Disclaimer: If I owned "Austin and Ally," everyone would have to be shocked by the magic shock finger.
A/N: I did not expect this short fic to stop being short, but after watching the pilot, I just knew recapping it from Dez's perspective would be worth it. So don't watch the pilot while reading this! It'll actually help if you don't remember the episode. And if you don't know what the word "woobie" means, look it up after you finish reading this, because that is what describes Dez for the first half of "Rockers and Writers."
Fic 2: How Dez Impresses the Ladies or How Dez Meets Ally and Trish
As a director, Dez is professional, practical, and amicable. Actresses take him seriously. But when he's not in the director's chair and talking to non-actresses? He loses any social footing he has. Anything an actress can overlook – like his loud clothing and sense of humor – is exactly what a non-actress can't see past. The shift is inconvenient and leaves Dez wondering if there's a regular girl out there he hasn't failed to make a good first impression on.
And the worst part? He does do impressive things around girls. They just don't notice. So to keep the irony from killing him, Dez makes sure his interaction with non-actresses is as painlessly short as possible.
Today, the interaction he wants to avoid is exactly the kind he gets.
Austin chooses a music store as the location for his newest music video, but it isn't the best place. A quick glance into the store tells Dez exactly what he has to worry about: background noise, unwanted extras, inconsistent lighting, and a pot-bellied owner who may or may not be lenient about the rules posted on the walls. They'd have to re-record the audio for sure. He doesn't see why Austin can't record the video at his own house. Austin's instruments are all there, and it's not like Dez can't help him move the drum set from the garage to the bedroom. But Austin is adamant about having Sonic Boom as their set, so Dez picks up his mini camcorder and heads to the store.
Once he's at Sonic Boom, he understands.
The manager of the store isn't the only one who works there. A girl does, too. She's a cute little thing in a vest and belted skirt, with doe eyes that could almost bring Audrey Hepburn to shame. He remembers seeing her once or twice at school but never noticing her, probably because her eyes are always down, reading a book or following her pen as she writes. Reading and writing are all kinds of fun, but no fun to record, so Dez had dismissed her as another cute girl. Now she's a cute girl who hopefully can fall for Austin's signature charm so that they can film their music video.
When they see the owner, Mr. Dawson, go upstairs, Austin strikes up the drums with the nearest tools he can find: the corn dogs they are just about to eat. They don't even get ten seconds worth of footage before "Ally" (Dez reads her nametag) whistles in Austin's ear to make him stop.
Austin doesn't have enough time to charm Ally so Dez puts on his director persona. He starts out politely, introduces himself as a filmmaker, and throws his camcorder into the air for extra flair. But he gets distracted by the not-quite-Audrey eyes and his camcorder meets the floor.
In a panic, he yells out the first thing to come to mind: "And cut!"
He dives for his camcorder and walks away before he can say anything else ridiculous. Because, really? "And cut" is all he can come up with?
Austin's turn. He tries convincing Ally to let them play the instruments by well, playing them anyway. He plays two trumpets at once, and the smile on Ally's red lips motivates Dez to show off.
Let it be known that Dez can play a sousaphone and a harmonica. Just not at the same time. Dez accidentally blows a harmonica out of a sousaphone and into an old lady's windpipe. He is quick to give her the Heimlich maneuver and successfully dislodges the harmonica from her throat, but her dentures fly out of her mouth along with it and land on the cashier counter Ally is leaning against.
Not the best first impression, but hey, he can save lives. That's something, right?
The mix of disgust and mortification on Ally's face as she holds the dentures tells him that it's nothing. Her glare also tells him and his best friend to get out.
Dez apologizes to the lady and leaves. Austin says he'll stay around the mall for a while, and the music video is forgotten. Dez fiddles with the chipped camcorder at home.
The next day, Austin is busy rehearsing and only invites Dez over once he's arranged every note to perfection. Dez is thrilled that Austin still wants to film and takes the invitation as permission to use Austin's bedroom as the set. He moves half of Austin's furniture out of his bedroom and into the hallway, and moves all the instruments Austin needs into it. He keeps each instrument section separate. He also adds a few touches, like laundry on the floor, to make the video look like it was done in a few minutes. In reality, filming takes an hour and a half.
When Dez asks Austin whose song he's covering, Austin says that it's an Austin Moon original. The conviction in Austin's voice makes Dez pause as he adjusts the exposure value on the camcorder. The song Austin's performing is leagues better than anything Austin's composition skills allow, but Dez decides not to question it because they only have half an hour to rearrange all the stuff before Austin's parents come home. Besides, people will eventually recognize it when it hits MyTewb, anyway. They'll tell him who owns the song.
None of Austen's subscribers tell him it's a cover. Even when the video goes viral within the week and the subscriptions skyrocket, no one doubts that it's an Austin Moon original.
Dez is happy for his best friend's success, so he shoves doubt to the back of his head and rushes out to launch Austin's brand. He orders silk screen motifs. Kinko's becomes his haunt as he designs stickers, labels, and posters. He's so excited when Austin gets TV publicity that he smacks Austin Moon labels on everything, like jars of peanut butter and laundry detergent. He doesn't care if the chance of them selling is slim. His best friend is going to be on The Helen Show!
The shipment of a life-size chocolate Austin arrives at the Moon residence and they cart it upstairs. Then they work on the formulation of Austin's cologne line, but get interrupted by a knock on the door. Dez opens the door with a smile.
It's Ally from the music store, the girl who thought nothing of his awesome Heimlich maneuver. He can afford to be a little bitter so he goes back to work, letting Austin handle her.
A shorter girl in a black suit and red cummerbund follows Ally inside. Her curls are astonishingly unaffected by the Miami humidity, which earns his respect.
Maybe he can get on this girl's good side. Dez's hopes heighten when she introduces herself as Trish, a "big fan." If she can like his best friend, she might be able to warm up to him, too.
Ally asks what he's doing, so he tries to give the air a spritz of the new cologne so she could sample it. But the bottle's spritzer is nudged a bit too far to the right and he sprays Trish's face instead.
Trish's response: "I don't like you."
Dez can bounce back from that. Appealing to her fangirl nature, he reveals his latest Austin Moon creations, including the Austin Moon foam-spitter. After seeing the foam-spitter in action, Trish electrifies him with a magic shock finger. He should've known girls don't like foam. To make up for getting foam on her ruffle shirt, he looks for merchandise she might like in the closet.
That's when he hears Ally identify herself as the real songwriter of "Double Take." The statement makes sense; unlike Austin, she writes so much that she's bound to be good at it. But Austin's pride keeps him from giving her credit. Dez only has one moment to be confused about this before Austin opens the closet door and offers to give Ally the life-size chocolate Austin sculpture. Ally leaves, shaking her head.
Trish lingers, eyeing the sculpture.
"Is that milk chocolate or dark chocolate?" she asks, reaching out to touch it.
"Trish!" Ally's shriek makes Trish hurry out the door to be Ally's moral support.
And a light bulb brightens again.
Dez runs to the table, grabs what he needs, runs to the door, and hangs onto the door jamb to stop his momentum. "Trish!"
Trish stops before her foot hits the first stair step. He tosses her the only Austin Moon Action Figure prototype they have. She catches it – finally, one thing he doesn't mess up.
"A fan of Austin Moon is a friend of mine," he says. "And you can hide that easier than forty-five pounds of chocolate."
Trish's eyes narrow, but the twist in her mouth tells him she's trying not to smile. "I still don't like you."
Dez's smile is carefully care-free. "But you like Austin. That's enough for me."
"Trish!" Ally is waiting downstairs.
Trish hides the action figure under her jacket, wedging it into her cummerbund. She doesn't say goodbye as she dashes down the stairs. Dez hears the front door slam. Satisfied, Dez turns back to see his best friend's eyebrows knitted in unease as the boy picks at the yellow foil on the chocolate version of himself.
Dez isn't worried. Knowing Austin, things are bound to work out.
Austin gets ready to perform on The Helen Show while Dez waits downstairs. In the foyer, he sits down to tighten his shoe laces when he notices something odd on the floor. He picks it up.
Trish forgot the magic shock finger.
He remembers she had it on when he threw her the action figure. But he doesn't remember hearing Ally get electrified as they left, so he can't think of a reason for her to remove it. He hums, shrugs, and jogs back up the stairs to shock Austin. Austin takes the shock finger from him and pitches a pillow at his face.
Dez's mom takes them to The Helen Show studio. Austin performs amazingly, as expected. But Dez is surprised when Austin lets his lie force him into a crazy situation. Helen D'Generesque invites him back to perform another song tomorrow. Austin tries to scramble out of it, but Helen rallies his fans to encourage him. Instead of telling the truth, Austin accepts the invitation and resigns himself to nationwide embarrassment in T minus twenty-three hours.
Austin is unresponsive in the vehicle during the ride home, slumped and staring at the brightly-colored paisley seat cover in front of him. Dez asks his mom if she can drop them off at the mall and Austin takes the hint. His eyes refocus with a determination Dez is more familiar with.
Sonic Boom, here they come.
The music store has more tension in it than its high-strung guitars, and Ally is ready to take the staircase to get away from them (again), even after Austin apologizes. Austin gives up when Ally continues to walk up the stairs, saying that he's kidding himself. He quotes his dad's discouraging words as if they act as proof. Hearing his best friend quote the one person he wishes would support him most makes the edges of Dez's heart crack, but they splinter more when Ally empathizes; her dad disapproves of her serious passion for music, too. Dez cracks a joke to keep from getting overemotional.
Saying that his dad tells him to stop texting the dog does not earn laughs.
His comedic timing is wasted on this crowd.
Austin moves to leave but Ally calls after him, boots stepping off the staircase. Even before she announces it, Dez sees by the way her eyes light up that she's going to help Austin. Dez shouts to celebrate, and offers a high-five to Trish, but his hand meets nothing.
She isn't kidding about not liking him.
Ally requests that Austin do something for her in return, and to everyone's surprise, she declares that she wants a ham. Dez is confused by the confusion on her face; she's not good under pressure, apparently. But Dez is glad she's not asking Austin to do something embarrassing. She just wants him to do something seemingly outlandish and therefore difficult. The mall doesn't have a store that sells whole hams, and the nearest location that does sell it is a half-hour drive away. Austin has to work to get his song this time.
The lesson learned is great and all, but neither of them have time for it. The next Helen Show appearance is in T minus seventeen hours, so Dez opens the food stash compartment of his backpack and gives her what she wants.
He hopes she likes ham honey-baked.
Austin and Ally go upstairs together and Dez is left with Girl Who Does Not Like Him.
"Why did you have a ham in your backpack?" she asks.
"Why do you have dog ears on your hat?" he asks.
"Because I work at the pet store."
"Because I get hungry sometimes."
Awkward silence. Dez messes with the zippers of his backpack.
"How long do you think it'll take for them to write a new song?" he asks.
Trish snorts. "A song as catchy and upbeat as that? A few years, maybe."
Dez does a double take. "What makes you say that?"
"I've read over Ally's shoulder before. Her lyrics are depressing. I'm surprised she wrote the first one."
Dez gulps. "So you mean she's going to write a bad song?"
"Well, no. It's just that Ally's wound up so tight, she has no idea how to make her songs fun."
"Sounds like they're going to need our help," Dez says, putting a hand to his chin.
Trish's cute, narrow eyes find his. "What do you have in mind?"
Dez has an idea, and Austin gives him opportunity when Austin texts him for help. Dez and Trish quickly barge into the practice room and kick Austin and Ally out of it. Austin proceeds to set lights up in the music store, and Dez asks Trish if she has something like what he pulls out of his backpack: a dark, glitzy outfit he used at his last tap dance recital. Trish's eyes widen and she points at the outfit in happy surprise. Turns out she used to work at the dance costume store where he bought the outfit. She goes back to her house to get hers and after she returns to Sonic Boom, they brainstorm.
Twenty minutes later, Trish has the routine down and dance music plays downstairs. Austin blows his whistle to signal them to come down, and Dez and Trish reveal themselves in matching black-and-gold, shimmery regalia, finger-guns blazing.
Dez feels naked without his tap shoes, but that doesn't keep him from enjoying this. They perform and Dez makes sure to flip his nicely-styled hair in Ally's direction. They do silly moves like reeling the fish and the lawn sprinkler and finish with Dez lifting Trish in the air. Any clumsiness they exhibit when he lets her down is only because he hasn't lifted a dance partner in two years, not because he has any trouble actually carrying her.
Their dance routine is just the thing to get Ally to relax. With a little more coaxing, they get her to dance! Well, they get her to move in place. Ally is a horrible dancer for someone with a musical background. She has no sense of rhythm and her gestures are forced and abrupt. But she's having fun now, so they all join in to dance with her.
Dez forgets why he's avoided girls for so long. They can be fun off-camera.
The music stops and everyone's in a friendship-handshake mood. Ally and Trish friendship-handshake, Dez and Austin "what-up," and Dez and Trish turn to each other to high-five but stop midway and turn back to their respective best friends.
High-fives just aren't their thing.
Ally is ready to channel all that energy into song-writing, so Dez's idea is a success. He goes home, sure that Austin and Ally are going to be fine by T minus zero.
The next day, he goes to the mug store at the mall to get something to commemorate Austin and Ally's song debut. A short girl with three small mugs on her headband greets him and his jaw loosens.
"Trish?"
"Dez?"
"Don't you work at the pet store?"
She shrugs. "I work here now. What do you want?"
Dez orders two personalized mugs, one for congratulations and another just in case. Once the mugs are finished, Trish abandons her post to head over to Sonic Boom and give them to Austin and Ally. She takes some credit for the gift, but Dez doesn't mind. She did technically make them, anyway.
In his enthusiasm, he shows Austin and Ally both mugs, but they know he means well, so the subject is dropped in five seconds. They all go to The Helen Show studio.
Dez isn't sure which mug is appropriate for what happens at the studio. The "Congrats, we knew you could do it!" mug could be used to memorialize the making of the new song. It could kind of be used to commemorate Ally facing her fear, too. But the "Sorry, you failed, you did your best!" mug sums up Ally's reaction to facing said fear.
Austin's attempt to help Ally get over her stage fright ends in her literally crawling away from the limelight, causing a domino-effect accident that wrecks half of Helen's stage. Helen is concerned for Ally and tries to help her out of the rubble, but Ally's stage fright continues and she throws up on the show host. Helen cuts to a commercial break faster than a reality contest elimination countdown and is surprisingly still kind to Ally during the break. The crew helps both of them off the stage. Helen thanks Austin for being there, but with a semi-destroyed stage, Helen thinks it's best for Austin to debut his song on MyTewb tonight instead. So the group leaves the studio, and Dez stares at the mugs on his lap, debating which one works better.
Ally and Trish are dropped off at the mall, and Dez thinks that Austin will be dropped off at his house, but Austin jumps out of the car to follow the girls.
"Hey, where are you going?" Dez shouts after him.
"I'll be right back!" Austin yells over his shoulder. "I just need to talk to Mr. Dawson for a sec."
In ten minutes, Austin returns and explains what he got Mr. Dawson's permission to do. Dez nods and turns to his mom, putting on his most endearing smile.
"Mom? Can you help us do this, please? It's for a good cause."
His mom rolls her eyes good-naturedly and takes them to every place they need to go. Dez thanks her with a kiss on her cheek every time he gets out of the car.
The Plan takes half a night and half a day to complete (Austin can't stay up two nights in a row, so they take him home the moment he unintentionally spritzes his face with his cologne). Dez's limbs are sore from moving furniture and instruments, so after everything is in place, he collapses in a bumper car Austin ordered and lets Austin push the car around the room.
The door opens and Ally and Trish visit them once again, except this time they're in the Sonic Boom practice room and it is Austin's turn to tell Ally what he wants.
Both the girls are amazed at the practice room's makeover. Bright colors, fun décor, pickle jars, and Austin Moon memorabilia replace the dreary office/storage room vibe. Her old piano is gone, exchanged for the Steinway and Sons baby grand from downstairs. The room is the perfect backdrop for Austin's proposal.
As Austin makes his speech, Trish takes a closer look at the flame-painted bumper car.
"So you got my resume?" she asks Dez.
"Yup," Dez says, wincing a little as he exits the bumper car. "But I have one tiny concern."
"What?"
Dez stands up and activates Director Mode. "You've been fired a lot. I made a few calls and your past employers had a lot to complain about you. You sure you can handle being Austin's manager?"
Trish is unfazed. "Psh, of course. Work is boring. But updating Flitter accounts, booking gigs, going to concerts? That's not work, that's fun. I may have gotten fired from a lot of jobs, but 'fun-lover' is not an occupation I will ever get fired from."
Dez deliberates. He likes her attitude. Judging by the immaculate styling of her hair, he can tell she does work hard at things she finds important. And from dancing with her two nights ago, he has full proof that she lives for entertainment.
"Good," he says. "You're hired."
Behind them, Ally accepts Austin's proposal to be his music partner. The quartet is complete. To start, Dez tests Trish's capabilities by telling Trish what he needs for his new music video. She can only get stuff he already has. Dez's shoulders slump, but he knows his vision is greater than her limitations, so he lets it go. If Joss Whedon can film a web series and musical on a limited budget, so can Dez.
Dez hears an odd splatter noise and turns just in time to see Ally using the foam-spitter on Austin. A smile is on her face as she presses the hidden button. Dez joins in, getting in Austin's way to make foam collide with his shirt. He can hear Trish laughing behind them.
Girls do like foam, after all.
As Dez changes into another shirt in the storage closet, he hears excited chatter in the practice room. He thinks about the past week and a half and marvels at how everything has worked out. Austin has a fanbase, a songwriter, and a manager, and Dez has two new friends — or rather, one friend and one fan of a friend.
"Hey, Dez." Ally's voice is muffled.
Dez opens the door. Ally is on the other side of the room, and Austin and Trish aren't there. "Yeah?"
"We're going to grab some pizza, want to come?"
"Sure! Tim's Square Pizza is awesome, we should order from them!"
Ally's smile is warm, so unlike the pursed lips she sported the day they met that he's glad she has decided to stick around. "We can't wait that long for delivery. How about Mini's instead?"
Dez shakes his head. "I'm not that full yet. Sbarro's?"
Ally thinks about it for a moment and then nods. "Sbarro's."
Ally turns to leave and Dez follows, floored that nothing he does ruins their conversation. The phenomenon makes him think that maybe he hasn't given non-actresses enough time to get used to him. He may have failed to make good first impressions on Ally and Trish, but here they are, not only working with him, but talking to him. So what if it they don't recognize that he knows emergency first aid, prepares for anything, and dances well? Ally and Trish have plenty of time to figure out how awesome he is now that they're working together.
Dez smiles, ready to prove his awesomeness.
Winning this week's burger-eating contest seems like a good place to start.
A/N: Whew! Over 4,000 words. Thanks for reading through all that! Were you able to see Dez in a different light? Try watching the pilot episode now and see if you don't say the word "woobie" every time Dez's antics go unappreciated. Or maybe that's just me.
Thanks so much, JoeyJar99, Lalalala, and "Guest" for the reviews! To all those who review anonymously, I'd really appreciate it if you sign in before reviewing so that I can thank you individually. It'd be cool to know who else in the fandom loves Dez, too.
Tell me what you think!