A/N: Chapter Five, only one more chapter until the unpublished chapter is reached.

Enjoy,

Beth

xo

Chapter Five – Getting On Your Goat

Miley and Mandy were sat in her dressing room, Miley's cases sitting on the floor as she packed away all her favourite clothes and shoes into them. Mandy was sat by her computer reading the newest Seventeen magazine with all of the reader reactions to Miley's interview. Miley grimaced at her angrily, throwing things into the case in anger, unable to believe that she was actually reading it knowing that it was going to be all hate for her.

"What's got on your goat?" Mandy asked nonchalantly looking over the top of the magazine as Miley picked up several pairs of her chucks and threw them into her case without even looking.

Miley stood up straight. She'd been constantly angry since seeing the first image of her and Justin crying onto each other in his apartment. She placed her hands on her hips and painted on a smile so sarcastic it could be seen a mile away. She shook her head and nodded realising each and everything she could.

"My father hates me; my career is slowly and painfully going down the drain… I'm a 'slut'… everyone thinks I'm ten times worse than I actually am… I just broke up with another boyfriend…" she stopped and grinned so sarcastically it scared poor Mandy, "Oh and guess what? My crazy ass bipolar ex-boyfriend is out to get me!"

Mandy cringed slightly realising that she may have just asked the wrong question and put down the magazine that until that second when she saw the cover she hadn't realised it had Selena's face looking back at her with a perfect grin.

"Miley… sweetie… it's been ages and tonight you are jumping on your private jet ready for your concert at the MGM Grand!" She stood up walking to a still angry Miley and placed her hands on her shoulders, "You sold out another arena and you think people hate you…?"

Miley shrugged rolling her eyes, "Fine… just those very select few don't hate me…"

Mandy laughed and slapped her on the arm moving to sit on a comfier chair now that her ass was numb from the plastic one. Miley slumped down next to her suitcase and began placing everything tidier into its separate compartments. She scratched her head watching Mandy who was looking at the magazine intently staring at one page like it was amazing. It could only mean one thing…

"What ya looking at?"

Mandy jumped and turned the page quickly. She shook her head, "Nothing… nothing at all…"

Miley nodded and knew right away what she'd been looking at. She already knew the other places where pictures were strangely hidden of him in case anyone saw. Miley always left them where they were however. Talking about the ones who had spoiled them both was forbidden at anytime between the two of them. The pair of them were a taboo subject for the two young women and they always would be. However, lately Mandy had been loosening her eyes to her subject at hand and her face was slowly filling with more pain. Missing someone was a terrible thing, especially when they didn't want you. It was the worse kind of loss.

"You gonna be okay without me for three days, Schmands?" Miley mumbled looking at her Mandy, her inquisitive and thoughtful eyes staring up at her ceiling as she lay across the seat lazily.

Mandy nodded silently and smiled, "I'll call you every hour of the day…" she sighed absent-mindedly, "I won't have anything else to do… Teddy's practising in Florida for a week and we finished at the studio recording…"

Miley looked up at her and frowned, "Are you sure you don't want to come with us? There's room on the jet…"

Mandy shook her head, "I have dinner with Garret on Sunday. I can't miss it… I've been so busy lately he's getting so pissed at me for not seeing him all this time."

Miley nodded and shrugged her shoulders seeing her sad face, "You want to borrow something to wear?"

Mandy shook her head twirling her hair around her finger, "its okay… he's too scared to go out in public with me now that everyone knows who I am. He doesn't want the clueless ones thinking I'm dating him…" she sighed heavily, "We're getting take-out and watching a movie…"

Miley looked at her and pondered all the changes and events they had been through since the moment they met. They were once two fun loving girls who had nothing to do but have fun and harmlessly flirt with boys who wouldn't matter in the morning. Their minds were once obsessed with three simple things – boys, clothes and having fun. They were once reassured that the world was on their side by family and friends. Things were easier and things didn't want them down on their knees begging for mercy and the normal rites of passage. They were once able to drink coffee without the entire world knowing about it. They used to be free.

"Are you okay, Mandy?" Miley whispered curling into a ball on the floor and hugging her legs to her chest.

Mandy nodded and shrugged her shoulders, "I miss things how they used to be, Miles…" she admitted quietly, "I miss dancing with you on stage and playing hotel hide and go seek," she laughed, "I miss hotel breakfast buffets with the guys… taking everything we could because it was free…" Mandy shook her head and sat up quickly looking around at Miley, ignoring the smile on her face.

"What time is it?" she said completely ignoring her previous words and shaking her head, "I've got to head over to the studio and pick up my schedule for next week before they leave…"

Miley shook from her reverie and looked down to her watch, "It's almost noon… you're not leaving already are you? My jet doesn't leave till six… and I'm done packing…"

Mandy sighed and they both stood up in time, "I have to Miles… its work…" she wrapped her arms around Miley's tiny shoulders and squeezed her tightly as they did whenever they were to be separated for more than a few days. She wasn't going to see Mandy for a week and it always made her sad.

"I love you, Bud…" Miley whispered sadly.

Mandy giggled, "Go knock them out tiger…"

Miley was bored and she was tired. She hadn't been sleeping since the thirty or so 'photographers' had been camped outside her gated house twenty four hours a day seven days a week. She was scared to their intentions every time her gate open, the amount of flash that went off for her mother picking up the mail was obscene. It was like a thunderstorm as they boomed questions to her and gratefully flashed lights in her face. She thought that one might run in hurting her mother and try and break into their house in order to get pictures of her. If people could climb on the houses of celebrities, then she could get attacked by the paparazzi. Sometimes she thought she was too nice to them. Maybe one day it would be something that they laughed about as they sold pictures of her fighting them out of her kitchen door.

It wasn't only the fear that kept her from sleeping. It was also their constant chattering and ordering of take-out food. She was fed up of hearing scooters driving up her street in order to deliver something for them as they so gallantly waited for the subject of their wealthy desire.

Miley's phone went off and she was so happy to see it move she didn't even check the caller ID, she just answered the phone. Her mother always warned her to be careful, that anyone could call her and try and worm something out of her. Her calls were screened so heavily that sometimes it was even hard for her bosses to get into contact with her. It often got her in trouble.

"Hello?"

"Miles?"

She paused and tried to determine why the voice sounded so familiar. She frowned and ventured a wild guess, pretty sure she was correct. After the amount of times they had both called each other in the past, it was imprinted in her eardrums.

"Joe?"

"Hey crazy…" she could almost hear his pleased sigh.

She grinned. It was customary that they sent each other a weekly text message or an email because they were both so busy. It had been that way since the two month mark of their break-ups and they made a bond not to talk about what they usually always talked about. It got to that point that they only ever had an emails worth of interesting things to tell each other each week after that. It was different however, if they needed the support of someone who wasn't close because of something harder than average. They were always a phone call away.

"Hello Danger…" she giggled dropping down onto her bed, "I've already text messaged, emailed and seen you this week…" she paused with a grin, "Either I'm unable to live without or you want to talk about something…"

Joe giggled, "It's a mix of both," she smiled happily. She loved her surrogate second older brother, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine…"

Joe laughed, "That's very easy to believe Miles… real easy to believe you LIAR…" she laughed, "Tell me the truth you goober or I will have to come by and beat it outta you…"

Miley giggled and huffed out a sigh, "I'm fine… Justin went back to Nashville so I don't have to have that awkward first few weeks after breaking up with someone… which is a plus," she rolled her eyes, "My dad's not spoken to me since he left for tour… my mom's scared to leave our house in the morning and I'm pretty much screwed up in the head as to what I'm meant to do to make everything better…"

Joe sighed dramatically, "Well you always were slow…"

"Hey!" she whined, "I was smarter than the rest of you guys at school… you guys made spit-balls and hocked them at Linda…"

"She deserved it for making us do algebra…."

"Not in the back of the head…"

Joe giggled, "Or the ass…" Miley laughed joining him. She knew the climax of his reason for calling would soon be coming so she continued to laugh until the last possible second she could stop,

"Nick told me what happened…"

Miley took a tear stopping, anger-controlling inhalation of breath and put on her happy indifferent face, "Really? What was your reaction to the news? Did you tell him he was an ass and put him in the corner until he learnt his lesson…?"

"Kinda…" his voice raised a few octaves. She laughed at him knowingly and waited for the funny story of how many times Joe had slapped Nick around the back of the head and told him he was an ass. For as long as she'd known them, it was all he would ever do, no matter what he had done.

"I kinda punched him in the face…"

Miley stopped and let out a disbelieving laugh at his words. She would not believe it, "When?!"

"Yesterday…" he breathed, "He had to have it checked out cos they thought I'd broken it…"

"Did you?"

Joe sighed loftily, "Pretty much… they had to reset it. It wasn't too bad, but he felt it."

Miley paused and bit at her fingernails in habit, "Where was this?" Miley grabbed her laptop wondering if there were any pictures online yet. She'd been so busy she hadn't checked anything like she usually did, "I haven't heard about it yet…"

Joe giggled, "At the diner… at breakfast time…" she gasped and hurried clicking away at her computer, "They're on everything and everyone's speculating what it could possibly be about that I would want to hit Nick," she shook her head feeling slightly proud, "They seem to think that there's some love triangle going on between me, Nick and Selena… it fed fuel to the fire after Selena told everyone that she had been with Nick but they've broken up in some interview yesterday…"

Miley stopped and her face dropped, "Nick broke up with Selena?"

Joe paused and struggled for his words, "He said he just wanted to be friends apparently… he asked me all this weird stuff about real love and got all truthful about things…"

Miley gulped nervously and felt her blood run cold and her cheeks burn red. Her eyes began to water and she felt like an idiot, "What kind of things?"

Joe stopped and she checked her phone to see if he was gone. He was there but he was being incredibly quiet. He was obviously thinking… something that Joe didn't do very often.

"Will you meet me at Coffee Bean in like half an hour…?"

Miley groaned jumping up and checking out the front gate of the gradually increasing cloud of paparazzi that lined her abode, "I don't know if any car I have is strong enough to get through the great wall of sleazy assholes…"

"Oh, crap…" Joe clicked his tongue thoughtfully, "It's okay… I've got my SUV… I'll rev it up and scare the crap outta them… I'll be by in fifteen minutes…"

Miley sipped at her coffee, courtesy of Joe Jonas as they walked around Universal City Walk, the paparazzi following them from a distance while five security guards escorted them. Miley smiled at him as he smiled for the cameras every once in a while, wrapping his arm around Miley.

"Do you realise how many stories are going to circulate about you in an hour?" she whispered under her breath, kissing him on the cheek, "They're going to make up so much crap about this… and it'll all involve your brother…"

Joe shook his head, "I don't care… I'll blow as much smoke up those vermin's asses as I want if it means people will want to kick the crap outta Nick…"

Miley looked around at him in shock and shook her head. Joe and Nick were never usually this hostile towards each other, "What the heck did that boy do to get on your goat?"

Joe turned around to face her and looked at her sternly, "He told Mandy that I was seeing someone famous and that's why I broke up with her. The real reason was that he'd told me that Mandy was no good for me and she was a bad influence on everyone she met…"

Miley gawped at him. The list of offenses against Nick Jonas kept getting longer. She had no words to describe how angry she was at Nick all over again, not for herself, but for Mandy… the one who had been her rock, along with Joe when all of her issues happened. She was the one that pulled her out of her deep pool of depression she had been spiralling into. She was the one who visited her everyday to make sure she was okay and soon she started to forget. They started to forget together.

Now Nick had betrayed her. He had always been nice to her, laughing with her and talking to her as she was one of his equals. All this time he had been looking down on her like she was an idiot. He had been making fun of her, laughing at her and hurting her without her even knowing it. He had ruined her life and Mandy hadn't been the same since Joe told her he couldn't be with her. It was like a crash into a concrete floor. Now she just saw that he had been deceiving everyone and feeding them crap to keep them happy and complete his unknown evil plan.

Maybe he had been reading Othello and getting tips on blowing smoke up people's asses from Iago. Maybe he was just born that way… maybe he just really wanted everyone apart from him being unhappy and ruined. She had no clue whatsoever.

"Why would he do that?"

"I don't know…" Joe whispered, "But I need your help…"

Miley frowned. If he was going to ask her to go anywhere near his brother, either one of them… she would tell him wear he could stick it. She wanted nothing to do with his brothers, only him and little Frankie. She would always be kind to Joe, because he was loyal to her and had never stopped being her friend no matter how wrongly or badly his brother's treated her. But she would not help him step anywhere near Nick. If he was going to fall to his knees as hard as she did, he was going to do it of his own accord, the way he should. She would not get called names for his wrong doings yet again.

"I don't want anything to do with him, Joe…" she whispered with a casual shake of her head, "I never wanna see him again as long as I live… he's an asshole… and he makes me sick…"

"No… Miley…" he was quieter by the second, "I would never make you do that… Even I don't want to strip him of everything until he cries…"

"Boys don't cry…" she teased reminded of when she's made him cry on tour by flicking him hard between the eyes because he'd stole her lunch for the fifth time that week. He'd stated that boys don't cry… their eyes simply water.

Joe shrugged, "Men cry… and Nick's still a little boy…" Miley raised her eye brow. He's so been reading those poetry books she got him as a gift to help him with his song writing, "But I need you to help me with something else…"

"What?"

Joe scratched the back of his neck and shrugged. A smile crept at his lips and Miley narrowed her eyes at his coyness. This was going to be a good thing. That smile always meant good things.

"I want her back, Miles…" he whispered grinning, "She's still all I think about… I want her back and I wont' stop until I've got her…"

Miley grinned slapping him on the arm, "Then go get her, Danger…"

"That's where there is a problem…" he groaned, "She has a boyfriend… she won't answer my calls anymore… she hasn't since I told her I couldn't be with her… you need to tell her it was all Nick's imagination and that I love her, Miles…"

Miley shook her head and dragged him by the arm, continuing to walk, "What we need is to make a plan, Danger… and a good plan at that…"

TBC

xoxo