Let's Take Over the World

What a Work of Art I've Spawned.

Chapter 5

Sam arrived right on time. Half three exactly. James had gotten totally fucked up since I'd spoken to him and so had slept the night here. Danny and I had found a shit load of liquor in Cameron's cupboards, so we'd been drinking everyone else under the table for the rest of the night. We could handle the liquor, however, and so when everyone else was passed out, we could've kept going.
We didn't though. We knew when we had to stop before we'd have a hangover and decided we didn't want to be dying the next day. We did, however, require the standard three paracetamol for breakfast.
“So,” I began. We were gathered in Cameron's front room. I didn't really know where to start; I mean, I've never had to do anything like this ever before. I soldiered on. “We're a band now, I guess.”
Everyone mumbled agreements.
“Where to start...” I muttered to myself.
“How about coming up with a name for ourselves?” Sam suggested.
“I think that's the hard part.” I said. “Well...we could always use the name from my old band...?”
“What was it? If it was good, we need to steal it.” Danny announced.
“Um...Asking Alexandria.” the guys thought about it for a minute.
“Asking Alexandria...” James mused. With his heavy accent it almost sounded like completely different words.
“Sounds good.” they all seemed to agree with Danny.
“So, should we get to the actual playing?” all their faces lit up. Except Danny's.
“We don't have any lyrics yet.”
“So...you have songs...with no lyrics?” James questioned.
“Uh...yeah. I write the music and then don't know what to do with the words, so I...uhh...just leave it.”
“Well, I suppose we can all come together with something, right?”

I played them all some of the things I'd written on my laptop and we decided to go to James' since he had a drum kit. His garage had been soundproofed and kitted out with amps. He explained that whenever he's been in a band, practices were held in here since the kit was here, so he kitted it out proper. We packed up guitars and, since Sam had neglected to bring his, he borrowed my bass.
Since living with Cam, I'd written another three songs, and these were the ones that I was intending to use for the band. They were a lot heavier than what I usually write. There was still the bluesy element that everything I wrote has, but they had more of a metal feel. Kind of like Slipknot meets Gary Moore. I had a feeling that the Gary Moore was going to disappear once they'd all had their way with it.
I played the songs again once we were at James' house and showed Cam and Sam the basics of one of the songs and let them figure it out around that. Then James started on the drums. Gone was the simple rock beat I had sampled on the track and in came the Chelsea Grin-type drumming. Once we put it all together, however, it sounded fucking awesome!
While we were organising ourselves, Danny sat with my laptop, with the track on repeat, trying to write some lyrics to go with the music. After an hour or two, we all went over to see what he had. It was pretty dark.
“Blood and ink stain the walls...silently with bloodied knuckles I carry on.” I read the words out loud. “Shit, Danny, where the fuck did this come from?” I was used to the happy-go-lucky Danny I had grown to love, and this was nothing like him.
“Well, I used to be pretty depressed...I guess I kinda tapped into it a bit.” he shrugged it off. He'd only written up to the breakdown, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The rest of us read through the lyrics and edited them. We changed words here and there and fixed the phrasing to make it sound better and came out with a pretty decent song.
Whilst we were putting the music together, we'd wondered what it would be like to get a synth in there, or maybe put in a drop and then pick it up with some European trance-type thing, and that's exactly what we did.
“This could work...” I mumbled to myself as I dug out the tiny keyboard I kept in my laptop bag and programmed in the synth. “Should we try put everything together?” I asked. “You know, just up to the breakdown. Then we'll record it all and put it together.” the guys nodded as James went to find the microphone.
We set Danny up and played the intro and when he started singing I was shocked. Well, not the singing; I'd heard him sing before and I knew what to expect there. What surprised me was that he screamed. I didn't know he could scream, and he was pretty fucking incredible at it. How did I not know this about him? Why, when we were writing, did he not say he was going to scream?
When we reached the drop, I stopped playing instantly and stared at him, open-mouthed.
“What?” he looked around at us all, and we all had the same facial expression, except for Sam.
“Why the fuck did you not say that you were going to scream?” I demanded.
“Well, Benji, I thought I'd surprise you. Why? Did you not like it?” he seemed smug; he knew I liked it; he knew he was fucking boss at it. I ignored him and turned on Sam.
“Did you know he was going to do that?”
“Yup. I thought you knew too, but apparently not, I suppose.” he shrugged.
“Well...from the top, I guess.”
We went through it a couple more times, changing bits here and there, before recording it. I overlayed the breakdown and we put more guitars over the end of it. I played it back to the others and we all agreed it was awesome.
“Fuckin' YES!” James yelled, his heavy accent lacing the words, emphasising them in a way. “You guys, I think this is the start of something pretty fucking beautiful.”

We went out that night to celebrate. And by celebrate I mean go right off the fucking walls. We went to all the clubs that would accept the fake ID's that Sam, Danny and James had; Cam looked way older than he was and so never got carded and I was of age anyways.
We got shit-faced drunk. I must have got with at least fifteen girls, and I'm pretty sure I had sex with at least a few of them. The rest of the guys were the same. I'd expected it from Danny; whenever we went out he'd always bring back a girl or two and I was usually the same, but since we couldn't exactly go back to Cam's house and bang girls in the same bed, although I'm sure that some of the sluts wouldn't mind.
In the end, we didn't even go back to Cam's. We went to Sam's since he said his parents were away for the weekend. Yes, we'd got with girls in the clubs, but did that stop us from taking them home? Apparently not.
I sat up, in immense pain, and looked around. I waited for the room to stop spinning before I looked around and saw about eight girls in their underwear. Cameron, James, Danny and I were all completely naked, while Sam was in his boxers. The rest of out clothes were strooned around the room. I looked at the clock on the wall; three pm.
“Fuck,” I groaned, laying back down. I was laying next to Danny, who, as he felt me lay back down beside him, rolled over and cuddled me.
“I love you, Ben.” he mumbled in his sleep.
“Love you too, man.” I had that same sensation in the pit of my stomach as I had the first night sharing a bed with him, only now it was stronger. I nudged him to wake him up. The rest of the guys were still passed out.
“What the fuck...?” he grumbled. “What happened last night?” he propped himself up on his elbow and I sat up beside him.
“I don't know, but we're all naked, so it must've been pretty good.” I winked. He started to laugh and then winced, holding his head. He looked back at me with bloodshot eyes.
“Can't we just go back to sleep for now?” I considered it for a moment; it suddenly seemed like the best idea in the world.
“Fuck it.” I lied back down and Danny lay next to me. “Night, man.” I smiled
“Night.”
We were asleep almost instantly.

I woke up to something prodding me in the back. I opened my eyes to see that some of the girls had left already and some of the guys were waking up. I saw that Danny's arm was wrapped around my waist; he was practically spooning me. Again; that feeling. I pushed it to the back of my mind.
I looked around and saw that what was actually poking me was Danny's boner. I pushed him away from me and he woke up with a start.
“Shit! What'd I do?!” I looked pointedly at his crotch and back to his face. Understanding dawned on his features.
“Keep your dick away from my arse, you cock head.”
“Morning wood, what can I say?” he joked. I shook my head and looked at the time. We had literally slept the entire day. It was seven thirty. He followed my gaze. “Seriously?! It's fucking night time already?!”
“I think we should get a move on.” he nodded. “But first...where the fuck does Sam keep the paracetamol?”
“Kitchen,” Sam groaned, waking up. “the drawer by the microwave.” I looked around first for my underwear. They were on the other side of the room, by the sofa, along with my jeans. I stood up and pulled them on before going to the kitchen to get the paracetamol and a glass of water. I brought them through, guessing that the others would want them too.
When I returned to the living room, the guys were all starting to get up and put clothes on. “So, does anyone know what happened last night?”
“Nope.” was the synonymous answer from all four boys. “But I have a feeling that it was a good night.” Danny added. “Fuck; everything hurts.”
“Here.” I handed him the paracetamol and found my shirt and my jacket. I found my phone was still in the zipper pocket inside my jacket. Danny and Cameron got dressed and we went back to Cam's house.
We stumbled through the front door and went straight back to bed. Or, well, tried to; Cam's sister, Emma, was in the way.
“Looks like you boys had a good night last night.” she winked. She sauntered over to us and stole our sunglasses. Cam and I had borrowed some from Sam and Danny always seemed to have some with him.
“Ow,” we all groaned, holding out heads and shielding our eyes from the light.
“There was no need for that, Em.” Cameron said.
“Yes there was. And guess what.” we all knew what was coming next. “BAM!!!” she screamed right in our faces, laughing at Danny's reaction. He snatched his glasses from her and stormed upstairs.
“Thanks for that, Emma.” I squinted. I went to the kitchen and got two glasses of water and followed after Danny.
Emma was hot. She was tall, but had a petite figure. She had a pixie-like face and a haircut to match. She didn't really look much like Cameron, except for the eyes. And we both kind of wanted to bang her. Danny had expressed these feelings several times, which is why she had taken pleasure in provoking his god-awful hangover.
When I got up to our room, I was greeted by Danny in his boxers, sprawled over the whole bed, one arm over his eyes.
“Aww, babes, you wanna cuddle?”
“No.” he grumbled.
“Then shift your arse before I tip this water on you.”
“You wouldn't.” I didn't say anything, I just walked over and sat next to him on the bed. When he felt me sit beside him, he moved his arm. I raised an eyebrow and lifted the glass of water over his head. He sat up and took the water off me, downed it before rolling over and going to sleep.
I was suddenly hungry. I went back downstairs and raided the fridge. I found more than half a pizza; leftovers from last night, I assumed. I tucked in without bothering to warm it up.
About two slices in, Emma came through to the kitchen.
“How's your bum buddy doing?”
“Asleep.” I said around a mouthful of pizza.
“Weren't you gonna join him?”
“Yup. But food seemed like the better offer. So I'm eating instead.” I stuffed more cold pizza into my mouth.
“Is that...did you even bother heating that up?” she seemed disgusted and slightly intrigued at my hangover habits.
“Nope. It's good like this though. I would say try it, but I haven't eaten in, like, a day and a half, so this is all mine.” she shoved my shoulder, both of us smiling, and sat down next to me. She picked up a slice and bit into it. As she chewed, her face contorted slightly.
“You can fucking keep it. This shit's gross. You're gross.” she teased, throwing the pizza back in the box. I stuck my tongue out at her like a five year old.
“Yeah, well, at least I'm not a girl!!!”
“Oh, ha ha ha, Ben. You're so funny.”
I scrunched up my face. “I know, right?” I said, chewing another bite. I'd just about finished off the pizza by now. She watched me in some sort of fascination as I crammed food down my throat.
“What?” I asked, swallowing.
“How the fuck to you eat like that and stay so fucking skinny? It's just not fucking fair!”
“Undetermined as of yet. Scientists are working on it. Or maybe I'm just naturally skinny?”
“Maybe. Well, Corrie is on now, and I'm missing it, so I'll leave you and all your skinniness to it, okay?”
“Sure.” I finished off the last bite and put the box in the bin. As I was walking past the living room to go upstairs, I caught sight of someone hitting someone very theatrically on the TV. Why the fuck do girls like soaps so much? I wondered. They're just a bunch of wankers trying to portray something realistic and failing at it. Miserably.
I arrived back at the guest room to find that Danny had resumed his previous position, sprawled over the entire bed. I stripped down and nudged him over as far as I could without waking him. I climbed into bed next to him and he almost immediately rolled back over so that he was half laying on top of me.
This is gonna be a long night, I thought.

Danny's POV:

I couldn't resist it. He'd woken me up when he moved me from the middle of the bed and so I sprawled right back when he lay down next to me. Well, that and...when we woke up earlier and I was spooning him, I'd felt so happy; something about it felt right, so I had to see if that was still there.
I heard his breathing slow and even out and as he fell asleep, he turned more towards me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. There it was, that feeling of utter rightness, right in the pit of my stomach. I didn't really know what it was, so I ignored it and went back to sleep.

When we woke up the next morning—we'd somehow slept the whole night—we were face to face. Literally nose to nose. We awoke at the same time and as our eyes met, it struck again. I felt a connection. We must have laid there for about five minutes, just gazing into each others eyes, as cheesy as it sounds.
The door opened quietly and Emma tip-toed into the room. We both looked away and pushed each other as far away as possible, but we knew she'd seen our moment.
“Um...I just came to see if you two were awake. Mum's gonna make breakfast in about half an hour.” Food. I hadn't eaten yesterday; in fact, I think the last thing I had was breakfast the day before. We'd been so busy writing and then sleeping all day, I hadn't really had a chance to eat. My stomach growled. Emma laughed, “I'm assuming that you'll be there?”
“Uh huh.” I mumbled, my voice still thick from sleep.
Ben stood up and grabbed a towel. “I'm going for a shower first.” he stalked out of the room, head down.