Ashes of Dreams

A/N: Hello everybody. Just the summary I promised you:
Sum 41 goes off touring with MEST and the British nu-punk band ‘Ashes of Dreams’. But how will Deryck deal with the weird connection he shares with the lead singer, who, to make matters worse, are a tougher drinker than him and constantly gets herself into trouble. Can Steve handle being constantly smart-mouthed by a girl, and what happens when he starts falling for her? And can the strong feelings Cone has for his fellow bassist not be destructive for him? Through this and much more Dave and level-headed CC has to keep the shreds together. It’s basically quite an un-original idea, but with a (or so I like to think) more complicated, thought-through and entertaining plot-line. Will have lots of humour.
I’ve been trying to keep matters as close to facts as I possibly can about both MEST and Sum, but the thing is that it’s extremely hard to separate fact and fiction about them, so here are the facts on Sum 41 I’ll be working with:
Dave is married, the other three are single.
Avril Lavigne can fuck the hell off.
Deryck’s father left when he was young. (Only fact I could find was that he grew up with his Mom, so I had to make something up.)
Can’t remember anything else. Write me with questions.

Prologue (anno 2000)
September Morgan stripped out of her school uniform, changing into a pair of large denim shorts and a plain wife beater instead, unbraided her dyed-black hair and put on a beanie, screwing up her face in a grimace at her incurably too big nose. School was out! Exams were over and in matter of weeks she would have the results of the O-levels, which she had no doubt passed. Now came the hard part; the discussion with her mother she had dreaded ever since she’d decided it was necessary.

“Quitting school, dear?” her mother said surprised. There was a tinge of hurt evident in her voice. “You can’t do that, Sep, you have to take you’re a-levels.”
September shook her head. “Mum I don’t want my A-levels. You do.”
“Sweetie I’ve fought to be able to pay for you to get the best education possible. I’m giving you the chance I never got and I want you to take it.”
“We have small gigs close to every night now. I spend my spare time doing sound checks and writing new material. We barely have time to practice and definitely not for homework. I think we’ve hit the point where we have to choose. I want to pursue this so I’m quitting school.”
“No daughter of mine, especially not one as intelligent as you, is going to throw away her future for a bunch of crappy, untalented sounds, which you reckon are supposed to be music!” The volume of the argument had by now heightened considerably and identical blue eyes pierced into each other in a silent battle of minds. “You’ve got to understand that I only want the best for you.”
“I understand. I just don’t think you’re right.”
“Just like your father,” her mother whined. “You get what you want from me, then you make other plans and leave without a thought of me.”
“Don’t fucking compare me to that asshole!” September screamed, now feeling tears well up in her eyes.
“You’re his spitting image,” her mother muttered calmly. “And if you want to waste your life like he did I’m not stopping you. I’m just not going to watch.”
“I’ll get my stuff packed, then,” the girl said. “We’ll come get it tomorrow.”