Part 3! Trying to make the story unfold as realistically as possible but I'm aware that it might seem to be dragging! Thoughts? I've also put a couple of extra people in at my sister's request, Jay and Padge from Bullet for my Valentine :3

Sky x

******

We only had to wait around 15 minutes for Mark to emerge from the back of the tent, and a further ten for the band to start to make their way out. Mark was clearly a busy guy, as he came over to us briefly to let us know that we were welcome 'backstage' as long as the band were at the festival, we could come and go as we pleased but we were to be ready to go side stage 15 minutes before the show was due to start. Side stage! We exchanged excited looks. He then left to give the band some directions, then walked purposefully in the direction of numerous lorries, all black with a gold Rammstein logo subtly marked on them.

"It looks a lot but they take remarkably little time to unload and set up." An accented voice said behind me and I turned to see Flake standing a little apart from us.

"It's incredible." I commented, smiling at him. Billy immediately struck up a conversation with him, and as Till and Schneider made their way over to us as well they were intercepted by Emily and David. Someone official looking said something to Paul and Ollie and they both quickly followed in the same direction Mark had gone. That left Richard, who was standing, as usual, smoking, talking to an attractive blonde girl who was also wearing a similar VIP lanyard to ours, though it wasn't a Rammstein one. I took the opportunity of being alone to observe my friends interacting with the band members. Till and David were comparing muscles, which didn't surprise me as much as it should have, seeing as David had an easy charm that made anyone he came across very open towards him. Billy was peppering Flake with questions, and Flake seemed more relaxed than I had expected him to be. He had always seemed like the most reserved member of the band, in interviews and on stage. It was nice to see that he was actually very friendly. I couldn't make out what Emily and Schneider were talking about, but they were both smiling and laughing as they talked animatedly.

Suddenly Richard appeared in my view and he must have moved very quietly since I'd not heard him approach, and he was right in front of me. I smiled up at him, he had applied his stage makeup and wasn't wearing his hat, his green eyes were lined with eyeliner in a way that really drew attention to them.

"So do I get you to myself for a while? It looks like it." He grinned at me, clearly noting that all our friends and band members were occupied with each other. "Come this way." He suggested, putting his hand lightly on my upper arm and leading me towards a barrier that had been put up between the side of a van and the tent that was opposite it. We weren't entirely obscured from the view of the others but it was somewhere we could talk openly without being overheard, which seemed to be his intent.

"Who was the girl?" I indicated to the retreating back of the blonde woman who he had been conversing with moments before.

"Oh, an interviewer, I think. She was here for Bullet for my Valentine, but wanted a few extra words from other bands to bulk out her piece on the festival." He shrugged. "Why, were you jealous?" A grin appeared on his face as he joked with me.

"No, of course not." I smiled back. Liar. My conscience accused.

"A shame." He remarked, lighting up yet another cigarette.

"How many do you smoke?!" I asked, before I could catch myself. He shrugged, unperturbed by my rude question.

"I try not to keep a count. A lot?" I had nothing to say to that and the silence between us grew. He seemed completely at ease, enjoying the moments of quiet and the cool breeze that was stirring up around us. Though he was wearing his stage outfit of black trousers and tank top, red sleeves and black boots, the cold didn't seem to bother him. I was glad that he didn't yet have his full stage makeup on - off stage, the almost orange face covering would have been close to garish. "So, Rebekah." He broke my reverie. "Tell me something about yourself. Where are you from?"

"Oh. It's strange to know so much about someone who doesn't know anything about you." I laughed. "Okay so...I'm 24, from Scotland, really not as accident prone as my sister would lead you to believe..." At his quizzical glance I explained for him: "The blonde girl talking to Schneider is my younger sister. We're completely opposite so people quite often don't believe us." He nodded to show he accepted it as a fact, but didn't say anything, which I took as a request for me to keep talking. "Um...I've been to university, when I'm not slumming it in a field for a long weekend I work in a hospital laboratory. I love music and travelling...the former helps me cope with the boring parts of the latter." This amused him, and he agreed with me that music helped even the most lengthy bus, plane or train journey go that little bit faster. We talked for a while longer until we were interrupted by Emily finding us.

"Here you are!" She announced to no one in particular. "We were going to take some pictures before you guys had to go and do soundcheck..." She looked at Richard who nodded and gestured for us to walk ahead of him. The three of us walked back to the main group, myself in the middle, Richard walking close enough to me for my shoulder to bump against his upper arm more than once. As we reached them, Paul once again gave me a look that I couldn't interpret. Not hostile at all, more puzzled than anything else. I smiled at him and he smiled back, the look disappearing from his face as quickly as it had appeared.

"Okay, all here, let's get some pictures." Till's deep voice announced. Billy stopped someone who was passing and asked them to take a group picture of the four of us with all six members. I found myself squashed between Richard and Paul, Paul's arm was draped around my shoulders, his other was around Emily's. Richard's arm curled around my waist, pulling my slightly closer to him so that our hips were touching. Not sure where to put my hands, I put them on each of the guitarist's lower backs, and smiled as the passerby took a few shots. We thanked him and Billy took his camera back, and started snapping shots of whoever wanted pictures with individual members. as well as some random shots that were unposed. Emily and David disappeared for a few minutes and came back with enough beer for all of us to have one. I stood and spoke with Ollie and Schneider for a while, using my very basic German and their not quite fluent English to get by. Ollie was definitely the shy one of the band, he didn't seem to like being in the centre of attention at all, but his personality was warm and he was quick to smile. Schneider was the joker, always with funny stories to tell and an easy attitude that made him easy to talk to. After getting my picture taken with each of the members other than Richard, I stood to one side and waited for Emily to finish having her set of pictures taken.

"Do you not want us to be photographed together?" Richard joked, coming up beside me and watching our friends interact with each other once again.

"Of course I do." I replied. "I was just giving everyone else a chance to spend some time with you too." I looked up at him and met his eyes, exchanging a smile with him again.

"Well, now it's your turn, come on!" He put his arm around my shoulders and steered me towards where Billy was standing with his camera, having just finished taking a few shots of Emily and Paul. "Our turn." He told Billy, and we moved back a little so that Billy could fit us both in the frame. He smiled widely, his arm still around my waist, and pulled me into him so that I stumbled a little, putting my hand on his stomach to steady myself. I laughed aloud at the suddenness, and after the first shot he leaned his head on top of mine. I thought my face would split in half, I was grinning so much! The surrealness of the situation was starting to creep up on me again. Here I was, in the VIP section of Download festival, hanging out and drinking with my favourite band, and being cuddled by my favourite member, who I happened to have a huge crush on. It was crazy, but I let myself drift along with the moment and tried not to think about the night ending.

******

While the band had soundcheck, we wandered around the VIP section for a while longer, excitedly pointing out bands that we recognised, and trying to work out who we didn't know was in which band. Emily had her own star struck moment when she literally bumped into Jay James, the bass player from Bullet for my Valentine. He and Padge, the guitarist, were a little worse for wear, and were jostling each other around playfully.

"Sorry, sorry!" Jay apologised, his Welsh accent even stronger than normal when we had been drinking.

"It's fine!" Emily replied, looking as if all of her Christmases had come at once. "Hey, your show this afternoon was brilliant." She continued, and launched into a conversation with both of them about their show that night as compared with the many she had seen before. I worried for a moment that she would take a scary fangirl moment with them, but she held herself together very well. It was, I thought, clearly our day.

We still had an hour until we had to be back and ready for Rammstein's show. Since Emily was clearly going to be a while, David and I said we would go and buy some food for all of us while Billy stayed with Emily and the intoxicated Bullet boys. As we walked through the makeshift gate that served for the divider between the festival arena and the backstage area, showing our passes to the guards, who nodded, David started plying me with questions.

"So. What did Richard want to talk to you about that involved walking away into your own little bubble?" He laughed, knowing full well that he was putting far too many implications on what had happened.

"Nothing really, he was just asking for information about me." I shrugged. "I honestly don't know why, he's so friendly though, and really nice." I remembered the feeling of his arm pulling me closer towards him and smiled to myself. "He's the one that's always nice to female fans though, and sometimes a little over familiar." There, I had voiced my fears about the sitation, which was the most likely scenario that was playing out. He was really just being friendly, and had no interest in me other than that. I mean, why would he?

"Well, just be careful." David transformed from joking friend to brother figure. "You're not long back to yourself after last time...and we don't want to see that again." He looked at me with a tiny bit of unconcealed concern, referring to the fact that my previous relationship had broken up not much longer than a year ago, and it had been painful and drawn out. I had only within the last few months truly become "myself" again.

"You know me." I replied. "Head first 100% into everything I do." He nodded, accepting that it was my view on life, and all of a sudden was completely absorbed in choosing what to eat that evening. I loved my friend dearly, and his ability to switch between subjects and areas of focus was one of my favourite things about him: he didn't brood on things and if he couldn't change something, he accepted it and moved on.

We bought our food - chicken wraps for Emily and I, and burgers for the boys - and more beers then went back to the VIP area. I texted Kurt and a couple of our other friends to tell them not to wait around for us before Rammstein and to just enjoy the show. A couple of them replied, saying that they would see us back at the campsite that night, but most didn't. When we reached Billy and Emily, they were looking over pictures on his camera and the guys from Bullet for my Valentine were nowhere to be seen.

"I got my picture taken with Jay! And I got his number!" Emily bounced up to me.

"Well done." I grinned at her. Whether anything would come of it I didn't know, but she was so happy that I just grinned and hugged her back when she landed on me, then we sat in a circle on the now dry ground to eat our food.

"Today has been so good." I observed to the others.

"It has indeed." Emily said, still on a high from her encounter that nothing could touch.

"And it's only going to get better." David added, taking a huge bite of his burger and washing it down with beer.

"I'm getting nervous." I admitted. I'd read in many interviews that the pyro and effects the band used on stage could get really, really hot, and while they seemed not so fussed about blisters and singed eyebrows, it wasn't something I was eager to experience.

******

Half an hour later, we were in position at the side of the stage. We were given a choice of which location we wanted to stand at: David and I chose Richard and Flake's side of the stage; while Emily and Billy wanted to be at Paul and Ollie's side. We hadn't seen any of the band members yet, and had no idea what to expect from their show. Eventually the lights went down, and I could feel the cheer that came up from the crowd like an actual force blowing onto the stage. In the darkness, there was movement on the stage as the band members took their positions. As they hit the first few beats of "Ich Tur Dir Weh", the pyro set off huge spouts of flame to the sky, precisely in time with the band's playing. As the song intro properly kicked in, the sheet covering the stage fell down and the lights came up, the crowd going even crazier as the band came into sight. I watched in awe as the men I had spent part of the evening with held the audience in the palms of their hands, my eyes especially drawn to Richard in his long black trench coat, strutting and swaggering around his microphone, the confidence he held offstage enhanced a hundredfold in his on stage persona. Then a platform started to descent from the top of the stage, accompanied by fireworks shooting out from the base and sides. Standing on top, dressed in stage clothes and a fuzzy pink coat was Till. David and I looked at each other and burst out laughing; Till could pull of outfits that would make any other man or woman in the world look absolutely ridiculous!

Despite my prior anxieties, the whole show went without a hitch. The whole band played flawlessly and seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves. The final song of their encore was Pussy, and David and I looked at each other when Till brought out the giant dildo that sprayed the crowd with foam - ever since the first time we had seen a video of them doing this perfomance live, we had vowed to be in the front few rows to be one of the people getting sprayed. Spookily, Till seemed to read our minds, since at the last second he spun the giant dildo around so that the spray was aimed towards the stage! A laugh could be heard from the crowd as Richard didn't quite get out of the way quickly enough, and one leg of his trousers got coated in white foam.

David and I didn't manage to escape the spray at all, both getting hit full force and covered, along with some equipment cases which were thankfully closed, protecting anything that could have been inside them. Richard had watched us get covered and was bent over laughing, so that Paul had to play the majority of the parts of the song he was missing. Ignoring the fact that his bandmates were still not finished the song, he walked side stage with his guitar slung around his back to protect it, and wrapped me in a full length foamy hug, getting us both covered even more than either of us were before. He wiped the foam from my cheeks almost tenderly, then ruined the moment by smearing all he had removed back onto my nose before giggling to himself and running back to his position, to finish off the last of the song, then take part in the farewell bow that the band made sure to do after every performance, to show their respect and thanks to the crowd.

When I turned to David to share my awe at the show with him, he was looking at me with raised eyebrows. "Well." He said. "I think the flirting is getting to a more serious stage, my darling."

"He was just playing around." I excused his behaviour. No matter how much I enjoyed the attention he gave me, I wasn't going to look any further than the surface of it until he gave me reason to.

"Uh-huh." He said, not convinced. "Well, we'll see." I shook my head at him, there would be no making him think otherwise now. I put the whole situation to the back of my mind and turned to greet each of the band members as they came off stage. Flake, Ollie and Till all gave me a hug and David a pat on the back as they passed, Paul, Schneider and Richard were all still interacting with the crowd, throwing guitar picks and drumsticks out, as well as towels and water bottles, waving and enjoying the applause. Eventually they all exited the stage as well, Schneider first, then Paul, who jokingly cringed back from my still-foamy self before wrapping me in a bear hug and spinning me around, laughing. They were all on such a post-performance high and it was amazing to see. Richard put a steadying hand to my lower back and kept it there as we walked down the steps behind the stage and out to the area directly behind the stage where their makeshift dressing rooms were located. There were picnic tables and benches gathered outside, some already covered in food and various drinks. The band had already returned their instruments to their correct places before leaving the stage, so most of them went straight to their dressing rooms to shower and get changed.

Billy and Emily were already sitting at one of the tables having a drink and talking to Mark, the security guard from the signing tent. David and I joined them, followed by Richard, all taking a seat around the table. I was squashed between David and Richard, and when Richard put his arm around me I leaned into him, grateful to have some extra space, especially space that was Richard's and offered freely to me. Emily caught my eye and gave me a similar look to the one David had given me earlier. I rolled my eyes at her and ignored her. I was comfortable, and happy, he didn't mind so who were we hurting? We poured some drinks from the pitchers on the table, I sniffed mine before taking a sip, it was some sort of vodka and cranberry combination and was very refreshing. I leaned back even more into Richard's chest, a warm feeling creeping through me as he shifted and snaked an arm around the front of my waist, holding me to him. We sat together for a while, drinking and discussing the show, until the five remaining members of Rammstein emerged freshly showered and changed. The appearance of his bandmates seemed to make Richard aware of his sweaty and unwashed state. Though I wasn't complaining - he still smelt nice to me - I didn't object to him maneuvering himself out from behind me, promising to be back quickly.