With Friends Like These III: Here and Now

By: Riley

.:Chapter One – Big Time Preparation:.

"NO! NO! NO!" Gustavo Rocque shouted as he clapped his hands together and turned off the music that was pouring out of a boom-box with a violent kick of his feet. Kendall Knight, James Diamond, Carlos Garcia, and Logan Mitchell, also known as Big Time Rush, winced at their music producer's yell, immediately screeching to a halt. "You're supposed to jump, clap, turn, kick, and spin." He did the moves as he called them out before waving his arms in the air. "Not…whatever idiotic moves you were doing."

"Gustavo give them a break," Kelly Wainright chided from where she was sitting in the corner of the room. "You got them up at seven o'clock this morning and they don't go on until eight o'clock tonight." She looked at her watch. "And it's been five hours," she gestured over to the boys, who were sitting on the ground, leaning against each other and breathing heavily. "They've been working really hard these past couple of days; let them rest the remainder of the day before they get too tired to perform tonight." She raised an eyebrow. "Give them a break, let them eat brunch"

"But Kelly, I need to make sure that their first night on a tour as big as this goes PERFECTLY!" Gustavo replied. "Need I remind you what happened to Boy Quake on the first night they went on a big tour?"

Kelly winced at the thought of the boys having fallen offstage, nobody caught them, and had suffered from broken bones. "That was pretty bad," she agreed and then turned a steely gaze towards Gustavo again. "Give these guys a break, now!" she turned and started to leave the dance studio. "Or you won't get any more of those sugar powdered doughnuts you like."

"Fine," Gustavo grumbled, hanging his head as he followed her out of the room, pouting like a little kid.

"Finally," James sighed as he lay down on the floor, resting his head on his arms. "If I knew that fame would come at this price, I would have settled to be an actor and a model that sang on the side."

His friends were too tired to call him out on it. They were all getting ready for their first night on tour to open up for their friends the Jacksons, aka the famous Australian band, the DarkElements.

The DarkElements are a family band that consists of five kids, three boys and two girls, Riley, Rhuben, Patrick, Noah, and Sydney Jackson. Big Time Rush met them after their managers Gustavo and the Jacksons' adoptive father, Robert, said that the two bands couldn't be friends and that they were going to be Rivals. Big Time Rush and the DarkElements didn't want that, but their managers did, Robert even went as far as to steal the song Big Time Rush and pass it off as the DarkElements' song.

Once Big Time Rush found out they were mad at the DarkElements until they helped Big Time Rush get proof that they didn't know that it was stolen and that it was their dad's idea. After that, the two bands became friends and Riley, Rhuben, and Logan remembered that they used to know each other when they were much younger and became best friends again. At this time the Jacksons were being abused by Robert and Big Time Rush helped them get rid of him. After that, their friendship grew as they worked on music, hung out at the Palm Woods, and got to know each other. The DarkElements had gone on a 3 month tour, but they went on the tour back in their hometown of Sydney, Australia as Big Time Rush's tour was around the US.

After both bands got back from their tours, Big Time Rush noticed that they had gone back to the way that they had acted when they first met each other; cold and distant. After a while Big Time Rush and their friends, Jo, Camille, and Stephanie, along with Kendall's sister Katie, found out that their father's trial was coming up soon and they were all suffering from post traumatic stress disorder that caused them to see their father everywhere. During the trial Robert was found guilty and was sent to jail, Ronan McGuire, the DarkElements' music producer decided to adopt them, and he and their older brother Julius are now their co-managers. (Julius had decided to take college classes online so he could help his brothers and sisters live their dream.) Now after months of things going well, the DarkElements are going on tour across the US and their home country of Australia with Big Time Rush as their opening act.

Tonight is the first performance of the tour and Gustavo was nervous, so nervous that he was running the guys into the ground, trying to make sure that everything would go perfectly. And all that resulted in was making the boys really tired and thus causing them to make a lot of mistakes.

"Am I dead?" Carlos asked in a daze, his eyes spinning. "'Cause I can't feel my arms." He rubbed his right arm to prove his point.

"You can't feel them because that's my arm," Logan replied and pulled his arm out of his friend's grasp. "Everything hurts."

"But it's worth it," Kendall replied, always having to look on the Brightside of things. "We're on tour with our friends and we're going to have a lot of fans, and we're doing what we want to do." He tried to sit up, but then cried out in pain and lied back down. "The only thing I can't do that I want to do is stand up without hurting."

"According to my calculations we're going to get used to the pain," Logan whipped out a pretend calculator and started to punch numbers into the air. "When we die."

"We're going to die?" Carlos' eyes grew wide.

"No, Carlos, we're not going to die." James replied and blindly patted what he thought was Carlos' head, but was in fact slapping Kendall's face. Kendall made a noise of pain and shoved James' hand away. After a few more seconds of silence, they boys jumped when Gustavo burst back into the room, slamming the door against the opposite wall, eagerly digging his hand into a box of powdered doughnuts.

"Alright," he called as he took out one and inspected it before looking at the boys again. "Who's ready to start again?"

"We're going to die." Kendall stated, not seeming to be bothered by the idea at all. "And I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to my mom and my sister."

"I didn't get a chance to win the Nobel Peace Prize." Logan sighed wistfully, shaking his head.

"I didn't get a chance to become a famous actor/singer/dancer/model and write my own memoir to teach little kids how to be as awesome as me." James added as his lower lip trembled. He noticed the silence and then turned his head to look at his friends and Gustavo, who were staring back at him. "What? It could happen!"

Back at the hotel, and enjoying the fact that they were having time to rest, The DarkElements, aka the Jacksons, were eating breakfast with their friends, talking about their performance that night. They had traveled from LA to San Diego on a big tour bus and had spent two days there to 1) see the sights and 2) rehears as much as they could. Now as Gustavo was making the guys rehearse and rehearse and rehearse the Jacksons were being lazy, and happy that they weren't being driven into the ground.

"I can't believe that your guys' first show of the tour is tonight!" Jo Tarver cried as she spooned a pile of hash browns onto her plate. She moved a place over and made a face when she saw the scrambled eggs. "Ugh, why do these look so funny?" she questioned.

"Its hotel food," Sydney Jackson pointed out as he rubbed his eyes. "They always make it plain just so you can put whatever you want on it and not worry about whether or not people will like it." He explained and moved around her so he could get some cereal. "It's a tactic that they think will work, but it just causes people to dump lots of salt on it and clog up their arteries."

"That's good to know," Jo replied with a little laugh as she finished filling up her plate and then went over to the table that her friends were sitting at. "You guys excited?" she asked as she sat down. Riley, Rhuben, Patrick, and Noah gave her odd looks that told her that asking the question was stupid. "Never mind."

"Of course we're excited," Patrick grinned as he stabbed a piece of bacon with his fork. "I mean, we're on tour which is something that we love to do," he looked at his friends with a peaceful smile on his face. "And we're with you guys."

The 'you guys' that he's talking about is Jo Tarver, Camille Sanders, Stephanie King, Kendall's little sister Katie, and Camille's boyfriend Wally Dooley, who everyone but Camille calls WayneWayne. At first they weren't able to go on tour with the Jacksons and Big Time Rush and that made them really upset, but after a bit, Ronan called all of their parents and asked that as long as he and the other adults were watching them and that they did some school work if they were allowed to go on tour with their friends. After a while of deliberation, they agreed, so now they're on tour with their friends, riding in rented cars across the US, while in Australia they would probably be on the tour buys with the guys.

Jo and Camille are actresses, Stephanie is a filmmaker in training, and WayneWayne…well, no one really knows what he's doing while he's staying at the Palm Woods, and all he's been doing so far is just following Camille to her auditions to give her support. But he had become a good friend of everyone, besides the fact that he had once tried to kick Kendall out of Big Time Rush.

"I still can't believe that your parents agreed to let you guys come with us," Rhuben stated as she inspected her sandwich before closing it and taking a bite. "I figured that your parents would make you stay to make sure you're actually earning your living at the Palm Woods."

"That's the reason that my mom and dad let me go, actually." Jo replied as she brushed her blonde hair behind her ears. "After Ronan called, I explained how while I'm going around with you guys Stephanie could help me tape some auditions to send to people."

"And they agreed just like that?" Riley looked skeptical, her blue eyes narrowing. "I don't think-"

"Well, they also knew that I couldn't stay away from James for that long so," Jo trailed off with an embarrassed smile as she thought of her boyfriend. She shrugged, her cheeks turning back to their normal color. "It didn't take long for them to agree."

"Hey guys," Julius, the Jacksons' older brother, greeted as he walked up to everyone, an excited smile on his face. "How's the food?" he questioned and leaned over, taking the sandwich that Rhuben was eating from her hands and took a bite. "Blegh, too much cheese." He sputtered and gave it back.

"Well its mine and that's why there's so much cheese on it." Rhuben replied as she stuck out her tongue at her older brother. She smiled as he laughed. "What's up? Have you eaten yet?"

"Yeah," Julius nodded and pointed over his shoulder. "Ronan, Brittany, and I have been up for a while, making sure that everything down at the House of Blues was ok." He replied.

Ronan is his and his brothers and sisters' adoptive father and co-manager and music producer as Julius works with him. Brittany is his fiancée, whom he had proposed to a few months ago and was now working as the two men's assistant. The House of Blues was where they were going to be playing that night, the next night they were going to be playing at Cox Arena.

"Where's my mom?" Katie questioned as she turned away from her taco salad.

"She's at the spa," Julius replied, turning to her. "My dad treated her to a day of relaxation, because we all know that she's not going to get much of it when this tour officially starts tonight."

"Good point." Katie agreed.

Julius then turned to his siblings. "Ronan sent me down to tell you guys that in the next hour or so you need to go down to the House of Blues to look at the light set up for you guys and then go and check out your wardrobe for the show, and then go back and relax before doing a meet and greet to VIP fans before the show." Julius counted off a list that he had pulled out of his pocket. He squinted as he looked at the list, making sure that was everything.

"Where in all of this do we get our hair and makeup done?" Noah questioned as he brushed his long, shaggy hair out of his face, holding it up off of his forehead so he could see his brother clearly.

"Whenever you find time," Katie replied as she took the sheet of paper from Julius and looked it over. "You guys are booked for, like, the rest of the day." She made a face as she looked the list up and down and then turned to Noah. "Is the whole tour going to be like this?"

"Not really," Noah shrugged in reply as he leaned back in his chair. "There are times where its worse, but there are times where we're so far ahead of schedule that we get the whole day off." He smirked. "But don't worry; I'll spare some time to spend with you."

"Please," Katie rolled her eyes at him and stuck out her tongue. "That's not what I was thinking about." She replied haughtily, causing Noah to grin, to which she returned with a smile of her own.

"Ah, young love." WayneWayne stated sarcastically. "Too bad it can't stay the way it was with everyone thinking that each other gender had cooties." He paused and looked panic-stricken and then turned to Camille, who was looking at him with narrowed eyes. "Because it was cute," he continued to try and save himself. "And you pretended to be secret admirer's for Valentine's Day." He frowned as he continued to think. "I'll buy you whatever you want the next time we go to the mall." He said finally, causing Camille to smile.

"Gold digger," Sydney pretended to cough and then widened his eyes when everybody turned to look at him. "What?" he pointed over to Riley and Rhuben. "They said it first."

"Did not!" the two replied quickly, obviously not wanting to face the wrath of their slightly psychotic and territorial friend.

"We didn't say it at all." Riley shook her head.

"Never." Rhuben agreed.

"Nope."

"Ha," WayneWayne snorted. "I barely have any money as it is; I just use my mom's and dad's credit cards."

"Who doesn't these days?" Stephanie questioned as she raised her eyebrows. She then took the sheet of paper and looked at the list herself, frowning. "Do you guys really have to go do all of this? I wanted to go and get our outfits for the show tonight."

"Just the common schedule that you have to go to when you're famous," Riley sighed as she brushed her hair out of her face, looking at her plate filled with fries and a side of a salad. She looked thoughtful. "I wonder if I can wrap all of this up and just bring it with me."

"It hasn't stopped you before," Patrick pointed out as he started to scarf down what was left on his plate. He continued with a full mouth. "I mean, you steal food from practically every restaurant we go to."

"It's not stealing," Riley commented as she got up from her chair, stalling for time as she tried to think of a good excuse. "It's…taking the food without asking for a takeout box."

"Remind me to keep a careful eye on her the next time we go out to eat." Julius stage-whispered into Rhuben's ear, causing her to laugh and causing Riley to plant her hands on her hips and glare at her brother, who wasn't intimated in the slightest.

"I heard that!" she growled.

"I know," Julius smirked and flicked her nose. "I said it out loud." He grabbed onto her shoulders and pushed her in front of him. "C'mon we don't want to be late."

"God forbid," Patrick muttered under his breath, cheeks bulging with food as he grabbed one last French fry and followed his brothers and sisters.

"Oh," Noah stopped and pulled a handful of VIP passes out of his pocket, counted them, and then set them on the table. "Here are passes for tonight's show. You can get backstage with them…and an autograph if you want, but I doubt you'd need that."

"Not unless you want to make money off of it," Jo replied, pointedly looking at Katie, who had an evil smile on her face. Katie noticed everyone staring at her and she blinked as she forced her frown to go away and a calm expression replaced it.

"I wasn't thinking about that at all," she denied calmly, looking at her fingernails.

"Right," Noah looked like he didn't believe her but shook his head anyway. "Bye guys, see you later."

"Bye," Katie, Jo, Stephanie, Camille, and WayneWayne called back as they waved to their friends. WayneWayne slowly turned to look back at the girls.

"So, I'm assuming that I'm going to be stuck carrying all of your bags today," he stated slowly and then made a face at the thought. "Right?"

"Exactly," Camille replied and leapt to her feet, punching the air. "Let's go to the mall!" she called dramatically, attracting the attention of other hotel residents. "Major shopping excursion of October 2010 is a go!"

"You can't do anything without being a little overly dramatic can you?" Stephanie questioned.

"Pretty much"

A/N: This would have been up sooner if I didn't go to Wal-Mart and the mall to get some food. :) I hope you guys enjoyed it. I wanted to show a little bit about them before I got to the point of the tour. The next chapter will be up soon.

-Riley