Categories > Celebrities > Panic! At The Disco > Just For the Attention
A/n- So I could make a bunch of excuses as to why this took so long to write, but the short story here is that my life has been a mess. I've had to go back to a job I hate, watch one of best friends move away, went to New York, but had to leave too soon, and then I had to face reality. It's been hard to write happy characters when you're upset most of the time. So my apologies. I hope it was worth the wait...if not, I promise that the final chapter of this (which is coming up) is totally worth it, and the sequel....well let's just say I wish I could watch that right now.
Reviews will get free produce from my store, causing I don't feel like remembering the codes.
*
The rest of the part had gone off without a hitch. After the rather public display of affection Nikol had decided to make herself scarce, knowing that at the very least, Danielle would have some choice things to say. She instead had asked Ryan to escort her to a more private location, and after he donned her with the necklace (which was perfect), they spent the rest of the night talking...and not talking. About an hour later, they were demanded back to the buses, needing to make another leg of their trip that night. Ryan walked Nikol to her bus, and they affectionately parted ways, and before she got on the bus she watched as Danielle was carted off caveman style to the band's bus by Brendon.
She was torn about not having Dani on the buss with her. It was a good thing in the fact that her friend wouldn't be there taunting her endlessly, and that she would have a chance to think about it first, but it was bad because she was dangerous when left alone with her thoughts and she really wanted to have her best friend to talk to. Well whatever the case was, she was left on the bus with very little to do, since the other performers had decided to crash the moment they got on the bus. Nikol was a night owl, which was something that really helped on this tour, but left her with very little to do sometimes at very odd hours of the morning.
She picked up her computer, once again grateful for the anywhere wireless attachment she had gotten before the tour, and settled into her routine web-surfing. She updated her facebook, and looked around a bit on livejournal before checking her email and to find that Danielle was trying to talk to her from two buses ahead. They talked for awhile, making plans for the following night, and planning her escape from the bus of boredom. After confirming that she would escape during a snack stop, she abandoned the computer for her phone, which was rumoured to have been attacked by Brendon.
Sure enough, she found twenty or so messages on her phone from her best friend's boyfriend, and they made absolutely no sense. She sent a message off to Dani requesting her to control her boyfriend, before finding a single message from Ryan hidden among Brendon's spam of messages.
'I miss you.'
Her heart skipped a beat at the simple message. She couldn't help but remember his words from earlier that evening: “I think I'm falling in love with you.” There was no doubt about it, she was head over heels for this man, and the sooner she was off the bus and back in his arms, the happier she would be.
After what felt like hours instead of the alleged ten minutes, the bus pulled to a stop. Flinging her bag over her shoulder, she darted off the bus and into the store, long enough to grab some sugar-heavy snack food. After stashing the items in her bag, she dashed into the boys' bus, overjoyed to find Ryan waiting for her on the couch. Barely bothering to stow her bag, she curled up in his arms, content to stay there for the rest of the night, talking and snacking. Not long after getting settled the bus took off again, and the group settled into another round of bizarre conversation.
*
It was a couple hours later, and everyone had started to drift off towards their bunks. Ryan was locked in a conversation with Jon about some new songs that he'd been writing, and she let him know that she was going to go do some reading and leave them to their conversation. He took enough time to show her where his bunk was, and then left her with a gentle kiss. She smiled, pulling the latest Jim Butcher from her bag, completely willing to immerse herself in her favourite series as well as one of her favourite bus activities.
It was odd considering she was prone to car sickness, but something about the dark light near the walls of the bunks helped her ease those tendencies, and she found she was ecstatic to have one of her hobbies back. She spent the next hour completely immersed in the book, with the only interruption being Dani and Brendon laughing about something in the bunk across from her. She pulled open the curtain and hissed at Danielle, who pulled back her own curtain and laughed. Nikol shushed them, and Danielle smiled wickedly, but they seemed to oblige, and she was once again surrounded in quiet.
She was so distracted that she didn't even notice when Ryan slid into the bunk. She was only half reading the book, her mind too consumed in other avenues of thought, more specifically how this new relationship would translate to the rest of the tour. She was nervous about performances, not wanting to mess them up when she was near Ryan. In the past she had a tendency to be skittish around him after an intimate encounter, and she was afraid she wouldn't be able to get over that. Her mind had turned to the thought of what would happen when they finally went public, when Ryan decided to make his presence known. He slowly ran his hand through her hair, and she jumped in shock, her heart racing. Closing the book, she turned over to face him.
He smiled, “Sorry, didn't mean to startle you,” he whispered, “Just wanted to let you know that everyone's crashed at this point.”
“It's okay, I just wasn't paying attention,” she confessed and she set her book on her chest, expecting conversation. He just smiled, and pulled a notebook out from under his pillow, rolling onto his stomach and starting to write what looked like verse.
She watched him for a moment, “What are you writing, Ry?” she asked softly
He looked up at her and smiled, “A new song idea, actually.”
“Can I read it when you're done?” she asked. He eyed her for a moment, and she retracted her request, “It's okay if you don't want me to. I understand.”
He looked slightly relieved at this, and she leaned over to kiss him on the cheek, before rolling over to face the wall, “Wake me up if you want to talk okay, I know you like to write while you have the inspiration.”
He beamed at her back, feeling a warmth spread from his head to his toes. So maybe what he had said earlier wasn't true. He was pretty damn sure that if love felt like anything, it felt like this. He couldn't have been more content around a single person, and he was positive there wasn't anyone else that understood his artistic tendencies as well as she did. After watching her fall asleep, he turned back to his page, inspiration hitting him harder than before and as he wrote he mused about how on earth he could have found someone as perfect as Nikol, and wondered why it had taken so long.
*
The next morning came way too early for the party that was crowding the band's bus. Even though they had two more days off in their mini-holiday, it hadn't stopped the record label from scheduling a radio interview at seven in the morning. So even though they had spent the night messing around and talking once Nikol had broken on the bus, the band was still being woken up at what they considered an ungodly hour, while the girls gladly sprawled on the now unoccupied bunks.
After an hour of attempting to sleep Danielle accepted her defeat to being awake and began to walk around the bus, waiting for her friend to wake up. When Nikol finally did emerge it was twenty minutes later, and Danielle was behind her laptop talking to some of her friends back home. Nik grabbed a couple of bowls and some cereal and sat down to Dani, offering her a bowl.
“So,” Dani started, after pouring herself a bowl and taking a bite, “Last night was interesting.”
Nikol sighed, and glared at her friend, “No, we're not even going to do that. Last night was nothing short of perfect for me, and I'm not going to let you ruin it with your childish taunting.”
Dani blinked, surprised, “Okay then. I wasn't going to taunt you...per se. Besides I did most of that via email, if you could remember back that far. I was just going to say, that that was absolutely adorable, and I'm incredibly happy for you.”
“Oh. Well in that case, thank you.”
They ate in silence for a few moments, since they were quite famished due to the lack of food from the party the night before.
“Did you see what he gave me?” Nikol finally asked.
“Vaguely, there was this whole distance issue getting in the way though. It looked like a necklace though,” Dani answered, smiling, glad to know her Nik wasn't as annoyed with her as she had originally thought.
Nikol just grinned and disappeared for a moment, necklace in hand.
“Oh my god, Nikol,” Danielle said when she saw it, “This is like you translated into a necklace. It's beautiful. Are you gonna wear it on stage?”
“Of course I am, it goes perfectly with that jacket I wear during the opening number.”
They talked about the show and life in general for awhile, before Nikol brought up the pending plans for that night.
“Oh everything's in order. Zack called this morning and booked us a karaoke joint in town. I texted a couple people and they're all on board for it, so we'll head that way around five o'clock.”
Nikol smiled, “Now we're settled on the 'boys aren't allowed to sing' rule right?”
With a grin Danielle agreed, “Yep, but they can make requests, so plan on me using Brendon to embarrass you thoroughly.”
Nikol rolled her eyes, “Well what kind of night would it be if you didn't?”
“Exactly,” Danielle said, and they turned to other topics of conversation just like they did back at home, eating peacefully through just another breakfast.
*
The karaoke bar that Zack had found them turned out to be more bar than karaoke. The legal ones were just fine with this, knowing if nothing else they could drink enough booze to entertain themselves, but the underage kids (of which there were two), were focused on trying to get someone to slip them some so they could tolerate the bad singing that they saw in their near future.
A good majority of the tour performers had come along, everyone thinking that they needed a night to really unwind. If nothing else they were there to watch the band embarrass the hell out of each other via one of the performers, it stood to be a promising night. It was even more promising due to the fact that Dani and Nik had spent the better part of the day pouring over the song list Zack had picked up for them. They had decided that the boys would have the opportunity whenever they wanted to have someone go sing something, but it was nice to have a plan in case of awkward moments. The whole reason they had gotten the book was to find the songs that they wanted to sing to each other for embarrassment purposes. The whole plan had been very hush hush, and none of the boys knew what was in store for them until they had arrived.
Brendon had spent the first few minutes spilling over with excitement, but had calmed down once the girls had explained the rules.
“Anyone that's a member of the band: Panic at the Disco is not allowed to sing at this performance tonight,” Dani started off in a mock professional tone.
“That's right,” Nikol continued, “This activity is for your enjoyment only, so you are allowed to dictate who sings what and when,” her statement was a little less confident because she was pretty sure Danielle had something wicked up her sleeves.
“And so now, we offer you semi-free drinks all night, we're putting it on the tour tab, and some good and hopefully unclean fun,” Dani concluded and led the way to the bar. She and Nikol had a round of sake bombers, and she followed hers with a Mike's before gliding to the stage and grabbing the mike possessively.
“Now I know that there's no one here who wants to go first, so I will take that pleasure upon myself. Besides, I thought I'd turn Nikol just one shade of red and we could just keep adding to it as the night progresses, yes?”
A few cheers came from the direction of the boys and Dani saw her friend duck her head into Ryan's shoulder, a blush already tinting her cheeks.
“Aww, Nik don't worry it's not that bad. Actually, this is a song I heard awhile back during the beginning of the tour that just reminded me of how you felt about Ryan, so I thought you needed to hear it. Of course, it was written by a dude, so I had to fix some of the nouns so you didn't come out sounding like a lesbian.”
She handed her drink off to Brendon, and told the manager what song she was going to sing, which distracted him long enough for Brendon to take a long sip from the bottle in his hand. She smiled, and then the music started.
The song sounded innocent enough, so Nikol lifted her head to watch her friend who was just beaming behind the microphone. It was times like these that made her so amused at Dani's low tolerance of alcohol. After a day of little food and one sake bomb, you could tell she was already feeling something. She smiled, and then Danielle started to sing.
She was surprised. The song wasn't raunchy, it wasn't offensive, it was almost sweet. It sounded like someone trying to confess their love to someone else.
It was right about that time that she had that thought that the whole point of the song came to fruition.
“And we get along much better than you and your girlfriend.”
Nikol's eyes widened. Okay, that was what she meant...oh Lord. Was this really the time to be telling everyone how long she had been crushing on Ryan?
“All I really want to do is to love you. A kind much closer than friend's use. But I still can't say it after all we've been through....”
Ryan looked at her right then, which was right about the time that Danielle had started to over-emote the song in their direction. Nikol saw the recognition in his eyes. Well at least he knew now, she'd cared about him for quite awhile, but he'd remained oblivious. This certainly was going to be an interesting night.
Nikol managed to tear her eyes from his and stare at her friend on the stage, trying to hide the blush that was crawling across her cheeks. As Danielle sang, more and more people seemed to understand the meaning behind the song, and kept looking at Nikol. She sighed, dropping her head, and began to plot her revenge. Finally, the song drifted to an end, and Dani replaced the microphone and bounded off the front of the small stage. She sat down in between Nikol and Brendon, beaming at the former.
“You still love me, that's the best part.”
Nikol rolled her eyes, trying to shake off the embarrassment she had just endured. After a moment, she reached over and downed the rest of the Jameson that was sitting the tumbler on the table between them and stood up, “You're right. I do love you. Please remember that.”
She smiled as she took the stage, and took up the microphone to give her song an intro, “You know Dani. There's always been this chemistry between you and Brendon, ever since you first met, and I thought that tonight, I would sing you a song that reminds me of how you felt about Brendon in the beginning.”
She also took a moment to tell the manager what song she would be singing, and as he put in the CD, she walked back to the mike stand, waiting. The lighting on the stage caught the metal of her lip rings and gave her an eerie glow.
As soon as she heard the opening drum beat Danielle knew she was in for trouble. What she hadn't expected was her friend to take on the persona of Mimi Marquez as she sang 'Out Tonight' from Rent. Nikol started by tossing her hair and wrapping her leg around the mike stand seductively. She was acting out every lyrics, pacing back and forth on the stage, and putting as much gusto into her performance as Dani had.
At the end of the song, she had that look in her eye that told Dani that Nik was up to no good, and she was right, Nikol had abandoned the microphone and was now crawling across the stage, belting out the ending lines.
“Please take me out tonight. Don't forsake me, out tonight.”
She reached the edge of the stage and at the next line, she leaped into Dani's lap and leaned back to lay on Brendon for a moment before pulling up slowly, to bark the last word in Dani's face.
“I'll let you make me ouuuuuuuuut tonight, tonight, tonight. Tonight!”
“Well played, sir,” Danielle said as Nikol got up off her lap and went back to sit next to Ryan. At this point, Juliette dragged Claire up on stage and did her rendition of 'I Can Hear the Bells' from Hairspray. While watching them, Ryan was running things over in his mind. He was surprised by the reveal Dani's song had put out there. He hadn't really known how long she had been attracted to him, and he was finding it rather flattering. He was also beyond impressed, and slightly amused, at how much she got into character for the simple purpose of attempting to embarrass Danielle. It looked like it had worked to a certain extent. He gave her a kiss as she sat down, and slightly applauded her performance.
Then as Juliette's song ended, he stood to go get more drinks from the bar and was surprised to find Brendon following him.
“You're aware that you can't drink yet, right?” he questioned his best friend.
“Tell that to my girlfriend...actually I was coming to talk to you about how to embarrass our women.”
Ryan smiled out of one side of his mouth, “Don't you think they did that enough themselves?”
Brendon chuckled, “And you really think that's enough?”
“Good point,” Ryan agreed and on their way back, they plotted what they would have the girls sing. As soon as they had reached their seats, which really wasn't a far walk, Brendon took the stage, to announce the first band demanded performance.
“Well, four numbers in and we're off to an interesting start, but as much as I love to watch you two fight,” he said, staring down at Danielle and Nikol, “I find it more interesting when you're getting along and embarrassing yourselves. So we're demanding an encore performance of your rendition of 'Camisado'.”
Jon and Spencer began to laugh hysterically, remembering the first time they had caught the girls goofing around on stage and performing the song for a still running camera.
The girls on the other hand had a slight deer in the headlights look to them, and stayed glued to their seats.
“Oh come on,” Brendon said, “They're your rules, now abide by them.”
The two exchanged a look and sighed, seeing no way out of it. They took the stage and launched into their normal routine for the song, taking the parts of their significant others. This earned them many catcalls and a standing ovation as they took their seats shaking their heads, but smiling all the same.
The rest of the night carried on much like this. At one point, Brendon, through Dani's command, had Nikol sing the song 'You and Me' by the Plain White Ts to Ryan. In turn, Ryan had Danielle sing 'Truly Madly Deeply' to Brendon. At one point the whole band had decided they wanted to see a group number from all the performers, and they had delivered an interesting 'Keep it Gay' from The Producers.
Eventually the night had to wind down, the buses would be leaving soon due to the fact that the tour began again the next day. They packed it up and paid the tab, going back to the buses, feeling refreshed and ready for the last leg of the tour.
*
Post a/n- The songs used in this obvious don't belong to me. They are, in order:
If it Kills Me by Jason Mraz
Out Tonight from Rent
I Can Hear the Bells from Hairspray
You and Me by the Plain White Ts
Truly Madly Deeply by Savage Garden
Keep it Gay from The Producers
To see lyrics and other interesting things check out:
***http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/justfortheattention/***
Also check out the girls on facebook:
Dani: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1225177637&ref=ts
Nik: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1204657581
Reviews will get free produce from my store, causing I don't feel like remembering the codes.
*
The rest of the part had gone off without a hitch. After the rather public display of affection Nikol had decided to make herself scarce, knowing that at the very least, Danielle would have some choice things to say. She instead had asked Ryan to escort her to a more private location, and after he donned her with the necklace (which was perfect), they spent the rest of the night talking...and not talking. About an hour later, they were demanded back to the buses, needing to make another leg of their trip that night. Ryan walked Nikol to her bus, and they affectionately parted ways, and before she got on the bus she watched as Danielle was carted off caveman style to the band's bus by Brendon.
She was torn about not having Dani on the buss with her. It was a good thing in the fact that her friend wouldn't be there taunting her endlessly, and that she would have a chance to think about it first, but it was bad because she was dangerous when left alone with her thoughts and she really wanted to have her best friend to talk to. Well whatever the case was, she was left on the bus with very little to do, since the other performers had decided to crash the moment they got on the bus. Nikol was a night owl, which was something that really helped on this tour, but left her with very little to do sometimes at very odd hours of the morning.
She picked up her computer, once again grateful for the anywhere wireless attachment she had gotten before the tour, and settled into her routine web-surfing. She updated her facebook, and looked around a bit on livejournal before checking her email and to find that Danielle was trying to talk to her from two buses ahead. They talked for awhile, making plans for the following night, and planning her escape from the bus of boredom. After confirming that she would escape during a snack stop, she abandoned the computer for her phone, which was rumoured to have been attacked by Brendon.
Sure enough, she found twenty or so messages on her phone from her best friend's boyfriend, and they made absolutely no sense. She sent a message off to Dani requesting her to control her boyfriend, before finding a single message from Ryan hidden among Brendon's spam of messages.
'I miss you.'
Her heart skipped a beat at the simple message. She couldn't help but remember his words from earlier that evening: “I think I'm falling in love with you.” There was no doubt about it, she was head over heels for this man, and the sooner she was off the bus and back in his arms, the happier she would be.
After what felt like hours instead of the alleged ten minutes, the bus pulled to a stop. Flinging her bag over her shoulder, she darted off the bus and into the store, long enough to grab some sugar-heavy snack food. After stashing the items in her bag, she dashed into the boys' bus, overjoyed to find Ryan waiting for her on the couch. Barely bothering to stow her bag, she curled up in his arms, content to stay there for the rest of the night, talking and snacking. Not long after getting settled the bus took off again, and the group settled into another round of bizarre conversation.
*
It was a couple hours later, and everyone had started to drift off towards their bunks. Ryan was locked in a conversation with Jon about some new songs that he'd been writing, and she let him know that she was going to go do some reading and leave them to their conversation. He took enough time to show her where his bunk was, and then left her with a gentle kiss. She smiled, pulling the latest Jim Butcher from her bag, completely willing to immerse herself in her favourite series as well as one of her favourite bus activities.
It was odd considering she was prone to car sickness, but something about the dark light near the walls of the bunks helped her ease those tendencies, and she found she was ecstatic to have one of her hobbies back. She spent the next hour completely immersed in the book, with the only interruption being Dani and Brendon laughing about something in the bunk across from her. She pulled open the curtain and hissed at Danielle, who pulled back her own curtain and laughed. Nikol shushed them, and Danielle smiled wickedly, but they seemed to oblige, and she was once again surrounded in quiet.
She was so distracted that she didn't even notice when Ryan slid into the bunk. She was only half reading the book, her mind too consumed in other avenues of thought, more specifically how this new relationship would translate to the rest of the tour. She was nervous about performances, not wanting to mess them up when she was near Ryan. In the past she had a tendency to be skittish around him after an intimate encounter, and she was afraid she wouldn't be able to get over that. Her mind had turned to the thought of what would happen when they finally went public, when Ryan decided to make his presence known. He slowly ran his hand through her hair, and she jumped in shock, her heart racing. Closing the book, she turned over to face him.
He smiled, “Sorry, didn't mean to startle you,” he whispered, “Just wanted to let you know that everyone's crashed at this point.”
“It's okay, I just wasn't paying attention,” she confessed and she set her book on her chest, expecting conversation. He just smiled, and pulled a notebook out from under his pillow, rolling onto his stomach and starting to write what looked like verse.
She watched him for a moment, “What are you writing, Ry?” she asked softly
He looked up at her and smiled, “A new song idea, actually.”
“Can I read it when you're done?” she asked. He eyed her for a moment, and she retracted her request, “It's okay if you don't want me to. I understand.”
He looked slightly relieved at this, and she leaned over to kiss him on the cheek, before rolling over to face the wall, “Wake me up if you want to talk okay, I know you like to write while you have the inspiration.”
He beamed at her back, feeling a warmth spread from his head to his toes. So maybe what he had said earlier wasn't true. He was pretty damn sure that if love felt like anything, it felt like this. He couldn't have been more content around a single person, and he was positive there wasn't anyone else that understood his artistic tendencies as well as she did. After watching her fall asleep, he turned back to his page, inspiration hitting him harder than before and as he wrote he mused about how on earth he could have found someone as perfect as Nikol, and wondered why it had taken so long.
*
The next morning came way too early for the party that was crowding the band's bus. Even though they had two more days off in their mini-holiday, it hadn't stopped the record label from scheduling a radio interview at seven in the morning. So even though they had spent the night messing around and talking once Nikol had broken on the bus, the band was still being woken up at what they considered an ungodly hour, while the girls gladly sprawled on the now unoccupied bunks.
After an hour of attempting to sleep Danielle accepted her defeat to being awake and began to walk around the bus, waiting for her friend to wake up. When Nikol finally did emerge it was twenty minutes later, and Danielle was behind her laptop talking to some of her friends back home. Nik grabbed a couple of bowls and some cereal and sat down to Dani, offering her a bowl.
“So,” Dani started, after pouring herself a bowl and taking a bite, “Last night was interesting.”
Nikol sighed, and glared at her friend, “No, we're not even going to do that. Last night was nothing short of perfect for me, and I'm not going to let you ruin it with your childish taunting.”
Dani blinked, surprised, “Okay then. I wasn't going to taunt you...per se. Besides I did most of that via email, if you could remember back that far. I was just going to say, that that was absolutely adorable, and I'm incredibly happy for you.”
“Oh. Well in that case, thank you.”
They ate in silence for a few moments, since they were quite famished due to the lack of food from the party the night before.
“Did you see what he gave me?” Nikol finally asked.
“Vaguely, there was this whole distance issue getting in the way though. It looked like a necklace though,” Dani answered, smiling, glad to know her Nik wasn't as annoyed with her as she had originally thought.
Nikol just grinned and disappeared for a moment, necklace in hand.
“Oh my god, Nikol,” Danielle said when she saw it, “This is like you translated into a necklace. It's beautiful. Are you gonna wear it on stage?”
“Of course I am, it goes perfectly with that jacket I wear during the opening number.”
They talked about the show and life in general for awhile, before Nikol brought up the pending plans for that night.
“Oh everything's in order. Zack called this morning and booked us a karaoke joint in town. I texted a couple people and they're all on board for it, so we'll head that way around five o'clock.”
Nikol smiled, “Now we're settled on the 'boys aren't allowed to sing' rule right?”
With a grin Danielle agreed, “Yep, but they can make requests, so plan on me using Brendon to embarrass you thoroughly.”
Nikol rolled her eyes, “Well what kind of night would it be if you didn't?”
“Exactly,” Danielle said, and they turned to other topics of conversation just like they did back at home, eating peacefully through just another breakfast.
*
The karaoke bar that Zack had found them turned out to be more bar than karaoke. The legal ones were just fine with this, knowing if nothing else they could drink enough booze to entertain themselves, but the underage kids (of which there were two), were focused on trying to get someone to slip them some so they could tolerate the bad singing that they saw in their near future.
A good majority of the tour performers had come along, everyone thinking that they needed a night to really unwind. If nothing else they were there to watch the band embarrass the hell out of each other via one of the performers, it stood to be a promising night. It was even more promising due to the fact that Dani and Nik had spent the better part of the day pouring over the song list Zack had picked up for them. They had decided that the boys would have the opportunity whenever they wanted to have someone go sing something, but it was nice to have a plan in case of awkward moments. The whole reason they had gotten the book was to find the songs that they wanted to sing to each other for embarrassment purposes. The whole plan had been very hush hush, and none of the boys knew what was in store for them until they had arrived.
Brendon had spent the first few minutes spilling over with excitement, but had calmed down once the girls had explained the rules.
“Anyone that's a member of the band: Panic at the Disco is not allowed to sing at this performance tonight,” Dani started off in a mock professional tone.
“That's right,” Nikol continued, “This activity is for your enjoyment only, so you are allowed to dictate who sings what and when,” her statement was a little less confident because she was pretty sure Danielle had something wicked up her sleeves.
“And so now, we offer you semi-free drinks all night, we're putting it on the tour tab, and some good and hopefully unclean fun,” Dani concluded and led the way to the bar. She and Nikol had a round of sake bombers, and she followed hers with a Mike's before gliding to the stage and grabbing the mike possessively.
“Now I know that there's no one here who wants to go first, so I will take that pleasure upon myself. Besides, I thought I'd turn Nikol just one shade of red and we could just keep adding to it as the night progresses, yes?”
A few cheers came from the direction of the boys and Dani saw her friend duck her head into Ryan's shoulder, a blush already tinting her cheeks.
“Aww, Nik don't worry it's not that bad. Actually, this is a song I heard awhile back during the beginning of the tour that just reminded me of how you felt about Ryan, so I thought you needed to hear it. Of course, it was written by a dude, so I had to fix some of the nouns so you didn't come out sounding like a lesbian.”
She handed her drink off to Brendon, and told the manager what song she was going to sing, which distracted him long enough for Brendon to take a long sip from the bottle in his hand. She smiled, and then the music started.
The song sounded innocent enough, so Nikol lifted her head to watch her friend who was just beaming behind the microphone. It was times like these that made her so amused at Dani's low tolerance of alcohol. After a day of little food and one sake bomb, you could tell she was already feeling something. She smiled, and then Danielle started to sing.
She was surprised. The song wasn't raunchy, it wasn't offensive, it was almost sweet. It sounded like someone trying to confess their love to someone else.
It was right about that time that she had that thought that the whole point of the song came to fruition.
“And we get along much better than you and your girlfriend.”
Nikol's eyes widened. Okay, that was what she meant...oh Lord. Was this really the time to be telling everyone how long she had been crushing on Ryan?
“All I really want to do is to love you. A kind much closer than friend's use. But I still can't say it after all we've been through....”
Ryan looked at her right then, which was right about the time that Danielle had started to over-emote the song in their direction. Nikol saw the recognition in his eyes. Well at least he knew now, she'd cared about him for quite awhile, but he'd remained oblivious. This certainly was going to be an interesting night.
Nikol managed to tear her eyes from his and stare at her friend on the stage, trying to hide the blush that was crawling across her cheeks. As Danielle sang, more and more people seemed to understand the meaning behind the song, and kept looking at Nikol. She sighed, dropping her head, and began to plot her revenge. Finally, the song drifted to an end, and Dani replaced the microphone and bounded off the front of the small stage. She sat down in between Nikol and Brendon, beaming at the former.
“You still love me, that's the best part.”
Nikol rolled her eyes, trying to shake off the embarrassment she had just endured. After a moment, she reached over and downed the rest of the Jameson that was sitting the tumbler on the table between them and stood up, “You're right. I do love you. Please remember that.”
She smiled as she took the stage, and took up the microphone to give her song an intro, “You know Dani. There's always been this chemistry between you and Brendon, ever since you first met, and I thought that tonight, I would sing you a song that reminds me of how you felt about Brendon in the beginning.”
She also took a moment to tell the manager what song she would be singing, and as he put in the CD, she walked back to the mike stand, waiting. The lighting on the stage caught the metal of her lip rings and gave her an eerie glow.
As soon as she heard the opening drum beat Danielle knew she was in for trouble. What she hadn't expected was her friend to take on the persona of Mimi Marquez as she sang 'Out Tonight' from Rent. Nikol started by tossing her hair and wrapping her leg around the mike stand seductively. She was acting out every lyrics, pacing back and forth on the stage, and putting as much gusto into her performance as Dani had.
At the end of the song, she had that look in her eye that told Dani that Nik was up to no good, and she was right, Nikol had abandoned the microphone and was now crawling across the stage, belting out the ending lines.
“Please take me out tonight. Don't forsake me, out tonight.”
She reached the edge of the stage and at the next line, she leaped into Dani's lap and leaned back to lay on Brendon for a moment before pulling up slowly, to bark the last word in Dani's face.
“I'll let you make me ouuuuuuuuut tonight, tonight, tonight. Tonight!”
“Well played, sir,” Danielle said as Nikol got up off her lap and went back to sit next to Ryan. At this point, Juliette dragged Claire up on stage and did her rendition of 'I Can Hear the Bells' from Hairspray. While watching them, Ryan was running things over in his mind. He was surprised by the reveal Dani's song had put out there. He hadn't really known how long she had been attracted to him, and he was finding it rather flattering. He was also beyond impressed, and slightly amused, at how much she got into character for the simple purpose of attempting to embarrass Danielle. It looked like it had worked to a certain extent. He gave her a kiss as she sat down, and slightly applauded her performance.
Then as Juliette's song ended, he stood to go get more drinks from the bar and was surprised to find Brendon following him.
“You're aware that you can't drink yet, right?” he questioned his best friend.
“Tell that to my girlfriend...actually I was coming to talk to you about how to embarrass our women.”
Ryan smiled out of one side of his mouth, “Don't you think they did that enough themselves?”
Brendon chuckled, “And you really think that's enough?”
“Good point,” Ryan agreed and on their way back, they plotted what they would have the girls sing. As soon as they had reached their seats, which really wasn't a far walk, Brendon took the stage, to announce the first band demanded performance.
“Well, four numbers in and we're off to an interesting start, but as much as I love to watch you two fight,” he said, staring down at Danielle and Nikol, “I find it more interesting when you're getting along and embarrassing yourselves. So we're demanding an encore performance of your rendition of 'Camisado'.”
Jon and Spencer began to laugh hysterically, remembering the first time they had caught the girls goofing around on stage and performing the song for a still running camera.
The girls on the other hand had a slight deer in the headlights look to them, and stayed glued to their seats.
“Oh come on,” Brendon said, “They're your rules, now abide by them.”
The two exchanged a look and sighed, seeing no way out of it. They took the stage and launched into their normal routine for the song, taking the parts of their significant others. This earned them many catcalls and a standing ovation as they took their seats shaking their heads, but smiling all the same.
The rest of the night carried on much like this. At one point, Brendon, through Dani's command, had Nikol sing the song 'You and Me' by the Plain White Ts to Ryan. In turn, Ryan had Danielle sing 'Truly Madly Deeply' to Brendon. At one point the whole band had decided they wanted to see a group number from all the performers, and they had delivered an interesting 'Keep it Gay' from The Producers.
Eventually the night had to wind down, the buses would be leaving soon due to the fact that the tour began again the next day. They packed it up and paid the tab, going back to the buses, feeling refreshed and ready for the last leg of the tour.
*
Post a/n- The songs used in this obvious don't belong to me. They are, in order:
If it Kills Me by Jason Mraz
Out Tonight from Rent
I Can Hear the Bells from Hairspray
You and Me by the Plain White Ts
Truly Madly Deeply by Savage Garden
Keep it Gay from The Producers
To see lyrics and other interesting things check out:
***http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/justfortheattention/***
Also check out the girls on facebook:
Dani: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1225177637&ref=ts
Nik: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1204657581
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