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post to journal: infernotionsx

date: May 23rd, 2005

Subject: friendship

do your friends ever do something that can't be fixed or changed and it's going to be made public?

all I can think is:

I'm going to kill them for this.

New text message.

To: Hughes

From: Riza

mustang figured out we put his answering machine recording on the end of the album.

New text message.

To: Riza

From: Agent Maes Hughes

serves him right for trying to rap. too late to change it now. release party's 2morrow


It was funny, Riza thought as she snapped shut her sidekick. Roy sounded more like a Londoner when he was upset than he did virtually any other time. She'd begun to think they'd both had the British sucked out of them — their time in Chicago's underground had warped the accents, and Riza had been more than happy with dropping her extra vowels to try to fit in with the American scene. Getting the hell away from home had been nice.

Listening to Roy's accent drop back into place as he spluttered in anger was hilarious.

"The album drops tomorrow and you didn't think to tell me you'd tacked on a bonus track of my answering machine message?"

Riza didn't look up from her macbook. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said calmly, steadfastly refusing to smile as Havoc craned his neck from the bunks in the bus to look to see what Roy's fuss was about. He'd been tuning Riza's guitar with Fuery earlier, but had given up for awhile to play on his gameboy while Fuery fiddled with the tuning equipment. Breda didn't bother to look perturbed, he was busy fixing dinner.

Roy pulled a jewel case from his hoodie pocket and waved the plastic in front of her. Riza blinked as she examined the liner notes and album cover with an approving glance.

"Don't give me that, the demo didn't have a sixty second pause before the flame rap started playing."

From further back in the bus, Havoc snorted with laughter.

"Honestly Roy, I don't have final say in the track listing. If any edits were made by the sound engineers—"

"Why the hell would the sound engineers have my voicemail?" Roy demanded, dropping the CD onto the small fold out dining table. It skid across the surface, and Riza slammed her palm down to prevent it from falling over the other side of the table.

"Beats me. Should've asked Hughes to have a final listen before the release was finalized. Or maybe," Riza added, furrowing her brow, "-you should have gave it a final listen properly before the deadline like I told you to."

This caused Roy to hiss. He leaned forwards, snatching the CD out from under her hands and glared at the rest of the band before he fixed his gaze back on Riza. "You did do this."

"It wasn't my idea." Riza replied, bored. She exited viewing his 'anonymous' livejournal page on her laptop, and looked back up. "Stop throwing such a tantrum. It was Maes' idea. He figured there was one way to figure out if you'd done your job by the deadline. I don't blame him. It's your own fault, really."

At that, Havoc piped up, laughter evident in his voice. "Maybe no one will notice, man."

"Oh go to hell, Havoc." Roy spat back, black bangs falling over his eyes as he grumbled. Riza bit her lip and tried not to laugh.

It worked too, until Falman edged past Roy and noted calmly, "I thought you knew?"

Riza lost it then, her giggles bubbling forth as Roy's face darkened. "I can't believe you all. Kain is the only one here on my side—" he ranted.

Fuery's head popped up from the couch, and he slipped off his headphones clutching the earpiece in one hand reverently. "Actually, they had me figure out how to copy the audio file from your phone. Sorry Roy…"

"You're mutinous. All of you." Roy growled, glaring at Riza who had taken to snickering behind her hands.

"Oh come off it, it's pretty funny," she said. "If you hadn't procrastinated, this would have never happened."

"You're all on probation from having any sort of artistic control or direction from now on." Roy replied stubbornly.

"As if you could run this band without her." Havoc yelled from his bunk. "Riza's the only reason we get from point A to point B man."

"Shut up, Havoc." Roy snapped.

"He's right you know." Breda said finally, handing Riza a bowl of Mac & Cheese.

Riza shrugged innocently. "I do, don't I? Someone needs to remember he's the front man in the press's eyes only. We can always find a new bassist…"

Roy threw up his hands. "Alright, alright. You all win. But no more bonus tracks of anything. No mixtapes, no leaks, and definitely no recording me — whatever you'd record me doing."

"You recorded yourself that time, mate." Breda interrupted.

"Point being," Roy continued. "The release party is tomorrow, and I'm not going to be the one explaining this to Rolling Stones Magazine."

"Oh, don't worry," Riza said, digging her fork into her bowl. "I think your lines about lighting up the diggy diggy dark are pretty self-explanatory, really. Lyrical genius."

"Very funny, Riza." Roy said.

Riza raised a brow at him, and then snapped shut her laptop. "Hilarious, actually. I hope you learned your lesson."

Roy's only response was a growl of frustration in the back of his throat.