Chapter Notes:

Well here we are again with a second chapter! I hope to fill this one with more cute and adorable moments!

Finding her Home:

Ash had just finished giving her song pitch to Eddie and Buster hoping they would like it. Buster because he had to make sure everything fit for the next show and just to get the director's advice and opinion. Eddie because he was always with Buster but also because he was the one in the theater responsible for all the special effects and she wanted him to be able to understand what her song was.

"Well it isn't horrible Ash, it's a really good start." Buster said trying to be a bit more optimistic for her. "But are you sure you want to stick with it?" He cringed slightly at hinting it wasn't something he would stick with.

"Oh I got an idea! Pick me!" Eddie shouted jumping up in his seat to get the other two's attention.

But it worked. "Yes Eddie?" Ash questioned unsure of where this was going to end up, but knowing Eddie it probably was going to be something interesting to say the least.

"What if you made your song backwards?" the sheep asked excitement clearly carrying his voice.

"What?"

"Eddie I don't think Ash sings backwards." Buster groaned from beside his friend.

"No no. Not sing it backwards, like think of it backwards." He tried to explain but it was clear that wasn't helping anything. "So like instead of writing your lyrics then playing the music and adding the effects last, what if you played music to match the effects and then came up with your song?!" he was clearly all for this idea and thought it was the greatest idea he had ever come up with.

Both the singer and director were quiet and thinking over with their friend had to say. "Well, I like it. It's like new modern stuff artists like right?" the koala asked getting an eager nod from Eddie, "Well what about you Ash, what do you say?" he turned the focus onto the rocker.

"Well I can give it a shot." She shrugged not knowing any other option that could work better than trying this new style out.

"Yes!" The idealist sheep exclaimed as he fist pumped the air above him. "You can even come stay out at my place if you want, I have all the stuff to practice your jam there." He offered.

Now that wasn't a bad idea to the rocker; if anything even just getting out of the house filled with screaming kids was going to be a good start for the teen. "Alright, I'll get my stuff and be over there tonight." She said hoping this would be a good change of pace.

She went backstage to ask Johnny if he would be able to take her, and while she felt bad about asking him for a ride she figured it would be better than lugging her stuff across the city on the lightrail. But Gunter had other thoughts in mind when he jumped out and scared her. "Surprise!" he shouted in his German accent as he flipped into a pose in front of her.

With a small scream he quills flared up to protect herself in her fright. "What was that for?!" she then shouted back at him while trying her best to calm her heart down so her quills weren't standing on end.

"I wanted to surprise you with this." He said dangling a key chain with a single key on it…as well as a miniature replica of the dancer in his red tights. The look on the rocker's face was extremely confused and borderline disgust; much like when Moon tried to get her in a pink dress. "It's my apartment key." He smiled widely while showing her the little figure on the chain.

"Yeah I guessed that's what it was. But I'm okay. Thanks." Ash tried to say as nicely as she could. It wasn't that she didn't like Gunter, he was funny and always brought the party and flare, but party and flare just wasn't her thing. Making her way passed the pot belly pig she found Johnny upstairs. "Hey Johnny you got a sec?" she asked while he finished danced his fingers across the keys.

The pianist stopped the song hearing his friend at the door, "yeah, what's up?"

"Mind helping me take my stuff over to Eddie's today?" again, she didn't like the idea of using him as a ride all the time but she didn't want to make Rosita drive her; and she wasn't even sure if Eddie knew how to drive.

"Oh sure thing." The British accented singing said with a smile. It really wasn't a problem for him, and besides driving around was up there on his list of things he enjoyed doing; and doing it with a friend only made it more enjoyable.

After the theater was done practicing Johnny drove his fellow singer down to Rosita's house so she can grab her things. On the way she told Johnny all the wonderful tails of the screaming kids. She could only grin at the unpleasant look on his face knowing that he was going to have to watch the kids alone some time in the near future.

They stopped in really quick to say thanks to Rosita as she grabbed her luggage, and for Johnny it was more of a peak into what he was going to face soon. Without asking for help the larger animal took the cases from Ash and out to the truck. "Don't worry it's not heavy." He said when she made to protest. "Is this everything?"

"Yeah that's all I brought. Sorry my clothes aren't as heavy as your's are greaser." She said sarcastically before saying another big thanks to Rosita for everything and a final goodbye to all the piglets. "Well you looking forward to babysitting? I mean you did lose." The prickly teen said poking at her gorilla friend; both literally and metaphorically.

"Oh yeah, definitely." He rolled his eyes at her in response. It wasn't like he didn't want to help out their family mom, it's just he had never really been good with kids. The drove through the city listening to either his music player when they came to a red light.

As they were stopped there a red sports car pulled up on Johnny's side, the bright color and sleek design caught his attention right away as he admired the fast vehicle; and then they revved their engine. "Uh-oh, you gonna lose again Johnny?" Ash taunted from beside him.

But both of them were left with their mouths hanging open when they saw the black tinted window rolling down, and much to their shocking surprise was a three toed sloth. "You…wanna…race…?" they heard him say slowly like in the way that all the sloths talked.

The pointy singer started laughing at the challenge that she jumped at it. "You're on!" she yelled over Johnny's protest. "What, he's a sloth. There's no way you can lose to him." she tried to reason him and it was enough to win him over.

"Alright fine." He rolled his eyes, but he did love the idea of a good race. He revved his engine in response accepting the sloth's challenge who smiled and rolled up his window. When the light flashed green Johnny didn't even put his foot to the floor by the time the red car was just a small blur in the distant street before they saw sirens chasing after it.

The passenger couldn't stop herself from laughing at her driver's shocked expression as he decided to turn down another way to avoid the police. It wasn't a long drive after that down to Eddie's place, but it was quite after the cop sirens.

"Thank's for the lift Johnny." Ash said as he got her things out of the bed and onto the curb next to her and Eddie who came out to meet them at the gate to his family's estate. With a wave he left the two of them there to get Ash situated.

Eddie was nice enough to offer up his place for her, but unlike Johnny he wasn't nice enough to help her carry; and instead left her trying to take both her bags and guitar case all the way from the gate to the house and up the stairs to a guest room. "Yeah you can stay in here, it's a gust room so I don't think my folks will mind." He said nonchalantly as he was tapping away at his phone.

"You mean you didn't tell them?" she glared at him for surprising her with this bit of information once she already brought her stuff up.

"Well I mean like, I can text them I guess." He shrugged. "They're not really around so I don't think they would notice. But I'll tell the butler. Eddie explained as he scratched the back of his head. In honesty he didn't even know when they had left let alone when they would even be back. However he remembered that his life coach mentioned something about them going somewhere, well he thought he remembered.

After Ash set her stuff up in her borrowed room she met Eddie down at his pool house where he stays apparently. For her it was safe to say that this new way of coming up with a song was definitely interesting. Ash tried playing cords to match the dance of lights that Eddie was making with his grid set he had going on that controlled the special LED lights overhead that he put in after the first show they put on.

But just when she would get a good rhythm with the lights they would completely change pace and color, and at one point they were all just flashing randomly. The rocker was definitely getting some new ideas, but the biggest idea was to pull the plug on the sheep's keyboard for giving her such a headache. And once she had enough she ended out doing just that.

"THAT WAS AWESOME!" he shouted at the top of his lungs when everything went completely black. He flipped the regular lights on so they could see each other and that's when Ash finally saw his bulky soundproof headset he had on. He took them off and she could hear the techno pop music blaring in them. "Wasn't that great?" he asked with a smile proud as can be at his light show.

"Oh yeah, it was something." The song writer couldn't help but groan those words. "Hey I'm going to bed so I'll see you tomorrow at practice." She said as she left saw her shadow dance with color at Eddie plugging his panel back in and going to town with the buttons.

She kept her regular routine for two days of going to rehearsal and hanging out for a bit before coming back to Eddie's place for the night. And for those two days she never saw Eddie again, she looked for him at the pool house once or twice but no sign of him, just chips and drinks all over the floor sitting in front of some racing game running its intro on a loop. 'And I thought Lance was a slob.' The rocker was reminded of her ex when she saw the mess.

When she would practice her playing she could actually hear the cords, but she couldn't hear the music and feeling behind them; all she heard was the echo bouncing around the empty house. The mentioned butler was never seen either, she never heard anything other than her own voice calling out to see if she really was alone in the world as she felt.

It was the third day when she couldn't take it anymore, she went to look for Eddie at his house to tell him she was leaving but again, no sheep was there to care. So not knowing what else to really do she left a note on the sofa saying she was headed out and she went back to pack her stuff up. "Hey Johnny are you busy?" she asked when he picked up the phone, it was just an hour or so after they all left the theater but she wasn't sure if he already had plans.

"No why are you alrigh'?" the accent came out even thicker over the phone that it did in person. Hearing one of her friends worried about her was slightly touching considering how isolated she felt the past several days 'rooming' with Eddie.

"Yeah just was wondering if you wouldn't mind if I hang out at your place for a while?" Ash felt awkward in asking him the favor, not for what it was but because she usually never asked for things like this; in fact the more she thought about it the more that it seemed like she never really asked favors from anyone.

"Oh, sure thing. I'll swing by for you at eight when the garage closes?" Johnny asked more so than told. A few more hours alone wouldn't kill her and she didn't want to make him close early so of course she agreed, and with that she hung up the call.

Looking around at everything in the room made the rocker bored in the first few minutes. She already packed her stuff and even did her best to clean the room up to how it was when she found it. But she still had about two hours to go before Johnny would be closing up shop. Just as she was about to give up and flopped onto her stomach and just wait for Johnny her phone blared in her pocket.

"Hi Ash." She heard Meena's voice call cheerfully tone. And like that Ash's boredom seemed to slip away.

"Hey Meena." Ash smiled back glad that she wasn't alone anymore. Technically she still was just as alone as she was, but with the voice of her fellow singer reaching her, the room seemed a bit warmer and the air a bit lighter. But when she heard Meena giggling she paused wondering what made her laugh. "What is it?"

"No nothing, I just liked the way you said my name is all." The blush on Meena's cheeks could practically be heard across the line, and that sound Ash found cute, and for a while they just talked about nothing. "So what are you up to?" the elephant asked with a smile as she lay on her back in her room.

Ash had settled on the fluffy sheet laying on her side, "I'm just waiting till Johnny can come get me. He said I can stay with him for a while."

"Ohhh." Ash heard through the phone, but she couldn't tell if the hurt in her friend's voice was something she imagined or not. "Did you not like staying with Eddie?" Meena asked a bit more upbeat than before but now the smaller girl could definitely tell something was off.

But hearing the question made Ash huff. "Stay with Eddie? I never even saw him, I don't even know when he is home." Again she heard the innocent giggle bubble up from the other girl, and that's when she started to realize that sound was bringing a smile pulling up at her lips.

However that happiness the both of them shared quickly faltered and slipped away into a heavy silence. "How long are you staying with Johnny?" she asked breaking the silence with despair as she sat up to take a drink of her soda.

Ash however didn't respond right away, and in her pause it clicked instantly for her. "Meena do you have a crush on Johnny?" she asked knowingly.

The next sound Ash heard was Meena spitting out her soda before coughing on whatever drink slipped down the wrong pipe. "NO!" she yelled through her coughing fit that Ash directly caused.

"It's okay if you do Meena. He would be lucky to have you." She said trying to encourage Meena knowing that she was very shy and would need a little push to make that leap of faith. The elephant couldn't help but blush hard at the compliment, because it wasn't Johnny that she liked it was- "Oh hey Johnny texted me saying that he's outside. I'll put in a good word for you with him." she said before hanging up suddenly leaving her friend panicking.

"Hey thanks again for all this Johnny." Ash said honestly to her friend who once again took her bags without even asking and loaded them up in the truck while she got in. The only thing she was getting tired of with the small struggle she had to go through to climb up or down from the seat.

"Is' nothin' really." The driver dismissed her comment thinking of it as nothing more than helping out one of his friends, which was exactly what he was doing. After the both buckled Johnny put the car in drive and they were on their way. It was always so peaceful around this time of day, not to many cars out on the road but a lot of people going for a stroll in the breeze.

With Johnny resting on his open window he heard a car pulling up to them at the light, and he didn't think anything of it until he saw the bulky massive body of the vehicle. "Hey kid, you wouldn't happen to see any street racing going on have you?" a cool and neutral voice called past the gap in their cars.

"Why do you wanna lose?..." Ash jumped at the chance to challenge them, maybe it was her that liked racing instead of Johnny. But both teens stopped dead in whatever they were going to say next when the saw the tank like body of the new generation police cars with two officers in blue looking right at them.

"Ignore her officers, she's just hyper." Johnny tried to fix the situation as he tried pushing Ash back into her seat, which luckily she didn't fight against.

But the officers shared a look between the two of them, the gorilla and porcupine matched the description given to them by the sloth driving the sports car a few days ago. "Well Carrots, it's your call." Johnny heard the fox officer sitting in passenger seat say to the bunny driving. He had heard about these two new cops and his dad and uncles absolutely hated them. His family all said these cops meant bad news for the gang because they were busting crime scenes left and right.

"Johnny I-I'm sorry I-" Ash got wide eyed at hearing what the officer had said. She never meant to get her friend in trouble and certainly not arrested. But that same friend was the one who stopped her from going any further in her apology.

"Ash don't worry nothing is going to happen." He said whispering to her as he rolled up her window. He was hoping that he would just be able to talk them out of making it serious, it's not like they ever saw him speeding or else they would have pulled him over right away, well that's what he hoped.

Right up until the moment the bunny behind the wheel flipped the lights on above their car. "Alright kid you know what to do." The predator in the passenger seat said in a more serious tone of voice.

"Johnny?" his friend beside him was getting worried even more now.

The gorilla sighed and put his head on the wheel defeatedly, and just as he was about to flip his blinker to pull over the sound of a railroad crossing bell went off giving him an idea. He looked up seeing the red warning lights start flashing just a couple streets ahead. "I can make it." He said low with confidence filling his voice.

No later than that moment he slammed his foot down sending the car zooming down the road. He heard the roar of the police car as the fishtailed out of the red light that he just ran and gave chase with their lights and sirens blaring. "Johnny!" Ash could barely even scream his name as she was pressed against her seat by the force of his driving; she was terrified and excited all at the safe time.

"Hold one!" he shouted over the engine kicking into the next gear as he shifted the gears. They were racing towards the closing arms of the light rail. Just as the arm was almost closed all the way he shot underneath it as it clipped the back of the truck bed, but they made it though and from the sirens getting covered over by the train horn he knew those officers didn't.

"That was amazing!" Ash said as the both let out a breath they didn't know they were holding. "Johnny where did you learn to do that?!" her voice still shouting from the adrenaline pumping through her veins.

The speed racer smiled wearily at his buzzing friend next to him. "My dad was teachin' me a while ago with my uncle Berry." He said chuckling nervously at the memory of almost running over his dad as well as his driving during the heist incident. The black truck was filled with an occasional chuckle all the way back.

During the rest of the ride Johnny made sure to not stay on the same street for too long as he zig-zagged his way through the buildings on the way to his garage. After making sure the coast was clear he pulled into the shop and closed the large bay door quickly. "Well, this is the garage area, but we have our rooms upstairs." He said as he got her stuff from the bed. He grimaced a little when he saw the scratches the the safety arm left when he jumped the track, but hopefully he could buff them out.

As Ash climbed down from the truck she started to pick up on the smell of the car shop. It was a mixture of rubber, grease, oil, and a few other car related smells that were all lingering around the building. But she was hopeful that this small place with no surplus of kids was going to be better for her style.

"We don't really have a guest room or anything but the couch is comfortable." Johnny said scratching the back of his head embarrassed, that was probably something he should have mentioned before bringing her all the was across town. "And if you need somewhere to practice, that room in the corner is soundproof." The gorilla said with a gesture at the mentioned space, he hasn't personally been in there in a while but he remembered when his dad locked uncle Berry inside for a good laugh.

After taking her stuff upstairs and showing her around a bit he got her some clean blankets to use at night. When he can back she was looking over a newspaper left on the arm of the couch. "Johnny is this your dad?!" her quills pricked up slightly from her shock as she read over the article mentioning the gorilla gang being caught stealing a shipment of gold. "I thought you said your family was caught up with busyness stuff?" she asked looking up at him and showing him the page.

"Well it's uh-it's a family business." Johnny was getting nervous with what his friend might think. He hadn't told any of the others what his family really did, he had gone to Rosita for some help but even she didn't know the truth.

"You're family runs a gang?!" her shock was becoming prominent.

"No! Well kinda. The gang is just our family; my dad and his brothers." He admitted sheepishly at her reaction. "They started teaching me to be the getaway driver when the auditions started, but on the last heist I came to the theater and they got caught." The larger animal slouched his shoulders slightly, "I never wanted to be in the gang, I just wanted to make him proud for once."

Ash heard that last statement even though it didn't seem like it was meant for her because it was mumbled under his breath. She thought about it for a second and He never hurt anyone as far as she had seen, never got angry at any of them, and he was always just trying to help. He really wasn't a bad guy, and besides if and innocent girl like Meena liked him then he couldn't be that bad.

Not wanting to push the topic too far Ash didn't ask to many personal questions but that didn't mean she was still curious about this new light Johnny was painted in. Whenever something came up about his family's illegal business she would skirt around the topic a it before asking anyways,

The things she learned was that their gang didn't go out mugging people on the street mugging people, or at least they didn't anymore. From the sounds of it Johnny's dad used to be a lot more ruthless before having a family of his own, after that he and his uncles only robbed from big business. Along with that the soundproof room was really just used for calls, but before Johnny was born…that was another story.

Ash had finally managed to make some progress and was building the groundwork for a song she would be able to go with all the way. However most of the time the progress came from in the quiet room, not so she could focus, so that she could light enough scented candles to get rid of the horrible auto shop smell. Headaches caused by the fumes started to become a major hassle after the first couple of days. Johnny though was making a huge effort to make sure she was comfortable with having a shop fan blowing air about of the window.

Along with that he was listening to her practice and giving her his thoughts whenever she would ask how things were coming together. But there was one thing she hadn't been doing this whole time; looking too see about getting a new apartment. Sure she didn't mind how nice Johnny was or them hanging out with Meena a lot more before and after practice. The thing that she did mind however was the ever present and looming stench, and that was usually keeping her from checking out the ads she had saved from Rosita.

"Got another headache Ash?" he asked as he came up from closing for the night and saw her on the couch rubbing her temples.

"Yeah." She groaned from the throbbing behind her eyes. This one was pretty bad compared to how they normally were. The past few days she had been taking longer showers just to clear the smell from her head, Ash knew it wasn't Johnny's fault or anything but she wasn't used to any of it like he was; in fact he even said he liked the smell of the garage.

She heard him leave and a minute later came back and tapped her shoulder gentle. "Come on, you need to take some medicine." He pestered holding out a glass of water and a bottle of headache relief.

'No wonder Meena likes you.' The porcupine thought to herself as she took the water and bottle from her friend. Due to the difference in size between them Johnny had gone out one night to the nearest corner store and picked up a bottle meant for small animals rather than medium ones. If only all guys were as sweet and caring as him, then maybe people wouldn't need to pack up their lives and find somewhere new to live.

"Hey have you thought about staying with Meena?" Johnny asked thinking that maybe Ash being here for too much longer would be good for her. "I mean unless you want to try staying with Mike or Gunter." He added in with a smirk just wanting to see what she was going to say.

"And get eaten alive by the mob no thanks." She scoffed at the first name. "Hey…has your family ever had a run in with the bears?" now was one of those times when her curiosity was getting the best of her and she couldn't help but to ask the question. "You know what don't answer." She waved the question away not wanting to put him on the spot.

While he didn't actually know about any thing about the bears with them working different turfs, but he was glad that he didn't have to answer. "Well what about Gunter? I'm sure nobody hates him." The british accented gorilla asked.

In response Ash pulled out her phone and showed a video that Gunter sent to her. At first it was him waving at the camera trying to convince her that she should come to stay with him. "Is that a pole?!" he asked seeing the silver beam glinting in the background.

"Yeah, Polercise. Not my thing." She said disgusted at the thought of any of Gunter's exercise activities and let alone the outfits.

"What about Meena?"

Ash froze at his suggestion; and she didn't know why. "No I can't." she said shortly. "Meena's an innocent girl, I don't want them to think I'm rubbing off on her. You know, punk-rock girl and all." She said gesturing to her dark clothing.

The larger gorilla huffed, she was making this difficult without even knowing. "Are you kidding? Her grandpa said you were his favorite part besides Meena." He wasn't sure if it was true exactly but Rosita said that the rock song was an amazing hit.

"You're just trying to get rid of me." She smirked at him. After that he turned off the lights to help her headache and went off to listen to his playlist before heading off to bed himself. As the little rocker drifted off to bed she herself had a lot to think about; either stay with Johnny in the garage or hope that Meena's family wouldn't mind taking her in for a while.

Author's Notes:

Well that was a nice fluffy chapter, what did everyone think? Let me know in the reviews. Mhhh it looks like we have one more roommate to go, I wonder what will happen. I wonder where this blooming relationship between Ash and Johnny is going? ;)

So if you have any requests or prompts send me a message and we can get things going!

Until next time!~