"Yeah!" Isaac exulted, as they finished the song.
Brilliant. Just brilliant. He had been having so much fun practicing with his brothers lately, it was hard to imagine that they hadn't been getting along.
"Yeah, that was cool," Zac agreed with a grin.
Isaac grinned back and grabbed his water bottle, but alas, it was empty.
"Rats," he said. "I'm going to fill mine up again."
"Mine too?" Zac asked.
"Yeah sure. Be right back."
And Isaac took the water bottles and headed off to the kitchen.
Leaving Zac and Taylor in the room together.
Taylor
Taylor strummed for a moment, then slammed his palm onto the guitar strings suddenly as he stared in the direction of the doorway.
"Ike wants to go on tour. Very soon," he said suddenly in a quiet voice.
Zac and Tad
Zac jumped.
"T-tour?" Zac repeated.
He stared at Taylor, then out the door, then back at Taylor.
"Well, I can kinda understand why he would want to go. I mean, I miss touring too... but..." Zac babbled nervously. "But I mean... we..."
Tad noticed Isaac go by after the music stopped. Deciding he didn't really know too much about the third brother (despite Zac's regular visits), he decided to take the opportunity to spy out what was going on. The only thing he really knew was that there was some tension between Taylor and Zac.
Taylor
"Exactly," Taylor looked across at Zac.
"I'm hoping you can use your kids as an excuse to get out of it for now or something."
Zac
Zac frowned.
"Yeah... I could try... but fact is, it would be a thin argument. I mean, it's not going to be any harder than it was when we were touring with Mom, Dad and our younger siblings, y'know? And Isaac will know that..." Zac considered the matter. "Of course, Kylie is an unknown entity... damn she's changed since she lived in Tulsa. The other day she - but you don't care. The point is... we may have an outlet there... I don't know... You realise of course, that if Ike's made up his mind that we're going to tour... we're not going to be able to stall forever."
"So... Isaac's little brothers don't want to tour... interesting," Tad thought to himself.
Taylor
"I know," Taylor insisted, "I do. But I just..."
He trailed off and took a deep breath, rubbing his chin.
"I can't deal with this right now. We really just need to put it off and I don't care how we do it."
Zac
"Well, I do care how we do it," Zac said. "Because I don't want Ike to figure out we're trying to stall. I don't want him to have another nervous breakdown or something because we were stupid. Goodness knows we've both been doing pretty stupid things already - hence why we're in this position now."
Taylor
"Then do you want to try and come up with something instead of just aggravating my alterego?" Taylor scorned.
"I have no excuses. Apart from wanting to bring down Blakesley and he knows that's happening soon anyway."
Zac
"Okay, okay that's good," Zac nodded. "Can't possibly make tour plans until that's done. Plus we have no idea what the consequences of that might be. Put it off some more. And then after that, y'know we have to actually start booking tour dates and stuff. Never know what problems we might have doing that, what with concert halls and stuff having previous bookings and stuff..."
"Consequences? Now there's an interesting word coming from a Hanson," Tad mused, having come to the opinion previously that they just didn't care what messes their actions caused.
Taylor
"Don't worry about Blakesley, he won't catch me again. Or Chris this time," Taylor insisted, "it'll be a quick in and out."
He paused to contemplate for a moment.
"Tour dates is a good stall. But hopefully we can get something before that."
Zac
"Blakesley catching you isn't what I meant," Zac said. "I was thinking more along the lines of people's reactions. Y'know, YIRAAS rewarding you, and plus the release of all the prisoners - there will probably be individual rewards like there was last time from the families. And you never know, we might be lucky and there might end up being some monster of Blakesley's get loose and cause havoc and you'd feel 'obliged' to go after that, having released it in the first place, not knowing it's nature."
Taylor
"Who said we were releasing anything?" Taylor asked sincerely.
"All he has in there now is experiments. It's all sh*t that he's created himself. They don't know the outside world. If we did anything we might as well kill them all."
Zac
"Ahh, yes... good plan," Zac nodded. "And a new consequence to deal with! The debate from the morality groups on whether you did the right thing or not. That could go on for months. Well... if they found out... I mean, YIRAAS security likes to hush those things up, don't they?"
"Makes one wonder what else they like to hush up," Tad thought, somewhat miffed at the whole corruption thing he was sure starting to think was running rampant in the YIRAAS.
Taylor
"No one has to find out," Taylor insisted.
"Given Chris's power level hopefully he can just get Blakesley out of there before I go in and... finish the job so to speak."
He scratched his head awkwardly.
Zac and Isaac
Zac sighed.
"Now who's making things difficult," he said. "C'mon, Tay, we're grasping at straws as it is. I think we're just going to have to play this one by ear."
Isaac finished filling the bottles, and then decided he needed to go to the toilet. So he left the bottles on the kitchen counter and went to the bathroom to do his business.
Taylor
"How was that 'making things difficult'?" Taylor frowned, confused.
He kept his eye on the doorway in case Isaac were to reappear.
Zac and Tad
"Well, we've discussing ways to stall touring right?" Zac said. "Well, I was suggesting reasons why your impending mission might be a useful tool in this effort. Hey, maybe I should let Friday turn me into a girl and get me pregnant."
Zac pondered this for about two seconds before saying:
"I can't believe I just said that. I'm being contaminated."
Tad frowned, a little confused... Who was Friday and how could (and why would) they do that?
Taylor
"It's going to happen no matter what," Taylor insisted, looking across at him.
"It's about time you learnt about what you do."
Zac and Tad
Zac scrowled.
"I know very well, thank you very much," he said. "And I refuse to let her. And as long as I refuse, it's rape. So ha! Although, how I'd prove it in a court of law, I don't know. But that's not the point, dang it. And how, pray tell, am I - someone who is in the spot light, I might add - going to hide being a girl for nine months? Seriously."
Tad decided that he would have to research this Friday girl. He made a note to research all of the friends he found out about - never know what he might learn. At the very least, he would understand what they were talking about.
Taylor
"We've been through this," Taylor rolled his eyes.
"You obviously don't know or you would have done something about it by now. And we'll work around it no matter what. It's going to happen."
Zac
"Oh... It's a conspiracy I swear," Zac muttered. "Fine, that'll probably add at least 9 months onto the stall time, then. Happy? Bearing in mind, of course, that I still plan on avoiding that even more than I want to avoid touring. Yes, this is true, Tay. I would rather spend time touring with you than have Day's kid. Feel privlaged."
Tad raised an eyebrow and attempted to keep from snickering. Interesting. Very interesting.
Taylor
"Well I wouldn't," Taylor frowned.
"So if that stalls it it's even better."
Zac
"Well, there you go. Stalling madness everywhere. Tada," Zac said. "Let's just make sure Ike never finds out."
It suddenly occured to Zac that they were doing something rather odd for people who weren't getting along - co-operating.
Taylor
"Ok," Taylor nodded, taking a deep breath.
"We can do this," he said, mainly to himself.
Zac, Tad and Isaac
Zac said nothing, just started tapping on his drums. He wondered how much longer before Isaac would come back.
Tad heard Isaac heading back towards the room, so he scurried off in the other direction. Time to find out about this Friday person. Friday. Had to be some sort of alias - no one in their right might would actually name a child that.
Isaac, not seeing Tad, walked back into the studio.
"Okay," he said. "Your water bottle, Zac."
"Thanks."
"Where were we?"
Taylor
"The bridge," Taylor's eyebrows rose, beginning to strum again.
"Do we go F, or do we go C?"
Isaac and Zac
"Ummm.... F I think," Isaac said the same time Zac said "Go C."
They looked at each other.
"We can always try C after if F sounds bad," Zac said.
"Okay," Isaac agreed.