Chapter Sixteen-
'My Future Is Coming On, Is Coming On...'
As they arrived, the main object was for Isaac and Melissa to stay in a different hotel without any sort of fuss, which proved almost impossible. Tay and Zac were happy to handle the fans that had heard rumours of them in that hotel and so Ike and Melissa would get some peace. But in the end they had to settle with the floor above Tay, Zac, while their mom, Chris and Ashley stayed on another floor by the fault. Their dad, though reluctant, let Diana be with them instead for a change and he would stay home.
Now Melissa had expected little better than a cheap motel on the side of a loud highway with damp floors and a squeaking bed from the other side of the wall, but in fact she could have sworn not even that castle she had stayed in while in her 100's was as luxurious. Not only was it an amazingly expensive-looking room, she knew she didn't have to pay a penny, apart from tipping. She was in love.
"Nice, huh?" Isaac said.
"You expected this kinda room?" Melissa asked, unpacking her one outfit.
"Well the chandelier looks too much..." He saw her look. "No, not really. It's too good for us."
"It's too good for the President." Melissa agreed. "After all this time I'd thought you'd expect nothing less."
Isaac was tuning Melissa's bass. "It's way too extravagant for us. We are, by definition, a garage band that got lucky."
"Way lucky." Melissa said as she almost got lost in the walk-in closet. "Wish my band would get a break."
"I'll pass on your demo tape." Isaac suggested.
"Let me rephrase that; I wish my band would actually sound good and try an original tune for once." She
grinned. "Even if it's jabbering about flowers and hair and some made-up word."
"So you know the lyrics?" Isaac grinned back.
She sat next to him. "My Middle Of Nowhere copy was shuffled and Minute With You just wouldn't come on."
"Awww, I've got a teeny for a girlfriend." Isaac smiled.
She punched him hard. "Never call me the 'T' word!"
"You liked that Britney Spears song, admit it." Isaac replied.
"I liked nothing of the sort! She's crap!"
"Oops I did it again... Come on sing along, you know the words." This was the point in which Ike knew to run.
"DIE!" She screamed.
"Too late!"
Isaac grabbed her from behind and thus a huge tickling battle enraged.
Taylor opened the door. "Guys?"
Melissa screamed and tried to pull away. "NO!"
"You're an insult to your Goth ways!"
Melissa grabbed his wrist and pulled him away. "Hey, quit it..." Still they didn't notice Taylor.
Melissa leaped over the bed and dived for cover. Isaac grabbed her ankle and pulled her back.
"Guys?"
"Please don't... Mercy!" Melissa yelled.
"GUYS!"
Both stopped and looked up quickly.
"Dad says we're eating out tonight and you'd better be ready by seven."
"Is that it?" Ike asked.
"And also there are fans outside so just try to be polite to them Melissa, as much as you hate anybody who actually likes our music."
"Yeah sure Taylor." Melissa smiled sweetly. "Besides, those two girls trying to steal grass clippings from your front yard were just creepy."
"Okay, see ya guys." Tay closed the door.
They looked at eachother.
"Where were we?" Ike asked.
"I think you had your arms here and I was screaming and kicking like this..."
After the dinner, which almost turned into another Jakarta episode as the English prove to be when they hear Hanson are coming, Melissa and Isaac were ready for a good night in. With an indoor swimming pool, full entertainment and a stocked mini-bar, nobody complained.
"And so no church visits then?" Isaac asked as Melissa explained her situation.
"Not that you'd enjoy a room full of crosses, yeah. That's basically it."
"Don't worry, I'll protect you." Isaac said as condescending as he could manage.
Melissa tried her best not to laugh, and failed. "I'm so sorry honey, but I'm still the stronger vampire."
"Say's who?" Isaac asked.
"Says the vamp with four hundred years of experience. Trust me, you are strong, but you're new at this."
"But I'm still stronger than any mortal?" He asked fondly.
"Yep."
"Then I can't complain."
Melissa dug out as much ice-cream as possible in one go. "Even if this does nothing to me, I still love it."
"Now that pisses me off." Isaac replied. "Half the reason people eat is for the taste and flavour. And I can't have that."
"Yeah, but at least you'll never get fat." Melissa replied with a grin.
"And older. Don't you hate the fact you're stuck at twenty for all eternity?"
Melissa shrugged. "They never ID me and never will. Plus, it's a good age. But yes, I wouldn't mind growing up and getting pregnant and having the kids and having three divorces and being the grandma and dying in a third-rate nursing home." She noticed after a few seconds Isaac wasn't replying. "I'm sorry baby, it took me a century to adjust. It will get easier."
"At what point did you tell your parents?" Isaac asked quietly.
Melissa swallowed hard. "I didn't. I left them. But you're stronger than that. If worst comes to worst I'll back you up and we can live as hillbillies in the woods or something."
Isaac smiled just a little. "What, with the banjo and a bearskin rug?"
"And the awful Southerner accents." She saw his look. "Sorry, yours isn't that bad."
Isaac thought that through for a second. "Do I sound stupid to you or something?"
Melissa laughed. "Well when you're doing the Bullwinkle voice you do... But no." She tried her best impression. "Y'all have yo'self a gooden accent, ay reckon."
"Stupid is as stupid does." He replied simply. "Yet you can talk with your Long Island accent."
"What Long Island accent?"
"You sound like you're from a cheesy cop show. How long did you live in New York?"
"Oh... From the seventeen-nineties right up to the nineteen-twenties when Connar died."
"Why don't you ever talk about him?" Isaac asked.
She shrugged. "I didn't think you'd want to hear about him. I mean, he was a lot like you but he wasn't as funny. He was turned into a vampire a few years after me and we were always together. The thing I always remembered about him was he always wanted pointless violence to stop. I mean, we kinda have a better reason than most mortals and so he'd try to explain just how dumb it was. But they'd shout 'Witch! Witch!' And we'd go the next town or city or even village as complete strangers."
"Is that what we're gonna have to do?" Isaac asked slowly.
"Not really. Modern society has a lot of weirdo's that have been exposed. Everybody is considered a freak. In olden times everybody was so paranoid we couldn't stay if we wanted to. But now nobody cares. Especially in New York. Now there's the best place to be a vampire. If it were possible you could be after somebody in broad daylight in the Bronx and only a few would turn to see where the cameras are. So we can stay where we want except for in a vicarage."
"How many times have you moved or been chased out of town then?"
"I can't count how many times. But, it don't matter, I'm done talking."
"Wait a second!" Isaac replied. "You mean to tell me you don't like talking about your life? You've lived twenty times as long as me and you don't say anything about it!"
"It's not all great. I hate my life anyway. It's not exactly a saintly journey." Melissa replied almost coldly.
"D'you think every vampire has a conscious like us?" Isaac suddenly asked, thinking her reply through.
Melissa didn't know exactly. She shrugged. "Maybe we live amongst humans too much?"
"So... Where do the 'evil' vampires live then?"
"This world, or any other. I'm not sure. I've only been into the Other Realm once, in the same way as you."
"That was the Other Realm?" Isaac asked. "Not exactly homely, are they?"
"Humans aren't exactly wanted or welcomed. The only way we got through was the simple fact that food isn't a threat." Melissa gave him a half smile.
Isaac tried not to laugh, it seemed like a joke only vampires would get. "And the whole part about more vampires popping up after a shipment doesn't bother them?"
"It's illegal, but nobody cares. Like Religious propaganda I suppose."
"You think religions use propaganda?" Ike asked, really wishing he had heard her opinions before then.
"I've lived four hundred years. New religions have come and gone, but the best ones that have stayed are the ones that tells them to ignore everybody else and do they command with thunder and lightening and stuff. The ones implying there are no wrong religions are too open-minded. How d'you think Christians gained power?"
"Is this what four hundred years have taught you?" Ike asked.
"That and CNN."
He laughed. "This ice-cream has made me hungry, d'you mind if I duck out?"
Melissa kissed him. "Sure. Go right ahead."
Isaac stopped half way out of the door and turned back. "Hey, did you ever see any famous bands when, like, rock was actually good?"
"Woodstock 67 to 69 plus the Isle Of White festival." She grinned.
"I hate you." He said with almost sincere anger.
"Love you too!" She yelled back as he closed the door. She sighed. Alone in the classiest place she'd ever stepped, and stayed, in. She was bored already.
"Oh boys!" She yelled as she entered the room exactly below hers, where it seemed they'd already made themselves at home.
A long, brain-liquidating, intensively painful shrill of someone came as a reply. Either Tay and Zac had found the mini-bar or they were also bored and wanted entertainment.
"Kill kill!" Was the answer to what must had been a proposition from the other side. Melissa was contemplating walking into the bedroom on the left because that was where the madness was coming from. Oh hell, you're only four-hundred and eleven once.
"Guys?" Melissa asked. "Do I even want to know?"
Her reply was a loud puff and about fifty gallons of fire extinguisher foam sprayed onto Melissa and most of the room behind her. She stood there for a couple of seconds, not even trying to move of wipe some from her face. Finally she did and a grinning teenager behind the red canister that was once hooked on the wall in the corridor was trying his best to not laugh. He failed.
"You little prick!" She finally yelled, spitting out more foam along the way.
Taylor was in stitches as he looked Melissa up and down. She looked like an experiment gone wrong. It was amazing they hadn't gotten thrown out, yet they usually did this or worse. Remember their tendency to explore ways out of boredom when the opportunity showed itself? They also take it on the road with them.
"If that doesn't make people laugh then what does?" Taylor gasped out in-between laughs and giggles. Melissa almost growled back as a response.
"Just let him gloat. That way you can make a break for it and get him back." Zac said meekly, who was at that moment tied to a huge leather chair with colourful sticky tape.
"Taylor, don't tie your brother up!" Melissa said, shovelling off as much foam as she could, which stank of what seemed to them as rotting something or other. It was bad anyhow.
"Oh he doesn't care. Besides, I didn't. Ike did."
Melissa started untying Zac but it was pretty hard as Taylor was spraying them both now. When it had run out Zac and Melissa surrounded him.
"Drop the can." Melissa said.
Taylor dropped it. "Don't think I'm gonna be nice just because you're a girl."
Melissa had pinned on the bed in one second flat. "Don't think I'm gonna be nice just because you're a guy."
Taylor struggled and fought and yet he didn't get anywhere. For some strange reason he was being overpowered by not just a girl, but one who could get beaten by Ike. Zac grabbed the roll of sticky tape and tied up Taylor.
"Awww, he's so cute." Melissa put on some lipstick and pulled off Taylor's shirt. "Mind if I take him?" She kissed his back a few times and her face of disgust at his sweaty back made Zac laugh. The sad fact was that Tay was enjoying that, to a certain extent. Hey, she was fit. He was so glad nobody, especially Ike, would know.
"Smile!" Zac said and a few flashes filled the room as Zac had his blackmailing tools ready. Melissa carried the camcorder and in under half an hour Tay was more red in the face than a nun watching Clerks. Not only was Taylor tied to the bed, he had pretty lipstick graffiti all over his chest and arms, reading 'Zac rules and Tay drools!', 'Melissa rocks the world!', 'Property of the Area 51- Return when finished probing' and smiley faces, peace signs and flowers all over him. Then he had to sing 'My Old Man's A Dustman' in a cockney accent or else he'd be fed something looking like a mixture of household products and pickles. Which he hated. So Melissa and Zac were laughing so hard at the once terrorist, having beaten him at his own game.
"Okay, I'm humiliated, what now?" Taylor moaned.
Melissa picked up the phone and a newspaper left in a rack besides the bed. "Just gonna phone somebody..." She mumbled.
"What? Who?" She held up the paper. "NO! You can't! You're inhumane!"
"Hello? Is that the Sun? You'll never guess who's we've got in our hotel room tied to the bed. Seems his hooker was more 'experimental' than he specified..."
Taylor was struggling as hard as he could. The tape was too sticky and knotted to get free, so he just screamed and shouted instead.
Melissa felt insulted. "You don't believe me? Fine Zac!"
Zac picked up the phone. "Hi, this is Zac Hanson." There was a long pause and Taylor was still screaming. "Yeah, that's him all right. Can you come soon? He's getting antsy." He paused again. "The hotel's..."
"DON'T YOU DARE!"
Zac hung up and Melissa was panting with laughter. Even though she didn't breathe oxygen or anything for that matter. Zac was crying with hysteria and had trouble remaining standing as the thought of the paparazzi taking pictures of his brother in that condition ran over and over in his head.
Taylor didn't find the funny side as they left him alone to his thoughts. Out of kindness though Zac had left the TV on. VIP to be exact and if Pamela didn't make Tay happy he had to be dead or something. Despite the fact that Zac and Melissa looked like they had been caught in a blizzard, they were loving this.
"You really know how to humiliate!" Zac congratulated his new partner in crime as they relocated to his bedroom.
"Thanks buddy." Melissa smiled.
"It's gonna be so cool when you're my sister in law!"
Melissa searched him for his joking side. It seemed the 'little brother' role had gotten the better of him. There was none.
"And what makes you think that's gonna happen little boy?"
Zac creased his eyes at the 'little' remark, but continued in a feminine voice. "'Oh Isaac! Isaac! Take me in your masculine arms! Lure me away you guitar-playing God!'" He put on his normal voice. "And so on. I'm pretty sure that curse thingy doesn't work on other vamps so stop acting dumb."
Melissa clicked. "Hey! Keep it down! Tay's only in the other room!"
"Aren't you gonna tell him?" Zac asked, falling for her way to change the subject.
"Yeah, Ike will slip soon, so probably. Plus you're crap at secrets."
"Say's who?"
"Says Steve McQueen's number one fan's boyfriend." She grinned, even though it was embarrassing.
Zac burst out laughing. "Okay, so I slipped with that one! Anyway, there's no shame in that, Steve's, like, the ultimate hero! The Great Escape is in my top ten of best ever movies."
"He was so fine..." Melissa grinned. "I'm gonna wash off then go downstairs in case the press do actually find out."
Zac grinned. "Sure."
Half an hour later Melissa was washed and dressed in her dress that either screamed movie star or at least somebody rich. She hadn't ever worn it before because she'd stolen it from a rich woman's wardrobe a few months ago when she was still in LA. She had felt guilty but everybody hated that woman and so the guilt had worn off. Plus she hadn't killed her, just knocked her out. So stealing a few things made it seem like it'd just been a robbery with some sort of fork she stuck in her neck. She grinned. Why were the government so good at covering this up? It puzzled her to no ends, and probably all other 'tame' vampires.
She sat down at the bar and ordered a martini. She knew she looked hot, this was to no fault of her own. She hadn't even dried her hair properly. But when it dried, without her putting a comb on it, it will hang in curly spirals than hung down to her chest and make anybody jealous, even guys. She had no makeup on but she looked flawless. She could be in a nuclear disaster and not even a spilt end would emerge or a eyelash would fall out. That was one part of the whole 'vampire's curse'. Constant beauty. No wonder the girls threw themselves at Ike...
"Hi honey." Melissa looked up and saw Diana sitting next to her.
"Hi Diana. You getting pleasingly drunk as well?"
She smiled just ever so slightly, not minding that Melissa had alcohol in her hand. "Two drinks, I'm sure the boys wont mind."
"D'you miss the kids?" Melissa asked after Diana ordered a screwdriver.
"Honestly?" Melissa nodded. "A little, but not enough as I should. But don't worry, by tomorrow I'll be phoning every hour just in case Walker hasn't made them his famous breakfast of donuts and coffee."
Melissa laughed. "I don't know how you handle all of them. I can barely remember my own birthday."
"Oh they're good kids. Right up till we leave them alone to get into trouble."
"Then don't go upstairs." Melissa advised.
"Water bombs?" She asked automatically.
"Fire-extinguisher. Plus lipstick, tape and possibly the entire London paparazzi." Melissa listed them off.
"Oh..." Diana moaned a little. "You'd think they'd give one hotel a break?"
"Could be worse. Look at The Who, or even the Beatles."
Diana smiled. "I suppose you're Yoko Ono then, aren't you?"
Melissa was shocked. "I suppose I am, aren't I?"
"Don't worry, I'm sure you wont split them up."
"But that my plan the whole time." Melissa said as sincerely as possible.
Diana laughed one of those mom laughs. The ones that mean no harm in doing and are probably the best in the world. "No, I really doubt it. I'm sorry to say this Honey but Isaac will chose his guitars over you."
"I know that. It all comes with being a rock star's girlfriend."
"You're at the top of list for his girlfriend's, by the way."
"Ohhh, dish the dirt on them." Melissa leaned in closer, grinning.
"Ugh, there was this one girl that was so obnoxious and uptight, she had bad taste in music too." Diana laughed.
"We're talking all club and no rock?" Melissa asked.
Diana nodded solemnly. "And worse. Garage."
Melissa winced at the thought. "I thank you for your good taste in music in which you've passed down."
"Thanks Sweety." Diana said.
"Okay, tell me about the infamous Danae."
Diana looked at her with seriousness. "Sure you can handle it?"
Melissa nodded and braced herself.
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