behind the scenes

When word first broke out to the world that Melissa Dawson was rumored to be cast in the upcoming film adaptation of Chained, the internet went bezerk. Fans were screaming, tears were shed, and many new versions of fan art for the upcoming movie were piling in by the thousands. Of course, Melissa herself was excited that she was at least being considered for the movie- for the lead role, no less -and that's why when her agent called her about the final results, Melissa almost had a heartattack.

It was a seemingly normal Thursday morning for Melissa, one that she would have normally spent relaxing with a cup of coffee, but instead of watching the busy LA traffic below her, Melissa was running around her spacious apartment trying to tidy everything up as much as possible. Her brother was in town to visit since it was a rare time where they both had time off at the same time, and she normally wouldn't have cleaned up her place that much, but at 7AM this morning, her phone went off and dragged her out of her beauty sleep to greet her with the text message from hell.



Having her brother (and admittedly, Jack) in her messy apartment was one thing. Having the rest of the band, some of the Dawson Sibling's closest friends, seeing how she normally lived? Yeah, that was something else entirely.



That was the last thing Melissa used her phone for before scrambling around like a mad man trying to make her apartment a bit more presentable. Jack lived in the same general area as Melissa did, but she was hoping that the busy morning traffic would slow him down a little bit so she would have more time to clean. Unfortunately, the universe seemed to be against her this morning as she sprinted across her tile floors from the kitchen towards the bathroom (she had a horrid habit of leaving all of her dirty clothes in a pile in the bathroom- specifically her bra and panties). Her music was blasting at full max, the beautiful sounds of Good Charlotte currently filling the apartment, so she never heard the front door open and close or even saw the familiar lanky figure cross the threshold and watch her scramble across the apartment with a smile on their face.

"Aw, Melissa," Jack shouted over the loud music, a hand over his heart, "you didn't have to clean up just for me."

Melissa hadn't expected anyone to be there in her apartment as she cleaned, and that showed as she visibly jumped and slipped on the slick tile beneath her. Fortunately, there was a sofa nearby for her to grab, steadying her body and trying not to face plant into the floor, and even over the music, Melissa could still hear the dorky laughter she'd heard a thousand times over the past several years teasing her for being so jumpy. Despite being completely mortified, Melissa couldn't help the small smile that crept onto her face. She shook her head, trying to hide the slowly forming smile as she quickly ran back over to where she'd last placed her phone.

"I'm not cleaning for you, jackass," Melissa retorted, her eyes following Jack as he came closer into the kitchen, "I'm cleaning for the people my brother forgot to mention he was bringing."

Jack snorted. "Meli, I'm sure Alex and Zack aren't going to care about how clean your apartment is," he told her, plopping himself down into a nearby barstool.

"But I care," Melissa quickly pointed out, giving Jack a pointed look that said something only the two of them could read. "Besides, it's already bad enough that you know about the underwear pile in my bathroom- which we're still not telling Rian about, Jack -the last thing I need is for the rest of the band to find out and then have Rian flip out and ban anyone from ever stepping foot in my apartment again."

Jack, who was momentarily reminiscing about the time he found Melissa's lazy pile of clothes, snapped out of his thoughts at the brunette's last statement and couldn't help himself from rolling his eyes. "I don't see why Rian still insists on trying to boss you around and keep you away from anything that breathes," the skunk haired boy muses, somewhat grumpy as he picks at his fingernails. "I mean, you're a fucking adult Meli; I'm sure he realizes that you're not his little baby sister that needs to be kept away from middle school cooties-"

"But that's just it," Melissa cut Jack off with sigh, "I'm the younger sibling. It's not going to matter to Ri how old I get or the fact that we're barely two years apart, I'm his baby sister and he's always going to feel the need to be the 'protective older brother' figure."

"So I take it you've had this conversation with him before?"

"Yes I have, now stop picking at your cuticles and start making yourself useful, Barakat."

Jack barked out a laugh at Melissa's nagging, swatting away the small hands that kept trying to smack his own larger ones for picking at his nails. Melissa smirked down at Jack and gave her friend a light, friendly shove, the two bickering for a moment before she finally insisted that she needed to go clean her bathroom before the rest of the band arrived. "Wait!" he quickly called out. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Take out the ingredients for pancakes!" Melissa shouted back in response, her voice slightly muffled due to the walls in between the two. "And don't you dare try touching my stove, Jack! I just cleaned that stovetop and the last thing I need is for you to be starting another fire-"

"Oh come on!" Jack whined. "That was one time-"

"And it furthermore proved that you can't cook for shit," Melissa deadpanned, her voice becoming more audible the moment she left the bathroom. She quickly dropped off the pile of dirty clothes in her room, deciding that she should probably do laundry tomorrow, before shutting the door behind her and coming back out to the kitchen. When she got there, Jack had just finished getting all the ingredients necessary out of the fridge and she shooed the tall boy away from her cooking area so she could get to work on feeding the four man army known as All Time Low.

Jack sat off to side in the same barstool he'd plopped down in earlier while Melissa got out a large mixing bowl and the griddle she needed to make the pancakes. As per usual, Jack pulled out his phone to pass the time, either browsing through one of the many social media apps he used or playing some dumb game on his phone, and Melissa didn't pay much attention to him. She just let him be to do his own thing, just like she usually did whenever he decided to come over. It wasn't until the music on her phone was interrupted by the soft ding of a notification coming through that she looked up from the large amount of batter she was stirring.

"What?" Jack innocently asked, ignoring the sharp eyebrow raised on Melissa's forehead.

"Don't what? me," Melissa scolded, pointing the batter covered spoon in his direction, "what vulgar tweet have you tagged me in this time?"

Jack scoffed. "First of all, it wasn't twitter," the guitarist sassed, "and secondly, my tweets are not vulgar, they're just expressive. They show the world who I really am!"

Melissa pursed her lips resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Uh huh, sure," she replied, going back to stirring the bowl in front of her, "they're real expressive. Anyway, what'd you tag me in now Jack-o?"

"Nothing really," Jack admitted. "I just took a quick snap of you making pancakes and then told Instagram how great of a friend you are for making me pancakes."

A small smile spread across Melissa's face. Granted, Jack wasn't the only one who was getting the pancakes, but it was still cute that he made a post about it. In fact, the more Melissa thought about it, the more she realized that that was one of the first "normal" posts she'd been tagged in by Jack in a long time.

"Of course," Jack's sudden comment broke Melissa out of her inner monologue, "I also added on how I was going to raid your kitchen for all the stuff you need to make mimosas, so-"

Melissa let out a long, almost tired sounding sigh. There was the Jack we all knew and loved.

"Jack, it's barely 8AM-"

"So? It's Happy Hour somewhere-"

"Jack!"

"What?! The rest of the guys want one too!"

The wooden spoon Melissa had been using to stir the batter clattered to the rim of the bowl as a load groan tore through the air. Her friends (and family) were going to be the death of her.

"Fine," Melissa breathed out in defeat, "you boys can have your damn cocktails, but you have to fix them yourselves."

Jack, who was beyond thrilled at the fact he would be getting a mimosa, jumped up from the stool and ran towards the cupboard where he knew the alcohol was stored. "Thanks Mel! You're the best!"

Melissa waved off the overgrown toddler and shot off a quick warning for him not to make a mess as she started the first of the pancakes. Rian should have been showing up with the rest of the boys any minute now, and Melissa knew it was best to have at least a little food prepared before they got there so they wouldn't get roudy and start tearing up the place.

As Melissa was flipping over the first batch of pancakes, a tall glass full of the familiar orange cocktail was placed down in front of her as Jack passed by with the same concoction in his own hand. "Figured you could use a drink," he said with a shrug, taking a healthy sip of his mimosa before putting it down on the marble countertop beside him.

"After dealing with all four of you, yeah, I'm going to need several drinks," Melissa jokes, laughing a bit at Jack's mock pouting before going back to the pancakes. They were done cooking not long after that, and Melissa was able to cook up a few more rounds on the griddle before a loud knock sounded through the apartment.

"Come in!" Both Jack and Melissa called out at once, the two young adults staring at each other momentarily before bursting out into laughter. The front door opened and shut, and within a matter of moments, three very familiar faces greeted the giggling duo in the middle of the kitchen.

"Meli!" Rian exclaimed, his dazzling smile wide as his eyes landed on his younger sister.

"Rian!" Melissa replied, running into her brother's open arms and squeezing him in a tight embrace. It had been far too long since the two siblings had seen each other, and they were both incredibly happy to finally be in each other's presense.

"I've missed you so much," Rian mumbled in his sister's ear, a slow smile spreading across Melissa face.

"Ditto," she agreed, the duo's embrace growing tighter as the feeling of not seeing each other for so long fully sinking in.

A loud, obnoxious cough interrupted the heart-warming exchange between the Dawson siblings, and Melissa already knew who it was before they even opened their mouth. "Yeah, y'know, Zack and I are here too," Alex sniffled, "but it's no big deal. We obviously don't matter as much as Rian-"

"Shut up Alex," Melissa cut off the lead singer with a laugh, letting go of her brother and going to greet the other two guests in her place. She hugged Alex first, secretly in hopes that he'd stop his whining, before going off to do the same to Zack.

"So when did you start trusting Jack with cooking?" Rian suddenly asked.

Confused, and also a little freaked out, Melissa pulled away from the bassist and turned to face her brother. However, the moment her eyes landed on the horrific sight in front of her, all of the words that were to be aimed at Rian got lost in the midst of her loud gasps.

"Jack, what the hell?!" Melissa cried, rushing forward to shoo away the man who was destroying her pancakes. "We've talked about this before!"

Laughter rose up from the visiting boys in the apartment while any sort of defense Jack was going to shoot back with was drowned out by Melissa's scolding- "Jack, you know I can't let you near the griddle if all you're going to do is burn the pancakes and flip the rest onto the floor!" -but once everyone had calmed down, Melissa went back to cooking breakfast while the boys were making and drinking mimosas just as Jack promised. The majority of the food was soon ready, and it truly did feel like a normal Thursday morning up until that point (especially if you considered feeding your brother and his rockstar friends breakfast while they bickered over who already ate their fair share of pancakes normal).

But it was then, when Melissa had just put the last batch of pancakes on the griddle and she considering making another mimosa or two, that Melissa's life decided to get a whole lot better and a hell of a lot more complicated.

The music coming from her phone was abruptly cut off by the familiar tune of someone calling her, and once she saw that it was her agent calling, she picked up the phone without hesitation. "What's up Maurice?" Melissa answered, quickly shushing Alex for yelling while she was on the phone.

"Hey!" The ecstatic agent greeted. "I'm not calling at a bad time, right?"

Another loud commotion came from the boys behind her thanks to Zack attempting to steal some of Jack's pancakes. With a roll of her eyes, Melissa answered, "No, you're good, it's just my brother and his idiot friends-" another, much louder uproar followed this statement "-who are making a lot of noise."

Maurice's light chuckle rang out from phone speaker and Melissa could almost see the man shaking his head as well, given that he was quite familiar with the many antics pulled by All Time Low throughout the years of being her agent. "I kind of assumed as much," he admitted, the sound of rustling papers following on the other end. "How's your brother doing by the way? I know you two don't get to talk as much as you'd both would like."

A small smile tugged at the corners of Melissa's lips. "He's doing great, and it is pretty great to see him too," she added. "But anyways, I'm assuming you didn't call just to check up on my brother, right?"

"Right!" Maurice exclaimed, the man momentarily forgetting the news he had for his client. "So, I have two bits of news for you, which would you like to hear first?"

"Is there any bad news?" Melissa asked, finally deciding that she indeed wanted another mimosa and went to go start mixing it together.

"Not really, but there's a bit of information that's not as exciting as the other one, so I'll start there," Maurice concluded. "So, MTV just emailed me about an hour ago saying that they're having this sort of fan fest at the end of the year to promote some of their new shows and the upcoming seasons of the more popular stuff, hence where you come in."

Melissa nodded half-heartedly, tucking her cell between her face and shoulder to make making her drink easier on herself. "Awesome, do you have any specific dates yet?"

"The only time frame they're giving me right now is beginning to mid December," Maurice admitted, "but I'm sure they'll be sending out some more info soon."

"Cool." Melissa finished making her drink and took a quick sip before continuing. "Now what was the other thing you needed to tell me?"

"Right, so..." Maurice trailed off a bit before clearing his throat. "Do you remember that lead roll you tried out for about a month ago? The one for the new YA novel to movie adaptation?"

Melissa nodded out of habit, speaking before taking another sip of her mimosa. "Yeah, what about it?"

"You got the part, Melissa."

Almost instantly, Melissa choked on her drink and began coughing violently to clear her lungs of the now-hazardous liquid.

"Melissa?" Both Maurice and the boys called out her name at almost the same time, concered at the reaction to what she'd just heard. As Melissa regained control of her coughing fits, Maurice was the first to speak. "You good over there, 'lissa?"

"Yeah, I'm good you guys," she spoke, reassuring both concerned parties and urging the boys to continue eating their breakfast. "But I'm going to need to you repeat yourself Maur, 'cause I'm pretty sure I just misunderstood what you said."

If she could have guessed, Melissa would've said that the agent was rolling his eyes a little right now, but his tone still sounded quite enthusiastic as he spoke. "I'm not kidding Melissa, you got the part! The part of Arin Brookes is all yours!"

A beat of silence passed between them before Melissa finally mumbled, "Wait, so you're not joking?"

Maurice scoffed before replying. "Why would I lie to you about something like this?" he questioned. "Melissa, this is huge- career changing even! Not only are you going to be starring in a majorly-funded Hollywood movie, but you're the female lead! Do you get how amazing this is?"

"Of course I do, Maurice!" Melissa exclaimed, pacing in the kitchen as a nervous tick. "I just- I mean, are you one hundred percent sure that they're casting me?"

"No, the email I got from Warner Bros is an early April Fool's joked," the talent agent sassed, making Melissa roll her eyes in response. "Look Melissa, the casting directors loved your audition tape and your work with Hit The Lights. Not only that, but when they saw how much of a positive reaction they got from the internet when it was leaked that you were trying out for Arin, they decided that you were obviously the perfect choice. All they need from both you and me is a confirmation that you in fact want to keep this part and it's all yours- once we sign the contract and legal papers, of course."

Melissa was stunned, yet anxious all at the same time. She was thrilled by the fact that she was chosen for such a big role, but it didn't feel all that real. There were so many more qualified people who both auditioned and were offered the part (hell, she'd ran into both Lily Collins and Jennifer Lawrence at her audition) so to her, it was understandable why she was shocked at why a role this big was given to someone like her.

"'lissa? You're still there right?" Maurice asked. "Hey, just a fair warning, if you don't accept this part, I'm dropping you as my client."

Then again, everyone has to start somewhere, right?

"No need to be so aggressive Maurice," Melissa joked, finally snapping out of her thoughts and letting a smile cross over her face. "And of course my answer is yes!"

"Great!" the agent cheered. "So I'll email back the casting directors and give them your answer, and once I get that contract and other papers in order, I'll call you in so we can get this all squared away and whatnot, sound good?"

"Yep, sounds great Maur," Melissa replied with a smile. "Thank you so much again for everything you've done for me."

Maurice scoffed, only this time, it was more as if was waving off what Melissa had just said. "Don't thank me girl, I'm just the one that makes the appointments and sends off the emails, you're the one doing all of the actual work."

Melissa rolled her eyes, her smiled widening in the slightest. "Still, thank you Maurice."

"Anytime sweetheart. Now I gotta go, but I'll call you back soon! And don't say anything about the role to anyone outside your family!"

"You got it, bye Maur-" the line went dead in the middle of Melissa's farewell, and as soon as she shook her head and shoved her phone back into her pocket, she was met with four curious sets of eyes. "Don't you four know that staring is rude?" she asked.

"What was the phone call about?" Rian, ignoring his younger sister's questions as per usual, was the first to speak, obviously voicing his and the other three's thoughts as well.

Melissa gave them a casual shrug, sitting herself down in the available bar stool and going back to the drink that caused her to choke a few mere minutes ago. "It was just my agent filling me in a few things he got emailed about this morning."

"And?" Alex egged on.

"And what?" Melissa innocently replied.

"And what was the news that Maurice told you that caused you to almost die from a mimosa?" Jack finished, he and the rest boys staring at her with skeptical eyes.

Melissa couldn't keep up the innocent facade much longer, so she let her smile return to her face as she leaned forward in her chair and asked, "Do you guys remember when I went to that super big audition about a month ago?"

The four of them nodded, Rian speaking up again and adding, "Yeah, and then it was leaked that you were being considered for the lead in some new YA novel movie thing coming out next year, right?"

It was then Melissa's turn to nod her response, opening her mouth to speak just as Jack quickly blurted out, "Wait, so do this mean you got the part?"

Melissa's smile morphed into a full-on grin. "Yep, I'm going to be playing Arin Brookes in the movie Chained."

Four loud cheers and excited expletives rang out throughout the apartment, no doubt pissing off the neighbors with the noise, but the boys certainly didn't care. Rian was the first out of his seat, engulfing his baby sister in a hug and going on about how he was so proud of her, and then it was Zack who doing the hugging and congratulating, then Alex, and finally Jack, who gave Melissa a hug just about as tight as Rian's and couldn't help but shout "Holy shit!" over and over again in between his fair share of congratulating her as well.

It was then that someone, Melissa couldn't quite remember who, suggested that this was a cause for celebration (or in ATL vocabulary, more drinks), so after they finished up their pancakes and mimosas, everyone piled into either Jack or Rian's car and drove off to Jack's apartment, where they broke out the good liquor, did celebratory shots, and later ordered in more than enough pizza and chinese take-out for the five of them.

Later on, Melissa would admit that it was the weirdest way to celebrate her getting a lead role in a highly anticipated movie, but at the time, and when she was looking back on it, Melissa knew that she wouldn't have had it any other way.

Notes

just a fair warning, this story might start out a little slow before the any big "events" happen (or it may not be so slow, who knows??)