Song: Break Down The Walls

(To the best of my Googling, this is how it went down. Roughly.)

It takes several laps around the lot before Dez finds a parking spot. A good one too, nice and close to the mall entrance. Which is fortunate because, unlike Austin, he is wearing sandals and probably can't successfully sprint from here to Sonic Boom.

Which is unfortunate, because that gives Ally even more time to maim the future star. Possibly.

Dez practically throws his car in park and nearly flops completely onto the asphalt in his haste to exit it. The fleshy side of his foot touches the curb and is seared to- it feels like- a rare pink. The redhead yelps but maintains his senses well enough to use his key fob to lock the doors as he hustles away. The walkways are crowded with the post-lunch crowd. The heat motivates them to keep moving and lessens their patience and understanding for those who aren't.

Or those who accidentally bump into them. Some guy bellows a fussy threat after him when he only sort of crashes into the guy. Just shoulders. Dez might have stepped on his foot, too. Might have.

He barrels headlong into Sonic Boom. Out of breath, face even more red than his hair, and seeing spots in his vision. Occasioned by the change in lighting, he thinks, from stark sunlight to much duller artificial ones. Blue eyes reel and sting in his skull. Dez blinks and squints hard. His sinuses hurt.

"Um, are you okay?" Ally is at the register. A mix of mild horror and confusion widen her eyes. Dark, dark brown. Much more so than Austin's. They're striking, especially paired with the dark eyebrows and reams of wavy suitable to be cast in something. The role remains to be seen. Or written, he supposes.

She blinks. Austin does too. He's leaning on bent arms against the side of the counter. Elbows angled on the edge of the surface, hands frozen mid-pat.

"It's so hot," he wheezes, still coming down from his previous panic. "And I kind of thought you were going to kill him. Or at least bite his head off like a Chomper in the Zaliens/Morphis crossover film."

"She can't even reach my shoulders," Austin waves off the concern.

"That only means I have to lop you off at the shins first," she shoots back, then pivots to Dez. She looks him over, unsure but still concerned, "um, do you want some water?"

"Wha- why does he get water and I don't?" The blond doesn't so much as move to stand up and away from the side of the counter he is leaning against, but his head swivels to follow the songwriter. Dez tilts his as she starts heading up the stairs.

"Because you get a song, Austin."

But both boys are thrilled when she returns with three water bottles. "Hey Dez, can I ask you a question?"

The water is cool. Not cold, but cool enough to be exceptionally refreshing after all the rushing around he's done in the past few hours. He nods, but continues drinking deeply. Throws in a thumbs-up for double confirmation.

"What was that with you and Trish? Back at his," she nods her head in the blond's direction, "house?"

The redhead downs all of his water and coughs. Ally raises an eyebrow at him and Austin just snorts and shakes his head. "That? Well." He shifts from foot to foot, hesitant, "um, we sort of worked together? Sort of? On the school broadcast."

"Right, Marino High News," she nods, "I'm familiar."

"And we were trying to come up with some new bits to fill in the time from that old segment they cut- what was it?"

"On The Margins."

"Right! Yeah, that one with the books and whatever, boring," Dez watches Ally's face fall a little and momentarily considers retracting the statement, but then opts not to. It was voted off for a reason. "Um, anyway, we got into a disagreement."

"Sounded worse than that, dude," Austin interjects. "Like, you guys were at each other's throats."

He stamps his foot. "Well! If she just would have participated in my fruit story, I wouldn't have needed to jugs of orange juice concentrate to mix into kegs-"

"Oh my God!" Ally exclaims, standing completely upright and nearly dropping her water bottle. "You're Annoying Orange?"

Dez pouts. "She ruined my old camera!"

"You doused her and all her stuff in orange syrup."

"Huh," Austin shifts on his arms to cross them. "You know what? This makes me miss public school even more."

Dad will be pleased to see Austin again.

As loathe as she is to face that fact, Ally hopes that means he will be forgiving of her need to take the rest of the day off. The future popstar is impatient and pacing- as she thinks she would be, in his shoes- and she isn't sure how to write a song under pressure. How to make something that sounds like Austin Moon when she barely even knows him. This time, she won't have a pre-built skeleton to add meat and muscle to.

But she will have the performer and that has to count for something. Right?

It better.

While they wait, she skims through her Book to find inspiration and/or lyrics she can use. Dez shuffles around the store to silently gaze at instruments and occasionally grab a random item off a peg hook or shelf to examine them before putting them back. Austin gravitates towards the grand piano- the big, beautiful grand she has been trying to sell for a couple months now. He eyes it like the drums. Hands fidgeting, fingers already in motion.

Then peers over his shoulder to see if she is watching. Their eyes meet and he grins. "Can I?"

"No."

"But-"

"I have to sell that. This is a store, you know." She returns to tapping her pen on the corner of a plank page and worrying. As usual. "I can't have you making a mess of my merchandise."

"My hands are clean, thank you very much, and I'm an excellent piano player."

"Pianist."

Dez guffaws. "Nice! My turn, Pe-"

The doors open with a chime. He closes his mouth so quickly she hears the sound of his teeth muffled by closed lips. Then, writes that down as a concept. Something to be mined- possibly- later. Dad is visibly surprised. "Oh, hey boys."

"Mister Dawson, can I please play the piano?"

"Real mature," Ally mutters pinching the bridge of her nose, "going over my head to my father for permission."

"You play," Dad is, of course, thrilled. He always is. She got a lot from Mom but the love of music is all Dawson. "I had no idea."

Austin beams, pleased with himself. She half expects him to say something insufferable like, "what can I say but I'm just that good," or "well, I'm a born musician." Instead he answers with, "I haven't been able to for a little bit. Piano was the first instrument I learned to actually play."

Dez interjects with, "it's true. He used to try and convince us that he could play guitar but he would only pick one string and-"

"Gee, thanks dude." The boy in question's voice drips sarcasm.

"Don't mention it, buddy." Ally isn't sure if Dez didn't notice, or if he does and meant to harass his bestfriend. She laughs regardless. Both possibilities amusing.

"Well, play us something," Dad gestures to the piano. "It took my daughter a long time to learn, too."

Which is true. Ally hadn't wanted to play piano at all. She had a greater affinity for instruments that could be carried. Ones that didn't immediately swallow her little child form wholly and require her to sit on books on top of a bench. But Dad was always insistent and she humored him. Until her parents got divorced and suddenly she had way too much time to figure out how to not be home.

Suddenly, lugging around an electric keyboard wasn't so bad. Especially because the De La Rosa household was endlessly entertained by what she could play and motivated her to learn more.

There's a lot from the Dawson's old house that they had to be rid of. The standing piano is the one she feels most guilty about. For Dad's sake, she hopes it is making another family happy.

Her tapping pen leaves inky blemishes on the page. Austin plays the jaunty opening notes of Heart and Soul. Equally surprising and predictable. Somehow.

She can wait to ask him for the remainder of the day off and possibly access to the store after hours, if need be. For now, Ally is willing to let him enjoy the music. Even if Dez's shimmying-jive is testing her focus enough that she has to use her hand like a visor over her eyebrows to block it out. But his feet make an interesting beat.

They're so fucked.

Trish wakes to a light... noise of some kind.

She pulls her eye mask off and blinks up at the ceiling. Pink lights shift and stretch across the mildly glossy reflection like a meek aurora borealis. She strains to listen and hears it again. A sharp clack. Like something hard against-

A window. Trish sits up and turns to face it. Her LED light display works inside, but it makes the shadows deeper, the outside darker. A square of pitch black meets her gaze. "Oh hell no-"

"Trish. Trish." Clack. "Trish."

Allison Redacted Dawson. She is a dead girl. With an irritable huff, Trish checks the time, sees that it is much too damn early for this, and slides out of bed. Trepidation still lingers as she makes her way to the window, however. Some irrational fear of a shape-stealing creature lurking behind the pane or a human being playing recordings while lying in wait under the sill. Too many horror movies, probably.

Still, Trish opens the window anyway. Cool air blasts her fingers and across her torso. "Jesus-fucking-Christ. Allison, you better have a damn good reason to wake me up."

It takes her a second to spot her friend's silhouette, huddled and crouched low by the fence. Like some kind of cryptid that kills via chain email. "They're tearing up the pond."

"Yes. And?"

A beat of silence before Ally raises something over her head with both hands. Like a slim, upside-down V. "Let's go on a rescue mission."

For the damn goose. "Pickles?"

"Yeah. They'll kill him, Trish. He's just- he's a domestic goose, he can't just fly away and live somewhere else. It doesn't work like that."

Those are bolt cutters, Trish concludes. Or some other instrument to get them past all the fencing and locks. Trish is delighted by her friend's reckless display of well-meant rebellion. Enough to say, "give me five minutes to get pants on and find shoes."

"Close-toe," Ally whisper-yells. Concerned and thinking ahead, in her usual fashion. "So your feet don't get injured."

Oh, but tracking the IP of one of 305's It Boys is suddenly illegal? So it was cool to break and enter into an active construction site to steal a goose, but not into the Moon residence to go rough up one of the residents? Trish was and is not pleased that Ally just let the little sneak off the hook.

She will never forget the horrified expression on her friend's face as she opened the front door of the home and merely walked in. Such a classic. "Trish," Ally hissed through her teeth, "we can't-"

Especially when she had to search for blondie. Ally's mortified whispering following all the way up the stairs where bedrooms often are. IP address tracking got her the physical home address, but couldn't tell Trish which of these doors hid Idiot Number 1. Now she knows. His is the second on the left, across the hall from a bathroom.

Trish takes the lack of cars in the driveway, the door being closed and locked, and the windows shuttered to mean Austin was not home yet. Still either at The Helen Show or with... whatever people shuttle him to and fro. With a frustrated huff she gets back in her car and reverses back to the street. "Oh I got something for your ass, Moon," she declares to herself.

Ally is sometimes enigmatic and strange. She means that from the deepest, loveliest part of her heart. Even for as long as the girls have known each other, sometimes Trish is confused and confounded by her bestfriend's choices and behaviors.

Like, letting Austin use the song.

Her reasoning- as best as Trish understands- is that she didn't write all of the song. Just the lyrics and some of the arrangement that Austin ultimately couldn't use, because he didn't have access to her sacred fucking Book to know how she changed it. Ally called it a wash and rolled her eyes at every suggestion of getting even with the little thieving popstar.

But now she is desperately curious to know what she thinks of his appearance on the Helen Show.

The Miami Mall isn't far from the Moon's house. Trish gets there in record (probably) time and pulls into the employee parking lot. It might be a rare day in her break she isn't employed somewhere in the mall, but security doesn't need to know. The security dweeb in his sweltering booth recognizes her and waves her in.

Lester is pretty fun.

And shockingly lenient.

Neither trait had been passed on to Ally. Austin is surprised when she reluctantly tells her father she has to take the remainder of the day off to help Austin write his next song. The man shrugs and agrees. She unclips her nametag from her shirt and fetches some notebooks from the drawer under the register. He waits patiently while she informs her father of all the transactions and happenings while he was out. "Thanks, Mister Dawson."

"No problem." He shrugs, "the chances of making it in the music industry is, like, a million to one. Don't need me standing in the way, too."

The teen is not sure what the statement has to do with anything. Then wonders if Mister Dawson knows his parents somehow. His dad especially. Austin thinks better of asking for clarification. Deciding to, for once, quit while he is ahead.

"Ally!" The doors slam open. The teens jump. Lester is remarkably unaffected.

"Trish, we talked about that."

"Sorry, Mister D," the girl says, then narrows her eyes at Austin. He winces, and shuffles to get a little bit more behind Ally. "You."

"Oh, this is what Kira means by karma," he mutters and ducks to fully hide behind the much shorter girl.

"Woah, woah, woah," Ally waves her arms over her head. "That's enough from both of you-"

"Both," Trish squawks, "I'm not the one who-"

"I'll tell you about it later," Ally says. Her voice at regular speaking volume despite the shouting from her bestfriend and the grumbling from the future star using her like a human shield. Or hiding like a shy child might hide behind their mother at the bank. Or post office. Not that Austin would know.

"Oh and I suppose y'all let anybody in here," Trish notices Dez and focuses her energy him. Turning her body to face him. "What is happening in our lives?"

"Improvements," the redhead retorts, "since you lack artistic vision-"

"-my vision is fine. Your braincells on the other hand-"

"We should go," Ally nudges Austin with her elbow. "Upstairs, if you remember."

He nods and ignores the joke. "Race you."

Ally lets Austin beat her up the stairs and through the door to the room. It would not be safe to try and cram both their bodies between the rails and, honestly, she has no real interest in the exertion. She's actually exhausted, her usual state, but more so than usual.

Doctor Ansley says her bloodwork came back above average in all the ways that are positive. They damn well better. Ally has gone out of her way to eat well and get all kinds of exercise to help boost her health. It's about time she gets back good news.

Austin dashes ahead and practically throws himself onto the rickety bench that, in turn, nearly throws him to the floor. For all of his seemingly cool, easy charisma, she has never seen a guy's eyes go quite as wide as often as his. Ever. She nudges the door shut behind her with her foot. He regains his balance and composure with a sheepish grin. "Sorry."

Ally digs the tips of all four fingers on each hand to just above the corresponding eyebrow. There's Advil in here somewhere. A fresh bottle and all. "Whatever. Let's just- let's do this, 'kay?"

The blond nods in agreement and then faces the keys. Hands splayed in a wide grip over his thighs. Holding on to what, for what, she has no idea. He takes up too much room when he sits like that. All wide-shouldered and spread elbows. "Scooch," she baps the back of her hand against his arm. "c'mon, move."

"This is the part I suck at," he admits and slides as far as he can, tucking his elbows in.

"Making room?" Ally jokes. The bench sags and she almost wants to kick its legs out from under it in retaliation for embarrassing her. Austin is pressed entirely into her left side from shoulder to shoe and she is almost certain no amount of shrinkage from either of them will keep that from being the case. When he breathes, she feels it. Both in the expansion of his chest- lungs, ribs, the musculature of the chest wall sheathed in adipose and skin- to the actual expulsion of air from his nose.

Which, by that token, equally means he feels her breath. Charming. Exactly what one needs from a near-perfect stranger.

"Writing," Austin fixes her with a flat gaze. "Remember?"

"I guessed that," Ally deadpans. She slings the books in her right hand onto the top of the piano and then drags her Music/Song/Other Book down to her lap.

"We have eighteen hours to write the best song ever-"

"-no pressure-"

"-to play live on the nationally syndicated Helen Show-"

"-oh, you're still going-"

"-for the first time ever-"

"-well obviously, since we just wrote it-"

"-and it will make or break my career, Dez's career, your paycheck-"

"Austin!"

The boy gulps a deep breath. Ally, unsure of what to do, pats him on the back as one might do with someone who swallowed water incorrectly and was hacking up a storm. Although, his event was free of coughing, just a couple deep, heaving breaths. "Thanks," he rubs the heel of his hand into his sternum, "I needed that."

"I could tell." Still patting his back, she uses her free hand to flip her book open to the most recent page of notes. "Um... while you, like, learn how to breathe again, I got some observations for you."

"Observations," he repeats, puzzled, "about?"

"You. Your music most specifically."

"I have one song."

"Are you really going to waste precious time arguing with me, Moon?"

He smirks, just a little, "you say 'argue', I say, 'seek clarity and confirmation.'"

Ally tilts her head, considering the retort, and decides it's a decent one. "Fair point. It's more that I compiled everything I know about songs you repost, dance to, and half-composed to figure out, 'what does Austin Moon sound like?' And, well, you have wide tastes but you- as a person- tend to go all majors, and all upbeat."

"I do," he rests his fingers on the piano keys. Not hard enough to depress any, but his hand gravitates to a major chord almost on reflex. Ally eyes it. Like a good little popstar his hands find one of the four chords comprising most every song on the radio ever.

"There's a saying in country music that goes, 'give me three chords and the truth,' and- well- this is going to be no different. Maybe we'll add another chord, though."

"And the truth," Austin nods, "I'm down. Wayne Gretzky said you miss one-hundred percent of the shots you don't take, right?"

Ally removes her hand from Austin's spine and sets it to the keys. Her dominant hand goes for her pen and Book. "How would you say that in your own words, Austin?"

He doesn't reply right away. Ally turns her head to find him looking at her, puzzled again and head slightly tilted. She tries again. "Give me the truth, dude."

"I guess," his eyes focus on hers. Confusion slowly gives way to intention. He's lucky to have the shade of eye color he has. There's so much to be seen in them, with their almost russet hue and the detailing of his irises. Ally kind of envies them. Her eyes are too dark. They blend a little too well with her pupils. Indecipherable pits.

"If you never take a shot, you're never going to win," Austin finally says. "Sounds bleak."

Ally scribbles it down. "Not in its context it won't."

"Not on an upbeat," the boy agrees, "not on," he finally presses on the keys, higher than middle C to make a basic chord. When he plays, he plays short, staccato rhythm like he might play on a guitar. He rides it out for a few measures then contemplatively, tries a different chord on the same four/four beat. "I forgot how weird it is on piano versus guitar."

She checks her phone for the time, "after we close, I'll bring up one of the guitars."

"And an amp?" Austin asks, hopefully.

"You? Needing more volume? Fat chance, Moon." She rolls her eyes.

He huffs, but smiles all the same. "That's what my folks said about putting a drum set in my room."

"They sound like smart people."

Austin continues his monkeying with the keys while Ally independently taps a beat with the top of her pen. Eventually he speaks again. "My dad, even now, says I've still got a, like, bazillion to one shot of making it. Kinda like your dad did."

She hums, partly in contemplation, partly to buy herself time to process both the sounds around her and the music. "In some ways, they aren't wrong."

The boy looks taken aback, if not a little disappointed. "I kinda thought you'd be on my side-"

"I'm practically in your side," she illustrates by nudging him with her elbow. It requires minimal effort and movement to do so. He smiles, again only a little, out of the corner of her eye. "But, I also think they are wrong in others. There are thousands- by now hundreds of thousands- of people who would disagree with them. You got signed to Star Records for a reason, no?"

"I do have a lot to offer."

"Not least of which is your humility."

Austin rolls his eyes good-naturedly. "You're right. I should be more humble about the fact I can sing, play instruments, dance, and have a really hot body."

"Please don't make me cringe too hard," Ally teases, "I almost squeezed the life out of my pen. It's hard finding my favorite brand these days. Gotta make them count."

"Tough. You said, 'three chords and the truth,' so there you have it. You're learning all about me."

"Yeah, you were a tough nut to crack," she deadpans, unenthusiastically, "but with a little perseverance, and an insane amount of luck, I finally broke down that defensive wall you hold up around yourself. Ka-chow."

"Break down the walls," Austin exclaims. Ally jumps hard enough to nearly fall of the piano bench. He doesn't even seem to notice. Eyes squinting such that they are almost closed, he again plays his chord progression, "nah-nah-nah, if you never take the shot, you're never gonna win... uh, nah-nah-nah you gotta b-break, b-break down the walls. That's something, right?"

It could be. She writes it down. "It's a start."

Dez comes from a long line of clairvoyants.

Clairvoyant, noun, someone who purports to have the ability to perceive or "see" information they could not otherwise have through scientifically proven senses or means. His mom's side of the family is chock full of them. Even his own mother has, at times, been struck with some kind of premonitory vision.

To Dez, it merely adds an additional perspective. All the world's a stage and the fools are equally actors and cameras. Perceiving and perceived. Viewing and viewed in endlessly unequal measure. His two eyes could never consume what the masses around him do. If only they stopped and noticed that. Movies are a rare occasion in which many eyes watch the same event and take their time to witness. Allow themselves to stop and share.

Dez is having a whole lot of Precognitive Willies right now. Goosebumps and all.

It's hard to describe the weight that settles in the atmosphere around Sonic Boom. One wholly unnoticed by the few meandering inside besides himself. There went Austin and Ally, clunk clunk clunk up the metal stairs to work on a song, and the redhead felt the shift before the door even closed. Luckily, he has a camera- not the one he would have preferred, but enough to do the job- to capture the scene.

Because he feels a bright future for his best friend. It's as warm as, and even above, the heat of stage lights. His skin prickles. A calm, pleasant hum drifts right in Dez's ears. As in a video game when one solves a puzzle and the controller vibrates to communicate correct nonverbally. Kind of like when he and Austin crossed paths, and the zap of energy he got when Grandpa let him play with the camcorder.

Which, unfortunately, also means he and Trish are in it for the long haul.

As if she senses his thoughts, she raises an eyebrow at Dez as he pans over every inch of the store. "You good?"

"Probably. So long as we don't piss off the universe."

Her mouth opens, as if to argue, then falls shut. His lens continues across the drums that once he and Austin got in trouble for playing with. Finally, she concedes, "You're not wrong."

"Yeah, I'm a little clairvoyant," Dez matter-of-factly states. He doesn't often talk about it and even less often than that does he lie.

Trish does not seem to grasp the sincerity of the statement. Or perhaps she is not a believer at all, he thinks. She rolls her eyes, "well, a broken clock is still right twice a day."

Austin fatigues.

It was a combination of general fatigue, post-show adrenaline crash, and piano that (nearly, he didn't actually fall asleep) knocked him out. Ally was quietly picking her way across the keyboard and humming. He isn't so sure she knows she was making any sound, and far be it from him to break her concentration. Somehow he senses that to be unwise. And a waste of time and money. He is paying her to write, so why would he interfere? Even if it is lulling him into a slightly heady fog.

She smells like something sweet and lemony mixed with a sharper, stinging smell. Like a cleanser of some kind. It tracks, Austin supposes, she seems intent on running a tight ship around Sonic Boom.

And that's the last complete thought he has before the door swings open and strikes the wall with a violent bang.

Both teens yelp and jolt hard enough that the bench they had been sitting on finally gives way. The two legs furthest from the piano collapse with a dry splintering sound and they fall back to the hard laminate floor. Heads to the ground, legs still perched on the edge of the seat. Austin groans and screws his eyes shut. His head spins from the sudden shock and plummet. Like the worst amusement park ride ever. "Ow."

Beside him, Ally makes extreme effort to hastily spring up and away. He hears it and feels her flailing. The floor is cold, too. This sucks.

"Oh, I didn't- sorry guys." Lester's voice- and footsteps approach. "Didn't mean to scare you."

"Then why," Ally groans as well, "ow- gah, that's a bruise- that's- never mind. Why did you come in here like that?"

"Um, well, I don't know," Lester hesitates, "just making sure everything's going well."

Austin decides he's had enough of the floor and makes to get up. He did leg workouts earlier and now his quadricep muscles complain and resist him. Sitting has made them stiff and unwilling to hoist his lower limbs off the collapsed bench and then himself upright. He does so, anyway, and as fast as he can. "We're doing alright, Mister Dawson. Ally's really saving my bacon here."

There is a pronounced difference in the way she sets about writing than how he does it. His efforts usually consist of huddling on his bed with his guitar and scrambling around in his brain for a melody. Hoping that his subconscious, conscious, and ability will weave notes into chords and chords into music. That and she is constantly writing. Even if she violently scribbles it out afterwards, she at least puts the concept to paper. Austin watched her slowly work out a simple progression, strike a line through it, then do it over more than a few times.

Which will hopefully lead to some results. He checks his phone and is stunned to see how long they had been sitting as they were for.

"Well," Lester looks back at Austin and the teen tries to not panic or make any indication he was not paying attention. Expression neutral. He hopes. "Fine. But I want a text every thirty minutes."

"Of course," Ally agrees, "I'll have to set alarms anyway to keep at least one of us awake."

He was awake. Just resting his eyes. For a minute. Maybe two.

Lester looks them both over for a long, awkwardly intense minute that makes Austin's heart race all over again. When he leaves he continues reminding his daughter to call him whenever they are done. The door stays open.

The brunette turns to the small pile of splinters and sighs. Then she grabs the book left open on the top of the piano. "Alright. The good news is that now we have run of the store."

"You guys close early." 8:30pm. Plenty of time to go scrounge something up for dinner. Jack's Flaps app is on the front page of his phone, waiting for an online order.

"Yeah," Ally gestures for him to follow. "Generally, there aren't any late night instrument emergencies or anything."

"Not some kids forgetting they need to have a recorder for class?"

"Eh, they usually remember around 7:00. After the dinner rush," the girl shrugs. Downstairs, mostly of the lights are off. Especially the display cases. Silhouettes loom in darkened corners and shadows stretch across faux wood. It's kind of cool. "Or the morning before school. We open early."

"I noticed."

She sets her book down on the counter. Still open, but face down. Curiosity drives him to reach out for it. To see where she left off before her dad gave them both heart attacks. "I was thinking-"

"Don't touch my book," Ally slaps his hand away before he can so much as touch the cover.

"Geez, okay." Austin surrenders, "my bad."

And then she's off again. Navigating- seemingly off memory alone- into the recesses of the store. "Just- just wait there."

"Sure," he sits down at the piano with a grunt and stretches his arms over his head, behind his back, and then tries rolling his shoulders. But nothing makes him more comfortable. "Whatever you say."

Ally is no stranger to all-nighters.

It isn't good for her health. There is a veritable smorgasbord of literature on the necessity of rest. Not least of which for those whose brains are still developing. Side effects of sleep deprivation can be severe and, even in "mild" cases can make someone as unsafe behind the wheel as if they had been drinking. She knows it isn't good for her.

But the problem is that she has so much to do, so little time to do it in, and a brain thatnevershuts up.

When she returns carrying an electric bass and fender by their necks, Austin is playing an iteration of the chord progression they settled on. His foot keeps time. Completely focused on what he is doing. Since it is his song, she figures he should go with whatever version he likes best. With that in mind, Ally pulls some blank pages out of her Book. "Hey, Austin?"

"Hey, Ally," he mimics and spins to face her.

She pauses to suppress a yawn, "I'm going to give you some paper to write on."

"I can't write though. That was the whole point of this."

"Just write what comes to mind." She shoves the papers into his hands and he pouts. Pouts, of all things. "What?"

"I'm starving and we've been at this for hours. Can we at least order food?"

"I have snacks in the fridge upstairs."

His eyes narrow. Tone skeptical, he asks, "what kind of snacks?"

"I have pickles, probably some hummus, and I think grapes." Ally tilts her head in consideration, "I might still have those snack pack things, too. The ones with cheese and stuff."

Austin recoils. "Pickles, grapes, and hummus? Together?"

"Don't knock pickles and hummus until you've tried it."

"Are you serious? I can't tell if your serious." The boy looks horrified. Ally would be amused if she weren't exhausted and a little insulted.

"You're a guy! Don't you eat just about anything?"

"Plain hummus and pickles?"

"Lemon hummus and the little, you know, whole baby pickles."

Austin's disgust is neither assuaged nor diminished by the added information. In the overhead light, the drop of his jaw and the draw of his brows makes the shadows under his eyes deeper and darker. Like he lost a fist fight. "I can't believe you."

Ally's irritation skyrockets. She is too tired and too busy to entertain such mockery. "You know what-"

His phone goes off and startles them both. "It's Dez."

"You answer that," she grumbles, "I'm texting my dad."

She isn't sure what to send, so she just tells him they are progressing steadily along. Don't wait up. Which, as soon as she sends it, gives her anxiety as to why he might- what he would likely worry about. Ally amends with songwriting for someone else is really hard, and hopes Dad is soothed by it.

"What are your feelings on pancakes?"

She ponders the question then shrugs, "fine. I tend to prefer waffles but-"

Austin gasps loud enough to make her jump. He looks so genuinely offended that she realizes, immediately, this is a pineapple-on-pizza-dilemma. "Waffles over pancakes?"

"They're both good. Whatever, do as you please." Ally trots back up the stairs.

"Where are you going?"

"I need more ibuprofen."

He huffs. She hears the piano again before she dry-swallows another dose.

Trish gets a private message from Austin Moon on Snippet to go to Sonic Boom and help them. She has no idea what kind of help she could possibly be, but there is a level of seriousness in the request she can't ignore. Besides, she is really interested to see what they are coming up with. Austin asks, How do you normally get Ally to loosen up? She's tense and I think it's causing problems in our songwriting.

Then he adds, We have pancakes :)

Trish texts her bestfriend and tells her to relax and quit freaking out. It goes unread. Ally is probably purposefully ignoring everything and everyone to try and force her way through whatever writer's block she is experiencing. Now that the pond is gone and it's a little late to go out and cloud watch, she's got few other outlets for her stress.

The boys- Dez is there too, unfortunately, are sitting on the benches by the door. Huddled in the shadows and wolfing down pancakes in foam clamshells. Ally is sitting on the counter, eyes closed guitar in her lap, head tilting towards the strings. She has a clamshell with a stack of waffles inside. The top one only has a fork stuck in it but no bites taken out. "How long has she been like that?"

"Since I got here," Dez answers, "I ordered some extra waffles for you, too."

"I don't want to make you guys stay here all night," Austin frowns, "just- I was hoping you could-"

"-loosen Ally up," Trish finishes for him, "I got it."

"I can hear you, you know. This guitar isn't plugged into an amp."

"Then come party with us," the blond replies. "We aren't getting anywhere, anyway."

"I'll party over here, thanks."

Sometimes, Trish forgets how talented her friend is.

Only sometimes.

The brunette's fingers slide up and down the neck in a chord shape she recognizes but can't name. Again and again. Austin and Dez finish their food. Ally switches to playing on a bass guitar. "Wanna dance?"

Trish laughs. "Can you keep up?"

"It's what I do for a living," Austin grins, "Hey, Ally-"

"No."

Dez leaps to his feet. Austin sighs, "you don't even know what I was going to ask."

"Was it if I want to dance?"

"No, it was if we could turn the lights back on. Also... yeah fine. You really should come party with us."

"We don't have time-"

"I'll be right back," Dez declares and sprints out of the store.

"Ally!" Trish shouts. She might as well, with no customers in the store and Mister D at home and probably asleep. "Come on!"

"I'm fine. You guys have fun." She jots something down in her Book.

In the meantime, the two remaining teens briefly bicker over whose playlist to use. Trish is somewhat curious about Austin Moon's personal taste, but she also suspects she already knows it. That he is genuinely posting music he actually enjoys. She mostly wants to dance with him to her own playlist. If Ally isn't going to go for it, then shit, Trish sure will.

Because if you asked her even eight hours ago if she ever believed she would be having a dance party with Austin Moon, she would have scoffed at the idea. Then crossed her fingers and hoped that a couple other famous young men were also in attendance.

Instead, she has to settle for Dez.

He comes barreling back in with a little speaker and a plug-in disco ball. Trish wins the argument by pure stubbornness and plugs her phone into the AudioJak. So maybe it isn't all that bad. Ally even laughs as the trio try and invent a routine on the fly. Pen in hand, writing away. The lights from the whirling disco ball dapple the store with shivering orbs of pale silver light. Their gleam catches in the plexiglass frames and glass doors, shimmers across the smooth, varnished bodies of instruments.

Maybe the lights being mostly off is a good choice.

"You know how you said, 'give me three chords and the truth?'"

"I thought you were asleep, still."

Austin was not asleep. He was just resting his stinging eyes again. Laying down on his back. On the counter. With a paper over his face. The last time he fell- rested, she scared the hell out of him by clanging cymbals next to his head. While he was busy meditating on lyrics, no less. This time he is sitting on the floor with his back against the counter. Feet almost under the piano bench Ally is seated on. "Pssh, no. I've been wide awake this whole time."

"Sure you have," she replies, placatingly. The way one might with a child.

He grumbles and stretches his foot to nudge the back of her leg. "Are you calling me a liar?"

"Not calling you for dinner, Rockstar."

"The disrespect."

They have settled on a melody and arrangement thereof. Ally freehands the sheet music and he's never seen that before. Her lines are so straight and sharp even without a ruler. Fascinating. "We'll need to print copies in the morning, so you can give it to The Helen Show's band."

Austin hums and closes his eyes again. "You didn't answer my question."

"About you being a liar?"

"No. The one before that, Daws."

"Daws? That's new," Ally swings her foot back to nudge the bottom of his. "Whatever. What about three chords and the truth?"

He shrugs, knowing she can't see him do it, and sighs. "If we're going to work together, we should be honest with each other."

"Let's survive this night first, Moon."

They have most of the song completed. The chorus and several verses are mostly finished. He's glad that they managed to keep the lyrics from being bleak even if a lot of words Ally gravitates towards seem that way. Instead, they have a fun, uplifting song. He noticed lots of references to shadows and light after the impromptu dance party. Next time, he's going to-

"How come you didn't dance with us?" The question falls out of Austin before he can think better of it.

"I'm not good at it."

"So? You should at least have fun, who cares if your good or not?"

"Well, I do," Ally sounds tired. He peers at her through one eye and sees her slouched posture. Her pen scratches soothingly on the pages of printer paper. "You know, the whole social anxiety thing. That pesky fear of perception and judgment by peers."

He hums in acknowledgement. "I could teach you."

"We'll see." She yawns and stretches.

"You should come sit down here. It's way comfier than the bench is."

"That's probably why you keep falling asleep," Ally teases. "First all-nighter?"

"You know what," Austin labors to shift his body enough to get his phone from his pocket so he can check the time, "this is actually both the latest I have ever stayed up- for work- and the earliest I've ever been awake for work."

She giggles. "Why the need to clarify 'for work?'"

"I never sleep on New Years. Not since I was a little boy and started watching the Time Square performances on tv. I'm always too wired to sleep after."

"Maybe one day you'll be one of the performers, Austin."

"That's the dream," he settles back against the counter with a grunt and leans out to his side to retrieve the guitar equally leaning there. "Let's run the song through again. Wanna make sure I don't have any last minute changes."

She could probably nitpick and fret over Break Down The Walls for eternity.

That's the thing about her and... everything. Her mind never truly stops churning things over. And over. And over. Even the physical crafts of her hand could always besomethingmore than she has made it. Always some invisible room for improvement somewhere. It is the perfectionist in her that will worry every project to death. Rework it into oblivion until there isn't anything left.

Perfection is the enemy of Done. She has it written at least a dozen times in her Book.

But Austin likes it. He's sleepy, but he performs it with an enthused smile while he strums and Ally accompanies him with piano and her own voice. She's too tired to be self-conscious. Again, the sleep deprivation acting on her brain like alcohol. In the early light of dawn they play the song together for the last time. He's still on the floor and she migrates to sit next to him when they're done.

"Make sure you give the sheet music to The Helen Show." She yawns and sets an alarm on her phone before texting her dadmorning:) we survived, if only just."Right when you get there. Maybe they'll make the copies for you."

He hums, eyes closed and chin to chest.

"What time do you have to leave?"

"We," Austin murmurs. "We should leave at like, 7:30-ish. That will-"

"We?"

He nods. "Of course you're 't be going at all if it weren't for you. What do you say, SBG?"

Ally crosses her and shifts back against the solid melamine until she is comfortable. Half-asleep, she considers the offer, and agrees. "I'm in. See you in a quick fifteen"

"'Night."

But it feels like less than a blink. Her alarm screams sharp and shrill and startles Ally awake. Heart racing, eyes sore and blinking rapidly while she fumbles around her lap to turn the wretched thing off. Trish hates her alarm. She calls it Negative ASMR. Which is exactly why the songwriter chose it. Austin's face screws up tighter. Grimacing and forcibly scrunching his eyes to remain shut. "Five more minutes."

"We have to get up," Ally reminds him, "my dad can't open the store with two unconscious-"

"I can find it in me to work around you."

Ally jolts at her father's voice. "Scared me again."

"How'd the songwriting go? Why didn't you eat your waffles?"

Austin slides against the counter and allows himself to collapse in a crumpled heap on the ground. He groans the whole way. A long continuous sound like air being released from a balloon. She rolls her eyes at the dramatics and slowly gets back to her feet. "Not bad. We have a decent song. If you want the waffles, you can have them-"

Dad beams. "I was hoping."

"C'mon, Austin," Ally turns her attention to the guy on the ground. He sighs and opens his eyes. "We have to get ready."

"For what?"

"Oh," the brunette winces. Forgetting that she agreed to do something without getting permission (or time off from work) first. "Um, so. Funny story."

No, for real though, don't knock pickles and hummus until you've tried it. Or hummus and jalapeno slices? Damn good.