What's this? An actual attempt at a multi-chap fic? Im as surprised as you are. I would like to say tho, please dont expect updates that are timely or like...consistent. I post chapters as a write them sooo yeah it might take a while between updates. But anyways, onto the roleswap shennaigans!
Ally Dawson was the kind of girl who lived in constants. She wasn't the type of person who needed life to be a messy string of 'surprises' or wanted the world to throw excitement carelessly into her path. She wanted control over her surroundings, control over what she did and the shape her life took. She liked things to be steady, unchanging. And for the longest time, her father's music store had been one of those steady, unchanging constants. Sure, maybe she didn't have the head for music that her father and best friend did (her skills had always lain more in the audiovisual field) but it was still a reliable presence in her life. Even when her mom needing "space" ended with her moving to another continent or when her dreams fell to ashes, the Sonic Boom had remained the same, unchanged from the foggy memories she had of it as a little girl.
So, of course, it ended up being the place where her life was changed in such a way that she could definitively split it into Before and After.
Her day had actually been pretty normal up until that point. Wake up and go to the mall to start her shift at Sonic Boom. Try (and fail) to convince her dad to buy her the new camera she wanted. Talk to Trish as she came in on the second hour of her thirty minute break from Cupcake City. Accidentally ask out an old woman on a date. You know, the usual activities in the life of Ally Dawson, until…
"I wanna know know know your name name name, got the girl girl girl with game game game."
Her head snapped up from the scene she was storyboarding in her notebook at the unwelcome shattering of the peace and quiet in her store. The source of the disruption was two boys, a redhead playing one of the display keyboards while his blonde friend watched, nodding along to the beat. A spark of anger erupted within her as she glanced over to make sure the 'Do not play the instruments' sign was fully visible. It was, though the boys were acting as though it wasn't.
She stalked over to them, righteous anger baked into her bones as she whistled sharply. Both boys winced and the song broke off with a discordant chord.
"Did you not see the 'Do not play the instruments' sign?" she asked rhetorically. It was hung directly next to the keyboards and impossible to miss.
The blonde beamed at her. "It's fine. My friend's a really awesome songwriter."
"What you just said has nothing to do with what I just said and- are those corndogs?" She interrupted herself, staring at the fried food in his hands.
"Yeah." He bit off the end of one, then offered her the other. "You want one?"
"There's no eating in the store!" she snapped, yanking the offending object out of his hand. Seriously, what was wrong with these two?
"Austin, I've got this," the redhead spoke up for the first time, gently pushing his friend (Austin, she supposed) aside before turning to her. "Ma'am, I am a songwriter, and I go wherever my muse takes me. Which, today, happened to be your store. And you can't put a limit on creativity, can you?"
"Yes, I can. The limit is playing my instruments," she said, looking up at him with a scowl that she hoped was more intimidating than it felt.
"We're just trying them out to see which one sounds best," Austin butted in again. "Dez can play anything: piano, saxophone, drums. Even a trumpet through another trumpet!"
"And a harmonica through a sousaphone," The redhead (Dez?) added energetically, haphazardly throwing the former into the latter to prove his point. Austin made the universal throat-slitting gesture of 'cut that out', but it was too late. The harmonica flew through the air and right into the mouth of an elderly woman by the tambourines. Dez's eyes went wide and he charged toward her with a cry of "Prepare to be Heimliched!"
Ally looked around the store to see if there was anyone who could reassure her that no, the world had not gone stark raving mad when she wasn't paying attention. Unfortunately, her efforts were in vain. Her dad had disappeared, likely to steal more coins from the mall fountain. Trish had been sitting on one of the couches in the corner, flipping through a magazine the entire time and presumably aware of Ally's plight but simply ignoring it.
The harmonica landed back on the counter, sending a shower of old lady spit over both her and Austin. Dez fist-pumped his victory, though the old woman seemed less amused. Austin pried the pair of dentures still clamped around the harmonica off before turning the instrument over curiously and looking at with a smile that she thought he thought was charming. "Can we get a discount on this one? Y'know, since it was inside the old lady?"
She really deserved a raise.
"Ally, get over here ASAP! Oh, and bring your camera."
There were several things that were weird about the message Trish had left on Ally's phone. First and foremost was the timestamp: Seven-thirty A.M. Ally knew Trish better than she knew herself, and the other girl never willingly woke up before ten during the summer. The second strange thing was Trish's request. Sure, Trish supported Ally's dream of being a director, and had starred in several of the short movies Ally had written, but she was never the one to come up with ideas for what Ally should film.
So, all in all, Ally was feeling a little trepidatious as she approached Trish's house with her camera bag in hand.
"There you are," Trish said as she swung open the door seconds before Ally could ring the bell. She grabbed Ally's wrist and pulled her through her house and up the stairs before Ally could ask one of the thousands of questions she was buzzing with.
Trish pushed Ally towards her bed and then took a seat right next to her. She was practically glowing with excitement, another strange thing for Trish De la Rosa at seven in the morning. She beamed at Ally and said, "I wrote a song."
"Really?" Ally laughed. She'd seen Trish's attempts at songwriting before. They weren't exactly…top 40s material. But, when Trish gave her that Look that meant she wasn't kidding, Ally tried to cover with, "I meant…really?" and an attempt to inject genuine curiosity into her tone.
"Don't sound so surprised," Trish snarked. She grabbed a paper from her desk and shoved it in Ally's hands. "But look, it's really good. And I checked, no one else has written anything else like it."
Ally looked over the lyrics. They were more cohesive than Trish's other attempts, and actually kind of catchy. There was just something…familiar about it though. The itch of a vague memory that she just couldn't scratch. But a few cursory Google searches verified Trish's claim; no one else had written a song like this one. Which was fortunate, considering that Trish didn't want to just show Ally her song; she wanted Ally to shoot a music video for her.
The process was a little more intensive than Trish was anticipating (apparently she'd been under the impression that they could just shoot it all in one take and then be done with it) and Ally's admittedly perfectionist tendencies weren't helping any. But after several hours of filming and several more hours of Ally editing while Trish looked over her shoulder and suggested improbable, soap opera-esque edits in order to "give it a little more action," it was done. Ally played through it one more time and she had to admit that it was actually…kinda decent. Sure, it wasn't exactly the same caliber of a professional music video, but it was still pretty good for two girls with a camcorder.
The internet, though, had a much higher opinion of her and Trish's video-making skills. Their video (creatively entitled 'Double Take' after the chorus of the song) blew up. The numbers started to climb and they didn't stop, the likes jumping from thousands to millions in the blink of an eye. It was circulated around and around to the point that her mom emailed her to tell her that one of her fellow researchers had made Double Take his alarm in the morning. It felt surreal. Some guy she'd never met on a continent she'd never even seen loved Trish's song enough to listen to it every morning. And she, anxious little Ally Dawson, had been a tangible part of that. She'd helped make that happen.
On one hand, the idea that millions of people all over the world were seeing her video, her editing felt overwhelming and frankly insane. She wasn't even in high school yet! But there really wasn't enough time to feel overwhelmed because everything was happening so fast. Suddenly Trish was doing interviews with Entertain Me Tonight and planning out her product line and everything was changing. Life was moving at a hundred miles per hour and it all flew by so quickly that Ally didn't have the time to question how Trish had written a viral song out of the blue.
Well, she didn't have time to question it until the third day of Trish's spontaneous fame, at least.
"Trish, you have some friends over!" Mrs. De la Rosa called out from the bottom of the stairs. Ally sent Trish a quizzical look- not be rude, but she was kind of Trish's only friend. But Trish looked just as confused as Ally felt as they trooped down the stairs.
She didn't know what she was expecting – maybe some over eager fans who had lied about knowing Trish in hopes of getting an autograph? But instead they were met by two vaguely familiar boys – had she gone to school with them? The blonde boy noticed them first and nudged his redheaded companion, who had been playing with a knickknack left sitting on a side table.
"Uh, hi," Ally greeted uncertainly, hoping these two weren't obsessive stalker-fans or something.
"Hi," the blonde one said shortly, voice sharp. She had just enough time to wonder about his attitude before-
"You stole my song!" The redhead declared accusatorily, pointing a finger at Trish. Which…certainly wasn't the direction she thought this conversation was going to go.
Trish, however, seemed to be more indignant than confused. "What?"
"Double Take. You stole it from me," he repeated, crossing his arms. His friend copied his pose.
Ally fidgeted, considering whether the strange looks she would get would be worth the relief chewing her hair would give her. She hated to admit it but it made sense. Trish couldn't write a song to save her life and then she churned out an instant hit like it was nothing? Something didn't add up.
Trish, however, didn't seem to agree with this mindset.
"How could I possibly steal your song? I don't even know you!" Trish exclaimed.
"Oh, I'm Dez and this is Austin," Dez said politely, gesturing to himself and then his friend. His bout of amiability quickly ended as his face crumpled back into a glare. "And don't change the subject! You stole my song after hearing me play it at your friend's store."
"Are you kidding me? That's totally…" Trish's face blanched. "…true."
"Trish…" The disappoint in Ally'z voice was palpable.
"I didn't do it on purpose!" Trish snapped defensively. "It's his fault for playing it where I could hear it!"
"No it isn't!" Austin argued. Dez patted him on the shoulder in some kind of nonverbal "Dude, chill" gesture before turning to Trish eagerly.
"But since it was an accident and now that you know, you'll give me credit, right?" Dez said hopefully.
"No." Dez's face fell. "I can't tell everyone I lied about writing Double Take - it'll ruin my reputation!" Trish explained. Ally felt like she should say something – though she wasn't sure if it was to defend her best friend, or argue against her.
"So that's it? You're not going to do anything?" Austin said.
"It's one song. You'll write another one." Neither boy seemed impressed with Trish's logic, but it was also obvious that nobody was going to be able to change her mind. They left after a few more half-hearted arguments as to why Trish should properly credit Dez.
"Don't you think that was kind of mean?" Ally asked.
"Seriously?" Trish said with a cooked eyebrow. "Don't tell me you're actually taking their side."
"I just don't think you should be lying to everybody like this." Trish rolled her eyes - she'd never had much of a problem stretching the truth. Ally changed tactics. "And besides, don't you feel bad about making a career off someone else's work?"
"I'll send him a muffin basket," Trish said dismissively. "But forget that. Did I tell you about my idea for themed tissues? I'm calling them Trish-ues…"
Of course, everything fell apart shortly after that.
"What did you do?" Ally hissed as Trish walked off the set of the Helen Show.
"I don't know," Trish said in somewhat of a trance.
"Why did you tell Helen you could write another song?" Ally pressed.
"I don't know!" Trish repeated, this time with an unsubtle heat in her voice. Ally quieted down. "Sorry, I just…" Trish buried her face in her hands and groaned. Loudly. A passing stage hand shot them a concerned look and Ally waved them off with a smile that she hoped looked more carefree than it felt.
Trish, however, seemed to have regained control of herself. She removed her hands from her face and looked a great deal calmer. Ally tentatively started to speak. "You know, there is someone you could ask to write the song for you."
Trish perked up. "Who?" Ally didn't answer; her face said it all. "Him? No way! That'll be so embarrassing!"
She had to admit it wasn't exactly the best course of action. Unfortunately, unless Trish developed a sudden talent for songwriting overnight, it was the best plan they had. Which was how, after a fair amount of Facebook sleuthing, they found themselves standing in the bedroom of one Dez Last Name Unknown.
"Why should we help you?" Austin asked, somewhat hostile in a way that Ally couldn't deny was justified. After her lengthy, rambling explanation of Trish's problem, she had kind of hoped that Dez would take pity on them and write another song, or at least let Trish use an older song he'd already finished. Honestly, Ally would be fine with a dog food jingle at this point. And while Dez seemed sympathetic to their plight, his attached-at-the-hip best friend was a different.
"I said I was sorry about stealing your song, okay?" Trish snapped.
"No, you didn't," Dez interjected.
"Fine, I'm sorry," Trish said, the sarcasm in her voice outweighing any kind of actual contrition. "So will you just write me a song?"
Neither boy spoke, but the silence told them that the answer was a resounding no. Ally expected Trish to rage, to yell, to demand that they write her song, to do something. Instead she just…quietly crumbled, head dropping and it reminded Ally that Dez really had been Trish's last hope, that Trish hadn't asked for this fame anymore than Ally did.
"God, this was such a stupid idea," Trish lamented. Her hands curled into fists and she stared at them as they quivered. "I guess I just…I always give up so easily. And…this was the only thing I cared about enough to not give up on. But it's like my dad always says; I had a one in a billion chance of making it anyway."
Now, over the years Ally had grown accustomed to the Trish De la Rosa guilt trip. It was one of Trish's favorite tactics to get what she wanted, and also the most unsubtle. It usually included a melodramatic sob story, a fair amount of theatrical overreacting and, on a good day, actual tears. It did not, however, contain anything resembling genuine emotion.
This was not the Trish De la Rosa guilt trip.
Trish was smaller than Ally had ever seen her, dark curls shrouding her face. She was raw, emotional, vulnerable. She had lowered her walls enough that her heart came pouring out. And even though she knew that this whole situation was entirely Trish's own fault, something in Ally softened.
And apparently, she wasn't the only one.
"My dad always says that too," Dez said quietly, like he was reassessing the girl in front of him from a million miles away. Trish looked up at him with something close to a smile ghosting over her lips, which Dez returned tenfold.
Austin, however, was not as easily swayed.
"Well, my dad always says to never jump on a mattress if you're not gonna buy it. So, buh-bye," he waved sarcastically. Trish wilted.
"C'mon, Ally," she said, tugging on Ally's sleeve. Ally felt like she needed to say something about second chances, about giving people the opportunity to grow and-
"I'll do it."
Every head whipped toward Dez, shock evident in every feature. He smiled uncertainly, like he was waiting for them to explain why his statement had been a big deal.
"You will?" Trish and Austin cried in unison, one enthusiastic and one disgruntled. It wasn't hard to figure out which emotion belonged to who.
"Yeah," Dez shrugged. Ally was so overjoyed she felt like doing a cartwheel- provided she, y'know, learned how to do one.
"Are you sure-" Austin began.
"I'm sure," Dez interrupted and even though most of their interactions have consisted of him being mad at either her or her best friend, Ally couldn't help but notice there wad something a little sharper than usual in his voice as the boys held each other's gaze longer than what was considered normal.
"You got a credit card?" Trish asked abruptly. The non sequitur, thankfully, broke up the somewhat uncomfortable silence.
Dez blinked. "Uh, yeah, but my parents said it was for emergencies-"
"Great." She snatched his wallet off his desk and tossed it at Ally, who dropped it on the floor. "Get us some pizza. Extra pepperoni."
And thus, both her and Austin were banished from the room.
"Uh, there's this place around the corner we could go to," Austin offered. "It's cheaper to pick it up in person than have it delivered."
They meandered down to Tim's Square Pizza, their conversation going from stilted pleasantries to probing questions to a genuinely interesting exchange. She had to admit, when he wasn't raging toward her best friend, Austin was a pretty decent guy; her stomach started to hurt from how often he made her laugh.
"You're lying. There is no way that Dez still believes in Santa," Ally managed between guffaw.
"I don't get it either!" Austin exclaimed, caught between hilarity and confusion. "Like, he taught himself how to play the entirety of the Zaliens soundtrack backwards just because he was bored, but he still absolutely believes that Santa is real."
"It just never occurred to him that his parents were lying to him?"
"Nope." Some of the mirth drained from Austin's voice. "But that's Dez. He always thinks the best of people, even when he shouldn't." And there was something very pointed in his words, something not entirely directed at the conversation they were having.
"Hey, I know that what Trish did wasn't great, but she's a good person," Ally argued. "She's just…defensive around people she doesn't know."
"Sorry, I didn't mean it like that." He looked down, absently kicking an empty water bottle down the street. "But...you guys got popular from my friend's song and then wouldn't even give him credit, and how am I supposed to know that this time will be any different?"
Unfortunately, he had a pretty good point.
"I get that," Ally said. "But I swear it won't happen again. I wouldn't have even made that video if I had known it would lead to all this."
"You wouldn't?" he asked surprise coloring his voice.
"No way. It might just be my stage fright, but I hate the idea of millions of people watching me like that." She shuddered. He looked at her curiously, but didn't say anything.
The conversation soon moved to lighter topics as they arrived at Tim's Square Pizza. The two of them opted to just split the cost of the food rather than use Dez's credit card and began the journey back. Ally's phone began to buzz with texts and she checked it hopefully; maybe Trish and Dez had written the song unusually quickly. Instead, she was met with one short, irate message from Trish.
i swear im this close to killing this clown
Well that was…foreboding.
"Who texted you?" Ally asked, glancing over at Austin who was also checking his phone.
"Dez," he answered. ""Please come back she's scaring me,"" Austin read. There was a pause. "We should probably get back there fast."
"Definitely."
After one long, stressful night filled with her and Austin playing mediator between Trish and Dez as they argued and wrote and then argued more, the song was finished just in time for Dez's mom to drive them over to the Helen Show. And perhaps if Ally was less physically and emotionally exhausted, she would have paid more attention to the paperwork all four of them had to sign. But she wasn't, so she didn't, and she was woefully unprepared for the surprising route Trish's interview took.
"The song was written by this idio- uh, guy I know, Dez, and the video was directed by my best friend, Ally Dawson," Trish was saying.
"Right. And both of them are backstage right now, aren't they?" Helen asked with a smile that could be mistaken for friendly.
"Uh, yeah." Confusion crossed over Trish's face.
"Well, let's bring them out here!"
And suddenly a stage hand was ushering her and Dez onstage and there were thousands of eyes looking at her and there were cameras everywhere and the spotlights were shining down on her, hot and unforgiving and had it always been this hard to get air into her lungs?
She took a step back, back to the comforting darkness and the familiarity of being unknown, and then a second step and then a third until her back hit something hard. The prop she had run into teetered dangerously one way and then the other before falling with a ear-shattering crash into another prop. The set fell like dominoes, each one making the yawning pit of humiliation in Ally's stomach grow ever deeper. Sparks flew and the audience ducked for cover until finally, silence. It was like everyone in the studio had collectively lost their ability to speak.
"Let's give it up for Ally Dawson everybody," Trish said weakly. Ally appreciated the effort.
No one made a sound.
Her hair found her way into her mouth and she wondered if her dad would pay for her to move to Iceland. At least the snow would help cool her burning cheeks.
"So, what now?" Dez asked as they reconvened in the parking lot. "Denny's?"
"I'm going home to sleep and then hopefully never seeing your face again," Trish answered. Dez shot her a look that Ally couldn't decide should be classified as a scowl or a pout.
"Wait," Austin said, holding out his hands. "What if we made this like…a thing?"
"What?" Trish and Dez asked in unison, and then donned identical looks of displeasure for their synchronicity.
"Dez, you're always saying that you care more about writing songs then performing them. Trish could be your performer!" Austin explained, eyes alight with excitement. "You write, she rocks, and Ally could make the videos!"
"Wait, what?" Ally said, wondering how she was getting dragged into this mess.
"Yeah!" Dez exclaimed, evidently over his trepidation and also ignoring her completely. "And you could be the manager!"
Austin laughed. "Dude, what?"
"You would be great at it! Remember when you got me that gig writing a jingle for that mattress store?"
"That was my parent's store, that doesn't count," Austin argued.
"I will need a manager," Trish said, apparently in on this plan as well and was Ally the only one who remembered that they were all virtually strangers? "Are you good with people? Can you do math?"
"Yes and yes," Dez answered for him.
"Great!" Trish said. "Austin, you're hired."
"But-" he started to protest.
"Dude," Dez interrupted. "If you already have a managing job, your parents might stop trying to make you work at their store."
Austin contemplated that. "Okay, I'm in."
And with that, three expectant faces turned toward her. There were a hundred thousand ways these could go wrong, each one worst than the last. There was no way this wasn't going to be a train wreck in some capacity.
Trish folded her hands into a begging motion and Dez followed suit. Austin made what she assumed were his best attempt at puppy-dog eyes. She sighed.
"I'm in."
They were clearly going to do this no matter what she said; might as well hold on for the ride.