Disclaimer: See chapter 1
Warning: Noel and the guys all cuss a bit in this chapter, so if you take that offensively keep that in mind.
That night, the group of us had, what Jack called, a meeting in order to plot the murder of Noel's ex, Jared. Said meeting didn't actually consist of us plotting murder, rather it consisted of us finding any pictures of Jared and proceeding to draw things such as devil horns and other accessories of the type and then either cutting up the pictures or sending them through the paper shredder. Either one was equally as satisfying.
At that moment I was truly thankful for the rest of the band. Honestly, who else could I count on to help me defile and shred pictures of Jared while asking me over and over if they could kill him. To which I answered no, much to their disappointment.
I also occasionally had a few moments of letting the tears that were currently built up inside my chest run loose. I mean I really loved Jared, and for him to break up with me in the way he did, it just broke my heart. So naturally I wanted to burst into sobs, but seeing how that isn't part of who I am, I limited my urge to sob to just the occasional tear. The guys actually responded amazingly well to the tears. As I previously mentioned, the absence of panic attacks surprised me to no end. Whenever the tears cam the guys spent all of their energy in convincing me that I deserve better than a cheating asshole like Jared anyway, and that I would find the right person soon enough. Amazingly enough I even ended up letting a few tears loose on Zeke's shoulder as all the guys sat nearby telling me that everything would be fine. I saw a side of the guys I had never seen before. The "man hurt Noel, must protect her" side I suppose. God I loved these guys to death.
That night I decided to sleep at Adrian's apartment with the rest of the band, as I had done so many times before on Friday nights when practice ended at midnight…as it had done many times before. Practices often ended so late on Fridays that no one was willing to drive me home. My mom amazingly always let me stay. She always said and I quote, "Those boys have proved that they wouldn't hurt you, and that they would go out of their way to protect you, so occasionally spending the night at Adrian's is fine". My mom so totally rocked.
After a quick call to my mom assuring her that "Yes, I would be safe here, Adrian has an awesome alarm system" and "No, none of the guys are going to rape me while I sleep", and of course "Duh I'm coming home. Why would I want to run away with a bunch of guys like these? If I was going to run away with a group of guys they were going to be really hot guys". The last comment of course earning me a small chorus of protests and a few pillows aimed in my direction.
After a few more scattered assurances to my mom I finally hung up the phone and fell back on the armchair that I had long ago stated was mine, and everybody else had better keep off or they would die an early age.
"Your mom hard to shake off tonight?"
I looked over at Jack. "She seems convinced one of you is going to attempt to rape me. Which, now that I think on it is really weird, as she's never been all uptight like that before, but I guess she is in a bad mood tonight, what with my dad and all." My parents had separated two years ago and were currently filing for divorce; the whole situation was hard on everyone. I paused. "None of you are planning on raping me, right?"
"Drat, she found out our plans!" Zeke said, snapping his fingers as if he was disappointed.
"Ha ha. Very funny guys." I said sarcastically. "You all are real comedians." I said, getting up and stretching, and reaching for a black and red blanket that Adrian for some reason had on the floor. Adrian confused me sometimes. Such as the time when he, out of the blue, announced that we were going on a trip to Sydney, Australia, apparently to see kangaroos. Not that I was complaining. I got to go to Australia over winter vacation…not a bad deal.
Grabbing the blanket, I frowned when I noticed a slight resistance when I tried to pull it towards me. Blankets were not supposed to flat out refuse to move. Unless Adrian's blanket was possessed, which was actually a valid concern. I frowned even further when I pulled harder and the blanket still didn't move. I was definitely missing SOMETHING.
By this point I had been tugging at the stupid blanket for something like five minutes when I saw the one thing that possibly made me feel like the biggest idiot on the face of the earth.
The Phantom Blanket, as I had begun to call it in my head, was suddenly not such a phantom. Why was suddenly not so phantom, you ask? Well, you may not, but whatever. The other end of the blanket was being restrained by none other than Erick, who was happily holding the blanket down with his foot, obviously holding back laughter at my actions. Wow, did I feel stupid.
"Get off Erick." I mumbled, pulling the blanket.
"Magic word?"
I looked at him, confusion clearly written on my face. "Huh?"
"Magic word. What is it?" He asked slowly, as if he were explaining the concept of breathing to a three year old. Or Zeke.
I sent a death glare in his direction, to which he responded to by sending me a cheerful smile.
"Magic word, magic word…How about, now you fucker!" I yelled out the last line, pulling on the blanket once again in my vain attempt to pull it away from Erick.
Only this time it worked.
Erick, being the genius he is, realized that I would pull on the blanket really hard, and that if he let go while I was doing such, I would fly backwards.
Did I ever mention how much I despise Erick?
Lo and behold, the moment I used my full force to pull on the damned blanket, which by this point I was debating if I really wanted, Erick let go, sending me falling back into my armchair, the blanket landing on top of me.
"Thanks for saving me the trouble of walking back to my chair!" I said brightly.
"Anytime sweet, anytime." He said with a wink.
I muttered a few various curses in Erick's direction under my breath before curling up in the old, worn out chair, and burying myself in the blanket I had worked so hard to get.
"I" I paused here to be dramatic "Am going to sleep, now that I have retrieved my blanket!" I said, pointing a finger upwards for emphasis. Curling up tighter in the huge armchair, for once thankful for the fact that I was only five feet two inches and skinny, I muttered a muffled "goodnight" to all the guys, to which I got varying responses, but all of which basically meaning goodnight.
I vaguely heard Erick get up and softly announce that he was going to go out on Adrian's balcony for a smoke, and then he too, was going to go to sleep.
Erick's announcement that he was going outside for a smoke brought up old memories, as they always did, of the time I attempted to steal one of Erick's cigarettes.
It was a stupid idea.
It had been only a few months after I had met the guys, and being thirteen, I was slightly curious about what it would be like to smoke. I remember thinking to myself, well Erick smokes, and he looks cool while smoking, so I should try it.
Says the mind of one who has a) forgotten how much Erick bitches about how much he wishes he could quit smoking, as it was a horrible habit that he would stop one day, and b) lost their mind.
So I had planned on stealing one cigarette, and Erick's lighter, to just smoke one single cigarette, not thinking I would be caught.
I had always had shitty luck, and that time had been no different.
As fate may have it, just as I was taking the cigarette, Erick walked in, and had what could only be described as a moment of adultness. For about ten minutes Erick changed from a retarded eighteen year old to a responsible adult who was thoroughly pissed off.
I also learned at that moment that even if a person doesn't talk a lot, that doesn't mean they can't give one harsh as hell lecture.
So, from that day on, Erick and I had a pact. Erick didn't tell my mom of my little stunt; provided that I never take anything from him again, save for guitar picks, as I had a horrible tendency to loose mine. To take away my privileges to use his picks would be basically sentencing me to music death.
And thus far everything has worked out just fine.
I felt my eyelids getting heavier as I felt weariness finally take over. And I fell into the black oblivion of sleep.
I felt something on my head. That wasn't right. I also felt something digging into my back (which, unless Adrian's comfy chair has finally popped out a spring also wasn't right), and something that felt like wind. Lazily I brushed off whatever was on my forehead, not caring what it was, and turned over on my stomach, in the process of doing such, opening one of my eyes barely a little. What I saw was definitely not Adrian's living room. My eyes popped open and I shot up. This was really bad.
No longer was I lying on an armchair in a living room in an apartment building in San Diego. I was currently sitting up; wide awake in what looked like a forest of sorts, the other guys lying various distances away from me.
All of a sudden, very awake I looked around, nope, not in Adrian's apartment.
I silently wracked my brain with what to do. The first thing that came to mind was panic, but I quickly pushed that thought aside, promising my body that I would that after I did something more sensible.
Walking, crawling actually, over to Adrian, the single one of the guys I figured was most mature, I shook his shoulder wearily.
"Adrian? Wake up dude, we have a problem."
"Come back in four hours Noel."
"Adrian! We have a problem. A big problem." I said, getting more aggravated by the minute and shaking Adrian's shoulder more vigorously.
"Noel, if this is about your period I think you put some stuff in the bathroom cupboard. Now fuck off." He muttered as he rolled over, covering his head with the blanket that was wrapped around him. Adrian was of course referencing to the time I got my period at his apartment and was forced to ask one of the guys to drive me to CVS.
I sighed irritably. "It isn't about that!" I half yelled tugging the blanket off Adrian's head.
I heard Adrian sigh, and even though I knew his eyes were still shut he began talking. "You have exactly ten seconds to explain what's going on before I maim you."
I believed him completely. Adrian in the morning was not one to cross. "We aren't at your apartment anymore." I answered bluntly.
"And where might we be?" The amusement in Adrian's tone was obvious.
"In a stupid forest somewhere!"
"I just love your imagination Noel. So creative."
I scowled. "Open your eyes! We are not at your place!" I said the last sentence slowly but loudly.
I heard Adrian sigh again. "Fine." Adrian rolled over so he was facing where I was sitting, therefore allowing me to see the look of shock on Adrian's face when he opened his eyes and found that I wasn't lying. The look on Adrian's face was a total Kodak moment. If I wasn't about to go into a panic I would have laughed, but as it was, I actually was dangerously close to a panic attack.
"Told you so." I muttered.
"Oh man." I watched the guy, who was basically one of my older brothers, jump up abruptly and look around. "This is so bad."
"Duh." I responded with a roll of my eyes.
Adrian sent me a glare before speaking again. "Go wake up the other guys." I opened my mouth to protest, but was cut off by him. "Now, Noel." I glared at him and crossed my arms in front of my chest stubbornly, causing the dark haired man sigh. "Please Noel. Now is not the time to go into female protesting. Please." Adrian said that with an almost whining tone, which ultimately surprised me. Adrian never whined for any reason.
I pouted and trudged off to where the other guys were. I went through basically the same routine as I did with Adrian three more times. I shook the person, the person would tell me to go away, and then, of course, they would finally open their eyes (not until after I had annoyed them for a while of course) and proceed to freak out upon seeing that they were actually in a forest. It was like that every time. Finally I had gotten all the guys awake and sat down, leaning my back against a tree trunk.
I looked at all the other guys, seeing the various states of panic each of them were in. Adrian was freaked out totally about this, Erick was not saying much, but you could tell he was nervous, as he had lit a cigarette the moment he realized the situation we were in. One thing about Erick was that unless we were in a very bad situation he never smoked when he just gets up, he normally waits at least a few hours. It was when Erick started smoking not more than five minutes after getting up that I realized that we were in trouble. And of course last but not least were Jack and Zeke. Both of them were in their on little worlds looking around, each of them thinking their own thoughts. Zeke was drawing random designs in the dirt with a stick he had found, which also unnerved me. Zeke always doodles when he is deep in thought or covering up nervousness.
As I watched each of the guys I remembered the panic that was still running through my system. I remembered the promise I gave to my body that I would panic after doing something sensible.
I had done something sensible.
Now I could start to panic, especially when I realized that we were in the middle of a forest in Lord knows where, with no idea how to get home.
We were so screwed.
A/N: Hey Hey! Thanks to all that reviewed, it means a lot to me…
Ravyn-Spirit- Thank you so much for reviewing, it means a whole lot to me! I'll admit, the first time I saw a modern person in Middle Earth fic I thought it was pretty stupid too, but I got sucked in and now I'm writing one! J Hope you liked this chapter!
Moody- Hey! Thanks for the review; I really appreciate your input! I'm glad you don't think Noel is a Mary-Sue, I tried to make Noel a non-Mary Sue and I'm glad you think I achieved what I was trying to do! Hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Once again, thanks to my two reviewers, you all encourage me to continue. That being said, if you are reading this right now and you have yet to review, do so now! The next chapter will be up in a few weeks!
Much love,
Celebel
