It Started With An Audition...

Weeeellll this is my first crack at a chaptered ficcie.
Little bit nervous about how it's gonna be received, but it's not much different from my other fics, so I hope you guys like it!

It's got a bit of humour in it, and it's rated T 'cause of the language use. It has slashy fluffy goodness, but in later chapters.

In this chapter: The 'Dwarf' that's referred to is one of the Seven Dwarfs from the Disney movie.

DISCLAIMER: No I don't own McFLY (hell I wish I did), Bruce Springsteen, Blink-182, or the Dwarf. The only thing that's mine is the idea for this fic.

Chapter 1- Making the Band

I knew I was out of my element as soon as I walked into the waiting room for the auditions. The first thing I noticed was that I was the ONLY person who had a guitar. The second thing I noticed (on closer inspection) was that all the other people waiting to be auditioned seemed to be wearing tight tops and legwarmers. They wouldn't look out of place at a 'Fame' audition for the West End. This all seemed a bit wrong to me. I was SURE the newspaper said 'auditions for a boy band', but by now I had just started to doubt my memory. Crappy T.V, I knew I shouldn't have watched it so much. While I was lost in my own thoughts however, I hadn't seen the George Michael look-alike flounce over.

"Hiyaa!" he squeaked, as he plopped himself into a cheap plastic seat next to mine. I was surprised he didn't just slide off, the amount of Lycra he was wearing.

I tried my hardest to ignore him, but he waved a hand in my face, eager to get my attention. "Hi." I murmured back.

"Is that your prop?" he asked, shuffling a bit closer to me. Too close.

I shuffled further away from him. "What?"

"Is that your prop? You know, are you going to dance with it?" He then stood up and grabbed my guitar. Holding it by the neck in his left hand which was raised up high, he pirouetted and sank into a cross-legged position on the floor. He stood up and bowed, soaking in the applause from the surrounding gays. "Like that?" he asked as he sat back on the slidy plastic.

I managed to seize the guitar back, and when I did I played a few chords to check it was still in tune. "No, it's not a prop. I'm playing it in the audition." Thankfully, my name was then called to go into the audition room. I jumped out of my seat as quickly as humanely possible, and just as I was closing the door, I heard a familiar squeaky voice.

"Good luck!" the voice screeched, and I couldn't help but smile as the door shut behind me.

The utter enormity of what I was doing smacked me in the face as soon as I wheeled round and found myself face to face with three men sat along a table. Well, two men and a boy about my age. The first man was obviously gay. He was bald, and was wearing a pink shirt that had its buttons undone to about halfway. The middle boy was Tom. This was the first time I saw him, and to be totally honest he looked as out of place as I did. His short blond hair was spiked up, and he was wearing a collared black top with the first button undone. I could tell he played guitar by the way he looked at mine, and how his fingers twitched with the ache of wanting to play. The last man at the table looked like the twin of the first, except with a blue shirt. And was that eyeliner he was wearing?

"Ahem." Man 1 coughed, distracting me from Man 2's apparent love of make-up. I got the distinct impression that he was a bit irritable after auditioning the many George Michael look-alikes. "Full name please?"

"Daniel Alan David Jones. But I prefer to be called Danny" I answered. Very politely too, I thought.

"Date of birth and current age?" he asked, with no acknowledgement of my first answer.

"12th of March, 1986. And I'm 16."

It was Man 2's turn to talk. "So, Danny. What are you going to sing for us today?" he said, being much friendlier than Man 1.

"Well if you don't mind, I was gonna sing 'Born to Run' by Springsteen and play guitar with it too." I made eye-contact with Tom, but he said nothing.

"That sounds fabulous Danny. Whenever you're ready." Man 2 replied, with a smile plastered on his face that didn't quite reach his eyes.

As I sang and strummed the worn guitar to my favourite song of all time, Tom leaned forward on the table and rested his elbows on the surface. His head sat on closed fists, and he maintained eye contact with me throughout the whole song. In fact, I don't remember seeing him blink once. As soon as I had finished, silence reigned. Man 1 was the first to speak.

"Well, it was… nice… but it's not really what we're looking for." He said, with a sickly sympathetic smile.

Man 2 nodded in agreement and said "I'm sure you could find somewhere that your handy guitar skills would come in useful."

I looked at Tom, who still was saying nothing. He gave a small nod and looked down; finally breaking the eye contact he'd held for so long. "Well, thanks" I muttered under my breath and made my way to the door. As soon as I had grabbed the handle-

"Danny?"

-I heard it from directly behind me. I spun round, almost dropping my guitar and coming face to face with Tom. He stuck out his right hand, as if to shake mine with it. I couldn't help but notice he was grinning insanely, and I also noticed the dimple in his cheek that appeared when he smiled. I eventually put my hand in his, and he gripped it hard, shaking it with determination. Imagine my shock, when at last he said the words I've been waiting to hear all my life.

"Welcome to the band Danny, our band."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Which brings me to now. So far, Tom and I have spent two weeks in this crappy hotel room on the third floor. Before, we were staying in his parents' house, but then his mum got sick of us and our 'dirty boyish habits'. Living by ourselves is weird, and I swear to god it's making us both go crazy already. I say this, because I've just caught Tom trying to smuggle my hair straighteners into the bathroom. "Tom, what the hell are you doing with that cuddly toy and my hair straighteners?"

Tom whirled round, and plastered a look of innocence across his face "uh, nothing in particular…" and he slowly tried to edge past the bathroom door.

I stood in front of said door and snatched the offending cuddly toy out of his grip. "Now, Tom. If you co-operate, no harm will come to… Happy." I warned, reading the label on the side of the Dwarf. "So, tell me what you are doing." It was a statement, not a question.

"DANNY! You put Happy down right now; he didn't do anything to you!" I shot him another glare, and held Happy out of the window. Needless to say, he gave in shortly after that. "Okay, fine. I was… I was just going to straighten his beard a little bit."

I couldn't help myself. I started laughing so hard that I almost let go of Happy, and the look of shock on Tom's face just offset another wave of hysteric laughter from me. "What the fuck, Tom?" But then I decided to just let him have his fun. I handed the Dwarf back, and I tried not to laugh as he tucked it protectively under his arm.

As he walked away, I couldn't help overhearing Tom's conversation with his beloved Happy "I know, I know. But it's okay now, because you're going to get a makeover!"

I had to grab a pillow off the bed and stuff the corner in my mouth so that Tom wouldn't hear me laugh again. This was going to be a long couple of months.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Okay, we've been living in this absolute shithole of a room now for… just over a month writing songs. Some of which I'm not yet happy with, but my favourite so far has been one called Room on the Third Floor which is (surprisingly enough) based on this room. It's now that Tom's decided we need more people for the band, and pronto. Why he's made this decision RIGHT NOW is beyond me. He probably wants fresh meat. BUT, the upside is if we find some newbies quickly we can move out of this room and get a house!

Oh yeah, did I mention that the auditions are today?

"DANNY!! DANNY, WHERE'S MY LOOFAH?"

I thought a loofah would be the least of Tom's worries, seeing as we're already at least half an hour late, but no. I feel like strangling him sometimes, really. "Tom, listen. I don't know where the fuck your loofah is. Have you checked up your arse? You tend to lose stuff there quite often."

Tom looked thoroughly offended at my comment. I thought it was fair though, it's only a piece of dead sea creature for god's sake. "Danny?! I'm shocked. I would NOT use a loofah for self-gratification purposes. THAT is what Ann Summers is for." And with that, he strutted into the bathroom and slammed the door shut.

After the shower had been running for around a minute or so, I decided to have a rummage through Tom's stuff. Don't ask why, because I know you would do the same in the situation. I stuck my head under his bed, and began to run my hand around the area. After only five minutes I had pulled out 4 porno mags, a pair of boxers, some family photos (LOL) and some practice autographs (DOUBLE LOL!). When I put my hand in the corner though, my fingers scraped something… furry. "SHIT!" I shouted, snatched my hand out from under the bed, and hit my head on the way up. I braved putting my hand back under, and the furriness wasn't there anymore. Instead, there was something rough and cylindrical, and a bit damp. I pulled the string attached to it, and lifted it out from the depths. It was bitten almost to pieces and covered in green mould. "Uh, Tom?" I said to the closed bathroom door.

Said door opened and Tom emerged in a cloud of steam, swathed in a yellowing towel. "Yeah mate, what is it?"

"…I think I found your loofah."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Well, the 'loofah incident' set us back another ten minutes as Tom grieved for the shower accessory. As I pointed out, he didn't take enough care of it and therefore wasn't deserving of it anyway. That seemed to shut him up, and we finally fell in the studio doors nearly an hour late. Some dirty looks were thrown our way, but to Tom's credit he was able to dispel them with his cute dimply smile.

After an hour, we've almost given up hope. All of the drummers and bass players we've seen so far have either been dreadful, or so far up their own arses I'm surprised they can walk straight. Some have been really old, and we even had someone who was 30 a while ago! I think he was having a bit of a mid-life crisis. Jeez he was like, twice as old as us; what made him think we'd actually want him in the band?

"Daaaaannyyyyy! I'm actually gonna kill myself if we don't find some people today. Or I'll just kill you." Tom moaned, and hit his head on the table. "NEXT!" He shouted, still facedown on the mahogany surface.

Through the door came this timid boy; he can't have been more than 15 years old. Which is only a year younger than me, but a year is quite a big gap when we're this young. He was wearing a white t-shirt; khaki cargo cut-offs and white Vans. His hair was spiked up, like mine and Tom's, but his was a darker colour with subtle blond highlights. Some of the hair had fallen over his eyes, which were a piercing blue. He was practically dragging his bass behind him, which was covered in various Blink-182 stickers. When he got to the centre of the room, he picked up the bass, slung the strap over his shoulder and whispered "hi."

Tom's attention was now focused on the boy, but I wanted to speak. "Hi dude, what's your name?"

He shuffled his feet and twanged a few strings on the bass while he fiddled with the knobs on the top of the guitar. "Um, Dougie." He answered. "Dougie Poynter."

"Well, Dougie. What're you gonna play for us?"

"All of This, by Blink." He answered, looking down at his scuffed trainers.

It was at that point that I really did feel some sympathy for the dude. I mean, he must feel a lot like I did, with these two weird guys just staring at him. Well, I had three weird guys, but you get my point. "Okay Doug, sounds good. Actually, I don't think I've heard that one, where's it from?"

He seemed to appreciate the warmth in my voice, so answered in a louder voice than before. "Well, not a lot of people have heard it yet I guess. It's on their new album 'Blink-182', and it's an awesome song with great bass lines."

"Wicked! Well, when you're ready you can start."

Instead of replying, the younger boy smiled from underneath his hair and began strumming a slow song. He sung too, in a cute voice that was almost flawless. It was my turn to be speechless, and I was absolutely transfixed on the skill that Dougie was displaying. As he played, I stared deep into his eyes and I understood that he was singing from the heart. He wanted this as much as I wanted it, and the passion was there to see. Now I know what Tom saw in me on the day of my audition. Finally, he finished playing and I was still awestruck. Therefore, Tom spoke to him instead.

"Dude, you're hired." Is all he said, before Dougie leapt over the table and grabbed both of us into a bone-crushing hug.


Weeeeelll.

Did you like it? XD

Would like some reviews, hopefully I should get the next chapter up soon. But i'm going to Florida in two days, so you'll have to hold on for two weeks or so. I'll get some kinda writing done before then so you're not waiting too long.

Cheers guys. xx