tell myself will fade. I decide to carry on as before. If there’s one thing I’m not, it’s a tragic romantic. I need sex like other people need food; it’s essential, it’s fuel. If I can’t get it from her, I’ll get it from someone else.
So I do.
But I keep checking the screen.
Just in case.
