April 1 – The Ask

DarkEvil Dominion looked different in spring light. The logo on the glass caught the sun in a way that made the letters glow, and every time Michael walked past the hallway where Company turned into Dominion, he felt that same quiet shock he’d felt on the mountain when the boys first told him the name

This morning, he was in his office with the door half‑open, half buried in a contract from one of their Discord partners. Blue sunglasses on, ring catching the light, a mug of coffee slowly going cold beside the keyboard.

Outside, the office hummed.

Operations in one wing, corporate in another, Dominion’s creative rooms tucked into the far side.

Sean and Grayson hovered in the break room.

Sean paced in front of the table, his badge twisted on his hoodie, phone in hand. The official lineup had finally dropped a few days ago: Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber, Karol G and Anyma headlining Coachella 2026, two weekends in April at the Empire Polo Club in Indio.cbsnews+2

He’d watched the poster go live in real time and just… stared.

He’d shown Grayson that night.

They hadn’t told Michael.

Not yet.

“Are we really doing this today?” Sean asked, thumb worrying the edge of his phone case. “On April first? He’s gonna think we’re messing with him.”

“That’s exactly why it works,” Grayson said, sitting on the table edge with his arms crossed. “If we tell him on April 1 and we’re dead serious, he’ll know we’ve thought about it. Nobody plans a fake Coachella pitch this hard.”

Sean groaned.

“I hate that you’re right,” he said.

Grayson slid off the table.

“Okay,” he said. “Last run‑through. We’re not just ‘please, Dad, take us to a festival.’ We’re DarkEvil Company and DarkEvil Dominion—founder, Vice Chairman, Corporate Executive Officer. This is business and family.”

“Business,” Sean repeated, trying to steady himself.

He ticked the points off on his fingers.

“One,” he said, “some of the servers and partners we work with already do festival tie‑ins and merch. We’ve got at least two contacts trying to do Coachella activations this year. If we help, we’re not just attendees, we’re working. That’s our angle for passes.”

“Good,” Grayson said. “Two.”

“Two,” Sean said, “our roles. You and I aren’t just random plus‑ones. You’re Vice Chairman & Co‑Founder; I’m Corporate Executive Officer and operations lead. If we go, we’re representing DarkEvil Company and Official DarkEvil Dominion. That means meetings, networking, potential contracts. Not just dancing in the grass.”

Grayson nodded.

“And three,” he said, “comfort. Dad’s knee, his back, his age, his history. We’re not throwing him in a dusty car‑camping situation and hoping for the best.”

Sean’s shoulders dropped a fraction.

“Right,” he said. “We tell him the plan: we fly out—not drive cross‑country—land in California, rent a car there and take it from the airport to Indio. We book a nice Airbnb or hotel with real beds, private bathrooms, and showers, and we use festival shuttles or a private shuttle service to go back and forth. No sleeping in cars, no 90°F tents.”borninstockholm+2

“And,” Grayson added, “because we’re helping on the business side, we might get access to a better area—artist or production guest passes, or at least nicer bathrooms and some kind of soft‑seating tent. That’s our ‘we’re not trying to kill you’ bullet.”

Sean took a deep breath.

“He’s still going to look at me like I’m insane,” he said.

“Probably,” Grayson agreed. “But you know what? He did that for Shenandoah too. And then we got the mountain pictures.”

Sean’s grip on his phone relaxed.

“Okay,” he said. “We do it together.”

“Together,” Grayson echoed.

They walked down the hall side by side.

As they passed the glass, Sean’s reflection overlapped with the Dominion logo. For a moment, he saw both at once: his face and “Official DarkEvil Dominion” in the same pane. He wondered what high‑school him would have said if he’d seen this—him, in a building with his father’s name on the wall, on his way to ask that same father if he wanted to go scream Sabrina Carpenter lyrics in a California field.

Grayson knocked on Michael’s doorframe.

“Got a minute?” he asked.

Michael looked up from his screen.

He saw both sons there—Grayson, half trying to look professional, half smirking; Sean, clearly nervous, fingers tapping his phone.

Immediately, he knew this wasn’t about a small problem.

“Sure,” he said, leaning back. “Close the door.”

Sean did, then came to stand beside Grayson.

Michael’s office had changed since winter.

The trio mountain photo was framed on the wall now—three figures on a stone overlook, leaning into each other. Underneath it, in small, clean type, Grayson had added a label:

DarkEvil Company & DarkEvil Dominion – Founding

Leadership Shenandoah, March 13, 2026 It made the whole room feel less like a bunker and more like a place where a life was being built.

“So,” Michael said. “Which one of you broke something?”

“Not yet,” Grayson said. “We’re here to ask permission before we break anything.”

Sean swallowed.

“It’s about April,” he said. “And a… trip idea.”

Michael’s eyebrows rose.

“I just got back from the mountains,” he said. “You two trying to turn me into a travel influencer?”

“Not exactly,” Grayson said.

Sean took a step forward.

“You know Coachella, right?” he asked.

Michael blinked.

“The festival?” he said. “Big desert thing. Palm trees. People in fringe and flower crowns. Artists I pretend to recognize.”

“Yeah,” Sean said. “That one.”

He pulled his phone up, thumb tapping quickly, and turned the screen so Michael could see.

The official 2026 lineup poster filled the display: Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber, Karol G, and Anyma in the headliner slots, dates marked for April 10–12 and 17–19 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio.variety+2

Michael’s eyes widened slightly.

“They actually did it,” he said. “That’s… a wild headliner list.”

“You know them?” Sean asked, surprised.

“I live on the internet,” Michael said dryly. “I’ve seen enough clips. Sabrina did that set last year that broke my feed. Anyma’s the one with the insane visuals. Justin Bieber and Karol G I’ve known longer than I’ve known what ‘Dominion’ meant.”

He looked up at them.

“Why are you showing me this?” he asked.

Grayson nodded at Sean.

“Because he wants to go,” he said simply. “And I kind of do too. And we don’t want to do it behind your back or like we’re kids sneaking out. We want to do it as… us.”

Michael shifted in his chair.

“Us meaning…?”

“Founder and chairman,” Grayson said, pointing to his father. “Vice Chairman and Co‑Founder. Corporate Executive Officer. DarkEvil Company and Official DarkEvil Dominion.’’

Sean’s voice was quieter when he spoke.

“I’ve been watching the rumors for months,” he said. “I didn’t tell you because it was just people guessing and I didn’t want to make it a thing if it ended up trash. But now the real lineup is out. It’s… basically my playlists in poster form. And after Shenandoah, after everything we talked about, I—”

His throat closed for a second.

He tried again.

“I want to go,” he said. “Not to run away. Not to disappear into a crowd. To go with you. To do something huge and loud and ridiculous on purpose. To stand in a field and see Sabrina and Anyma and whoever else they’ve got, but also to look over and see you there. In the sunglasses. With us. Not watching a livestream from the couch.”

Michael stared at him.

For a moment, the old reflex rose—say no, it’s too much, too far, too chaotic, too loud, too risky.

Then he thought about Sean curled against him in a cheap hotel bed, admitting what the cracks in the air felt like.

He thought about telling his sons the truth about the sunglasses.

He thought about Shenandoah, the trio picture, Grayson’s folder, the way his name looked on the Dominion glass.

He thought about all the nights he’d avoided crowds, lights, noise because he was afraid of what his chest would do.

“You realize Coachella is in the desert,” he said slowly. “In California. We live in Virginia.”

“We checked,” Grayson said. “We’re not driving. That would murder your knee. We’d fly out—Dulles to Palm Springs or Ontario—then rent a car and drive the last bit ourselves. We stay in a house or hotel with real beds and showers, not a tent. We can use shuttles or a private van to get to the festival, so you’re not hauling through a parking lot for miles.”tourvango+2

Sean nodded, jumping in.

“And this isn’t just ‘please buy us tickets,’” he said. “Some of our partner servers are trying to do activations out there. If we help—design, structure, moderation, whatever—they can get us working passes. That means better access, calmer spaces, actual bathrooms. We’d have a base to retreat to if it gets too loud.”

“You’d be working,” Michael said.

“Working and existing,” Grayson replied. “Company for structure, Dominion for the creative side. We get to be the weird Discord people who show up in person for once.”

Michael looked back at the poster on Sean’s phone.

Sabrina’s name.

Anyma’s.

All the tiny names underneath.

“You’re asking me to go to Coachella,” he said.

“As my dad,” Sean said. “And as Dark Evil. Both.”

Michael sat back.

He could feel the familiar pressure at the edge of his awareness—the sense of how big the crowd would be, how many hearts, how many intentions in one place.

He also felt two steady presences in front of him.

Grayson, already folding the problem into logistics, budgets, titles.

Sean, openly wanting something and not hiding it anymore.

“If I say no,” Michael said quietly, “what happens?”

Sean swallowed.

“Then we stay here,” he said. “We watch the streams. We hang out at HQ. We don’t die. I don’t hate you. I’ll be disappointed, but… I’ll get it.”

He met his father’s eyes.

“But I wanted to at least ask,” he added. “The way you asked us to tell you when things got loud. Fair trade.”

The room was very still.

Outside, someone laughed in the bullpen.

A printer whirred to life.

Inside Michael’s chest, something shifted.

He remembered sitting in his childhood house while other kids talked about concerts and parties he never went to because he was already exhausted from the noise no one else could hear.

He remembered promising himself that if he ever had kids, they wouldn’t have to be small just so he could manage.

He looked at the trio mountain photo on the wall.

Then back at his sons.

“How long is the festival?” he asked.

“Two weekends,” Grayson said. “We’d only pick one. Probably Weekend One, April 10–12. You’d only have to survive three days. Four, if you count travel.”latimes+1

“And you two are sure you want me there?” Michael asked. “Not… just to go with each other?”

Sean’s answer was immediate.

“Yes,” he said. “The whole point is you being there.”

Grayson nodded.

“If you stay home,” he said, “we’ll just spend the whole time sending you photos and being mad we can’t see your face when Anyma does something insane.”

Silence stretched.

Michael took a breath.

“All right,” he said.

Sean blinked.

“All right?” he repeated.

“All right,” Michael said again. “We’ll look at numbers. We’ll talk to Sean William about how much of this we can write off as business. We’ll see what partner passes are actually available. I’m not promising VIP tents and private showers yet. But if the logistics make sense…”

He let the sentence hang for a second.

“…then we go,” he finished. “Together.”

Sean exhaled like someone had just cut a rope around his chest.

Grayson grinned.

“I’ll start a shared doc,” he said. “Budget, flights, rentals, partner contacts, which shows are mandatory, which ones we can skip…”

He stopped when he saw Michael’s face.

“You okay?” he asked.

Michael nodded slowly.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m just… realizing I said yes to my sons dragging me to a desert full of strangers and sound. On purpose.”

He glanced at the sunglasses on his nose, then at the poster again.

“If we do this,” he said, “we do it my way. I keep these on whenever I need to. We build in quiet time. We don’t push through if it’s too much. Deal?”

“Deal,” Sean said immediately.

“Deal,” Grayson echoed.

Sean smiled then—wide, unguarded, twenty‑one and a little stunned.

“Happy April first, Dad,” he said.

Michael shook his head.

“You know,” he said, “when you said you wanted to talk on April Fool’s, I was ready for a bad prank.”