Breathe Me Back To Life •Patrick Stump+Fall Out Boy•

Chapter Fifteen: I'm The Bad Seed; I Think I Swallowed It Whole

Okay, first things first, this is like a filler chapter that leads up to some major shit. The next chapter should be out soon. BTW, the girl is Cole.

||Cole Wentz||First Person||

"So what parts do you want me to sing?" I ask Hayley later that evening in her dressing room. She's adjusting her short cut tank top's strap in the large mirror we're sharing as she replies.

"Is it alright if you sing the first verse, second verse, and then harmonize for the rest of the song with me?" Hayley asks me. My eyes widen abruptly as I almost drop my liquid eyeliner onto the counter. I catch the end before the makeup stick crushes into the black counter top covered in belongings. "And do you want to sing I Caught Myself with me?"

"That's a lot." I comment, standing back and capping the eyeliner. I do a quick once over just to be sure that I look okay. Navy skin tight jeans, black Vans, a striped blue and white sleeveless top, and my orange hair let loose. I also have a bunch of band bracelets on my wrist, mainly because I don't necessarily want the gauze wrapped around my wrist to be too visible.

"Well, that's how we're going to start your career." Hayley says nonchalantly, pulling her short shorts up a little bit higher. My jaw drops.

"What career?" I ask her.

"Your music career, duh." Hayley laughs, picking up her mascara tube and pulling the cap up and off of it. She leans forward in the mirror, her lips parting as she brings the brush up through her lashes in elaborate strokes.

"What do you even-"

"Cole, you're an amazing musician, honest. I really think that by the end of this tour, if you continue helping all of us in duet performances, you'll be getting plenty of record labels wanting to sign you up." Hayley tells me. I'm speechless- just what do I say when I have Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, and Paramore trying to get me a record deal? Do I even want to be a singer? To be honest, I was planning to just go to university and maybe get a degree in journalism or psychology. But a singer?

"I- I- uh- I," I try to begin. Instead, I just go with one universal word. "Thanks."

"No problemo, Cole." Hayley grins. After our makeup and outfits are finished with, we start doing small vocal exercises and warm ups.

"Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do!" Hayley sings, facing me with a smile. I go from the high to low, rather than repeating her exactly.

"Do, ti, la, so, fa, mi, re, do." I sing right back at her, hitting all the right notes, making her grin. We continue making our weird sounds and so on, but five minutes later, Patrick is stopping at the door and knocking. He starts giggling and laughing at us because of our exercises.

"Hey, shut up, Stump." I stick my tongue out at him. "You act like your vocal exercises aren't strange." Patrick laughs at that, nodding and pointing in a kind of 'I Got Ya' way. He clicks his tongue and winks, looking like a cross between a super hot guy and a moose having a seizure.

Twenty minutes later, Hayley and I are bouncing on the balls of our feet, watching the crowd from side stage, the image revealed by the small part between the thick, scratchy fabric of the curtains and the wall. We see the fans, crushing their bodies against the barricades separating the stage and the audience, and then the security guards, passing around bottled water and shouting commands of safety instructions to ensure nobody gets hurt.

"You ready?" Hayley grins at me, ruffling her bright blue hair slightly. I shoot the smile back at her.

"I guess so." I reply. Another ten minutes of last minute preparations go by, and then suddenly, the crowd chants 'Paramore!' in unison. The lights drop to plain black and Jeremy and Taylor take that as their cue to quietly make their way on stage. We fumble with our microphones that are turned off, trying to see the little switch on the wireless device.