Not Warriors- Awsten Knight

Chapter 21

They had finally made it to Arizona, at least that's where they thought they were. No one actually had any idea where they were, they just knew that they had tomorrow off. 

"Label booked us a hotel for tonight and tomorrow so that we wouldn't have to sleep in the bus." Lucas tells the Parx boys and everyone sighs in relief that they wouldn't have to sleep on the bus tonight.

"Thank fuck, I need to be able to sleep in an actual bed tonight." Awsten says thankfully, stretching out dramatically and his back cracks so loud it is audible to everyone on the bus. 

"What about you guys?" Otto asks, looking towards Tyler, and Derek who were playing Mario Kart with Geoff. 

Chris laughs, "Our label doing anything other than the bare minimum? Unheard of." 

"We can relate to that." Awsten says bitterly, rolling his eyes.

"Only thing our label does, is leak our shit early, push album dates, ask Twitter what we should do instead of asking us, oh and pay us the bare fucking minimum" Collin tells Awsten, and the situation sounds so familiar he's getting deja vu.

"The same thing happened to us with Entertainment.. wait what label are you guys under?" Awsten asks hesitantly.

"Equal Vision." Derek replies, his voice full of hatred. 

All three boys from Waterparks look over at Derek, their eyes wide. 

"Well no shit, so are we." Awsten replies. 

"Oh so we weren't the only unlucky bastards to have all of our art fucked?" Collin asks shaking his head in disappointment.

"Nope seems like just a label thing, how long is your contract with them?" Geoff asks.

"Two albums, we released Adornment and then Nella Vita is coming out in September." Collin replies. 

"Wait hang on, if y'all are on the same label why did they book you a hotel but not the boys?" Claire speaks up and everyone shrugs their shoulders. 

When the boys joked that Claire took care of almost everything for them, they really weren't kidding. The label didn't give them enough of a budget to have a day to day manager, or a sound engineer, or anything helpful so she took it upon herself to learn how to do everything for them, and because of the fact she wasn't hired through the label she had no issues standing up to them and had done it many times before.

Their managers at Equal Vision hated Claire, but she was willing to bet that she hated them even more. 

"Hold on." Claire said angrily, standing up and snatching her phone off of the table making her way to the back of the bus, where she's stopped by Collin. 

"What are you doing?" he asks her carefully, and she pushes by him, not letting anyone stop her. 

"Calling my friend Andrew at Equal Vision" she says sweetly with a smirk on her face, closing the divider between the main area and the bunks. 

The boys let out a collective groan, knowing that they Claire was going into full mom mode at the  moment and there was nothing they could do to stop her. 

Awsten shoots Collin a look, his eyebrows up. "Andrew hates everyone." he says knowingly and Collin laughs. 

"Claire hates him more trust me." he replies.

Everyone on their bus snaps their head to the back when they hear Claire start to speak, the divider didn't do much to block out sound but there was no denying the fact that she was being loud. 

"Hi Andrew" she says sweetly, "Yeah no I didn't call to make small talk, is there a reason why another band also on the label has a hotel for the next two days but Sonic doesn't?" she asks, the same sickeningly sweet tone in her voice.

Everyone on the bus desperately wishes that they could hear the other end of the conversation.

"Okay that's great, frankly I don't fucking care how many albums Waterparks sold. The matter of the fact is that you doomed them from the start by sticking  them on a bus that is falling apart, and you were wildly unable to help there so I am paying to get the bus fixed out of my own pocket, and now you're treating them even more poorly than you usually would." she replies back to him.

Collin chuckles softly, shaking his head. 

"She's really going in on him." Tyler says laughing.

"You know that she doesn't give two fucks, she's untouchable for them and that's what pisses them off so bad." Derek replies and Awsten looks over for context, hoping someone will fill him in.

"The label refused to give us a day to day, or photographer, or anything actually. Claire stepped up and took care of it all, so we all pay her directly meaning the label can't say or do a damn thing about what she does. They also recognize at this point that she's not going anywhere." Chris tells Awsten. 

"Wait y'all pay her out of your own pockets?" he asks angrily and Collin nods in response. 

"Yeah, we have since the beginning, she really doesn't get paid enough but due to the fact that she stepped up to do everything on her own they really won't even entertain giving us crew to help because she does it so efficiently. But she's also pissed off so many people that Equal Vision will never actually hire her themselves." Chris replies, with the same angry tone that Awsten has. 

"God I fucking hate those people, she's insanely talented and on top of it she takes care of everything else and they won't even give you extra money to pay her. We barely survive how it is, if we had to pay Lucas and Jawn out of pocket we would be in the negative always." Awsten says thoughtfully and this time Derek laughs in response. 

"You get it. It's kind of nice to have someone else understand exactly how shitty they are, we always just get told that we're lucky to be signed and should just take it as it is." he tells him.

Awsten goes to respond but is cut off by Claire sternly talking to the label rep.

"Look Andrew you have two fucking choices here, you book the boys a hotel for the next two nights and actually do the job you are supposed to do or I leave the tour completely and they will be left to fend for themselves without a manager, merch girl, instrument tech, and photographer which means they literally don't accomplish a thing and crash and burn what's your choice bud?" she says angrily.

All of the boys start laughing and Geoff looks around confused.

"She just threatened to leave, why are you laughing?" he asks innocently and Tyler shakes his head still laughing.

"That's an empty threat, she would never do that but Andrew is too fucking stupid to recognize that." he says 

"Great I am so glad you came to the conclusion, and also I am sending you a bill for the bus once it's all set and I expect you to reimburse me in a timely manner. Thank you for your time." she says, her voice once again in the sweet tone it was to start.

Claire opens the divider, placing her phone back on the table sitting down with her legs tucked underneath her. "We have two hotel rooms for the next two days, one with two doubles and a single room, figure out how you want sleep arrangements to go" she says causally. 

"God we are so thankful for you." Collin says honestly, getting up and giving her a small hug.

"That was so impressive." Awsten tells her incredulously and Claire shrugs her shoulders.

"I'd do it for y'all too, you guys can't stand up to them because you have too much to lose. You deserve to be treated like actual humans and not just a paycheck for them. If you have any issues with them, just tell me and I'll do my best to take care of it." she tells him thoughtfully and Awsten gives her a genuine smile. 

"Thanks Clairebear" he says, and she feels her cheeks start to warm up and replies with a small nod.

"Yeah thank you for that Claire, that's really nice of you." Geoff tells her and she brushes him off with a wave.

The boys are certain that she has no idea exactly how much she means to all of them.