I Could Have Died With You; 01

The fact that her heart beat faster against her chest and her stomach warmed up at the sound of William Beckett's voice ("I make plans to break plans / and I've been planning something big / planning something big") didn't embarrass Charlene Campbell at all. No, not in the least.
And sure, it wasn't exactly that voice her stomach should warm up to, but Charlene couldn't be blamed for her choice of ring tone, now could she? Actually, actually she kind of could, but that isn't the point. The point is... oh, right.
Patrick Stump.
Charlene Campbell would have liked to state that she would have picked a more suitable ring tone, a more, let's say, Fall Out Boy-ish one, but that would have just been freaky, you know, listening to your too-soon-to-call-it boyfriend's voice every time your phone rings. So Charlene decided to settle for William Beckett. His voice isn't even half bad, just not... not Patrick's, alright?
Charlene picked up the phone.
"Hey." She said, in that low, presumably romantic tone people are supposed to use when talking to their too-soon-to-call-it boyfriends, except Charlene wasn't even doing it on purpose; it all came as naturally as the warmth in her stomach, the unsteady heartbeat in her chest.
"Hi." Patrick said back, same tone, and Charlene was starting to maybe think that their phone calls were just as cliche as falling in love with the lead singer of your favorite band. Which was what happened to them, so never mind.
Charlene was, by now, past the point of fan girl-ing over the fact that "oh my god, I'm dating Patrick Stump". Because Charlene was a mature, reasonable 22 year old girl who liked Patrick for his adorableness and not because he was in some apparently semi-famous band. And because, technically, they weren't dating.
And okay, Charlene was totally not complaining about it. Just the fact that Patrick liked her enough to call once a day despite of how busy his days always were was pretty much amazing. And besides, with him being away on tour, it wasn't exactly like they could go out for dinner or to the movies or wherever it was Patrick Stump took his girlfriends out - Charlene hadn't asked.
So, technically? They weren't dating. Patrick didn't refer to her as his girlfriend and didn't use any pet names on her, which Charlene was actually grateful for. Charlene wasn't a fan of pet names, Patrick wasn't one either (no matter how many times Pete tried to talk him into the whole "Pattycakes" deal). Patrick was also apparently not a fan of expressing his deepest feelings, and Charlene would have otherwise given up, wasn't it for the fact that Patrick kept calling every night, checking if she was okay, if her day was good, talking for way longer than he probably should.
And okay, they weren't dating. But Charlene wasn't even thinking too much about it, really. She thought she maybe would when Patrick came back - she asked when that would be, Patrick said "tomorrow" - and they had to actually talk about it, decide what it was that they wanted to do with the wonderful connection they had, but for now, Charlene was just focused on the way Patrick's (beautiful, breathtaking) voice sounded when he said her name - always Charlene, and never Charlie like everyone else.
"So I was thinking," Patrick said, "when I get back, maybe we should go out or something, like have dinner or..."
"Pattycakes!" a very off key, very obnoxious Pete Wentz called in a sing-song voice, too loud until he realized Patrick was on the phone, a routine Pete should definitely be used to by now. "Patrick, get off the phone!" he whined, but lower. Patrick glared.
"Hold on a second, Charlene, Pete's saying something." He said into the phone, and then, to Pete, "What the hell, Pete? Fuck off!", and he actually tried to shove him away. Tried being the keyword. Charlie laughed from the other side of the line.
"But Pattycaaaakes..." Pete dragged the word impossibly, pouted overdramatically, and shoved a piece of paper in Patrick's face obnoxiously. "I wrote a song!" Patrick was definitely glaring now.
Somehow, the fact that Pete Wentz wrote a song didn't impress Patrick in the least. Not at all. Which kind of annoyed Pete. A lot.
He sat on the couch next to Patrick, practically thrown all over his lap, no sense of personal space whatsoever, and waved the piece of paper frantically in front of his glasses. "The best song ever, Pattycakes!"
Patrick sighed.
"That's really cool, Pete." He said, his hand covering the cell phone. "Now, I'm trying to talk to my girlfriend here, so could you please go die or something?"
Pete opened his mouth to whine about how he did almost die once, but thought better of it and simply pouted and went away (not to die, obviously, just... to do some important Pete Wentz thing, like uploading photos onto Buzznet or something).
Later, Patrick would hang up to find out that Pete's "best song ever" was actually two grammatically incorrect sentences that made no sense whatsoever when put together and would suggest Pete posted them in his blog. Pete would do as he was told and by the same time tomorrow the two senseless sentences would be the headline of a thousand kids' MySpaces.
Meanwhile in Chicago, Charlene Campbell would be fan girl-ing over the fact that Patrick Stump had just called her his girlfriend.

---

Inspiration comes from the most unusual places. And sometimes, it doesn't come at all.
Her anti-stress ball and the nicotine bubblegum she was chewing weren't quite working, as the dark haired girl squeezed said ball with her fingers and stared deadly at her computer screen, stuck after a comma and a misspelled sequence of words.
Her boss Steve eyed her as he made his way towards his busy office and wondered what was so difficult about some local band's interview, as he motioned her to follow him.
Scarlet Silverstone, she should have been a novelist.
The insides of Steve's office were fancy and didn't look like they belonged to the rest of the messy editorial office at all. They screamed "I-can-waste-ridiculous-amounts-of-money-in-completely-unnecessary-decorative-items" and gave Scarlet a headache every time she was unfortunate enough to have to go into that place.
Then again, Steve really was one for exaggerating, and money did run through his veins instead of blood. Or words, in Scarlet's case. When the man took a seat at his big boss-like chair and gestured her to sit across from him at the desk, Scarlet could already see the dollar signs in his otherwise grey eyes, and it was, admittedly, kind of scary, but honestly, Scarlet never minded dollar signs much.
"Our last issue sold really well." The elegant, brown haired man pointed out as Scarlet chewed her nicotine gum, and nodded her head affirmatively at the stated fact. Scarlet would like to think it had something to do with her natural talent when it came to words, but she had had enough of fooling herself: it was all "that band"'s fault.
"That band" whose picture, on the cover of the aforementioned magazine issue, was lying purposely on Steve's wooden desk, and Scarlet eyed the four faces for a moment, sticking up her nose at a particular set of big brown eyes, a particular pulled on face, a particular pair of obnoxious hips no one really needed to see.
"These boys, it seems, are a gold mine." Steve said, and smirked, and Scarlet, Scarlet really wasn't seeing where this was going - at least, not yet.
"A gold mine?" she repeated questioningly, because well, a little elaboration never hurt anyone.
"A gold mine." Steve confirmed and sat back, enjoyed the confused look on his employee's face, almost dragged things down so he could memorize exactly everything about that particular expression of hers. "And you know how much of a shame it would be to not explore a good gold mine, now don't you?" he finally added, which somehow didn't clarify things for Scarlet at all.
The journalist leaned in forward on the desk, as her boss folded his hands maliciously, and raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, Steve?"
"What I mean is," he said, "this band is, what?, the next biggest thing? The kids love them, they sell like the cure for cancer, everything they touch turns gold." Scarlet rolled her tired blue eyes; now that would be called exaggerating. "Gold, Scarlet!" Steve repeated for emphasis.
"So, uh... good for them?" the reporter tried, getting glared at.
"Yes, good for them. But also, good for us." Scarlet didn't see why. "Those guys already know you, Scarlet my dear. It'll be so easy to get information out of them!"
Oh. Oh so now this was starting to make sense.
"Wait a minute, what?" Scarlet said, standing up and pulling on her most bitchy and yet thoroughly offended face, slash, attitude. "What kind of information? What are you talking about? I can't believe you're actually suggesting that I..." Not to mention the fact that, even though Fall Out Boy knew Scarlet, it didn't mean Fall Out Boy liked Scarlet.
Steve remained calm and eyed her out of his self-assuredness. "The only thing I'm suggesting here is that you do your job as a journalist and report things others cannot even dream of reporting. That you go ahead of all of them and sell people what they really want to buy: the good juicy stuff, all about these kids' lives."
"Who are you? What have you done to Steve?" Scarlet mumbled almost inaudibly, her boss too busy rambling to notice any other kind of brain function in the room besides his own.
"Who cares about when their next CD is going to be released? Let's find out who their next CD is going to be about!", Steve proceeded, much too pleased with himself. "Who wants pictures from their last show? Let's have pictures from them backstage!"
If this wasn't serious business, Scarlet would have no doubt to accuse her boss, who appeared to have been brainwashed by Mr. Burns from The Simpson's, of acting like an obsessed twelve year old with a crush on... Pete Wentz, for fuck's sake! But this was Steve, her boss Steve, so she just pretended she didn't think he was out of his mind and let him continue.
"Scarlet, my dear Scarlet, you owe this to journalism!" he declared all too enthusiastically. "This is our chance to take this magazine so much further. I mean, look at these numbers!"
All words had now officially escaped her mouth and all coherent thoughts seemed to have abandoned her brain. Steve couldn't actually... he couldn't actually be expecting her to spy on these guys, could he? On their private lives!
"Steve, I thought this was Mad Music Magazine, not Mad Gossip..." was the best Scarlet managed, and even that didn't seem to shake Steve's foundation in the least.
"Yeah, I know, it isn't right to use your connection to the band to find out more about them, it goes against everything you believe in, etc, etc, boring! But Scarlet, think about it," Steve said as he got up from his big chair and walked towards her, "it would be the last big favor you would have to do for me."
Scarlet looked up as he made his way across the office. "What do you mean?"
"Think of this as one last test, one more step in the glorious stair that is your brilliant journalism career." Steve stood behind her as he forced her down softly on the chair, leaving his hands on her shoulders. "After all, I need to be sure I can trust you before I give you the promotion I had been holding out for you." Scarlet's eyes instantly lit at the sound of that, "Imagine it Scarlet, writing about whatever you want, criticizing people and the shitty music you despise... all you ever wanted."
"All I ever wanted..." Scarlet repeated, as if in a daze, and considered forgetting about whatever was left of her morals in order to get what she wanted. And besides, who cared if she screwed around with Jason and his friends' lives a bit?
It wasn't like she cared about them, it wasn't like it would hurt anyone if she tried to get closer to them for the sake of the magazine. It was her job. No one could blame her for doing her job.
"So, when do I start?"