.:Chapter Ten:.

"Harry, we have to leave!" Matt shouted up the stairs, voice echoing around the foyer. "What's taking you so long?"

"Didn't you know?" Dougie remarked, sitting on the middle-step, concentrating as he braided Rhuben's hair as she sat in front of him. "Harry has to put on his face every morning. It takes twenty minutes alone for him to do his eyelashes." He laughed along with the other band members that lounged around the foyer. "Why do you think he cares about his appearance so much?"

"Because he's vain," Patrick commented.

"Ha!" Rhuben laughed loudly. "It takes one to know one. It takes you hours just to get your hair done up in spikes the 'perfect way'." She used air quote around the words before rolling her eyes. "Especially considering we use about a jar of hair gel on your head every day."

"That's different!"

"How?" James snorted loudly.

"It's just hair! I'm not the one that has to oil up his chest and put on five different moisturizers on my face and lotion my arms and legs and…" the young Australian man waved his hands before motioning over to Dougie. "I figured I'm good until my hair starts to get too long and I look like a hobo. No offense mate."

"Nice save," Noah said sarcastically, whacking his brother on the back of the head.

"Just give him five more minutes," Tom said calmly, leaning against the banister. "You'd know if we were really late because Tommy would be shooting us with stun guns to get us out of the house."

"Wouldn't stun guns be a bit counterproductive?" Sydney asked, his nose wrinkling.

Riley let out a sigh, lightly shaking her head. "It must be hard to be so smart," she remarked, causing Sydney to smile. She looked up at the house phone started to ring and moved towards it, but Rhuben held up her hand, getting to her feet.

"I'll get it; I need to get some water anyway." Pressing her arms against Dougie's legs, she pulled herself to her feet then reached behind her to feel the braid that Dougie had weaved into her hair. She let out a sound of surprise, feeling the two strands that that usually framed the side of her face and came together in one braid down the back of her head. "Wow, you did a great job, Dougie." She eyed his shoulder length hair. "I'm guessing you're getting a lot of practice with it."She reached out and grabbed onto Dougie's chin, gently shaking it. "You and Harry make a really cute couple."

Dougie returned the comment by batting his eye lashes and speaking in a falsetto, "Thank you, darling."

Laughing, Rhuben turned on her heel and hurried into the kitchen to grab a water bottle before moving over to the ringing phone. "Hello?" She said into the phone, holding it against her ear. She frowned, not recognizing the male voice that spoke on the other end. "I'm sorry; may I ask who is calling?"

Rather than getting a direct answer, the man instead responded by asking, "Is Danny there?"

"Hold on, please." Placing the phone against her shoulder, Rhuben walked back to the foyer and called Danny's name to get his attention as he, James, Matt, and Sydney seemed to be in an apparently heated discussion.

"I'm just saying that if any of them were to get into a fight, the Bananas in Pajamas could beat Winnie the Pooh in a second," James said, holding his hands up.

"And I'm saying that you're crazy, because we all know Winnie the Pooh would never get into a fight in the first place," Sydney shot back. "Not only would he be too top-heavy because of all of the honey he consumes on a daily basis, but he'd probably eat the bananas rather than fight them, yeah?"

"And I'm wondering how I managed to be the only sane one in this family," Noah commented, resting his chin in his hands. The expression on his face made Rhuben laugh a little, recognizing it as he was actually questioning his life choices. Reaching over, Rhuben ruffled his hair before turning to McFly's lead guitarist.

"Danny?" She called.

He quickly snapped to attention, pushing away from the banister. "Yes, love?"

The young Australian women motioned to the phone that continued to rest against her shoulder. "Someone's on the phone for you. Didn't leave a name, but he asked for you directly."

"He?" At her nod, Danny's blue eyes widened for a moment. "Hang up." Without hesitation, Rhuben pulled the phone from her shoulder and quickly jammed her thumb into the 'end' button before gently tossing the phone onto the stairs beside Dougie. "It's…it's not anything important, just some random guy. I think it's a fan that somehow managed to get our number."

Rhuben's eyes narrowed as Danny waved off the phone call. Despite the smile on his face, which was what could be considered his own permanent accessory, he could tell from the tightness of it at the corners that he was doing his best not to show his irritation. And as Danny Jones was someone who had never seemed to get mad over anything, even if things weren't going his way, it was a bit eerie.

"So block it," Riley suggested, as if it were obvious. "Or tell Fletch or Jake or Tommy. I'm sure one of them would be able to get whomever it is to stop calling." She then let out a huff and looked at her watch before turning towards the landing. "HARRY JUDD IF YOU DON'T GET YOUR BUTT DOWN HERE I'M GOING TO COME UP THERE AND GET YOU MYSELF!" Not getting a response, she turned and started to go up the stairs, but Noah reached out and grabbed the back of her jeans by the belt and held her still, causing her to crash onto her stomach.

Rhuben grimaced then leaned over towards the stairs as well. "I'd hurry up if I were you!" She added. "She doesn't make threats like this lightly!" She stuck her pinkie finger in her ear and started to wiggle it around. "And I'm sure that my ear drums can't take any more of her yelling." She leaned out of the way as Riley reached out to slap her on the thigh.

"I'm right here, calm down," Harry said, hurrying down the stairs. He pulled at the collar of his shirt and ran his palms over the sides of his hair. "Just had to make sure that I was in top shape today. It takes skill to drum and look good doing it." He held out his fist and Noah reached out, bumping it with his own, laughing lightly. "Noah knows what I'm talking about."

Matt made a face, reminiscent of his infamous Busted gurn. "We're going to the studio, not a photo shoot. I don't think it needs to take more than an hour to get ready just to record some music, which shouldn't take more than two hours tops." He then smiled and adjusted his shirt collar. "Not when you're as good as we are."

"Right," Tom snorted. "Because you're not the ones that managed to single handedly halt production on an album all because you couldn't get over a hangover that had you blacking out for hours on end." Matt shrugged in agreement and Tom smiled, pulling his phone out of his pocket and looking at the time. "We're going to miss our studio time if we don't get going now."

"No problem. Let's go."

The three bands left the house and went to the cars that were waiting for them outside and drove to the recording studio that was in the city. Due to a light rain that had fallen that morning, there was a significant amount of traffic that had them at the studio about a half hour later than needed, thus putting their studio time in jeopardy.

"God, now we're going to have to hear our managers give us a lecture on punctuality and blah blah blah," Patrick grumbled, lifting his jacket over his heat to protect his hair as the group hurried across the parking lot to the studio. "The last thing I need is to get Fletched when I've managed to avoid it for so long."

"Hear hear!" James agreed, punching the air.

Once they were inside and put aside their jackets and umbrellas, they started towards their recording space, wandering down the winding hallways as they were directed by the secretary at the front desk. Rhuben slipped her ear buds into her ears and scrolled through her phone to find the McFly song they were going to play, and then pulled a pair of drumsticks out of her back pocket, spinning them around her fingers as they listened to the song. She actually loved the song, finding it to be one of the more enjoyable ones that McFly had done, after their—lack of a better word—disaster that was Above the Noise, but still, it was too slow for the DarkElements to do. Not that she didn't love the whole summer, feel good vibe that came along with it, but she was in a rock band for a reason.

Well, she thought. That's not entirely true. Apart from having been, basically, forced into the band with her siblings after Robert had gotten a hold of them, but their music genres had changed a bit over their entire careers that they couldn't pinpoint one genre of music they truly were. If asked, they would just say they loved rock music and wanted to reflect that in their music. Which was true, if they categorized rock music as the main genre they were and most of their music falling under all of the sub-genres underneath it. Not only did they move through pop-rock to punk-rock to alternative, to hard, to nu metal, to rap rock to everything under the sun, but their tastes in what they enjoyed to perform always changed. The only difference being this time around we actually have a say in the matter, which makes things a little bit more enjoyable.

She continued to follow her friends, strolling through the hallway, listening intently to the music, making a mental imprint of how the drum beats worked throughout the song. She was so invested b the music that she hadn't noticed Danny calling her name until he moved behind her, grabbed her ass, then quickly moved in front of her as she ripped her ear buds out of her ears and swung them around her neck.

"I swear to God, if you don't stop doing that, I'm going to shove this bloody drumstick up your nose so hard that you'll cough up splinters." She said in a cool tone, perfectly crafted in a way that anyone would get the message she was getting across as the words came out of her mouth. And it typically worked, however Danny was the one that had managed to break through the ice cold exterior she managed to pt up to shield herself over the years. He grinned, laughing loudly as he walked backwards in front of her.

"Oh c'mon, you used to like it when I did that," he reminded her.

"I think 'used to' are the key words there, mate," Rhuben pointed out. She crossed her arms, holding her drumsticks against her forearm as they continued to walk along. "Anyway, what's up with that phone call? If I'm not mistaken, that's the third one you've got since we got to his house. And we've had a few hang ups whenever one of the rest of us would pick up the phone." She tilted her head to the side. "Should I be concerned?"

"Not unless the person calling shows up at the house, 'no'," Danny replied. "And even then we have good security around the neighborhood so that's not a big deal." He picked up one of her drumsticks and started to twirl it around his finger. It was the only thing he could do on a set of drums and yet he always managed to go through everything in life with a positive attitude.

"Clearly you haven't been on the receiving end of some overzealous fans. Or, for that matter, an overzealous boyfriend."

Now Danny's smile morphed into one that was almost smug. "I'm sorry, but I seem to remember you telling me that I made you happy."

"Yeah, back when I was young and stupid." This time, her eyebrows twitched upwards as she smirked at Danny, wondering how he was going to respond to it. True to his form, it just made him step up his game a bit more, much like he always did whenever he was chasing after a girl. More often than not it was a game to him of some sort, to see how long it would take to get the girl and then once he got her, he got bored.

A light sigh escaped Rhuben's lips a she, annoyingly, thought about what their relationship had been. She could admit that a majority of it had been good, despite both of the having been so young when they started to go out. He had endlessly chased her for a long time until she finally decided to give him a chance and he had been very attentive and helped her out of her shell, showing her that she really was worth something. But then she saw what he couldn't, when he started to pull away a little bit, and knew he was starting to get bored. The point that hurt the most about that was how much time they basically had to spend together as their bands continued to work and live together throughout a lot of their past albums.

"You're not stupid," Danny's voice broke her into her thoughts, making her think about the other thing that seemed to constantly plague her.

How long it had been since their music career had really taken off, like McFly, about ten years. Sure, she and Riley had been about nine years old when they started in the music industry, but they hadn't really been able to get a lot of attention and start their career until they were twelve, Patrick and Noah were ten, and Sydney was five. It was a lot of work and they were pushed very hard, under Robert's managerial skills before having gotten their break. And as excited she was to be able to celebrate McFly's ten years as a band, hers and her siblings' ten years as a band was always a bit more of a bittersweet affair. While their career was very easily some of the best times of their lives, it having been at the expense of some pretty bad times in their lives made it hard to completely enjoy.

She couldn't even being to imagine counting how many times she had passed out due to exhaustion while getting ready for a tour, long nights of no-sleep on a tour bus to be sure they were getting their exercise in, making sure they were writing as many songs as they possibly could within a short time frame.

Thankfully we can focus on McFly's career this time around, and can deal with ours later. No sooner has the words crossed her mind did she look over Danny's head and freeze, seeing a familiar face turn the corner. Tilting her head to the side, she stared hard at the spot. There was no way she had just seen the man that had singlehandedly managed to make her hate waking up a day after day than him. Robert Jackson, the foster father from hell whom she thought they had managed to stay out of her life. But it appeared that he was much like an ex-boyfriend in the means that they never completely stayed away.

All of a sudden Rhuben felt sick. And she hated that feeling, knowing what came with it.

Noticing her sudden change in demeanor, Danny stopped and looked at her before looking over his shoulder and then back at her.

"You okay, love?"

"Yeah." She blinked, snapping back to attention. "I just thought I saw someone I knew." She focused her attention back on him and grabbed the drumstick from his hand before poking him in the chest with it. "And how many times do I have to bloody tell you to stop calling me 'love'?"

"Sorry, it's a force of habit."

"I'm sure."

"Oh come on, you and I both know that it turns you on."

"And you and I both know that I didn't need to hear that," Noah remarked, slapping his hands over his ears, a disgusted look on his face. "I'm fine nosing into your love life, Sis, but I don't need to know all of the details."

"Or lack of a love life," Riley grinned.

Rhuben's right eyebrow ticked upwards as the right side of her mouth lifted in amusement. "Coming from the girl whose dating pool has been as dry as the Sahara. Right, sis?" She reached out and slapped her sister on the butt, causing her to jump away, rubbing the wound as she laughed. All of a sudden, as the group turned the corner, they found Fletch waiting for them at the end of the hallway.

"Hmm," Matt rubbed his chin. "Ronan's not with you and neither is Jake…so that means that McFly must've done something!" He nodded, placing his hands on his hips as Dougie let out a yelp of outrage and turned towards him in irritation. "What? James and I have barely been here so we didn't have nearly enough time to get into any trouble."

"Crap, he's right," Harry pointed out. He and Tom exchange glances before crossing their arms before turning towards Danny and Dougie, whose eyes widened in surprise. "What did you do?"

"Nothing!" Danny insisted, voice getting high-pitched.

"That was very convincing, mate," James said sarcastically.

Grimacing, Danny put his arm around Dougie's shoulders and turned the two to the side. "Can you remember doing anything that would have us get Fletched? Nothing in the tabloids, nothing the paparazzi have managed to catch?"

"Mate, I don't even remember what we had for breakfast yesterday," Dougie replied. "Just play dumb and no one will be the wiser."

"That wouldn't be a stretch," Riley commented, smirking as Patrick nodded at her side in agreement.

Fletch smiled a little before turning his attention to James and Matt. "Actually, there's something that I need to speak with you guys about." He waved his arm towards the conference room that stood immediately to their right. "So if you would come this way, I hope that we can have a calm and rational moment because there are some things that we really need to clear the air about." James and Matt exchanged a look before allowing Fletch to lead them through the doorway.

Harry whistled light, pretending to walk by the door before peering inside. He pressed himself against the wall, craning his neck to see before the door closed. "Hey," he said in a stage-whisper. "I think that's Charlie in there!"

With that, the Jacksons exchanged glances before piling on top of each other on the floor, pressing their ears against the door. It was only a few seconds before Dougie, Harry, and Danny were kneeling beside them, listening as well.

"Are you really going to eavesdrop like this?" Tom asked, crossing his arms.

"Shhh!" Came the unanimous reply. "Yes!"

"Don't act like you're so above us not to do it, too," Sydney added, giving him a pointed look.

Tom let out a light sigh, looking at the ceiling. He then looked around the hallway to be sure that no one was watching before leaning over to press his ear against the door as well, holding his necklace in his hand to be sure it didn't knock against the door and give away his position. Peer pressure at its finest.

A/N: Geez, I still can't freaking move this story along faster. Either way, I'm working in more of the humor and romance stuff, so I hope you're at least enjoying that.

Review Reply

Genehh: No worries, girl. We hope everything with the job and the move are going well. I'm glad you're enjoying it so much, of course it brings up a lot of memories so I'm having fun writing it as well.

Cheers,

-Riles