The Fight

chapters 1 2 3 4 5 6

Chapter 1

"Daniel!" Darren's eyes were blazing alight as he slammed the door shut.

The guitarist sat with his arms protectively across his chest in the chair. They were in their dressing rooms, just having played a smashing performance in front of another notable TV audience. They should have been having a grand time but instead the pair did not even look at each other in the eye.

"What is it now, Darren?" Daniel asked evenly, although he knew what was coming aboard.

Darren stood in front of him, his new shiny jacket and pants glimmering in the artificial light above.

"You knew that my fly was undone on stage. You knew. Yet you didn't warn me about it!"

"Darren, I didn't see it."

The singer snorted in disbelief. "Yeah right. I saw you look over me twice before we went up and you didn't say a word! Everyone was laughing at me!"

Daniel felt his temples once again throbbing. Another headache on its way. Another row with his band mate. Life was just great.

"Will you just calm down? I didn't see anybody laughing, nor anybody pointing or whispering. You're taking this too far."

Darren stood closer to him, his hands on his hips as he glared down.

"No, I will not calm down. Millions of people have just viewed us on television. And I suffer the most humiliating experience of my life. All because you didn't tell me!"

This time Daniel also stood up and looked at him at level. "So it's my fault now, isn't it? It's always been my fault since this friggin' promo tour had started! What's with you these days?!"

Darren glared at Daniel in a standoffish manner, his eyes burning a deep tempestuous blue.

"What's with me these days is that you don't seem to give a bloody damn about our image anymore!" Darren started waving his hands around agitatedly as he started pacing, "First it was the whole Hawaiian shirt incident on Leno, which you could have prevented! I mean I was on medication, I didn’t know what I was wearing! Then it was the blonde hair, which you swore looked good, until I saw the fans' reaction to it! Now this! What the hell is going on with you?"

Daniel rolled his eyes and sat back down again in that infuriatingly careless manner of him.

"Oh yeah, our image is so damaged because you wore a 70's pimp shirt. And your hair did look good," Daniel stated derisively, as if speaking to a child. "If you didn't want my opinion, you shouldn't have asked for it."

"Damnit, Daniel!" Darren kicked a chair violently into the wall, his face flushing with rage as he stopped and pointed at the other half of Savage Garden, "Why are you being like this? So uncaring, so bloody indifferent!"

Daniel shrugged and picked up his guitar and started tightening up the strings, stating sarcastically, "Just because I got tired of catering to your temper tantrums doesn't mean I don't care about our image. Frankly, all that stuff you're so pissed off about was more to do with your image than ours. If anyone's destroyed our so-called image, it's you, Darren."

Darren snarled with frustration and grabbed a cell phone off the make-up table and flung it in Daniel's direction. It missed him, but hit the wall, breaking up into pieces with a muffled crash.

Daniel looked up swiftly and in alarm, his green-grey eyes sparking at Darren's audacity, his voice getting deeper and quieter with menace, "You're lucky you've a bad aim, Darren."

Darren bared his teeth into a mockery of a smile, and his body suddenly went from tense and angry to casual and inviting.

"Why? What would you have done if I'd hit you, Danny? Hmm?" Darren mocked in a sweet but utterly false tone, enunciating each word patronizingly. It was obvious he was trying to draw Daniel into the argument.

Daniel knew this and ignored the singer, clenching his teeth as his patience started to wear thin. He went back to attempting to focus on tuning his guitar when suddenly a powder puff hit him in the forehead. He looked up in outrage, speechless when a lip-gloss hit him in the chest and then a hairbrush in the shoulder. The items were getting bigger and more painful!

"What the hell are you doing, Darren?!" Daniel demanded, his voice raised slightly with disbelief, "Stop it!" He stood up and raised his arms to ward off the flying objects.

"What? You can take me! I’m just your pathetic, poofter singer! That’s what everyone says isn’t it? Daniel Jones, the genius, and his high-maintenance fairy boy singer! Come on, Jonesy! Where's that toughness?" Darren taunted, his eyes shining with a touch of madness. Daniel knew him like this, when his band mate stopped listening to common sense and reason, but it had never been directed at him before!

Suddenly Darren nailed the guitarist in the mouth with a pocket mirror. It shattered on his face and cut his cheek and bottom lip. Daniel stood in utter disbelief and his hand went slowly to his mouth and cheek. He stared down at the blood on his fingers then stared back at the somewhat stunned but still furious singer. Daniel's vision started to haze with his own fury.

"You bloody moron," he stated, evenly, his teeth clenching and a muscle ticking in his jaw. His hands clenched tightly into fists, his knuckles going white with the strength of his anger. His breathing became erratic as the anger flooded his senses and when he would have fought it, instead he welcomed it.

"Who the hell do you think you are?"

Daniel's vision blurred as his slowly felt his senses dissolving into a heated mess inside him. His shoulders were heaving up and down as he struggled for control but inevitably failing.

Carefully and calculatingly, like a predator towards its prey, the taller man took a few steps towards the singer, his face slowly colouring a crimson shade.

"Bloody hell, what on earth is the matter with you?" his hiss pierced through the thickened silence between them.

There was a moment's pause.

"You." Darren answered back in the same cool calm voice, bordering on repressed rage. He didn't flinch as Daniel came closer and closer until they were arm lengths apart from one another. "You always act like nothing really matters anymore. And I'm sick of it!"

And with that, Darren suddenly lifted his hand and pushed him, enough to send him toppling a few steps back.

That was enough to blow the guitarist's already waning fuse. When Daniel was mad, he couldn't bear anyone touching him. In an instant, he struck Darren on the side of his face, as he narrowed his eyes and snarled dangerously.

"You little-" Darren lashed back with more blows. Daniel winced with pain as the singer, once declaring he had no athletic ability whatsoever, hit him hard on the groin. He replied back by slapping him hard across the face.

It wasn't long before the only sounds coming from the two men were grunts and groans of pain as they fought for control. Daniel had pushed Darren roughly against the wall and struck him hard once again.

"I don't know what is going on in that mind of yours nowadays," he whispered menacingly as he probed into Darren's own baleful eyes. "But I am not going to take it anymore. I will not be treated as some piece of rubbish you found off the street!" Darren struggled and turned to him, his face moist with perspiration and fury. "No, it's you that has the problem! You simply don't give two damned cents about the band anymore!" And with that, he gave Daniel an almighty push. An overturned chair was behind him. As he struggled backwards for balance, he staggered over the chair, gave a startled yelp then crumbled over the piece of furniture with a loud crash.

Daniel looked up from where he was sprawled across the chair. The cold fury in his eyes cooled Darren's anger somewhat. He bent down to give Daniel his hand.

Daniel deepened his glare and slapped Darren's hand away. "I don't want any thing from you, Darren. Get away from me," he said icily, attempting to lever himself up from the floor. Putting his weight on to his left arm he fell back on the floor with a moan. "My arm, God, my arm, you fucking bastard."

Darren's face drained of colour as he watched Daniel collapse on the floor. ‘What have I done,’ he moaned to himself. Aloud, he said quietly, "Just stay there. Daniel, I'll go get someone."

Daniel looked up, unshed tears brightening his eyes, "Well, where the fuck do you think I would go?" he asked angrily, "I bloody well can't even straighten it, you wanker."

With a quick miserable glance, Darren spun on his heel and ran from the room yelling for someone to call for a doctor. In the hallway, Darren ran blindly into Anna Maria who had heard the commotion and had her cell phone out, already telling who ever was on the other end where they were.

"Is that the emergency services?"

Anna nodded and put her hand over Darren's mouth to shush him, concern showing in her eyes as she noticed the already darken bruise on the side of Darren's face.

"They're on their way," she said hanging up the phone and wrapping her arms around Darren. "Where is he?"

"In the back room," said Darren with a nod of his head.

Hurrying down the hallway, Anna still had her arm wrapped around Darren, pulling him along. "What happened?"

"We had a fight." Darren didn’t want to talk about it.

Anna Maria looked pointedly at the bruise on Darren's cheek, "Did you get that from Danny?"

Darren nodded miserably, "Yeah and then I shoved him and he fell. Now he can't use his arm. Oh god what if I hurt him permanently? What if he can't play anymore?"

Anna Maria snorted with disgust, "Men! We can't think about that now, Darren. First things first, we have to take him and you to the hospital. The ambulance is on its way. Now come on, we have to wait with Daniel." She attempted to herd Darren back towards the dressing room, but Darren resisted, looking towards to open door with apprehension.

"No, he won't want me there, I'll be fine" Darren insisted, his voice getting softer, tears filling his eyes. His face was already starting to hurt and he knew there would be some helluva bruises in the morning.

Anna Maria thought about forcing him to come along and face Daniel, but she knew how stubborn Darren could be. She shook her head, disgusted by the actions of the 2 grown men, and best friends at that, before turning to go down the hallway to the dressing room.

As she entered the room, she found Daniel half-sitting, half-leaning on a broken chair. The room was in utter chaos, what wasn't broken was overturned and out of place. Daniel looked up at Anna Maria warily, his clothes and hair in disarray. His mouth and cheek were still bleeding but were now joined with cuts near his eye as well as bloodied knuckles. He was clutching his right arm, shielding it from any further injury.

Anna Maria sighed, somewhat shocked and yet not very surprised at the situation. Both band members had been heading down this path for a long time. Everyone had noticed how well they seemed to get on until now, when the situation had changed. This was their second album, they were older, wiser, and a lot more cynical. They'd had a taste of glory and while Daniel wanted to regain it in the same way they had before, by waiting for it, Darren wanted to reach out and grab it. Both paths had their flaws and their good points, however both were simply too extreme. Savage Garden needed a perfect balance between the two to recapture the success they had once stumbled upon. But everyone had realized that the guitarist and singer had not yet found this balance, and so this incident had been inevitable.

"What are you looking at?" Daniel growled, obviously in pain, and still very angry at being bested by his band mate.

"A moron!" Anna Maria snapped back, not in the mood to be sympathetic when both men were at fault. She helped Daniel stand up and when she tried to help him to an unbroken chair, he pushed her away with his good arm.

"I hurt my arm, not my legs!" he grumbled, his grey eyes sparking as he sat down. The rage was still boiling deep inside him, though he was calming on the outside.

"Well, I called an ambulance just the same!" Anna Maria stated, firmly, leaning against the vanity, her arms crossed. She had a look of almost motherly reproach on her face to the point where Daniel couldn't stand it anymore.

"Stop looking at me like that!" Daniel gritted as he ran his good hand through his silken blonde hair, and attempted to straighten his torn shirt, "It's not my fault! He's the one that started in on me about his stupid fly! I didn't see the bloody thing open! Why the hell would I be looking there anyway?"

Anna Maria rolled her eyes and retorted, "Haven't you noticed anything? He's been spinning off on an identity crisis for the last 2 months! He's been trying to get your attention for a while! And you've been completely ignoring him!"

Daniel grunted carelessly, and stood up when he heard sirens, "Oh great, more of your psycho-babble. Go ahead take his side! Look, I don't have a clue what you're talking about and frankly I'm beyond caring!" He walked over to the door but just before he got there, he started weaving dizzily.

Angi came in at that moment and wondered in an alarmed tone, "What the heck happened? Why is there an ambulance pulling up? Daniel, are you alright?" She went over to him and helped him walk.

Anna Maria quickly moved to help as well, muttering, "He's probably got a concussion to top it all off. Rebecca is not going to be pleased with this."

They ran into Savage Garden's manager, Rebecca, as well as their personal assistant, Leonie, and the rest of the band in the hallway. Just to be on the safe side, ambulance attendants, who made quite a fuss over Daniel, accompanied them. He hated all the attention and he looked at Leonie, pleadingly, "Is this necessary? I just have a few scratches and bruises..." Leonie just glared him into silence and ushered him along with the attendants.

The attendants wanted to strap Daniel into a stretcher, in case he had internal bleeding and as they were doing so, Daniel grabbed Anna Maria's arm and asked grimly, "You saw Darren, right?" Anna Maria looked at him in wary confusion before nodding.

"Tell him it's not over...not by a long shot...understand?" Daniel finished quietly in a tone filled with dark promise, his eyes a stormy jade and his nostrils flaring with his high emotions. Anna Maria winced when Daniel's grip started biting into her arm and she quickly nodded so he would let go.

As Ben, Leonie and Rebecca accompanied Daniel as he was rolled away on the stretcher, one of the ambulance attendants came up to Angi, Anna Maria, Jennifer, Lee and Karl.

"Excuse me, but the report states we were to pick up two injured parties?" the attendant questioned, curiously, "Where's the second one?"

Everyone looked around for Darren. Lee's brow furrowed with consternation, "He was just here!"

"We have to find him, we don’t know if he was hurt" Jennifer inserted in her soft-spoken, calm manner. She and Angi went off to search the stage area of the TV show's set while Lee and Karl decided to take a look in the sound booth and green room. Anna Maria stayed with the attendant, hoping Darren would return to the dressing room.

Darren leaned against the stairwell door, just on the opposite side of the hall to the dressing room. He'd heard everything, including Daniel's threat...no his promise. His mind and his very being were filled with a sense of foreboding but there was still a lot of anger in him, as well, despite everything. Torn between remorse and anger, Darren chose the easier route.

"If it's a fight he wants" Darren muttered, the determination glowing from his eyes, as he clenched his jaw and his fists, "Then it's a fight he'll get."

next