.:Chapter Twenty-Five:.

Dougie stretched his arms in front of him, behind him, and wind-milled them as Jacqui waited patiently, sitting in front of him. He then turned his attention to forcing air in and out of his mouth, making his chest rise and fall. "Okay, ready!"

"Ready," Jacqui declared.

Without blinking, Dougie reached down and pressed a button on his phone, training his eyes on Jacqui. Jacqui stared back at him, doing her best not to move her eyes at all. Any slight movement, any twitch, cough, or sneeze would make them lose the game. And losing a staring contest was something that had become a source of ridicule for the group over the past few weeks. Not only had there been many lapses of boredom that had caused games of ping-pong, paddle ball, hula hoop, and go fish to become bloodthirsty battles that have resulted in screaming, things being thrown, and silent treatments being tossed around.

Finally Dougie declared they were going to move onto staring contests—to which Patrick claimed anyone who wore contacts would lose because of the difficulty of being used to their eyes being open. Nevertheless it was a new game that held their attention for a while and Dougie predicted he wouldn't lose.

After a minute Dougie started to lift his eyebrows to keep his eyes open. Jacqui even went as far as to bring her eyelids close together but not blink despite how many tears were already falling down her cheeks, bringing mascara with them.

"Okay, this is really starting to hurt," Jacqui commented after the first minute.

"You're telling me," Dougie replied. He sounded as if he were in pain, doing his best to keep himself from cracking. An excited, nervous giggle started to escape his lips, causing Jacqui to start to laugh as well. "Oh God, I'm starting to crack." Jacqui leaned closer to him, as if she were about to cheat and blow air into his eyes.

Dougie quickly reached out his hand and grasped her shoulder, keeping her an arm's length away. "I swear to God if you blow in my face," Dougie warned.

"That's what she said," Jacqui trilled.

There was a moment of the two smiling at each other before they broke out into hysterical laughter. Due to their laughter they couldn't help but close their eyes, causing their tears to continuously roll down their cheeks.

"I won!" Jacqui declared, finally able to wipe her tears away. "Dude, I so beat you."

"Dude, you so cheated," Dougie replied. But he continued to laugh. Laughing so hard that he rolled onto his side and off the curb, lying flat on the ground, causing Jacqui to laugh again

Their laughter echoed across the empty parking lot before mixing in with their friends' laughter. Noah looked over at the two and shook his head, pulling his soda can away from his mouth. "And this is why we decided to stop doing staring contests."

"No! It's because you're all no fun!" Dougie declared, his words slurring. He sat up and flicked his hair out of his face. "I'm the only one that's having fun over here. You all need to catch up!"

Noah smiled and shook his head. He turned his attention back over to Harry whose arms were wrapped around his knees, a pensive expression on his face. He tilted his head back and forth a few times, chewing his lower lip, then said, "And my Mom used to make me and my brother and sister do these professional photo-shoots for everyone of our photos."

"The game is Two Truths and a Lie, Harry, not Reveal-every-secret-that-I-know-about-myself." Tom lifted an eyebrow as Harry rolled his eyes. Tom snickered. "I think he might be drunk already."

"Well, considering that you just finished a great show…and are stranded on the side of the road because a bus broke down, I think that's fine," Gen commented, resting her chin in her hand. She motioned over to the smoking bust that sat on the side of the road, the other parked in front of it. She smiled a little. "Besides, it's not so bad. This is the most that we've all been able to hang out with each other for a while."

"Are you telling me that you think the idea of having two busses was a bad idea?" Riley asked. She was hunched forward, running a brush through Anna's hair where there were different portions that were twisted up like fountains and sticking up all over her head. "Because I think I've managed to be the most calm I've ever been because of that, yeah?"

"Because we all enjoyed hearing you screech at us over how to make our food, how to clean up after ourselves, how to wear our clothes," James listed off.

Riley gave him a look. "You're almost 30 years old and you're wearing jeans that have patches representing different comic books heroes."

'What's the matter with that?" Patrick asked coming to his defense. "You like comics, too."

"The comics aren't the problem, the fact that he's patching patches and the jeans are almost hanging off of him that's the problem. I've seen enough naked guys while on tours you'd think by now I wouldn't have to see anymore."

"Not with this lot around," Rhuben pointed out.

The group of friends laughed again and a comfortable silence fell around them. There was a long night head of them. They hadn't gotten far from the venue when the girl's bus had broken down. While Fletch, Jake, and Ronan opted to stay on the buses so that they could get some work done as well as be up close and personal with the information they were given when the mechanics came. With the excess energy from their finished show the bands decided to have some time off the bus for a change of pace.

Now that the night continued to drag on and their energy started to fade was when their antics started to become more and more bizarre. The delirium of a long night kept them laughing at absolutely nothing and their silly games at least passed the time.

"Why don't we just start asking each other questions?" Sydney suggested. He lay flat on his back on the ground, holding his pone above his face, his thumbs flying over the screen. "Like, random questions we'd never really ask each other, yeah?" Finally he sat up and took one look at his girlfriend and smiled.

Anna beamed back, reaching her hand up to run over her hair. "How do I look?"

"Like you have a water fountain on your head. But it's still cute," Sydney remarked.

"Thank you!"

"You're welcome."

"Okay, okay, I'll ask the first question." Charlie bid some time while he tilted his head back and took a long drink from his beer bottle. "I got one. Since everyone in the world always asks about backstage antics at stuff when we're on tour, I want to know. What's your best streaking story?"

Patrick's nose wrinkled for a second. Then his famous lopsided smile came to his face and he laughed. "Streaking or flashing? Or would that really count as both?" He smile widened as the others started to laugh. "No, no, I'm being serious, mate. Because then I'd either have two stories to tell or one."

"One night stands don't count," Sydney pointed out.

Rhuben winced and mimed placing her hands over her ears. "I don't care if you want to have a one night stand or do whatever you want to do, but I don't need to hear the details from my brothers," She commented, sticking her tongue out for good measure.

"Craziest rumor you've ever heard about yourself, then," Charlie changed the subject. He thought for a moment and laughed. "Probably that I have a pool full of money."

"Ooh, you're so posh that that's the worst rumor you've ever heard about yourself," Matt said, voice dripping with sarcasm. He pretended to shake his hands, miming being completely terrified. "I'm so scared of the people that try to come after you. Man, they're looking for something like…like your had a plot to murder your own mother."

"Did that happen to you?" Gen asked.

"May as well. The first time we came to America—"

"—For that show you guys did?" Jacqui piped up.

Matt held up a hand. "That's something that we pretend has never happened. It was a load of shit, anyway. They said after my mum had a stroke that I was trying to leave for America to get away from her and that I couldn't wait for her to die."

"Your mum being that sick isn't easy, Mattie," Riley pointed out.

"I know, but to know they went that far?" He shook his head. "Well, that went fucking morbid and I don't even have a beer in me yet." He laughed, rubbing his hands on the sides of his jeans. "Okay, the other one I've heard about myself…probably that I steal from every store I go to. Like, clothes and shit and then I just throw out the clothes I've worn once to get more."

"If you were rich enough you could do that," Tom reasoned. He leaned forward so he could see Charlie clearly. "Mate, is that what you do with your pool filled with money?" Charlie gave him the finger and the group laughed again.

"I think for me it's that of every band we've worked with I've slept with the leader," Riley said.

"But you have a thing for leaders of bands," Gen pointed out.

"I know, so that didn't really help the rumors at all." Riley openly laughed at herself.

There was a second of silence and then Dougie started laughing to what he had just heard. Then abruptly stopped abruptly, his eyes widening. "Wow, you guys, that was loud. That was, like, so loud. Am I the only one that heard it?" He giggled to himself and turned his head aside to look at all of his friends.

This was the best. He loved being on tour. There was nothing like it. It was when they were all able to be their real selves and enjoy the time they had to hang out with their friends. Playing on stage with the frenzy the fans managed to feed back to them was the best part. And he hated having to come down from that. Not performing, not being able to run back and forth across the stage, not being able to act out as much as he wanted was incredibly boring. He hated to do interviews, hated to talk about himself, and wanted to do nothing but have fun all the time.

But the music industry was fickle.

It cared too much about what you looked like, who you hung out with, and what you were doing in your personal life and it could take someone down faster than they could blink. Dougie was so glad he had so many friends that kept him sane throughout the whole thing but there were times that he did find himself too into his head.

Tonight he was going to have fun and that was that.

"Guys," Dougie said in what he thought was a quiet whisper but was still almost at shouting volume. "Where's Danny?"

There was a second of stunned silence before he could hear the sound of all of his friends shouting for Danny over and over again. "Chances are he forgot where the door to the bus is," Noah teased.

Patrick made a sound of annoyance. "That only happened once. And you try being woken up in the middle of the night with only two hours of sleep and you don't know where you are."

The group continued to shout for Danny until the door of the bus opened and he sauntered off, carefully closing it behind him. "Sorry, I was taking a phone call," he apologized. Then he smiled a little, lowering himself down next to Tom and added, "Did you know that the doors on the buses change sides? I could've sworn it was on the other side, not this one." He continued to smile as the others laughed again. "What? What's so funny?"

"Nothing, Danny, don't worry about it," Harry reassured him. He squeaked. "You wouldn't get it anyway." He stood up and stretched his arms over his head before rubbing his stomach. "Guys, let's do something. We have this entire parking lot to do whatever we want and we're just sitting here on the curb."

"We still have those fireworks from that fan," Gen pointed out. She tucked her hair behind her ear and peered up at him. "I don't think there's anything that'll keep us from being able to set them off." She chuckled. "I mean, apart from scaring, Ronan, Jake, and Fletch half to death."

"All the more reason to do it, then!" Matt declared.

"Hear hear!" Dougie rolled onto his stomach and carefully climbed to his feet. "Let's go!" He put his arm around Harry and started to nudge him forward. The two laughed as they stumbled at the same time, seemingly tripping over nothing, and continued to the bus. They pulled open the hatch at the bottom of the bus and quietly grabbed the box beneath it, hoping not to attract the attention of their managers as they did so.

"We already got told off for setting these off at the venue, I don't want the rest taken away before we can set them off," Dougie whispered. Harry shushed him and Dougie shushed him back, giggling like a little kid. He started to jump up and down, waving his hands up and down as he did so. "C'mon, hurry up."

"Do you want to carry this all yourself?"

"You're the one with the muscles, why would I want to carry it?"

Harry shoved a box into Dougie's chest and the bassist whistled loudly to himself as he practically skipped back over to the others. As soon as the box was set down in the middle of the parking lot Dougie went about making sure all of the fireworks were turned so the fuses were his way and picked up the lighter that was along with it. He twisted his mouth to the side then flicked the lighter open and touched it to the fuse and took a step back.

"Hey Dougie, what sort of fireworks are in that one?" Anna asked, coming up to his side. She carefully pulled the fountains out of her hair then slid a blue beanie over her hair.

"I don't know, I just set them off," Dougie said with a shrug.

Anna looked at him funny. "You set them all off?"

"Yeah…"

The next thing Dougie knew, everyone was sprinting away from the box, screaming at the top of their lungs as they did so. Harry went as far as to push his shoulder into Dougie's stomach and lifted him up over his shoulder and ran away with him. They only made it so far before the box exploded in a bright explosion of rainbow sparks that reached ten feet in the air.

Dougie laughed hysterically as cinders rained down over everyone, the roman candle continuing to burn in place. He could hear his friends whooping and hollering at their near death experience—which really wasn't so close compared to other things they had done before—and grinned even further.

Then with the other box of fireworks open—and making sure Dougie wasn't close enough to set that one on fire—they grabbed sparklers and other explosives they wanted to set off and ran around the parking leaving trails of colorful smoke behind them.

It was just the way Dougie liked it.

A/N: I love this one; it really made me laugh picturing it all in my head. Especially everyone running away from a box of fireworks that are going to blow up. I figured out some issues that I had with this story; one being how many characters I have to work with and the fact that I haven't written them in a long time compared to, say, working with a lot for Big Time Rush where I had written that for a while and frequently.

So style-wise the story is going to change a bit with the next chapter. Though at the moment I'm not sure how many chapters/how long this story will end up being. There's plenty of things that I still have to show.

-Riles