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madiomens · 6 months

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Just Pretend [n.s.]

Chapter Twenty

The last week has been hell.

I hurt more with each passing day.

I hate myself.

We did the shows in Germany, Austria, and Poland and were now in Ukraine. I tried my hardest to avoid Noah at all cost so that I could work through my thoughts, but this was obviously tricky seeing as I was with him and the rest of the guys practically 24/7. Anytime I'd run into him or catch his eye across the room a piece of my heart would break away. The sadness I would see on his face every time was starting to bleed into his performances, and fans were constantly asking me if we were ok. I always told them we were and that it was just exhaustion from touring, and was always met with relief when they believed me. I cried myself to sleep nightly. Folio always offered to stay up with me so I wasn't alone, but after his confession I didn't want to put him through comforting me when I was crying over another man. Nicholas and Jolly asked questions without actually asking them. They consisted of 'are you feeling alright?' or 'Noah seems off. Is he coming down with something?' to which I always made up a bullshit excuse that I know they didn't believe but would drop it anyways. I heard Nicholas and Noah talking from Noah's closed bedroom door one night in Poland, Nicholas asking Noah what was wrong with us and 'no bullshit answer like Maddie is giving', which caused me to cry once again when I heard the heartbreak in Noah's voice as he explained what happened.

Nicholas gave me an edible that got me high off my ass that night. I slept for sixteen hours.

I sighed as I hummed along to a song playing over my phone while I packed for the show tonight. Ukraine was freezing. And I don't mean like a regular cold winter. I mean like the kind of cold that felt like it was freezing your bones and all the muscles in your body. Granted, it is December, but apparently it isn't even as cold as January gets. I packed a black turtleneck and a pair of dress slack material joggers along with some sleek black sneakers for the show, putting my long black coat on so I could wear it once we left. I had on a hoodie and some sweatpants with my converse and some fuzzy socks, beanie on my still partially wet head. Part of me knew if I stepped outside in the cold with my hair still wet that I would for sure get sick, but the other part of me was too lazy to dry it. Soft thunder rumbled, causing my heart to speed up. The forecast was calling for a storm tonight; nothing too serious but definitely heavy enough to get my anxiety creeping up. I threw my duffel bag over my shoulder and left my room, shutting the door behind me.

"Ready?" Folio questioned as he left the room beside me.

I nodded and slid my hood over my beanie in hopes of shielding my wet hair from outside. I passed Noah's room and a pang shot through my heart as I heard his door open once I was a few steps ahead. It took everything in me not to turn around to run into his arms and just let myself go. I want nothing more than for him to wrap around me and tell me everything would be ok. That he would never hurt me. And that he forgave me for putting him through this.

God, the thought of him resenting me for this eats me up at night.

We arrived to the venue and I made my way backstage as the guys started soundcheck. Matt and the others had already set up the stage, so all that the guys had to do was soundcheck and VIP before the show. I quickly got ready, a chill going through my body as I changed. I fluffed up my waves and threw a messy half up bun into it along with some braids before doing some soft makeup. I walked out of backstage to the front of barricade right as VIP started, waving at a couple fans that greeted me. I looked up as the hair on my neck stood up, seeing Noah staring at me from the stage. I offered a half of a smile and he did the same before turning his attention back to the crowd. They called on a girl with bright blue hair for the next question and she grabbed the mic from security with a smile.

"Not a question, but I just have to say Noah and Maddie are probably the cutest couple I've ever seen. You both seem so happy." She said, thick Ukrainian accent weighing down her words.

A pain shot through my heart as I made eye contact with Noah, chest heavy from her words. He stared at me for awhile longer before forcing a smile to slide onto his face and thank the girl. "Thank you. I'm the luckiest man alive." He said, causing the crowd to let out an echoed aww.

I forced a smile to the crowd before turning my attention to my cuticles, picking at them to ease my anxiety. The second VIP was over I rushed backstage to escape the fans, knowing they would inevitably ask about Noah and me more the second they got my attention. The guys were all changing, blasting music as Folio ran around shirtless and singing as always. Nicholas and Jolly were ensuring they had enough picks for the night and postponing putting their shirts on while Noah was standing in the corner with the mirror and wrapping his hands. I watched him for a few moments, seeing him getting frustrated each time he had to redo a section before deciding to walk over to him and offer my help.

"Can I?" I questioned softly, causing him to slightly jump before looking at me.

His eyes were full of sadness as he looked down at me. He nodded and offered me his hand without a word, eyes boring into me as I tried my hardest to focus on getting the wrap perfect. I finished the hand I was working on before taking his other bare hand into mine, looking into his eyes for a split second before forcing myself to look away. I wrapped his hand up perfectly and grabbed the other one to compare them, making sure they matched. He brought a hand up to grab my chin, pulling my face up so our eyes could meet. My breathing sped up as he stared into my eyes, as if he was staring into the depths of my soul and reading my every thought.

"Maddie." He whispered.

I stared at him awhile longer before taking a step back. "Mmm mmm." I protested, shaking my head.

I walked past him, opening the door that led outside. It was officially pouring outside, the only light coming from the lights outside of the venue. I looked back to see Noah looking at me before making the split decision to swallow my fears and run into the rain. The second the iciness of the cold rain hit me, it felt like my skin was frozen solid and unable to move anymore. I turned my face up towards the sky to let the icy droplets wash over me, chills running throughout my body but not caring about the possibility of getting sick from it.

"Maddie!" Noah yelled from behind me, causing me to spin around. "Come inside, you're going to get sick!" He yelled, voice drowning out from the rain.

I shook my head. "No!" I yelled.

"Maddie!" He yelled, grabbing his jacket from the hook beside the door.

"No!" I yelled again, turning my face back up to the sky.

The door to the venue slammed and I turned to see Noah standing under the awning watching me. "Why are you so stubborn?!" He yelled.

"Because I can be!" I yelled back. I watched him sigh before he stepped out into the rain, pulling his jacket closer to his body. "Noah, stop, you'll get sick!"

He shrugged as he walked further into the rain and closer to me. "If you're sick I'm sick."

"I'm not the touring metal singer." I said, no longer having to yell since he was closer.

"We have a week long break after tonight. I'll be ok." He said, taking another step towards me.

I sighed and chewed on my lip as I looked into his eyes, rain causing his hair to be plastered to his forehead. "I don't know how to do this and I'm fucking scared." I said.

"We can learn together." He said, taking another step.

My brows pinched together. "God, what the fuck is happening to me?"

"What do you mean?" He questioned, his own brows furrowed.

I sighed dramatically and threw my hands up before pushing my hair off my face. "I fucking love you, Noah, that's what I mean!" I yelled, causing his brows to soften and eyes to widen. "I am so disgustingly in love with you that I don't know what to do with myself! And it terrifies me!" I yelled, tears mixing with the heavy rain.

He took two long strides towards me before smashing our lips together, instantly warming my face up. He broke the kiss and I took a deep breath for the first time in what seems like a week, feeling like I finally came up from underwater after holding my breath for a few seconds too long. Our chests heaved as we stared into each others eyes, blinking to keep the rain out of them.

"I fucking love you too, Maddie." He said, causing a stupid grin to slide onto my face.

"You do?" I questioned, causing him to laugh.

He tossed his head back as the laughter shook his body, the sound warming my soul up. "Of course I do, you silly girl. Head over heels, hopelessly in love with you."

I grinned and stood on my tiptoes to push my lips back onto his, wrapping my arms around his midsection as he placed his hands on my face. I pulled back to look into his eyes, the lights from the venue causing them to sparkle. "Not hopeless."

He grinned and kissed me again before the sound of the venue door opening caused us to pull away, the cheers from the guys meeting our ears. We looked at them and laughed, the three of them jumping up and down like kids.

"As happy as we are that you two have finally reconnected, we have a show and would prefer if you didn't drop dead from hypothermia during it!" Nicholas yelled.

We laughed and ran towards the venue door hand in hand, shivers wracking our body as the heat from inside hit us. "Goddamn it is freezing out there." Noah said, wrapping me in his arms as we shivered.

"Well, yea it's already 15 degrees outside without the rain." Jolly said, bringing us towels as Folio and Nicholas brought our bags of clothes to us.

I looked up at the clock and gasped when I saw that they're expected on stage in seven minutes. "Shit, Noah, you gotta dry off and change."

"Good thing I have countless turtlenecks and joggers." He said through chattering teeth, pulling me towards the bathroom so we could change.

I threw my hoodie and joggers back on along with my converse and fuzzy socks as Noah put on a change of clothes that were identical to the ones that were soaked. We made eye contact in the mirror and burst out laughing at our appearances. Noah's hair was sticking up in multiple different directions from him towel drying it and I had black streaks of eyeliner running down my face. I quickly cleaned up my face and reapplied some makeup before turning to leave the bathroom so I could greet the fans.

"Nuhuh." Noah said, grabbing my hand so I would turn back to him.

I chuckled as he pushed his lips onto mine, returning the kiss for a few seconds before pushing him away. "You have a show to perform. We have a free week after for all of this."

He groaned and let me pull away. "Fine." He said, causing me to laugh and open the door. "Hey." He said, halting my movements.

"What?" I questioned, scrunching my hair more with the towel.

He shrugged. "I love you."

I chewed on my lip to hide the wide grin that threatened to explode on my face. "I love you, too."

"AWWWW!" The guys voices came from behind me.

I shook my head with laughter, flipping them off before making my way to the barricade. Multiple fans asked what happened to my earlier outfit and my hair, to which I told them that Noah pulled me into the rain and causing them to all but swoon.

Not a total lie. He pulled emotions out of me that caused me to run into the rain. Same thing.

The entire show Noah was full of pure chaotic and happy energy, jumping off stage to stand on the barricade multiple times. My cheeks were sore from how much I was smiling anytime I wold watch him. It felt as if the crowd could feel the energy shift too. Everyone was having the time of their lives. No one go too hot or injured, they were all safely enjoying themselves and helping those who needed it. By the end of the show I felt like my cheeks were going to fall off my face as I made my way backstage to see the guys. They were all, very loudly might I add, celebrating a good show. I heard the crowd start laughing when they heard them yelling once I opened the backstage door, causing me to laugh as well once I saw the sight in front of me.

They were all stripped down to their underwear. Just underwear and socks.

I crossed my arms as I laughed and watched them. It was as if they reverted back to being children who were told their parents would buy them the toy they wanted. They unapologetically laughed and joked around while Folio jumped up and down in and out of the circle of guys.

"Don't you dare." I sad as soon as Noah's eyes locked onto me. He smirked and slowly started walking towards me. "Noah, I'm already feeling sniffly from the freezing rain. My entire sinus system might drain on you."

His nose scrunched up as he paused, causing me to laugh. "Is this what I get for loving a nurse?"

I laughed and walked up to him, wrapping my arms around his midsection and smacking his ass, causing the guys to hoop and holler. "Too late. You're stuck with me." I said before leaning up on my tiptoes so he would kiss me.

He pressed his lips to mine, causing me to sigh happily.

"Thank God."

#noah sebastian #bad omens #noah sebastian fic #noah sebastian fanfiction #noah sebastian fanfic #bad omens fanfiction

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carbo-ships · 9 months

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Chapter XXIV

Beginning: Chapter I Previous: Chapter XXIII Petrichor once again belongs to @limey-self-inserts 🥰

When Ardis awoke the next morning, it took her a few moments to get her bearings. Right, she remembered, she was on the Ghost tour bus. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light of her bunk, she realized she wasn't in her bunk at all. In fact, she was lying directly on top of Aether. It seemed their idea to cuddle for "just a few minutes" before bed hadn't gone according to plan. She felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment. She must have dozed off in the middle of their scheduled alone-time, and Aether likely hadn't had the heart to wake her.

He started to stir a moment later and let out a quiet groan. Noticing the weight on his chest, he opened his eyes to find the shy angel. He grinned. “Hey,” came his groggy voice, thick with sleep.

“Hello,” she replied in a whisper, moving to climb off of him.

He stopped her, applying just enough pressure with his broad palm against her back to keep her pressed to his chest. “And where do you think you’re going?” he asked quietly. Ardis stared up at him, not sure how to respond. Instead, she nuzzled her face back into his neck and let out an embarrassed little grumble. He wrapped both arms around her properly and kissed her temple. “I’m so glad you’re here with me.”

Ardis and Aether eventually got up and made their way downstairs to find something to eat. They greeted a few of the other ghouls – Mountain, Petrichor, Rain, and Cumulus – with sleepy “good morning”s. The clock on the wall indicated it was just after 9:30am. Papa was already at the bar brewing the day’s second pot of coffee in the mini coffee maker. He squeezed Ardis’s shoulder as she passed him, smiling at her warmly. “There’s my girl. Did you sleep well?”

“Very well, thank you,” she said with a nod.

“I’m glad to hear it. Petrichor, my dear, what’s the schedule for today?”

Petrichor produced a clipboard and leafed through the first couple of pages until they found what they were looking for. “We should be arriving at Accor Arena in about half an hour, load-in starts around noon, our sound check is scheduled for two, doors open at six, opening act starts at seven, we’re on at eight.”

“Perfect. Coffee, Ardis? Aether?”

“None for me, thanks,” Ardis said, pulling a small bottle of juice out of the minifridge.

“Yes, please.” Aether accepted his offer. It would be a long day, and he needed a bit of a kick to get him going. He pulled two bananas out of the cupboard – one for him, one for her.

Ardis stood in the crowd, all the way at the front and about halfway between where she knew Aether and Papa would spend most of their time. The whole afternoon had been a whirlwind. They’d gone into town for brunch and set aside an hour to see the sights, then headed right back to the venue to start unloading. She’d helped Mountain set up his extensive drumset – there were seemingly endless components, and it always helped to have an extra pair of hands to keep things steady while he secured everything the way he liked it. During soundcheck, Papa and Petrichor went through the set order one last time and dictated where and when each costume change would occur. Aether had jokingly warned her that his jacket would come off during “Helvetesfönster” and to brace herself so she wouldn’t faint. She’d rolled her eyes, but he knew she loved how his arms looked when he played. There had been a quick dinner after sound check before once again returning to the venue. Ardis stuck close to Aether’s side as he got himself ready, insisting upon helping him with his neckerchief even though he’d secured it himself countless times, then made her way to the front of the pit before the doors opened.

Ardis had never been around so many people – there were thousands and thousands of fans packed into the arena. She was dressed in casual attire, which the ghoulettes helped her pick out. She’d also completely dimmed her halo and wings, not wanting to attract any attention to herself. The supporting band had come off stage about fifteen minutes ago. She and the other spectators waited eagerly for the large sheet covering the stage to drop. They could just barely make out the shadows of the band members shuffling about. It would be starting soon.

Before much longer, Sodo’s guitar rang from the stage. Thunderous cheers erupted through the arena as Rain’s silhouette was projected onto the curtain. The curtain dropped a few bars later, revealing her friends in all their glory. She spotted Petrichor and another stagehand scrambling to pull the curtain to the side of the stage as quickly as possible. Pet and Ardis shared a smile, and the ghoul mouthed “have fun” before scurrying backstage. With a loud boom, the guitarists moved to the front of the stage. Ardis and the other fans screamed and cheered for them. Aether made quick work of spotting his angel, giving her a quick nod of acknowledgement. She could tell he was smiling ear to ear. Just when she thought the crowd couldn’t get any louder, Papa sprung onto the stage. A deafening cheer filled the stadium before he’d even opened his mouth. The ghouls vacated the front of the stage for him, and he began to sing.

As Papa belted out “Kaisarion”, Ardis realized he was truly in his element. He was a completely different man on stage. She couldn’t help but admire how handsome he looked in his embellished uniform, the tailcoats of his jacket accentuating his smooth movements and his golden epaulettes catching the stage lights perfectly. As he pranced about the stage and worked up the crowd, he pointed a finger her way for a moment to let her know he’d spotted her. She grinned. It was flattering to still get a moment of special attention from the man when nearly twenty-thousand people were screaming his name.

The concert was an exhilarating experience. She’d thought she knew exactly what to expect from sitting in on so many rehearsals, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. Everyone had such incredible stage presence and the stage effects added so much to the performance. Her heart swelled every time Aether approached his microphone to sing. She’d told him countless times how much she loved his voice, and while he insisted she was just trying to flatter him, it was true.

When the guitar duel rolled around so Papa could do a costume change, Aether had never been so determined to prove himself. He usually let Sodo be the show-off, putting on a meek facade to entertain the crowd, but not this time. Sodo thought his newfound aggression was amusing and was more than willing to play along to help him flaunt his talents. They antagonized each other with poorly-hidden grins and Aether periodically glanced to Ardis to ensure she was staring as he hoped she was. Once she and the crowd were thoroughly impressed, they finally broke into “Cirice”. Papa emerged, eliciting yet another deafening scream from the fans. Ardis smiled when she realized he was wearing those ridiculous bat wings. He’d insisted they made him look intimidating, but she always held that he looked silly and adorable in them. As he approached the front of the stage, he sent her another little smile.

She listened attentively as her friends harmonized. “Cirice” had always been one of her favorite songs. When the chorus came around a second time, Papa made a beeline for her. Ardis gasped in delight as he knelt before her at the edge of the stage and reached a gloved hand out to her. The barrier was much too far from the stage to hold her hand as he would have done at smaller venues, but his attention was solely on her. Staring up at him adoringly as he serenaded her, she was certain her face had gone completely red. Papa couldn’t hide his smile either. Before getting off of his knees at the end of the chorus, he blew her a kiss. She pretended to catch it and hugged it close to her chest. Papa only smiled even wider.

The rest of the concert continued in much the same way as Papa and the ghouls periodically checked on their angel to make sure that she was safe and happy amongst the sea of spectators. When the lights dimmed and the ghoulettes started playing “Helvetesfönster”, Ardis felt her cheeks warm. She remembered how Aether had teasingly warned her of what was to come. Just as he’d said, his jacket was missing when he and the others returned from backstage. His sleeves were still rolled down, and she felt her cheeks warm even more when she realized just how eager she’d been to see his arms.

She got her wish soon enough, however, when they started up “Mummy Dust” a few songs later. When her eyes left Papa to peek at Aether again, his sleeves were rolled up well past his elbows. He was watching her, clearly having been waiting for her to notice. She could see his shoulders shake slightly with laughter. It must have been obvious that she liked what she saw. Staring directly at her, he pointed his index and middle finger at his eyes. She couldn't tell if he was demanding her undivided attention, or trying to get her to stop gawking at his recently-revealed biceps. Either way, it was certainly effective. It was rare that Aether cracked a toothy grin on stage, but her flustered expression was enough to do it. He chuckled to himself as he continued on his way across the stage. He and Papa glanced at her from the corner of their eyes as they did their signature “mummy thrusts”, grinning to themselves as she became more and more embarrassed. It thrilled them to get such a reaction out of her. Both men had worried that their concerts might be too much for the angel, but it was clear that she was having the time of her life.

When the concert finally ended and the group took their bows, Aether tossed her one of his guitar picks as if she were any other excited groupie. He wanted her to get the full experience the whole way through. She giggled as she caught it then stuck it in her pocket for safekeeping. The band made their way off the stage, and when the crowd started dispersing, a security guard led her backstage to reunite with her friends.

Next: Chapter XXV

#carbo writes #do u like my timeskip banner i think it's pretty

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storiesforallfandoms · 3 years

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talent that runs in the family ~ machine gun kelly

word count: 2128

request?: yes!

“Being rooks sister and substitute him while he recovers and slowly start to fall in love with colson”

description: she steps in to replace her brother when he is seriously injured and ends up gaining feelings for his friend

pairing: machine gun kelly x female!reader

warnings: swearing

masterlist (one, two)

“Thanks so much for doing this (Y/N),” Rook said over the phone. “I appreciate it.”

“Yeah, no problem,” I said. “But does Colson know that I’m...y’know...not a seasoned vet?”

“You’ll do fine.”

I refrained from reminding him that he didn’t actually answer my question.

After Rook’s accident left him out of commission for some time, he came to me to ask if I’d fill in for him. I jumped at the opportunity. Rook had taught me how to drum when I was young and, much like my big brother, it became a passion of mine. How could I turn down working with one of the biggest artists of the year, even if it were just for a short while?

Well, my nerves were definitely telling me I should’ve said no as I walked into soundcheck that day.

“Whatever,” I said. “I’ll call you after the soundcheck.”

“Hey, don’t be nervous. You’re gonna do great.”

I said my goodbyes and hung up. I tried not to focus on how big the venue we were playing in was as I made my way to the otherwise empty stage. I thought I was the first person to arrive until I heard someone calling my name.

“(Y/N), up here!”

I looked up to see the guys sat in a booth in the balcony. Colson was all but leaning over the railing, waving for me to join them. I had no idea how to get up there on my own, but luckily a security guard showed me the way.

The guys were eating pizza and drinking from plastic cups as if they were the ones attending the concert and not performing in it.

“Pre-show ritual,” Colson told me. “Especially when we have someone new joining the band. Sit! Have a slice!”

“Shouldn’t we be practicing?” I asked, but still sat with them. I didn’t want to completely mess up my first day.

“We have hours to practice,” one of the other guys I remembered as Slim said. “And we don’t really need to. We do this every night. A soundcheck is basically just to make sure everything is working tech wise.”

I just nodded, not wanting to point out that I hadn’t been doing this every night. I hoped that I’d have some time to figure out the songs before the shows.

Colson nudged me, bringing my attention to him. “Don’t stress. You’ll do great.”

I smiled at him, wishing I’d believe him.

After our small feast of pizza and beer in plastic glasses, we finally got to our soundcheck. I was so nervous that I kept messing up during the first song. My hands were shaking and I kept hitting the wrong drum by accident. My face was burning with embarrassment as I buried it in my hands and groaned.

Colson walked up to me, a sympathetic smile on his face.

“I’m sorry,” I sighed. “I can get this, I know I can.”

“I know you can, too,” he said. “Just take a breath, relax. We’ll try again when you’re ready. And remember, it’s just drumming. Rook says you’re great at it.”

I smiled at him and nodded. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I pictured myself back in my bedroom from my childhood, playing my drums super loud until my parents had to call out for me to keep it down.

When we started practicing again, it went off without a hitch. We did most of the setlist all the way through and did quick takes on the last few songs before our time was up.

I was proud of myself as the soundcheck came to an end. I was still nervous about performing during the actual show, but I felt confident enough in myself not to make too many noticeable mistakes when we actually had an audience that night.

I was walking to my car when I heard someone calling for me. I turned to see Colson running to catch up with me. Or rather he was taking long strides to catch up with me considering he was so tall.

“I told you you would do great!” he said, putting an arm around my shoulder and giving it a light squeeze. “It’s like drumming runs in your blood or something.”

I chuckled. “That’s what mom and dad always said too, but neither one of them can keep a beat to save their lives and no one else in our immediate family plays either.”

“You and Rook are the start of a long line of drummers then I guess.”

I shrugged in response. We both stood awkwardly for a moment. I wasn’t sure what else to say. His arm was still around my shoulder and I didn’t want to pull away and make it seem like I didn’t enjoy the contact because I definitely was not complaining about it.

I guess Colson also realized that he was still touching me, though, because he pulled his arm away and awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.

“Do you need a run to the hotel or anything?” he asked. “We have the tour bus.”

I shook my head. “I’m good, thanks. I have my car, and besides I haven’t even checked into the hotel yet so I should probably go do that.”

“Oh, yeah you definitely should. Get some rest before the show, too. It’s a lot more physically demanding when it’s an actual show, even if you’re just sitting at a drum set the entire time. I’ll see you tonight then I guess.” He turned to walk away, but paused and turned back to add, “What were you planning on wearing tonight?”

I looked at him, confused. “Uh...this I guess.”

I was wearing a hoodie and a pair baggy jeans and my most comfortable pair of sneakers.

Colson raised an eyebrow at my outfit before looking back up at me. “I mean, it’s definitely comfy, but I would recommend something a little less...well, just less. It’s going to be hot as fuck on that stage, especially with all the lights on you and shit.”

I nodded, taking note of this as I got into my car and internally panicked a little because I didn’t know if I even had anything to wear.

~~~~~~

A few hours later, after checking into my hotel room and promptly wrecking it by throwing my clothes everywhere, I was heading back down to the lobby to meet up with the guys. We were going to the show together, which would’ve been my first tour bus ride. I couldn’t lie, I was super stoked for it.

I was the last one to the lobby. All the guys were stood around, loudly talking to one another. You’d think they were just a normal group of guys and not a group about to play a sold out show in a massive arena.

Colson spotted me first. I smiled at waved at him. His eyes widened and his jaw basically dropped, which prompted all the guys to turn. Their reactions immediately matched his as they looked me up and down.

“Rook would kill you guys if he could see you right now,” I teased.

“Damn (Y/N),” Colson dared to say first. “You look...you look hot as fuck.”

I had decided on a loose muscle shirt with a bralette underneath since the shirt showed a little more than what I was used to, a pair of ripped skinny jeans, and kept on the comfortable sneakers I had been wearing earlier that day.

I giggled. “Thanks, but again, Rook would kill you for saying that. Also, it’s not anything super attractive.”

“You got a nice body,” Baze pointed out. “Anything showing it off even a little is hot.”

I could feel my face burning as I waved their comments away. “Okay, enough with this. We have a show to get to.”

We boarded the tour bus and started towards the arena. The guys were distracted amongst one another again, completely forgetting about me and my “hot outfit”. Besides Colson, who had come to sit next to me on the couch while the rest of the guys were already drinking whatever was in the mini fridge.

“Do you guys always get drunk before your shows?” I asked.

“Not always. Usually we get high,” Colson responded.

“Now that I can get behind. I’ll probably be less afraid if I’m high.”

Colson held out the joint in his hand to me. I took it and took a quick puff, the smoke immediately burning my throat and lungs as I tried to inhale it. Colson laughed as I started to cough.

“I still say you have nothing to worry about,” he told me. “You’re gonna do great tonight. You can’t even really see or hear the audience with all the lights and the inner ear pieces.”

“That’s even worse cause then I’ll just imagine how big the audience is.”

He put a hand on my leg, something I assume was just instinct for him to do to comfort someone, but the minute he made the contact I felt a jolt of electricity run through me. Colson quickly pulled his hand away and I wondered if he had felt that too.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that without asking,” he said.

“You can if you want,” I assured him. “I wasn’t mad about it or anything.”

Colson looked at me and I realized how blue his eyes were. Rook had always made jokes about how Colson could seduce any woman with just his eyes because they were such baby blues, but I didn’t really believe him until the moment I was looking in them myself. Now I was lost, completely forgetting everyone around me as I felt myself moving closer towards him.

The bus jerked to a stop, causing Colson and I to nearly be thrown from our seats. The guys started off the bus first, running towards the entrance to the arena as I could hear the waiting fans screaming outside.

Colson stood and offered a hand to me. “It’s showtime.”

~~~~~~

After the first song went perfectly, I stopped feeling nervous. Colson was right, I couldn’t see the audience in front of me, but I could faintly hear their screams of excitement over my inner ear piece. It was weird to have it in and not only hear all of us playing, but also the crew talking backstage. It was almost distracting, but it became easy to tune them out.

During one of Colson’s talking points in the show, I reached for my water bottle to take a sip. Colson was hyping the audience up, which made me smile a little.

“Before we continue the show,” he said into his mic, “you guys may have noticed that we do not have our regular drummer tonight.”

I immediately knew what he was about to do and I wanted to hurtle my drumstick at him before he went there.

“As you’ve probably heard, Rook was in a bit of an accident and is off recovering for the time being,” he continued. “So, we decided to get some family to fill in for him for the time being. Everyone, I want to hear y’all make some noise for Rook’s little sister, (Y/N)!”

The crowd cheered loudly. Colson turned to me and waved for me to stand. I glared at him, which I hoped he could see, before standing and awkwardly smiling and waving at the audience.

“All the cool drum shit you guys have been hearing all night has been (Y/N),” Colson said as he started to approach me. “She’s a bad ass fucking drummer, and she’s a pretty fucking cool chick, too.”

I was confused where he was going with this as he came to stand next to me, slinging an arm around my shoulder the way he had earlier that day after soundcheck.

“Which is why, (Y/N), I gotta ask: will you go on a date with me sometime?”

Slight embarrassment was swelling somewhere inside of me at being asked out in such a public way, but that embarrassment was overshadowed by the fuzzy feeling of excitement inside of me. I looked up at Colson, my eyes wide and a smile on my lips.

He lowered the mic so he could privately add, “I’m being serious. I wanna take you out on a real date. Just the two of us.”

My words were stuck in my throat, but I was able to nod in response. The smile on Colson’s face stretched so wide that I could’ve been convinced he was the one lighting the show.

“Okay,” he said, then lifted the mic to say to his audience, “Let’s get back to the show guys!”

#machine gun kelly #machine gun kelly imagine #machine gun kelly x reader #colson baker #colson baker imagine #colson baker x reader #mgk #imagine #request #one shot #fanfiction #fanfic #fandom

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deanandthephantoms · 3 years

Text

I'm going bananas for you. (a Charlie Gillespie story.)

A/N: So. I was talking with @julie-thefatones and we stumbled upon the topic of Charlie and how he loves bananas.. - listen it was 3am we we're having fun you can't blame us.- ANYWAY. i turned that conversation into this little story. Enjoy reading it haha!

Wordcount : 1328 --

Today was gonna be a good day. The cast of Julie and the Phantoms had, after 2 years of waiting, finally been able to go on a world tour. A little over two years ago Charlie met Y/N and not long after their first meeting they started dating which quickly turned into them being an official couple. Due to Covid and quarantine they practically ended up living together and both had loved every minute of it. When things stared to get better and the world slowly became normal again the official JATP-World tour was announced and as excited as Charlie was he was not excited about the fact that he would have to miss Y/N for literal months. He couldn’t be away from her for that long! So he had, one day, gotten down on his knees – causing a bit of panic and confusion, making people think he was about to propose- only to beg Y/N to come with him on tour. A proposal Y/N happily said yes to under the condition she could bring her best friend Hannah, so she wouldn’t be lonely during rehearsals and stuff. She also would have said yes to a marriage proposal by the way, but that was apparently something for another day. At this point the cast had played different states and cities and every city had organized his own Fan-action. From all waving a flashlight during unsaid Emily. to throwing colorful balloons around during Edge of great. It had been awesome. And it had inspired Y/N and Hannah to organize a little something as well.. and that brings us to Today..

I was woken up by soft kisses that were being placed all over my face. Before actually opening my eyes I enjoyed the feeling of Charlie’s arms around me, there really was no place where I felt more at home than in his arms. The soft kisses making my heart flutter. I snuggled closer to his bare warm chest, giving away that I had in fact woken up. “Morning sleepyhead” He said in the morning voice I loved all too much. “Morning” I smiled before I kissed him. “Are you ready to play your biggest show yet?” I asked him. They were playing in New York tonight, the biggest venue they had played to date. “YEAH I AM! There’s gonna be so many cool people to rock out with I can’t wait!’ Charlie was always excited to get on stage but I could tell the show tonight got him a bit over excited. “you know what babe, me too. Can’t wait to see you kill it on stage again.’ ‘ Yeaah you like seeing me pretending to be a rockstar ey?’ there was a teasing tone in his voice. “What do you mean pretend? You are a rockstar Charlie.” I reply dead serious before adding “Cause you’re a star and you rock my world.” “ooof. Not your best pick up line babe..” “Oh i know.” and then we just both laugh. There was never a grumpy start of the day with this man.

Later that day we arrived to the venue for Soundchecks and a short rehearsal for the night. That’s when I meet up with Hannah. “Did you bring the costumes for tonight?” I ask her. “She laughs at me “yeah was kind of hard to sneak them in without anyone noticing but they’re in the building” “Goooood! I’m curious to see if the fans will work with us on this one.. and even more curious to see Charlies face if they do.” Just the image of it in my head cracks me up. That’s when I hear Owens voice behind me “What’s so funny?” “nooothing.” Me and Hannah reply in our most innocent ways. “You’re up to something aren’t you?” I share a look with Hannah trying to decide whether we should tell Owen or not. That’s when Hannah makes the decision for us. “We may have kind of planned a prank on Charlie?” Prank on Charlie is all Owen needed to be fully on our side. “ooooh what are we doing?” he asks. “Well you know how he’s kind of know for eating bananas right?” “yeah. The dude is eating them all the time. But..” Hannah cuts Owen off: “Right. So as a Joke we asked all the fans to come in dressed in normal clothes, but to put on their banana costumes when now or never is about to happen . And then once he gets off stage we’ll be wearing a banana costume as well just to make it clear where the joke is coming from.” Owen bursts out in laughter “ok. That’s gold I hope it works’ he says after composing himself. “ Don’t mention a thing to Charlie okay? Just act normal or he’ll know we’re up to something” I say to Owen before he gets back on stage. He just gives me a nod as assurance.

Hannah and me are alone again and decide to log on to our fake fan account to hype up our idea one last time. We had over the last few days gotten a lot of reactions of fans who told us they were gonna do it. Now we’ll just have to wait and see what happens tonight.

After all having dinner together with the whole cast and crew the show was about to begin. The venue was starting to fill gradually and one glance into the crowd had told me and Hannah that at least everyone had gotten the message about wearing normal clothes to begin with. Seconds before the cast is about to go on stage I find Charlie, wrapping my arms around his waist I pull him close to me. “Go rock their world, rockstar” we share a deep kiss. Before I let him go up on the stage. I don’t think I will ever get used to the sound of all those screams when the cast first appears on stage. It really is deafening. They start of with a song they al wrote together and after that a few more songs by other cast members follow. The fans know that after Savannah’s ‘all eyes on me’ performance it’s time for Now or never. This is it. This is the moment me and Hannah have been waiting for all day. Sav gets off the stage and the first notes of Now or Never start to play. In no time the entire crowd starts turning yellow. “ WE DID IT Y/N! THEY’RE WEARING THEIR COSTUMES !” Hannah yells at me. “ I KNOWWW!” I just say waiting for Charlie to come on stage and see his reaction. And there he is. I see Owen laugh at the scene. Charlie seems genuinely confused at the sight of an entire crowd of bananas. He shrugs it off like a total pro and gets into the song skipping and hopping around like he always does. But that moment of confusion was enough to have me and my best friend dying of laughter. At the end of song Charlie takes the mic and goes “YOU’RE ALL LOOKING WONDERFUL TONIGHT!” making the crowd go wild with cheers. Before coming of the stage only to be greeted by me in my banana costume. He stops and looks at me with a confused face. “Youu… you did this?”

I step towards him and pull him closer to me. “Welll.. What can I say? I’m going Bananas for you and I just had to show that to you.” He laughs at me “You’re so weird. I love you.” and then pulls me in for a kiss. That’s when Owen walks by ‘You also just eat a crazy amount of bananas dude. It’s a problem.’ That made me laugh. It ruined our sweet little moment but that was fine. Charlie gives Owen a offended look. “He’s not wrong you know.. You do love you bananas” I laugh before pulling him in for another kiss.

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dreamescapeswriting · 4 years

Text

Taehyung X Reader ~ Pressure [Request]

Word Count: 10k (I’m so sorry it’s so long)

Genre: Fluff with like a tiny amount of angst but it’s needed for the storyline

Pairing: Taehyung x Fem!Reader

Warnings: I don’t think there is any

A/N: Hope this okay for you for you hun, if not feel free to message me and I will do it again but for once I kind of like something I’ve written.

"Y/n! You were behind again!" The choreographer screamed at you on the stage, you looked down at the floor and tried to calm down your anger. You'd been in the girl band for a year now and it seemed like everyone hated you, managers, dancers, backup singers, and even the band members.

"Sorry, Clive." You said into your mic looking at your band members who were all talking amongst themselves it had always been this way with them, they'd trained together for years and when you joined it was as if someone had thrown a spanner into the works and they hated it, you were never invited out on meals with them, not that you could eat any way you were under a strict diet plan from your managers and if you broke it you'd be in deep trouble with everyone around you, they already hated you so you didn't want to add anything else onto the list.

"Just make sure you get it right!" The lights turned back on and practise was over, Lily, the main vocalist came over and looked at you.

"You better not mess this up for us Y/n, we have someone important coming to see us and we want this to go perfectly." You nodded in silence not wanting to say anything to her that you would regret later, she left the stage and you followed after them picking up your bag and deciding you were going to go back to the Sync building and practise all night if you had to. You tried not to think of the different companies that had approached you before you joined H.E.A.R.T, wondering about all the things that could have been if you hadn't joined but you knew thinking of what if's weren't a good thing and so you pushed them out of your head. You knew something big was happening with your band but no one was giving you details, telling you it was something you didn't need to concern yourself with yet, to focus on your dance and singing before you tried to focus on them.

"Afternoon Ed!" You greeted your driver as you left the venue, he smiled opening the door for you. All of the members went home in different cars, going to their separate homes and not talking to one another...or at least not talking to you when you weren't with them, even when you were with them.

"How was practise?" He questioned as he started up the car,

"Awful, drop me off at Sync I'll practise some more and I'll walk home." You told him looking in the mirror, he eyed you up knowing you were lying about walking home, you did it a lot. You'd get too stressed with work you'd practise until you'd drop and end up staying in one of the producer's studios which they didn't mind because they never found out about it,

"It's almost midnight Y/n..."

"Just drop me off Ed, please." You pleaded taking out your phone to look through the group twitter account, fans were tweeting out about how much they loved everyone but you could only see the horrible things people say about you, how much you lacked in comparison to the rest of the girls in the group, you were going to log off for the night when you saw a rumour going around which made you think for a second.

'BTS Coming to The UK to collaborate with Sync's Girl group H.E.AR.T' You clicked on the article and read through some of it, all of their names popping up along with photographs of them at their airports, was this what everyone was keeping from you, they all knew how much you liked their music, you groaned locking your phone and throwing it into the bottom of your bag.

"Everything okay?" You looked up at Ed who was looking at you in the mirror again, you'd known him since you'd joined H.E.A.R.T, he'd been the kindest person to you on the team and you always found yourself telling him your problems.

"Yeah...Do you know if the BTS rumours are true?" He nodded and rolled down the window, entering his passcode to the building of Sync and looked back at you for a quick second before he continued driving through the parking lot.

"Why didn't anyone tell me?" He shrugged his shoulders and you gathered your things together to get out of the car.

"Don't push yourself too hard." You ignored his comment and headed inside of the building, showing the nightguard your ID.

"Afternoon Terry, lovely weather." You joked with him, he rolled his eyes at you playfully and you looked around. The whole building was empty except for you, a couple of backup dancers, guard and one or two producers that were working on other people's albums.

"It's sunny now you're here!" He yelled as you rushed towards the elevators, getting inside the waiting one and heading up to the dance floor. You were going to practise all night, even if your feet were hurting and you were crying, you were going to get this right.

"Taehyung we need to leave what are you doing?" Hoseok asked as he saw Taehyung hanging around a door, he held his hand up for Hobi to be quiet and ushered him over, pointing through the small window of the door to point at you, you were panting heavily as you played the song again, he hadn't seen someone practising this hard since Jimin pushed himself too much back at the start of their training.

"What's she doing?" Hoseok questioned as you tried to catch your breath, standing back to look at yourself in the mirror and starting the dance again. Taehyung took in your appearance, you looked tired and overworked. You were wearing leggings and a huge baggy jumper to dance in as well as some old trainers, he glanced at his watch it was 4 am and you were the only one out of your four band members that were practising this early, if only he knew you hadn't been to bed yet.

"Should we go and talk to her?" Hoseok questioned and then he realised how creepy it would look for them to walk right in without being formally introduced to them yet.

"We could bring her a coffee first?" Tae questioned looking at Hoseok for approval who nodded in agreement and they went on the hunt for a coffee machine.

The sheer pain you were feeling in your legs was unreal but it worth it because you finally had the dance nailed down, you could do it with your eyes closed and without counting in your head, you took out your phone to interact with fans on your single Instagram account, your bosses insisted that you all have separate accounts to update everyone one, you took a photo of you sitting on the floor with the camera covering your face.

'Practise until you can't get it wrong' You sent it out and laid back against the floor, wanting nothing more than to take off the jumper you were wearing but you weren't at the desired weight the label wanted before they started dressing you like they did the rest of the girls you had to drop a few pounds, which you found ridiculous because most of your music was telling people how beautiful they are in their own bodies. A knock on the door alerted you that someone was around, you glanced at the time it was almost 5 am why was anyone else here yet, you kicked yourself up from the floor and walked over to the door opening it to reveal two out of seven members from BTS, you felt your stomach drop as Taehyung and Hoseok both stared at you with smiles on their faces.

"We saw you were practising and we wanted to introduce ourselves. I'm Hobi, this is Tae." You shook both of their hands and then realised you were supposed to speak now, like...Forming actual words instead of staring at them.

"I'm Y/n." You said in a rush, blushing deeply as they chuckled at how shy you were being around them.

"Sorry, I'm not used to meeting people like you guys." You stated to them but they shook their hands holding out one of the iced coffees for you to take, you stared at the cup and wanted nothing more than to reach out and grab it, you'd missed the taste of it so much that you were starting to get the shakes from thinking about it.

"I can't, but thank you." Sending them a smile and going over to your bag,

"Where are your other members?" Hoseok questioned as he looked around the dance room,

"Oh their out having breakfast." You lied, and badly because you saw the way that Taehyung was looking at you, you nervously looked around the room for something to talk about.

"If you guys want I can give you a tour?" Hoseok looked at you and shook his head,

"I have to go and work with Namjoon but I'm sure Tae here would love one." You nodded and Hoseok left you both alone, you felt nervous again being alone with him and you glanced at your hands trying to think of something to say.

"Tour! Let's go." You cheered nervously walking with him out of the dance studio and onto the hallway,

"This hall is all of the dance rooms and a couple of empty studios," You said taking him down the hall and towards the elevator, Tae had already gotten the tour from one of the managers in the building but he wasn't going to tell you that and ruin the time he was getting with you. He found you interesting and wanted to know more about you when he first found out about the collaboration he started learning more about you, you were the oldest of the group but the backup dancer and backup singer, you were never front of centre even though you had an exceptional amount of talent, he found himself scrolling through articles about you, and then fan chat rooms about what they thought about you compared to the other members. Most of them feeling bad that you seemed mistreated in comparison to the other girls which he started to notice as well the more he dove into your band, finding interviews of you being pushed to the back while the main vocalist Lily spoke, videos popping up of members yelling at you in soundcheck with fans there and even videos titled,

'Why I think H.E.A.R.T hate Y/n.' Seeing you alone in the dance studio and not taking the coffee he was offering only raised his suspicions of it.

"So where are your members again?" He questioned as you showed him the top floor of the building where most of your band hung out,

"I think Lily is going to town and the other girls all have private things going on." You lied again, completely forgetting what you'd told him earlier and he sighed looking at you, your hands were shaking and you looked like you were going to pass out.

"Have you had anything to eat yet, we could go and get something together." You looked at him and then over at the clock on the wall, it wasn't time for your eating yet but if you shook it off again he was going to ask too many questions and you knew the company didn't want that.

"Sure." You whispered to him, telling him that the cafe downstairs served a nice English Breakfast he would have to try.

"Morning Y/n, what can I get you?" The server, Mark, asked as you came up to the front, you looked around nervously at the menu, there was nothing you could have to eat.

"Green tea," You said with a smile glancing over at Tae who was talking with one of the cooks as they plated his food up.

"Who's your friend?" Your attention was back on Mark as he raised an eyebrow at you, you shook your head at him.

"He's a band member that H.E.A.R.T are collaborating with." You took the hot drink from his hands and put it onto the tray in front of you.

"You mean that you're collaborating with..." You laughed a little and nodded,

"Yeah." You took your tray over to a back table, sitting down and looking at the drink in front of you as you waited for Taehyung,

"That's all you're having?" He questioned sadly looking at the cup of green tea in front of you, you nodded with a fake smile.

"I'm just not hungry." You lied, you'd told that lie so many times you were starting to think it was real, no matter how much your stomach moaned out for you to eat something.

"Here," He placed a banana in front of you and you stared at it nervously,

"Even if it's a little something, you should always eat." You nodded at his advice and picked it up, peeling it slowly and trying to think of something to get out of eating it when the doors opened at the end of the hall,

"Good morning Lily!" The whole service crew yelled as Lily walked through the hall, going over to Mark and ordering a large breakfast for herself, she spotted you and walked over with the biggest fake smile you'd ever seen her have,

"Y/n! We missed you at the sleepover last night!" She yelled placing her tray in front of you which was her way of telling you to move so you slid out of the seat and onto the one next to her,

"You guys had a sleepover?" Tae questioned looking at Lily who was smiling at him, twirling her blonde hair around her finger and batting her fake eyelashes at him, you looked down at your tray.

"Yeah! We do it all the time, we're so close." You looked around the room and realised it was starting to get busy,

"Y/n you should go practice," Lily ordered waving her hand in your face, you stood up the banana in your hand and she took it.

"I'll take that," You looked down sadly and rushed out of the hall, not wanting to look at her flirting with Tae for a minute longer. If you'd looked back though you would have seen Tae gazing after you as you rushed out of the hall, he stared at your green tea, you hadn't touched it and you'd been so reluctant to take the banana from him. All of his suspicions were coming true and he knew he was going to have to get you to talk to him.

"Are we all clear on what we need to do?" Your manager asked as you sat in the music studio with H.E.A.R.T and BTS, you all nodded and looked around at each other. You'd spent the last two hours in a boring long meeting about what each member would be doing but as usual, you'd been giving nothing you knew what your task was, practise until your feet were bleeding and you couldn't walk anymore, work out until you felt like you were going to drop and be nice and stay out of the way,

"That's it then. See you all when you're finished." Your manager clapped his hands and everyone started standing up except for Taehyung who was staring at you and raising his hand.

"Yes, Tae?" The manager questioned, everyone's attention turning to him including yours, you wondered what he was going to say.

"I was wondering what Y/n's job is, you haven't given her a task." Lily let out a cough as she looked at him and then to you.

"Y/n has to practise a lot, she's not ready for the stage performance, but she's getting there aren't you darling?" She questioned throwing her arm around your waist and causing you to flinch which didn't go unnoticed by Tae and the rest of BTS, they all stared at you waiting for an answer.

"Yeah, I have personal training this morning as well...So I have to go." You said excusing yourself and practically sprinting from the room to get away from them all staring at you, you knew it was going to end up with your manager screaming at you.

It was the end of the day and people were starting to leave, you'd managed to avoid everyone all day, avoiding Tae whenever he came by the dance studio by pretending not to hear him knocking over the music, Lily had come down to see you after the incident and told you not to speak to any of them, even if they spoke to you first to make up some kind of excuse as to why you couldn't stop and talk to them and she went into detail about how amazing the song she was writing with Namjoon, Yoongi and Hoseok was perfect and that the girls were all having fun with the other members.

"Ed where are you?" You asked into the answerphone as you waited in the lobby of the building for him but he was running late, Lily walked past you and pretended not to see you and the other girls had already left so you sat down against the wall and decided to wait for him.

"Hi Y/n, how was your day?" Hoseok asked in a joyful tone as he came to sit next to you, you looked at him and nodded, you had nowhere to go and no way of getting out of talking to him.

"It was good, yours?" He nodded and then looked at his phone, pretending to have read something you knew that because his screen was black.

"Your manager wants to see you, come on I'll walk you up." You frowned and screamed as he pulled you up from the floor by your hand and began dragging you through the building and into the lifts, going up to the main studio.

"What does he want me for?" The door was opened and your manager was standing there, you blinked and looked around the room Tae was sitting there with a smile on his face,

"Tae has expressed he would like to work with you, I've told him how busy you are but he said he's willing to tag along. Meet your teammate." You nodded and Tae smiled at you again,

"I'll talk to you outside." You manager stated taking you by the wrist and pulling you from the room.

"You were under instructions not to talk to them." You shook your head at him ready to defend yourself but he held his hand up in front of your face,

"You go about everything as usual, if he's there or not I don't care. You will not let the team down!" You nodded as he whisper yelled at you causing you to flinch at how close he was.

"Go and greet your new teammate." He pushed you back inside the room and you smiled at both of the boys,

"What time shall I meet you here tomorrow?" You looked at Tae, this was serious about him being with you all the time.

"Erm, probably around 7 am." You lied knowing you'd been there earlier for private practice with Clive and then your training session,

"I'll meet you in the cafe." You nodded and awkwardly looked around the studio when your phone started ringing.

"You're outside? I'll be right down." You hung up on Ed and said a quick goodbye to the boys rushing out of the room and going to the exit.

"You sure she's going to tell you the truth?" Hoseok asked sitting on the sofa across from Tae who was gazing after you longingly, he nodded.

"I'm sure of it."

It had been a week since Tae was assigned as your partner and it had been hard to keep everything from him as your bosses wanted. You were more tired than usual and he was starting to pick up on things, it started off calm. He would meet you at the time you'd given him but once he realised you'd clearly been at work for longer he started coming to work earlier to see if he could find what you were doing. Then it was the coffee's, every morning he would bring you a coffee ''forgetting'' that you couldn't drink it, same with food. He'd take you out to lunch only for you to make up some excuse for not eating in front of him and you were slowly starting to lose your patience with him. Maybe it was the lack of sleep you were getting and the lack of food contributing to you but you were starting to get angry with everyone so that's why that morning when he showed up to work at 4 am you flipped.

"What are you doing here?" You questioned as he followed you towards the dance studios,

"Now I know the real-time you come in." You tried to laugh it off but he wasn't laughing, he had a serious look on his face as you started to get ready for your dancing lesson.

"Why are you here this early and Lily get's to come in late?" Question after question was thrown at you while you waited for Clive to arrive and you finally had enough of the constant questions.

"Because Lily is perfect! Lily is the main leader for us and she doesn't need all the practise like I do." You yelled at him, not meaning to yell at him the way you did and you felt your heartbreak at the way he looked at you. You'd seen the look before, it was the look someone gave you when they felt sorry for you and you didn't want that.

"Can you wait downstairs, I have to practise and then work out." He nodded and backed out of the room wondering what you meant by Lily was perfect. You were perfect, well in his eyes at least. You were the sweetest person he'd met in the UK, besides Army of course, but you'd been so kind to him. You took him sightseeing one night and took him to get food, and you even offered him a place to stay when he was locked out of their hotel room. He'd enjoyed his time getting to know you in the studio as you wrote song lyrics together, none of them being given to anyone important, he'd realised that yesterday when he asked Namjoon on the thoughts of the lyrics you'd written because Tae thought they were brilliantly written but Namjoon told him he hadn't been given anything even though Tae gave the lyrics to your manager specifically for that reason and hearing you talk about Lily this morning was putting everything into place and he knew you were close to talking to him about it.

"About this morning, I'd like to say sorry. I wasn't myself and I don't know what I was saying." Tae heard you say in the most monotone possible as you looked at the floor, he glanced around the room and noticed Lily watching you from the doorway of the cafe,

"It's fine. Sit down." You shook your head if you stayed you'd cry and you didn't want to cry. You'd already cried enough in front of your manager, they'd found out what you said to Tae and they weren't exactly happy that you were shouting at a guest of theirs.

"I have to go. I'm sorry, I can't be partnered with you but Lily said she is more than willing to have you on her team." He shook his head standing up, he wasn't going to stand for this anymore. You were clearly upset and not willing to talk about it in front of anyone in the building, he took your wrist in his which made you look at his hand and then up to his face.

"Meet me at the exit tonight, don't make up some lame excuse and don't ask for their permission either." You tried to protest but you knew all eyes were on you and there would be questions if you looked like you were having some kind of conversation so you just stared at his hand again.

"Fine." You mumbled moving away from him and going past Lily who stopped you by linking her arms with yours, trying to act friendly in front of workers on the bottom floor.

"What did he say to you?" She questioned with a smile but she wasn't being nice, you could tell by the tone of her voice and the tight squeeze she was giving your arm.

"That he'll think about working with you," You lied looking over your shoulder at the rest of the girls.

"We're all going to lunch, I'd invite you but...Well, you know." She said patting your stomach and flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder and leaving you alone in the empty hall, you felt your eyes starting to well up and you just cleared your throat, going towards the lifts and going up to the dance floor to get ready for your practice session.

Tae stared down at his phone, he'd been texting you all day after he saw Lily walking with you and patting you on the stomach, but you weren't replying to him and he was starting to worry about it, he didn't want to worry about you but there was something inside of him that made him want to look after you, maybe he was the feelings he was starting to have for you but he tried to push them away, he'd only known you a week and you hadn't spoken about yourself much, it was more about work than anything else and the only time you spoke about yourself was when you were writing lyrics, the lyrics were meaningful and beautiful and he could tell you'd written them from the heart despite you telling him it was something you made up on the spot, they were all about being in a toxic environment and living with people who were toxic towards you. Then there were the songs he'd found in your notebook when you weren't looking, songs about having no privacy thanks to people following you everywhere, and others about not having real friends because everyone faked liking you to get closer to the fame they craved more.

"Have you seen Y/n?" Tae asked Yoongi as he walked towards the exit of the building, Yoongi looked up from his phone and nodded.

"Still dancing, I heard the music as I passed the door." Tae thanked him and sprinted towards the lifts, going up and looking at his phone.

"Fuck!" You cried out as you collapsed onto the floor after getting the wrong move again, they'd changed the main choreography you'd spent so long on getting right and now it was harder than before, though Clive told you the girls got it right away and if they could do it why couldn't you put your smaller mind to it. All thoughts of going to meet Tae were out of your mind, you wanted to get this right before you went home, and if that meant staying up all night and day again then that's what you were going to do but that was before you collapsed onto the floor now you were just mad at yourself. You got up from the floor and looked at yourself in the mirror, taking off the oversized jumper you were wearing to reveal the Nike crop top and matching leggings that you were wearing, no one was around you could get away with dancing in the proper clothes for once.

Tae watched from the door as you stepped back away from the jumper and looked at yourself in the mirror, he took in your appearance and wanted to barge into the room, you looked as though you hadn't eaten in weeks and from hanging around you so much he knew you hadn't eaten a single thing around him so he wondered if you were even eating in the first place.

"Shit." You cried out as you missed a step, something he would look over in practice but it looked like you were about to break down into tears.

The breakdown had been a long time coming and it was a train wreck when it finally hit you, you grabbed hold of the chair that you were using in the practice and launched it at the floor-length mirror without thinking, watching as the breaking glass showered on the floor, sharp pieces flying out at you and cutting into your exposed skin.

Tae jumped up looking through the window and pushing the door open, you were on the floor cradling your arm as it bled, he heard the glass through the music and door so he was sure someone else would have heard it, he rushed to your side and helped you stand up. You didn't take notice of who was helping you, you couldn't see through your tears anyway,

"Come on before someone finds you." He whispered rushing you out of the dance studio and down the hallway, getting into a lift and looking at you as you dropped onto the floor sobbing as you shoved your hands into your hair.

"It's okay, it's okay. I'm right here." He told you dropping onto the floor, you looked at him and then to the camera into the corner of the lift and it was as if Tae watched a switch in your head flip, your tears stopped, you stood up and acted as though you didn't know him. He glanced around the lift and saw the camera you'd spotted, he followed along with what you were doing but he could hear you crying in silence as blood dropped onto the floor. He studied your arm as you descended floors with him in total silence beside from a couple of sobs coming from you, it wasn't deep enough to need stitches but he was going to have to help you with it,

"You okay?" You stayed silent as you walked out of the lift, folding your arms over your stomach to hide your body from anyone that was looking.

"Here," He laid his jacket over your shoulders and walked out of the Sync building, there were going to be cameras everywhere so he rushed you into his waiting car not caring about the cameras for now but only for your well being.

Both you and Tae were sitting in silence in his hotel room as he used the first aid kit to clean you up, you'd stopped crying now but you knew they would start again if he started asking questions, he stared up at you as you stared down at the plug socket on the wall.

"Do you want to talk about it?" You shook your head slowly and he got up to answer the door, it was Namjoon holding a tray of food.

"Thanks," Tae said looking at Namjoon as he glanced over at you,

"She going to be okay?" Tae shrugged his shoulders really not knowing the answer to the question. He shut the door and put the tray onto the table beside you, you didn't even look at it your eyes were back on the plug.

"Eat." He said to you but you ignored him again.

"Eat." He repeated in a more demanding tone, you looked up at him and then to the plate. It was a fruit salad with a glass of water, you took a strawberry from the plate and put it into your mouth, forcing yourself to swallow it.

"I should go." You said trying to leave but Tae shook his head,

"You should talk...If not to me than to someone else." You felt your eyes welling up again and you hated yourself for crying in front of someone you barely knew, you'd known him for a week and you were already ready to spill everything to him, there was something about him that made you feel like you could confide in him, tell him your problems and just relax but at the same time you knew you couldn't do that, he was close to your managers and he was in the business.

"It's nothing. I'm just a little tired." You lied to him again and he still stood in front of you demanding answers from you.

"Tae please." You whispered your voice breaking as you pleaded with him to drop the subject but Tae was going to keep you all night if he had to.

"Lily is throwing a sleepover, I have to go or they'll get upset." You lied again but Tae shook his head, he knew for a fact that you weren't invited to the sleepover, he'd overheard Lily joking to the girls about how you were never there.

"I know you don't, talk to me." He dropped onto his knees in front of you and took your hands in his and tried to look at you but you avoided his gaze.

"You said Lily was perfect? Does that mean you're trying to be like her?" You stayed silent again, still staring at the floor as he threw question after question at you.

"Is it the pressure of being in the business?" You shook your head at him and then looked around the room. No one would know, no one would know if you broke down in front of him and told him everything you were feeling...Unless he told someone then it would be all over.

"I'll tell you if you don't talk to anyone else about it." You whispered taking your hand from his and wiping the tears away from you. You were still sitting in his jacket, it was wrapped around you tightly so he couldn't see your body. You'd always had to hide it from people so he was no different.

"I'm not ready for the stage. Manager James says I have a long way to go before I'm ready and my dancing isn't great so I practise until I can't anymore." He knew this already, he knew this because it's the same story your manager gave him but he didn't believe it for a second.

"You said Lily was perfect..."

"Lily is perfect." You snapped standing up from the seat and scaring Tae a little as he stumbled backwards, steadying himself on the edge of the bed and standing up.

"She's perfect, she's the perfect size, has the perfect voice and style and she's everybody's favourite...Everyone loves her." You looked out of the hotel room it was raining and you sighed.

"Your dancing is perfect though..." Tae tried to say but you shut that down before he could continue.

"It's far from it, I'm always messing it up...Mostly because they're always changing it up on me and not telling me." You scoffed thinking back to them not telling you that BTS was coming.

"You know they didn't tell me you guys were coming...They kept it a secret because I didn't need to 'concern myself with it'," You scoffed again finally everything was spilling out and Tae just stayed silent letting you rant, he could tell you needed it.

"I'm on a strict diet plan while the other girls get to do what they want because I'm the one that isn't perfect. I'm the broken one. The one that doesn't fit in their perfect little jigsaw puzzle." Tae watched as you finally let the tears floor for the second time that night, you started sobbing into your hands and he moved next to you, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you to cry onto his shoulder.

"Fuck...Please don't tell them I told you all of that." You whispered referring to the hour-long rant you'd just gone on at him for, he shook his head promising he wouldn't but not meaning it, he had to tell someone, even if it was going to Namjoon for advice he couldn't let you go on like this. The company was treating you like trash, you were thrown to the back because you weren't the ''same'' like everyone else, you were told to be quiet in interviews because you were louder and had a bigger personality than the girls which Taehyung loved because having a bigger and more outrageous personality was a lot like him and he adored people like that but he'd not seen you acting like that in the time he'd known you, he'd only seen it in old videos he found on the internet one night after a long day at the studios.

You'd ranted to him about the strict rules you were given regarding your diet, you were only allowed to eat within four hours and the rest of the 20 hours you were only allowed green tea and water as if that wasn't bad enough you were forced to work out and dance more than the others even though your dancing was fine in Taehyung's eyes. You explained to him how you had no one to go to, your family gave up on you because they didn't see a future in your dreams and any friends you had were fake to get closer to the other girls or to get gossip for the news articles.

You'd been sitting with Tae for the last four hours, the conversation had moved onto talking about him, talking about what it was like in Korea and where he'd travelled, you were starting to show your true colours to him bringing out your personality as he questioned you about your life before the company took you in,

"Where do you want to go most in the world?" He questioned you, you thought about it for a moment before deciding on a place,

"I always wanted to go to Amsterdam for the Anne Frank house and then the Van Gough Museum." You told him taking out your phone and showing him your wallpaper, it was a picture of the Amsterdam flower show.

"It's lovely, we stopped there once. You'll adore the museum." He told you taking out his phone and showing you the photos he had of him and the boys in Amsterdam.

More time passed and it was getting closer to midnight, you'd spent almost six hours in the hotel room together talking about everything and anything that came to your minds, asking each other random questions and it was starting to get deep,

"You're the only person I've felt that liked me for me..." You whispered to him as you started eating the fruit on the plate in front of you, he was happy when you finally started to eat in front of him and he didn't feel like he was going to have to force it down your throat,

"Because I do like you for you." He chuckled softly as you ate the fruit, making a note to order some more when you finished.

"I have to go soon." You mumbled looking at the time, you didn't want to leave. You were enjoying your time with him and he was enjoying the time you were having with him.

"Or you could stay...I'll sleep on the sofa and we can go to work together." Work. You put down the fork you were using to eat the throat and then looked at the now empty plate.

"Work." You whispered to yourself, forgetting that you were going to have to go back at some point and Tae stared at you, instantly knowing that going back wasn't the best of ideas right now.

"Or! We can go sightseeing tomorrow together, Namjoon was telling me about this small bookshop near King's Cross Station, we could go and check it out." You swallowed hard and nodded, a day off sounded perfect, you hadn't had a real day off in over a year and spending the whole day with him sounded like a dream come true.

"I'd like that." You whispered to him and he nodded,

"Go and take a shower, you can borrow some of my clothes for the night and for tomorrow and I'll get the sofa ready for myself." You shook your head, you weren't going to let him sleep on the sofa.

"I'll take the sofa." You insisted not waiting for him to answer and going into the bathroom to have a shower.

"Here, stand there." You said between giggles trying to get Tae to pose for a photo but he was acting silly with you for it.

"Tae!" You giggled as he pulled another funny face at the end you glanced around to make sure no one had heard you yell his name and finally took a good normal photo before he insisted on taking yours.

"Fine." You grumbled hiding your face behind your hands but he shook his head,

"No hiding, we want to see your beautiful face." You felt a blush creeping up on your cheeks and you moved your hands, flashing him a bright smile and going to look at the photo.

"Son! Son! Come here!" An elderly man said as you passed him, you both stopped to ask what he wanted when he showed Taehyung a selection of homemade jewellery.

"For your pretty girlfriend."

"Oh, we're no-"

"I'll take this one," Taehyung said to the man before you could protest, Tae paid for the bracelet and walked over to you.

"Hold out your wrist," You did as he told you too and he tied the dreamcatcher bracelet around your wrist and tapped it.

"It's adorable." You whispered looking at the plated thread and smiling at the man before you and Taehyung continued your walk into town. You'd been in London centre and not once had anyone noticed you, it was too busy for anyone to care who was around and it was nice to hang around with someone who wasn't just pretending to be nice to you.

"I've really enjoyed today Tae." You said as you crossed the road to find that small bookshop Namjoon had told Tae about, Tae smiled and nodded in agreement. That morning you both laid awake talking about your plans for the day while you had breakfast, for the first time in a year you had a real breakfast instead of a green tea, and you called in sick to work, which wasn't the best of things because your manager screamed at you about the broken mirror but you pushed the negative thoughts away and focused on the day ahead with Tae.

"I have to, it's the most fun I've had since we came." He said as you entered the shop, the bell above the door dinging when it opened and causing a small elderly lady to pop up from behind a desk and smile at you both,

"Good afternoon." She greeted before sitting back down again, you looked at Tae and he smiled at you urging you to walk further into the shop so you did, going towards the back and looking through all the books and old records that they had.

"I've been looking for some new ones for my record player." You said pulling out a record and showing Tae who looked at it with a fond smile telling you about his classical CD collection back home and how he was going to have to text you recommendations when he got back to Korea.

"When do you go back?" You questioned as you took the records you'd gotten over to the counter,

"In a week, or once the song is done." He said as the woman packed up the bag for you.

"Well, we better make today the best day ever before you go back."

And the best day it was, you'd spent the whole day travelling around London going to different shops and then taking him to the natural history museum and told him boring facts that you knew but now you were back at his hotel room and getting ready to leave, the hotel had dry cleaned your clothes from the night before and you were getting ready to leave him,

"Let me look at your arm," Tae said taking your wrist into his hand and looking at it, he removed the plaster and checked that it was healing okay and it was but Tae felt sad about the fact that you were going to be leaving him soon was starting to hit him and he didn't want that.

"You should have something to eat here tonight." He offered and you looked at him, the realisation of going back to work tomorrow was coming and you knew you were going to be in deep trouble for taking the day off.

"I can't, but I'll probably see you around the offices tomorrow." You said sadly to him, you didn't want to leave either but you knew you had to.

"Okay, I guess I'll see you tomorrow." You both stood there awkwardly for a couple of seconds neither of you knew what to do, a hug or to just leave so it was weird until he dragged you into a tight hug and wrapped his arms around you, you relaxed against his touch and laid your head on his shoulder wanting nothing more than to stay in his arms all night as you felt your stomach doing a flips over and over again as he hands travelled down your back and pulling away from you.

"See you tomorrow." He whispered leaving a kiss on your cheek making you blush.

"See you tomorrow," You giggled and walked out of the hotel room dressed in his clothes and taking your newly cleaned ones down and out of the hotel with you.

"That was unacceptable! Do you not understand the consequences of your actions!" Your manager screamed, he was turning red in the face. You'd come to work that morning only to be dragged into the main studio with your manager and Lily, both of them starting to scream about how inappropriate it was to take a day off after smashing up one of the rooms. Walking past the door at the minute Lily started screaming was Namjoon and Taehyung and Namjoon raised an eyebrow wondering what was happening when Tae stayed to listen,

"What's that about?" Tae looked at you through the small window of the door you looked like you were about to start crying again and he'd only just been able to cheer you up yesterday and the night before, he glanced back at Namjoon and decided he had to tell someone what you were going through, he wasn't going to let you go through this alone and he wasn't about to let your manager talk to you that way again.

"Excuse me this is a private-Oh, hello boys. What can we help you with?" Your manager asked turning his attention to Namjoon who was in the door looking at you he looked pissed off and Tae looked guilty as he stood behind him.

"Is it true?" Lily stood up looking between you and the boys, you looked at the floor not wanting to look at anyone who was staring at you.

"Is what true? That she smashed up the dance studio, it is and we're punishing her for it." Namjoon ignored your manager and stared at you waiting for an answer from you but it was clear you weren't going to give him an answer,

"She smashed it up and took the day off because she's a delinquent," Lily stated looking at Namjoon with her fake smile but Namjoon ignored her as well, you looked up to see Tae looking at you with sad eyes.

"Yes it is, I smashed up the mirror." He shook his head at you and you frowned Namjoon wasn't going to stand for it, he stood up straight and turned to your manager.

"Do you treat all your staff like this or just Y/n?" You frowned and then it came to you, Tae had told Namjoon everything you'd told him.

"Treat her like what?" Lily giggled trying to calm down the situation and failing instantly, Hoseok was standing there along with Yoongi, Jimin, Jin and Jungkook all of them staring in through the door with Tae as you stared at Tae.

"Come here," He mouth and you slowly moved towards the door, Namjoon walking out of it first.

"You take one more step and you'll be out of H.E.A.R.T!" Your manager yelled causing you to freeze on the spot, the thought of being out of H.E.A.R.T was exciting and scary at the same time, you'd have nowhere to go and your music career would be gone if you were fired from Sync but being out of the toxic work environment would be a relief to you.

"I mean it!" He yelled again but you stepped out of the door and Taehyung smiled at you.

"You can kiss everything goodbye Y/n!" Lily yelled as you walked further down the hall, the BTS members following behind you and Namjoon muttering that he was never going to work with a company like that again. You all waited for the elevator and Tae pulled you towards the back so he could talk to you in a hushed tone.

"You okay?" You nodded looking up from the floor to his eyes and smiling,

"Yeah...I think it's probably not sunk in that I'm jobless just yet." You joked getting into the elevator with all of them and staring in front of you as the doors shut,

"You could always be a backup dancer for us." Hoseok joked causing everyone to chuckle around you as you went down to the bottom floor,

"No, we'll find you something...Or I will, I won't rest until we find you something." Tae promised, turning to look at Namjoon for some advice but he was on his phone angrily typing an email to Sync and BigHit about how the collaboration was off and he would never work with them again for as long as they worked in the business, Yoongi stepped forward with an idea when you all came out of the lift.

"We could record a song with you?" You stared at him and then to Tae who was nodding and looking to Namjoon who was now paying attention to the conversation,

"We were promised a collaboration with someone." You shook your head at them as you walked out of the building and into the black SUV that was waiting for them, ignoring the cameras as people yelled out questions.

"But you're wanting to collaborate with someone who's with a company, no one wants a song from a nobody." Namjoon shook his head at you as you spoke about yourself like that,

"You're somebody, you're up and coming and you're going to be a star." He chuckled taking out his phone and scrolling through it before he held it up to his ear, you drowned out of the conversation as you stared out of the window.

Being kicked out of Sync had it's ups and downs, at first it was all the papers covered, you couldn't go home without people sitting outside your door and wanting answers on what had really gone down in the building as Sync were only letting out that you'd had a disagreement with the company and you were being let go. While many H.E.AR.R.T fans were disappointed after a couple of weeks they started to see how much happier you were now you weren't in the band, you were doing weekly live streams on Instagram and interacting with people who were sticking with you, as you were promising that new music was coming even if you had to switch to releasing your own music on youtube you were going to start producing music but there was one big secret you were hiding from everyone and that was not one, but two big songs were coming that were working with BTS. Namjoon had kept his promise about working with you and you were getting ready to release it that morning.

"Are you sure people will like it?" You asked Taehyung nervously as you sat in his hotel room, setting up your phone at the table, you were going to do an Instagram live feed to announce that it was out and you were going to have each member on the screen as a nice surprise.

"Of course, it's an amazing song that talks about your struggles with your past." You smiled at him, in the two months you'd been away from the company you were getting closer and closer with each member but you were closer with Taehyung than any other member, maybe it was because he was the one helping you with the struggles of leaving Sync or maybe because of the crush you had on him.

"I don't think I would have made it through this without you." You told him as you finished setting up and stood next to him both of you staring out of the window at London, they'd managed to convince their bosses to let them stay over a little while longer and everything was going according to plan.

"I'm glad we could help." You shook your head at him,

"No Tae, you. I couldn't have done it without you here." You said trying to make him realise you meant him, you'd been trying to drop hints to him that you'd liked him for a while but he didn't seem to get the message.

"Oh," He chuckled nervously, the truth was he'd started to like you as more than a friend too and he had no idea how to approach it, he hadn't kissed you since he'd kissed you on the cheek the night before you were fired and that kiss left him wanting more. He knew he liked you from the moment he saw you dancing.

"I'm glad I could help-" You sighed looking at him, you knew you were going to have to be straight with him so you took a deep breath.

"I like you Tae...More than a friend." He stared at you, neither of you said anything he just stepped closer to you and cupped your face in his hands, kissing you. It was cheesy to say but it felt just like the movies, everything around you seemed to stop and the only thing you cared about was his hands on you, his lips against yours as he pulled your body closer to him, falling back onto the bed and sitting you on his lap and running his fingers through your hair. You pulled back for a breath before he kissed you again, it was soft and slow and it felt perfect until you heard knocking at the door and it brought the world crashing back to you both, you jumped away from him and he went to answer the door.

"We aren't interrupting anything are we?" Jimin teased as he entered the room noting that Tae's hair was messed up, that would be from where you'd been running your hands through his permed hair.

"No, I was just getting the stream ready." You lied going over to your phone and sitting down at the table and trying to hide your blush that would creep up whenever you would look over at Tae.

"Hi, guys! I have some special guests with me today since the new song goes out in..." You looked at the time,

"30 Seconds." You giggled looking at the comments, people commenting in all capitals demanding answers, you shook your head and the boys came over sitting either side of you so you pushed the camera further away so they could all fit in the screen.

"We made a song! And it's up...Now!" You giggled looking at the comments and then deciding to leave them to listen to the song and promising to come back on later to talk to them all again.

"We should go out tonight to celebrate!" Jungkook said in an excited tone jumping up and down as they released their song at the same time, your phone was blowing up in the corner with notifications from new followers, Army's tweeting to you about how much they were living the song and couldn't wait to hear more from you.

"I told you everything would be okay," Tae whispered to you making you blush a little as his hand brushed against the small of your back, that action didn't go unnoticed by Namjoon who was eyeing you both up from the corner of the room.

"We should all get ready for the meal, see you later Y/n." Everyone followed after Namjoon and you stayed behind looking at Taehyung who was making sure they were all gone before he bounded over to you and grabbed your face, kissing you passionately and pulling as close as your bodies could manage, you ran your hands through his black hair and smiled against his lips as your heart began to beat faster with every passing second,

"You're so fucking perfect." He groaned pulling you onto the bed so you were sitting on his lap again, you giggled against him and looked into his eyes.

"You're perfect." You mumbled kissing him again and never wanting the moment to end, he chuckled pulling away and tucking the hair behind your ear, running his thumb along your cheek in a loving manner, he could never get tired of looking at you, spending time with you and now he could finally kiss you, he was never going to get sick of that. All thoughts of him going back to Korea weren't in your mind, all that mattered in the moment was that you were spending time together, and you were going to be in the moment for as long as you could, spending all the time you could before he went back.

"Would it be too late to ask you to come out with just me tonight?" He chuckled twirling a strand of your hair around his finger, you groaned you wanted to spend the night on a one on one date with him as well but Jungkook seemed really excited about being together as a group.

"Jungkook looked excited though." You mumbled to him looking over at the door knowing they'd be back soon to take you out.

"But we can go out tomorrow night." You whispered nuzzling your nose against his and standing up from his lap, you were going to have to wear something of his to dinner and the pair of black jeans you'd come to the hotel in.

"Can I wear one of your shirts?" You questioned going over to his wardrobe and looking through it, taking one of his multicoloured dress shirts and turning to look at him,

"Sure." You rushed into the bathroom, changing into his shirt and running a brush through your hair, the only makeup you had one was some eyeliner so you were just going to have to deal with it. You came out of the bathroom and smiled at Tae, doing a small spin and showing him the dress shirt of his that you'd tucked into the top of your black high waisted jeans,

"How do you look better in that than me?" He groaned walking over to you and pulling you into his arms, looking down at you and smirking.

"Because I'm the better looking one." You joked leaning up and kissing him on the nose, he grumbled something and pulled you in for a real kiss, running his hand through your hair and pulling away.

"I don't think I'll ever get tired of kissing you." He whispered to you, stepping away and taking another one of his dress shirts and going to get himself ready for the meal. You smiled to yourself, wondering how you ended up so lucky to be here but being happy about it either way.

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sunsetinmyvein · 4 years

Text

I Know That I’ll Lose - Chapter Four - I Know You Think You’re Sly

Over the next few weeks the two of them talked pretty regularly. Different time zones made it more difficult, but Matty’s regular (or rather, irregular) sleep schedule sort of made up for that. He was beginning to notice that over time she was becoming a pretty integral part of his social system. It took him a while, but he was realising that the days that he was most snappy and rude at those around him were the days that they hadn’t spoken. He had a bad habit for forming crutches on things around him that offered some form of relief. But he figured a social crutch was considerably healthier than an opioid one, so he let it be. The band were also quickly noticing this, probably faster than Matty himself did. Though their reason for believing he was fast becoming socially dependent on this girl was the fact that he just did. not. shut. up. about her. George was at least happy to see his best friend in such a good mood, but he really wished that Matty would get over this weird honeymoon phase he was in where everything was still new and shiny and he had to tell everyone about it. Especially when they were always in each other’s space, Ross and Adam heard considerably less of it than he had to.

It had been nearly a month since she’d last seen Matty when the man himself was suddenly flashing up on her phone screen. She put down the mouthful of food that she had been about to eat as she held the phone up to her ear. “What’re you doing this weekend?” He asked without even saying hello.

“Hi, Matty. How’s things? That’s good. I’m doing well, thanks for asking.” She started rattling off sarcastically.

“Are you free or not?” He asked again.

“I dunno, I’m probably seeing family or something?” She heard him hum thoughtfully on the other end of the line. “Why?”

“Wanna meet me halfway?” He questioned. She expected him to elaborate on that, but he didn’t continue.

“Halfway to where?” She asked eventually.

“To a gig.” He said like it was the most obvious answer he could ever give. “I was bored and looking up flights for where we are gonna be on tour this weekend. It’s equal distance from me as it is from you.” He explained.

“I… what?” She gave a disbelieving laugh. “Matty, I can’t just get on a plane and go away for the weekend.”

“Why not?” He asked.

“Well, I can’t afford it for a start.” She pointed out with a huff.

“I never said that you had to pay for it. That would be pretty rude of me to ask you to come out and make you pay for it yourself.”

“Then I definitely can’t say yes, I can’t let you pay for that.” She said with a frown. That felt like she was just taking advantage of his situation.

He laughed loudly. “You know that I earn significantly more than you, yes?” He had a pretty valid point there.

There was a long pause on the line as she considered all of the possibilities of this. “Just come hang out. You can leave Friday and be back by Monday.” He pressed, trying his best to twist her arm.

She contemplated the offer. Anything that she had planned this weekend she could easily cancel, and a weekend away did sound pretty fun. Also, as much as she’d never tell him, she was definitely eager to see Matty again. “I’m not just coming out to stand around while you get interviewed again, right?” She asked hesitantly.

“We have a gig on the Friday and Saturday, then some after party thing on the Friday night and a photoshoot on one of the days, I think.” He listed off, trying to rack his brain for the details that were in the schedule his manager had sent him last week.

“You’re sure?” She asked again.

“Definitely no interviews.” He laughed. “You should be able to come along to all of that.”

“Okay.” She finally agreed.

“Great!” She could practically hear the grin in his voice. “I’ll send you some stuff soon.” And just like that, the line was dead. Turned out his grin was infectious even through a phone line where she couldn’t actually see it.

As promised, Matty quickly sent through a heap of details about flights and where she had to go, and it was only a few days before she found herself spending her afternoon waiting in a hotel lobby for him. Again. This time in a different country though, she supposed. She really did do a lot of waiting for him. The familiar British accent echoed through the lobby, but she wasn’t quite able to match it to the direction it was coming from. Which suited Matty just fine as it allowed him the chance to run up behind her and capture her in a tight hug before she noticed him approaching. He let out a loud laugh, one of the ones that was emphatic enough that it made his eyes crinkle, as he picked her up, forcing a breathless laugh out of her as well. It felt nice to be his company again. Phone calls only conveyed so much of the overflowing personality that was Matty. He reluctantly placed her back on the ground.

“Miss me?” He asked with a cocky grin as she turned to face him.

“You wish.” She scoffed, but she couldn’t help but return his grin. “It’s good to see you.” She admitted after a beat.

“You too, love.” He beamed. “We’ll have to make sure it’s not so long next time.” He added with a wink. “But I should finally introduce you to the rest of the band! As much as I like to claim I’m the best musician in the world, I wouldn’t be shit without my team by my side.” His enthusiasm to introduce her to his friends mimicked that of a kid on Christmas. He was practically bursting out of his skin as he dragged her over to the group of three guys still standing by the elevators.

She had only met the boys in passing the night of the concert when she had met Matty, but they hadn’t exactly exchanged words. Or gestures. Or glances. So really, she probably couldn’t say she had met them but more so stood within the presence of them. He had talked them up to no end while they had been speaking over the last while, and they seemed like pretty cool guys. She just really hoped that they weren’t going to be annoyed at her for crashing their plans.

“These are the lads.” Matty started proudly. “George,” A guy with light brown, curly hair flashed her a friendly smile. “Ross,” The one with darker hair and a bit of a beard waved slightly. “and Adam” The last one sitting on the couch with the short blonde hair also gave her a wave. “And guys this is-”

“Yes, we are already well aware who you are.” George cut him off as he walked over. His friendly smile seemed to betray the tired tone in his voice, but he pulled her into a tight hug regardless. “Lovely to meet you. Maybe Matty will finally stop talking about you now that you’re actually here to talk to.” He said with a soft laugh as he moved back, giving a pointed look in his friend’s direction.

“Ah, fuckin’ lay off it, George.” Matty sniggered as he shoved his friend in the shoulder. She let out an anxious laugh, trying not to dwell too much on what George had said. The five of them stood around for a moment, none of them entirely sure what the next thing to say was.

“So, uh,” She cleared her throat, “What’s on the agenda for The 1975 today?” She asked.

“We’re actually just on our way to soundcheck for the show tonight. The set time is earlier today so that we can make it to that party later.” Ross piped up, motioning towards the doors of the hotel.

“Yes, we’d better get going.” Adam added as they made their way out.

The venue was pretty close to their hotel, which was probably an intentional part of why they booked that hotel. They arrived without much fanfare, coming in through the back entrance to the venue without issue and making their way to the stage. Their setup seemed to be almost complete; the lighting rigs were already constructed, mics and instruments were already laid out in correct spots. The four boys walked around to the side of the stage while she decided to look on from the barrier. She watched eagerly as they wandered over to their respective positions, fine tuning instruments that had mostly already been set up for them. It was clearly such a frequent routine for them to go through this process. George altered the heights of a few of his drums, Adam was verifying that his guitar was in the tuning he had asked. Matty meanwhile just smiled down at her from the microphone. “Have you got any requests?” He asked with an eyebrow raised as he leaned forward over his mic. She just offered a shrug in return. “Aw, c’mon! You must have one?” He pressed.

“I have one.” George piped up from behind his kit. Matty threw him a curious look over his shoulder. “Depth.”

Matty frowned across the stage as he turned fully to look at his friend, “But there’s no vocals in that.” He argued.

“Exactly.” He laughed. Ross let out a snigger as he tuned up his bass, Adam was trying his best not to crack a smile.

“We can’t play that one, there’s no point in me being here if we play that one.” Matty said as he waved his hand dismissively at the band. “I wanna hear Sex.” He continued.

“More like you wanna have sex.” Adam mumbled quietly.

“What was that, Hann?”

“Nothing.”

“Fine, let’s play it.” The drummer said before Matty’s brain could catch up and process what Adam had said. A grin spread across Matty’s face as he raced off to get his guitar.

He quickly made sure that it was in decent enough tune and fastened his capo onto the neck before starting to play the opening riff. She had been yet to witness him playing guitar properly. He had played a little bit during the encore of the show that she was able to catch, but she felt it was going to be different seeing it like this. And, it might have been, if it wasn’t this song that Matty was playing. Because Matty had a very simple job during this song: to play exactly one chord and strum for the whole thing. She frowned at this realisation when his hands never moved along the frets, but nonetheless hadn’t noticed that she had been zoning out watching him play. Her attention was finally brought back to the actual song. “She said use your hands and my spare time. We got one thing in common, it’s this tongue of mine.” As she looked back up at him, he flashed her a wink, obviously having caught her watching him. She decided to look at one of the other members of the band to try and cover up the way she could feel her cheeks warming up. In hindsight, she probably should’ve known better than to stand in front of Matty for this song.

She walked down slightly to Ross’s side of the stage, and he flashed her a smile as he saw her stop in front of him. Where Matty was constant high energy, and dancing, and just being an overall twat on stage, Ross was considerably more collected. He mostly just bopped along and tapped his foot, paying the most attention to his bass than anything else. She glanced down at Adam along the stage, and he more or less played the same as Ross, he just leaned into it a bit more. It was a considerably closer style to the bands that she had seen play in the past, rather than… whatever it was that Matty did while on stage. His eyes were already intently watching her as she glanced back over to him. “Does he take care of you? I could easily fill his shoes,” A part of her felt like that wasn’t quite how that lyric normally went, but she hadn’t really listened to the song enough times to know for sure. She’d heard the line in passing before, but hearing him sing it now had a different vibe to it. Especially coupled with the smirk sitting on his face. Previously she hadn’t taken notice of the way that he just had such a level of confidence and assurance in how he sung it. She wanted to laugh at how cocky it made him sound, but also found herself believing it probably came from some section of truth. “But you say no.” She walked back over to where Matty was now paying full attention to his guitar around his neck as he played out the bridge. Glancing behind him briefly at George, he just grinned broadly at her. It was too hard to see how he was playing from the floor, but he seemed to be having fun. She found that she had a better appreciation for the band now than what she had the last time she saw them play. “If we’re gonna do anythin’, we might as well just fuck. She’s got a boyfriend, anyway.” He sung, shrugging for what she assumed was emphasis on the lyrics. They finished the song with no issues, and instantly Ross and Adam started rattling a few things off to the people on either of their sides of the stage about their audio. Matty took the guitar off from around his shoulders and was clearly about to throw out a witty remark, but was quickly cut off before he could.

“You happy with your levels, Matty?” George shouted at him before he could get too distracted.

“Oh, erm, yeah.” He answered, pulling himself back into soundcheck reality. “Maybe turn the guitar down a bit, though.” He added.

He walked over and sat down on the edge of the stage, motioning for her to join him. “You play only one chord for that entire song.” She pointed out as she jumped over the barrier and sat next to him.

“Yeah?” He said with a frown, unsure why it was a point of interest.

“That’s hardly impressive guitar playing skills, I thought that’s what you were wanting to show off with that song. But obviously not.” She said with a chuckle.

“Pfft.” He let out a loud laugh. “I can do more impressive things than play guitar.” He added as he looked down at her.

“Do I even wanna know where you’re going with that?” She groaned.

“For once, it’s not a dirty joke.” He replied.

“Oh?” She questioned with her eyebrows raised, looking at him expectantly. That had to be a first. He took in a deep breath, and in about seven seconds flat, he rattled off the alphabet backwards. There were a few moments of silence between them as she tried to process this new information. “I admit, that was fairly impressive.” She finally said.

“Told you.” He said with a triumphant grin. “Anyway, c’mon. We have some other shit to sort out before the show.” He said as he stood up, holding his hand out to help her up as well.

The band spent about an hour making sure that they were happy with soundcheck and the lighting for the gig. But after that they pretty much spent the rest of the evening hanging out in the fairly under-furnished dressing room trying to kill time until they were set to go on. George had apparently come prepared for this and pulled a deck of cards out of his pocket as they waited. She had expected hanging out with the four of them to be awkward, for her to have felt like the… fifth? wheel in this social setting. But they welcomed her in with open arms and treated her like they seemed to treat each other. It was a pleasant surprise to say the least, and the more she spoke with them the more she realised why Matty had picked these three men to spend the better part of his life with. As the show got closer a quiet fell over the four of them. The cards were packed away, a setlist was verified, crew were suddenly running around doing their final checks. The band paced back and forth a bit as they checked and double-checked instruments and ran over the new additions to the setlist, quietly mumbling things as they passed her. She just sat on a box backstage and watched with interest. It was a very different demeanour to the one that they’d all held an hour ago as they loudly joked and swore at each other. But she soon discovered that this was just the calm before the storm, and as soon as they were called to go on the first bolt of lightning struck. They shared a collective look as they walked out and Matty threw a smile her way over his shoulder as he left.

As soon as they stepped on stage the energy in the room shifted, and everyone got a little bit closer to the age that they were going to lose their hearing as Matty stepped up to his mic and the crowd lost their collective mind. Seeing the show from the very beginning was a far superior experience to only catching the end of it like last time. Each song had its own atmosphere and setting, largely affected by the segue backing ambience and the lighting. It was obvious that a good deal of love and care had been put into this being more than just a concert. She imagined that watching it from the back of the arena where she could get the most out of Adam’s visuals would be a sight to behold. Maybe she could do that during the show tomorrow. If she would be willing to give up the better view of Matty’s performance that she had here. His dorky dance moves consistently got a laugh out of her, and once he’d realised that, they only seemed to be more frequent. He knew how to get a reaction out of people, that much was clear.

The show was going well. Every song had gone off without a hitch, the audience were responding well as per usual, Matty was having a grand old time. But he was also well aware of the audience that was watching him from the other side of the stage. This was the first show she had seen in its entirety. He wanted to make sure it was the most The 1975-y show he could make it. But he was fast running out of ideas that weren’t already in the show to begin with. The themes of jealousy were still running through the back of his mind after their soundcheck of Sex earlier. The more he thought about it, the more an idea formed in his brain. Y/N/N had reacted well to the song, but how would she react to a situation that might cause proper jealousy? Would she actually get jealous? He’d kissed fans at shows before, and they were the shows that got talked about the most. Did that count as a 1975-y show? He was curious to find out, and he wasn’t the sort of person to deny himself the answer to his curiosity once it had instilled itself in him.

It was during Robbers that he decided to put his idea into action. His eyes scanned the crowd for a girl that he could use for his plan. Once he’d found one, he just had to wait for the right moment. He made sure that she was watching him from her spot side stage before he jumped down into the space between the stage and the pit. Straight away his band mates and security were trained on him, watching him with apprehension. George rolled his eyes from his drumkit, already knowing exactly what Matty was set on doing. He quickly avoided the hands that reached out to grab him, making his way over to the girl. He placed a hand on the girl’s cheek, singing the last line before pulling her in for a kiss. As soon as he did it all that he could hear in his ears was the ringing from how many screams echoed around him. She froze almost instantly in shock at the situation. The thought crossed his mind to attempt to deepen the kiss, but he got the feeling that this girl wasn’t about to kiss him back any time soon so there was probably no point. He let it linger for a moment before laughing and moving back. She looked absolutely shell-shocked. He shouted a quick ‘thanks’ at her over his shoulder as he hopped back onto the stage. As soon as he was standing up next to his mic, he was met with George shaking his head at him.

“You’re too old to be doing that shit, Matthew.” His voice echoed through his earpiece. He glanced across the stage to where he knew she was standing, expecting maybe a look of surprise or anger or something. But her expression just seemed… disinterested? That didn’t seem right. He’d have to wait until the Greta speech played before he could go talk to her.

He played through the remaining few songs before the encore almost on autopilot, too focused on her reaction, or lack thereof, to really focus properly. When he finally finished I Always Wanna Die, he raced off stage, pretending he needed a bottle of water as his excuse.

“Any thoughts on the show?” He asked casually as he stepped over to where she was, taking a swig from the water bottle.

“Why do you do shit like that?” She asked, trying her best to hide the sour expression that was wanting to show itself.

“Like what?” He asked innocently as he put the bottle down and quickly wiped a towel down his face.

She nodded in the direction of the fan he had kissed a few minutes ago. “That. Make out with fans during the show.” She elaborated.

“Are you jealous?” He asked with a shit eating grin.

“Hardly.” She scoffed. As much as jealousy did definitely sit at the pit of her stomach, she was more so just unpleasantly surprised to see that he’d do something like that in the position he was in, in front of so many people. “Makes it a lot less desirable if you just put it on show like that.” His face fell at her remark. Wait. That wasn’t-

“Well, I don’t properly mean it.” He tried to explain, suddenly having to backpedal a lot from how he expected this conversation to go, “I do it because they want me to, and it’s fun, I guess. Adds to the experience of the show.” He added with a shrug.

“But then you have to deal with all the shit that comes after that. I have no doubt that she’s already posted about it online somewhere or other.” She pointed out with a serious look. He agreed. He would be willing to bet money that she probably had. Or someone else had on her behalf. It was definitely out there by now.

“Good. Publicity for us.” He said with a light-hearted laugh, trying to at least kind of recover from where this conversation had ended up.

“Just seems like a hell of a lot more effort than it’s worth. It can’t be easy having thousands of girls out there judging you for it. And it must detract from the times you actually do mean it.” Her last comment instantly threw him off. This was not at all how he wanted this to play out. But he could entirely see her point and suddenly he felt incredibly short sighted for not considering it sooner. He felt like his brain was shorting out as he fumbled to come up with a response that didn’t make him seem like an absolute knob for just doing that. But maybe the only way to seem like slightly less of one was to just admit that he just was.

“C’mon Matty, we’re on.” Adam shouted at him as he walked past. He felt like he shouldn’t just leave this conversation at that, but he didn’t really have much of an option as he ran back out on stage. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.

He played the rest of the show very much avoiding the side of the stage where the girl was that he’d just kissed. An uncomfortable feeling of guilt quickly overtook him whenever he glanced in that direction. He felt like a kid who had just been given the ‘I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed’ talk by their parents. As a result, his normal level of energy was definitely lacking during their encore, but for only four songs the audience hardly noticed. Y/N/N did, though. She’d seen this bit before, and it wasn’t the same this time. She was surprised that her words had cut him that deeply. The internet had shown her pretty quickly that this was not a new thing for Matty Healy, so why was this any different than those other times? As they finished up their set, he felt like he should probably apologise for what he’d done, but before he even got the chance the five of them were already being ushered away from the stage. They got dragged through to the back of the venue where a few various selections of clothes were waiting for them to change into for the after party. Ross, George and Adam pretty quickly picked what they wanted and wandered off in the direction of somewhere to change. The rush to get them all ready and out of the arena in time made Matty shove his thoughts to the back of his mind for now as he picked out a half decent suit to wear, changing into it quickly before he could change his mind.

“Why do I have to be dressed up as well?” She grumbled as she flicked through the stuff sitting on the rack.

“Why not?” He asked with a mischievous grin. “Because you’d stick out like a sore thumb if you didn’t.” He added seriously as he adjusted the tie around his neck. “I assure you that I’d rather not have to either. It’s some posh event… thing, that the label wants me at. Everyone has to dress up.” He explained as he sat down on the small couch that was positioned in the room and slipped his dress shoes on.

“Is this like an award sorta party or some crazy rock star party or what?” She asked, deliberating over whether she actually wanted to go or not. Especially after his antics during the show, it was debatable whether she wanted to be known as hanging around him.

“There’s no press if that’s what you’re worried about.” He started with a laugh. She fucking hated it sometimes that he seemed to have such a knack for deciphering what she was really asking him between the lines. But she had to admit it was reassuring information to know nonetheless. “It’s just some networking shit. Staying in touch with people whose names are good to have in our phones. Pretty tame stuff. Open bar, though.” He grinned at the last bit. She nodded thoughtfully. That sounded doable. She opted to pick something simple to change into, and pretty much as soon as she returned from getting changed, they were all shoved into a car and on their way.

The party was already in full swing by the time they arrived, but as soon as they stepped in it was obvious that everyone had been waiting for the band. The four of them were quickly pulled this way and that for ‘hello’s and ‘how have you been’s, leaving her to sort of aimlessly follow them along. George, Ross and Adam all seemed very animated and chatty. Matty however, answered mostly in grunts and nods. He hated parties. They were just such an incredible source of fake pleasantries and people pretending that they remembered each other. It radiated the unrelenting feeling of narcissism. These people didn’t care about him, they just cared about potential partnerships and money. And too many of these people at these parties knew him and knew the things he used to get up to in past years. It was a risky game for him to be at parties these days, he was too likely to receive offers he’d rather not have to deal with. But he was already tired after the show, he just wanted to go back to his hotel room, shower and sleep. Eventually after listening to the fifth rendition of ‘how’s tour going?’, Y/N/N wandered off in search of a drink and maybe a place to wait out the party. Matty watched enviously as she walked away from the conversation he was tied to. George’s voice eventually broke him out of his daydream of the freedom of being able to leave this hellscape.

“We’re really happy to be here.” George said with a good level of sincerity. He did genuinely seem to be enjoying himself. “Aren’t we, Matthew?” He said with a pointed look in his friend’s direction.

“Yep.” He said, popping the ‘p’ for an attempt at emphasis as he scanned the room for the bar. The conversation continued without his presence, until eventually the people walked away and George’s hand landed on his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” He asked Matty with a frown.

“Moping.” He answered with a tired smile. “I just wanna get stoned and sleep, man.” He added.

“You just wanna go talk to your girl.” Adam laughed loudly, causing the other two to start cracking up as well.

Matty just rolled his eyes, “Oh, fuck off.”

“Would we really be your mates if we didn’t give you a hard time for bringing a girl out here?” The drummer said with a grin as he shoved Matty in the shoulder. “Go talk to people for a bit,” He said, spinning Matty on the spot to face a group of people standing at the other end of the room. “And at least pretend like you’re having fun.” He added.

“Yes, mum.” He huffed as he walked off.

He drifted in and out of a few different conversations, pretending to be interested and present, just like those he was speaking to. But the longer he was at the party, the easier it was for him to flip the switch and go into work mode. To network and make contacts that might benefit him down the line. He eventually ran into a few people he knew whose company he actually enjoyed and hadn’t seen in a while. That lifted his mood, albeit slightly. He gravitated around those select few to try and avoid the rest of the event around him. On the other side of the room, Y/N/N found herself watching the one person she knew at the party eagerly invested in a conversation with a bunch of people she didn’t recognise. Not that she overly expected herself to, but a part of her still tried to pinpoint who these people were. People just seemed to gravitate to him, he had that level of passive magnetism that drew people over, and she assumed his charisma was what kept them there. Certainly she knew that it was what convinced her to keep hanging around him. It felt strange seeing the same effect on other people. A naïve part of her had hoped it was a connection that only the two of them shared, but apparently not. As she looked around the room, she was reminded that she felt pretty out of place here. It all felt too fancy and high-class, and there wasn’t really any point in trying to speak to any of these people that she would more than likely never see again.

“You look a bit lost, love.” She heard a familiar voice say. As she turned around, she saw George walking over to her, a sympathetic smile on his face.

“Well, I pretty much only know him,” She said as she gestured her glass towards Matty, “and he’s sort of… otherwise occupied.” She laughed, trying to play off the unpleasant feeling sitting in her chest.

“Ah, that’s not true! You know us, now.” He said as a broad grin spread onto his features. “Come on.” He said as he began walking off. She assumed that was her cue to follow. Eventually they reached a small corner of the party with a few seats scattered across it, which happened to be the spot where the other two members of their band had opted to hang out. They let out a cheer as George walked over.

“Hey! Did you get more beer?” Ross asked eagerly.

“No, but I did rescue our friend.” He answered as he pulled a seat over for her, sitting himself down in the one next to it.

“These parties can quickly get overwhelming.” Adam said with an understanding nod. “There’s just… so many people everywhere.” He added as his eyes glanced around the room behind her warily.

The four of them talked amongst themselves for a while. Matty had already told them pretty much everything she had told him, so George started their chat with: ‘Tell us something you haven’t told him yet’. It worked surprisingly well for opening up the door to easy flowing conversation. They spoke about anything and everything for roughly an hour in peace, until the missing member of their group finally found them. He wandered into their conversation silently, before sprawling himself out face down onto the tiled floor. “Get off the floor.” George said as he kicked his friend in the thigh.

“I was charming and social for nearly two hours. Can we go now?” Matty mumbled from his place on the ground.

“No. This thing still goes for another couple of hours.” He answered. Matty let out a loud groan at this news. “Get up.” He added through gritted teeth, still trying to get his friend to at least sit in a chair and look somewhat professional. The boy did not budge from the floor.

“We’re going to get some drinks.” Ross said as he stood up, with Adam following close behind him.

George looked at them, before looking back down at Matty and sighing. “Yeah, I need one of them too.” He agreed as he started heading in the same direction.

As soon as their footsteps left his earshot, Matty rolled over on the floor. He sat up a bit to make sure that they weren’t still looking at him before glancing over at Y/N/N, “Let’s get out of here.” He said as a grin spread across his face. It was a lot less of a question than it was a statement.

“Don’t you have to be here? I thought this was your thing.” She asked with a look of confusion.

“I’m sure they have it covered.” He waved a hand in the direction that the rest of the band had walked off in. “They’ve all been sitting here bullshitting with you while I’ve been off being the good frontman. That’s what I’m meant to be doing, let them do the boring shit for a bit.” He laughed. “Wanna go get some food? I hear there’s this really wicked place near here that’s open late. Everyone’s been fuckin’ talking about it.”

“Sure.” She shrugged, happy for a way out of this earlier than expected. At the end of the day, it wasn’t her party to have to have to attend. She’d only come along because Matty insisted on it. He scrambled up off of the floor instantly, taking a quick look around to make sure that he wasn’t being watched too closely before ushering her out of the venue.

“And then we can go back to my place.” He added with a suggestive look as they reached the exit.

“You don’t have a place here.” She pointed out, shaking her head at him with a small smile.

“My hotel, I mean.” He clarified.

“We’re staying in the same hotel, Matty. We have to go back to the same place.” She said with a laugh. He tried to keep his cool, but a small laugh still escaped.

“You ruined it. I take back my offer, you can’t come back with me. Get a different hotel.”

By the time they managed to sneak out of the party it was nearing on midnight. They walked down the fairly empty street towards this restaurant that he was raving about. Apparently, it had some crazy new dish that he had heard about through a friend of a friend and everyone at the party was recommending it. They’d all been checking it out while the band had to play their show. It was hardly reasonable of them to talk it up so much without expecting Matty to want to try it for himself. He mostly spoke about what other random things the people in the party had been trying to speak to him about while they made their way down the street. As they stood in front of the pretty fancy looking establishment, she suddenly felt nervous. It was a different nervous from the usual level of anxiety she felt being around someone as sporadic and forward as Matty, this was much more of a self-conscious nervous. She wasn’t sure if it was his joke striking a different chord when they were leaving or something else that had burrowed its way into her brain, but she just had this overwhelming feeling that- “Is this a date?” She eventually asked, cutting him off mid-sentence.

He frowned at her for a moment, snuffing out the cigarette he had been smoking before speaking, “No.”

She looked from the restaurant, to the suit he was still wearing, to the fancy shit he had convinced her to wear, to the fact that it was just the two of them. His words weeks ago about not being in a place to want to make decisions like that ran through her mind, but it still didn’t feel right. “Are you sure this isn’t a date?” She asked again.

“Do you want it to be one?” He questioned.

“No, I just…” She trailed off, suddenly unsure if that answer was true or not.

“Why would it be a date?” He continued as he held open the door for her.

“Well, you’re dressed fancy, I’m dressed fancy-” She started.

“We just got out of a party.” He answered, quickly asking for a table for the both of them.

“-the guys aren’t here-” She reminded.

“Only because we ditched them.”

“-and we’re at some super nice place to get dinner.”

He had to laugh at that. “We can go to McDonalds if you’d prefer?” He offered with an eyebrow raised, waiting expectantly before taking his seat.

“No, no. I just thought…” She elected to just swallow her nerves and roll with it. Which was the majority of how she had to interact with Matty, anyway. “Just wanted to know.”

They both sat down at the table, Matty declining the menus offered by the waiter and just ordering two of the dish that everyone else had been ordering all night and two drinks for them. It was nice for him to finally have a moment where nobody else was around. Since she’d arrived at the hotel earlier today it was non-stop. The break and chance to properly catch up was a breath of fresh air after the chaos of the day.

“How’re you finding the guys?” He asked eventually as he took a sip from his glass, curiosity burning at the back of his mind about what they could have been chatting about for so long while he was busy. Those boys had more than enough incriminating stories about him from across the years, but he had faith that they wouldn’t throw him under the bus like that. Yet.

“Good! They’re really nice,” She said with a grin. “I can see why you picked those three to start a band with.”

A smile slowly spread across his face as he dwelled on the thought of his friends. He imagined they were gonna be pretty shitty at him once they realised that he’d bailed on the party. They put up with a lot of crap from him. They were good guys. “Yeah, they’re pretty great. I dunno where I’d be without them.” He admitted with a shrug.

“Did they do a good job of staving you from boredom?” He questioned casually.

“Yeah, we just chatted about what it was like to work the show from behind the scenes rather than playing on the front lines.” She replied.

He nodded. That seemed like a George sort of topic. Common ground that everyone could discuss easily. Good call. “Do you do it a lot?”

“Not a huge amount. I’d do it more if I could but it’s kind of just a seasonal thing that I do with my brother. It’s really fun though. I always love chatting to people at shows.” She answered, the enthusiasm for the work instantly seeping into her voice.

“Would you do it more if the opportunity came up?”

“I suppose so. It’s pretty decent money for doing a fun job.” She said. He hummed thoughtfully at that. Maybe that information could work in his favour. The more time he spent with her, the better he felt overall. He couldn’t deny that the idea of having her around more frequently was a tempting one.

As they waited for the food to arrive, Matty found his mind drifting back to the gig. The feeling of guilt still sat heavily in his chest. He should’ve known better than to try something like that. To try and force a reaction from someone, especially by doing something intentionally abrasive. At this point in his life some would think that personal experience would’ve taught him a thing or two from previous mistakes, but apparently old habits of recklessness die hard. He rested his elbows on the table, dragging his hands down his face before finally getting out what he had been wanting to say. “I’m sorry by the way, about earlier.”

She looked up at him curiously, unsure what exactly it was that he was talking about. “For what?”

“During the show.” He elaborated with a sigh as he rested his chin on his folded hands, glancing down at his half-finished drink. Oh. That was what he was talking about. “I didn’t mean for it to come across like that, and in hindsight it was stupid of me to think that I could still get away with shit like that. I was just being a bit of an arrogant twat. Sorry.” He apologised.

She wasn’t entirely sure why he felt the need to elaborate on what had happened. It was seeming pretty obvious that pulling stunts like that was just tied in with those aspects of Matty’s personality. With blunt honesty, came a lack of filter. With the level of confidence he exuded, came a blurred line on what was showing off and what was just being egotistical. But that was his issue to sort out, he didn’t have to apologise to her for his mistakes. “You know that you don’t have to explain yourself to me, right?”

He just silently tapped at the tattoo above his right elbow. ‘Weak messages create bad situations’ - right. “I don’t like leaving things unsaid. I didn’t want you to think that I didn’t notice that I’d done it.” He explained as their food was placed in front of them.

Once their food was in front of them and Matty had gotten that off of his chest, conversation was back to normal between them. They bullshitted about music that they had been listening to, and about the people that they had seen at the party. It was a good thing that it was so late because they didn’t have to worry about their laughter disrupting any other tables. Eventually the restaurant was closing and the staff kicked them out. It was too late to want to continue partying on, and Matty still wanted a decent night’s sleep after playing a show tonight and only just flying in the night prior. They made their way back to the hotel and up to their hotel rooms. Of course, Matty had made sure that her room was booked right next to his. His fantastic pickup lines wouldn’t work if they were on separate floors. He fumbled around in his pockets before calling her name to grab her attention before she stepped into her room. “I lost my hotel room key… Can I borrow yours?” He asked with a puppy dog eyed look.

“Nice try.” She laughed.

He let out a low laugh as he pulled his key out of his wallet, “Can’t blame me for trying.” He unlocked the door, propping it open for a moment as he looked back at her. “We’ve got that photoshoot thing tomorrow near midday, so let me know when you’re awake. But otherwise, sweet dreams. You know where I am if you need me.” He said with a wink.

“G’night, Matty.” She called out, shutting her door behind her.

* * *

Thankfully for everyone, they didn’t have to start their morning the next day too early. They had gotten back anywhere between two and three in the morning after their various adventures and were all in dire need of sleep. It wasn’t until about ten that the five of them found themselves crowded around a small table in the hotel restaurant, trying to finish a complimentary continental breakfast before they stopped offering the service.

“So… where did you two get off to last night? You abandoned us at the afterparty.” Ross asked casually as he stirred his tea. George started laughing before Matty even had the chance to speak, and only laughed harder after he had answered Ross’s question.

“We were off having wild, kinky sex while you guys were stuck at the party.” Matty deadpanned. “Weren’t we?” He asked with a suggestive grin in her direction.

“Totally.” She scoffed.

“How is he?” George asked with an amused smile once his laughter had calmed down a bit.

“Awful.” She answered, instantly getting George into hysterics again, Ross and Adam quickly following suit.

“Hey!” Matty shouted. “That’s not true!” He continued.

“What were you really doing?” Ross asked again through chuckles.

“We went out for dinner.” She answered before Matty could make something else up.

“Oh?” George looked over at his best friend with his eyebrows raised in curiosity. That was considerably more interesting information to George than if they would have hooked up. Matty wasn’t a stranger to one-night stands, but to dates? That was a bit different. He hadn’t been on a date since his girlfriend left him over three months ago. Matty flashed him a look across the table that he knew meant ‘you’d better shut up before I make you shut up’, so he decided to harass him about it later.

It wasn’t long after they finally finished their meal that a taxi was sent over to take them to this photoshoot. It was a magazine cover that the whole band were set to feature on, the story it was relating to had already been interviewed a few weeks prior over the phone. As soon as they arrived, each of the four members of the band were offered a limited selection of outfits to choose from to best coordinate for the photo. Y/N/N waited patiently while each of them picked what they wanted and went off to get changed. It wasn’t long before Matty came sauntering out of the side room dressed in a grey suit jacket and pants over a black turtleneck. The overall look suited him well. Suits looked good on him. “What do you think?” He asked as he did a small spin on the spot. As she quickly gave him a once over, she noticed that he also had on glasses. It was a strange sight to see. Not necessarily a bad one, just one that she had never had to process before. The longer she looked at the glasses, the more she realised that they didn’t reflect any light.

“What the fuck are those?” She asked, taking a closer look at the metal frame sitting on his face. They most definitely didn’t have lenses in them and served no purpose. Was he just trying to be ironic?

“What?” He asked in confusion as she went to jab a finger through one of the empty lenses. Thankfully, it missed his eye. “Fuck off!” He laughed as he stepped back, slapping her hand away from his face.

“You fuck off. What’s with these?” She chuckled, taking them off of his face. “You don’t wear glasses.”

“How do you know that?” He asked with a smug grin.

“I feel like I would’ve seen it by now.” She narrowed her eyes at him, challenging him to prove that he needed glasses. Without lenses. For some reason.

“I could just wear contacts all the time.” He continued, before dropping the act and answering properly. “I used to need glasses, don’t anymore. Needing glasses destroyed my penchant for sunglasses so I got laser done. But I was gonna wear these today because it looks cool. Makes me look sophisticated and shit.” He took the glasses back from her and placed them back on the bridge of his nose.

“You don’t need to look sophisticated. Anyone who speaks to you learns pretty quickly that you have a vocabulary better than a dictionary.” She pointed out.

“Yeah but people aren’t gonna be able to talk to me through the cover of a magazine. Are they, love?” He chuckled, adjusting his suit jacket.

“Fair point.” She nodded.

The rest of the band slowly filed into the room, all with similarly coloured black and grey outfits. They looked like a cohesive unit when they were all dressed in coordination like this. Most of the time they just looked like a group of mates hanging out together. Which, to be fair, both descriptions were correct. Once the photographer was happy with how everyone was dressed and styled, they were dragged into a white room for the shoot. Y/N/N stood at the back of the room, watching keenly as the photographer shouted directions, set up the lighting, altered settings. It was interesting getting to see the whole procedure behind processes like this, but also incredibly distracting considering the company that she was with for it. Matty spent the majority of the shoot being told off for making stupid faces at her to get her to laugh. He wanted to take it seriously, but it was far too tempting to be an idiot when he knew she was just so easy to get a reaction out of. If he wasn’t allowed to make dumb faces, then he just got the guys to stand in really weird poses with him, much to their displeasure. Whenever they complained about it, he just explained that it was ‘art’. As a result, it took a little over an hour until they were able to get the shots that they wanted, but they got them. After the photo shoot was done, the day played out very similarly to the day before. They went across to the second venue for today’s show, completed soundcheck and then were soon enough waiting anxiously to go on stage.

“Excited?” She asked Matty as he paced around the room.

He just shrugged as he ran a hand through his messy curls, “Same amount of nerves as always.”

“Any grand plans for tonight’s show?” She asked, trying her best to seem serious but still cracking a smile.

He stopped pacing, turning to face her. “No,” He laughed, knowing exactly what she was taking a jab at. “I promise that there’s nothing special on the agenda.” He assured.

One of the stage crew walked past, shouting out that they were on in two minutes. The band quickly assembled themselves side stage, letting out a few deep breaths before starting to walk out. She considered that if this was going to become a regular thing, she’d have to invest in some earplugs to save herself from going deaf in the near future. The show was a lot easier to enjoy knowing that Matty was just performing and not intentionally trying to show off like he was the night before. His stage presence was almost better when he wasn’t trying; he got lost in the moment a lot easier when he wasn’t gauging her reaction every five seconds. The songs only sounded better the more times that she was hearing them, and she made a mental note to properly watch the impressive light show from the back of the crowd the next time that she was in this position. Because she had a distinct feeling that this wouldn’t be the last time that she would be watching their live show. However, she found that the most impressive part of the show wasn’t the music, or the lights, or Matty’s dancing skills.

“Hey, you all have to pay attention for a few minutes.” Matty said into his microphone, giving a serious look towards the crowd before their intermission speech started playing. Ross, George and Adam all walked off the stage, each grabbing a drink of water and taking a breather. But Matty stayed. The night prior he had run off stage to speak to her, so she was unaware that this was normally what he did. He turned his attention away from the audience, standing and facing the screens. The look on his face as he listened to the speech was nothing short of attentive. Even as he lit up a cigarette and sat down on the stage, his interest never wandered. His gaze flicked between the three screens that they had set up, but he never turned to look at the crowd, or to look side stage. He just sat, and listened. She supposed that he probably did it to set a good example for everyone in the audience, that if he paid attention, they all would too. But to see him so focused on the messages being displayed, to be so passionate for the cause, felt special. It felt powerful. The show continued after that with even more passion than what he had put into the first portion of it. For the first time, she saw the whole show uninterrupted, and loved every single second.

It was fairly early on the Sunday morning that she had to catch her flight home, so they skipped the partying after their set. As much as hanging out with the band was fun, she did have to eventually head home and try to land some more work to get her through the summer. The next morning, she was waiting in the hotel lobby with her bags, having already said her goodbyes to Ross, Adam and George. Matty stood next to her, rocking back and forth onto the balls of his feet as he tried to prolong saying goodbye. “It was really good seeing you again.” He said with a genuine smile, “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you soon.” He added.

“Oh? You’re sure?” She laughed with an eyebrow raised.

“Yeah!” He said with a snorted laugh. “Admit it, you’ll be back because you totally want a piece of this.” He added, looking at her over the frame of his sunglasses as he gestured at himself. She would’ve liked to have thought that hearing this joke the second time around it would’ve had less impact on her reaction, but it seemed harder to shrug it off this time.

She had to look away from him to keep her face neutral as she answered him. “Even if I did, I would never give you the ego boost by telling you.” She knew deep down that a part of her was lying about the former part of her statement, but she was definitely pretty firm on the latter.

He hummed in consideration at her answer, “Never?”

“Never.” She repeated assuredly. He didn’t say anything else, and when she looked over at him the grin on his face was nothing short of devious. “What?” She asked with a frown.

“Nothing.” He shrugged.

“What?” She repeated.

He pulled her in for a tight hug, “Don’t set me a challenge if you aren’t prepared to have it beaten.” He said lowly into her ear before moving back. The tone of his voice sent a shiver down her spine, and suddenly she wished she hadn’t said anything at all. He said a brief goodbye, flashed her a parting grin, and then was already on his way. “Have a good flight.” He shouted, waving over his shoulder as he headed back towards the elevators.

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#Matthew Healy x Reader #Matty Healy x Reader #Sunsetinmyvein

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beautifulletdownfics · 4 years

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‘someday, someday’ :: tumblr edition, #30 :: the epilogue

June, five months later.

Seattle

“I can feel the love of my girlfriend in the building!”

“Oh boy,” I said under my breath, walking towards the sound of Harry’s booming voice.

“He’s been annoyingly upbeat all day,” Harry’s manager said from his spot walking next to me, “He’s lucky nobody’s hit him with a tranquilliser gun.”

I laughed, “I’m extremely sorry. I’ll try to keep him out of your hair for a few days.”

“Nina!” Harry squawked out my name, still out of sight. The empty corridors of the venue made his voice carry throughout the whole place.

I landed in Seattle a few hours before, there was a hold up at the airport customs, but I slept on the plane so wasn’t feeling too foggy from travel. Harry had a show here tonight, and then two sold-out nights in Los Angeles before we had a small getaway planned in Jamaica. He was on a ‘micro tour’ which consisted of forty dates across Europe and the US, promoting the EP that dropped back in March and also giving Harry a break from writing his next album. I went to the opening night show in London four weeks ago and hadn’t seen Harry since.

We rounded a corner, and I saw him, jogging towards us in a tour hoody, jeans and fluffy socks with no shoes. Harry’s cheeks were red, and his eyes were wide with joy, my tummy clenched at the sight of him; at the sight of how happy seeing me made him.

“Hello!” Harry yelled happily, not slowing at all before crashing into me and holding my body tightly against his, “Hello, you’re here! I love you. I’m so fucking in love with you.”

“I’ll see you later, mate,” His manager said somewhere behind me, “Soundcheck is at three, okay?”

Harry must have held up a thumb in agreement because we were left alone a moment later, my face pressed into the warm material of his jumper and my arms wrapped tightly around Harry’s back.

“Do you speak?” Harry asked, swaying us from side to side in a hug, “Because when I saw you a month ago, you could speak.” “Hi,” I bleated out, thickly, “I’ve missed you.” He squeezed me almost too tightly, “I missed you too. So much. I’m so excited about this week.”

I threaded my hands behind his neck then, needing to show my affection. I managed to get in half a dozen kisses to his jaw and side of Harry’s mouth before he loosened his grip and covered my mouth with his. The kiss was slow and heated me all the way through, feeling Harry’s body after so many weeks lit a fire in my gut.

He felt it too.

“Lemme show you my dressing room,” He said between pecks to my lips. “I’ve missed you so much.”

It wasn’t far away, Harry took the handle of my suitcase from where his manager had left it and then strode off down the hallway, leaving me to trot along behind him trying to catch up. I skipped passed him, slapping my hand gently to his bum and turning back to give him a cheeky look.

Harry shook his head and muttered something to himself just as we passed a door he disappeared into. I skidded back to follow him, taking in the small but inviting space we had just walked into. Harry shut the door behind me and had me engulfed in another kiss before I could get a good look at Harry’s space on tour.

His palms pressed against the base of my spine before Harry expertly unclasped my bra under my shirt, his fingers moved around to dance across my nipples.

“Well that feels odd,” I said as he attached his mouth to my neck, my bra sitting strangely over my shoulders and bunching under the fabric of my shirt. There was a reason the layers usually came off in a particular order, Harry jumped the gun though, and I can’t say I blamed him for it.

“Odd?” Harry questioned, lightly squeezing my left breast as he sucked behind my ear. It sent a rush of heat straight through me, and when I stumbled against him, Harry laughed against my chin. “That’s more like it.”

A moment later, my shirt and bra were off, and Harry gently pushed me back until I was pressed against the closed door. His eyes sparkled when he pulled back to look at me, his own cheeks flushed with desire while his chest heaved up and down. I reached for his belt loops, missing the feeling of him against him and wanting to feel his hardness against me again.

“Harry,” I whined.

“Fucking look at you,” He breathed, taking a finger and tracing it down from my neck, between my bare breasts and then down to the button of my jeans, “Can I keep going?”

“Does this door lock?” Harry reached behind me to the handle, and I heard a satisfying click, “Yes.”

A smile grew across my face, and I reached up for Harry’s shoulders to pull him down for another searing kiss. His fingers congregated at the top of my trousers, quickly flipping the button out of its spot and unzipping them. We giggled our way through him trying to peel the tight skinny jeans from my legs, he kneeled in front of me as he struggled to get my shoes off and then the jeans over my feet. My palms rested on Harry’s back as I hunched over in laughter. My laughter died, though when the trousers were gone, and Harry looked up at me from the floor, his warm breath fanning against me.

Before I could think he pressed a kiss below my belly button and tugged down my knickers, “You’re so beautiful,” Harry said, “I missed this so much.”

+++

“C’mon, we have a job to do,” Harry flung open the door to his dressing room and pulled me down the corridor.

“A job?” I ran a hand through my hair, hoping I didn’t look like I’d just had three orgasms. “Yes, I’m on crew afternoon tea,” Harry told me impatiently, “So we’re making cookies.”

“Cookies? Where on earth are we making cookies?”

“Here,” He held out his arm in a big reveal, the catering kitchen before us, “I have use of this kitchen for the next hour. Morning tea is at two.”

“We’re making cookies.”

“Yes.”

“You’re such a charming idiot,” I grinned, “I love you.”

His face lit up as he took his phone out of his pocket and gave it to me, “You DJ and I’ll be ... What’s that guy's name? The cooking one?”

“Jamie Oliver?”

“No,” he shook his head, still trying to think of the name himself. Harry was looking over what had been left out on the bench, it seemed whoever was letting Harry use the kitchen was protective of their space and had elected to put everything he would need in plain sight.

“Gordon Ramsey?” I tried.

“No, the other one ... That’s different.”

“Noel Fielding?”

Harry stopped short and looked at me with a sceptical look on his face, “Noel Fielding,” he said flatly, “He’s the host, he doesn’t cook, Nina!��

“Paul Hollywood then.”

“No.”

I smiled, “You’re not giving me a very good indication of who you mean.”

“Ainsley! That Ainsley guy, with the grin,” Harry demonstrated the nature of the grin in question.

“That’s a girls name,” I said, not finding the name familiar in the slightest.

“Ainsley is badass,” Harry blew me off, “I’ll show you.”

We spent the next twenty minutes fumbling our way through the cookie recipe Harry saved onto his phone. He was adamant we double the recipe, so there was plenty for everyone. Halfway through I was banned from helping anymore after I went rogue and decided not to measure out the chocolate chips, instead I was eyeballing the amount.

“Don’t mess up the recipe!” He reached for the bowl and tried to intercept the chocolate chips I was shaking in.

“You can never have too many choc chips, Harry.” “Yes, you can! That’s why they tell you how much to put in! It’s about ratios, Nina!”

“Ratios don’t apply to chocolate chips, you measure that shit with your heart.”

He glared at me, looking every bit the disagreeable child, “If there’s too high a chocolate content the cookies will burn. It’s a chemical reaction! They’ve got—”

—You need to cool it on the Bon Appetite videos, mate.”

“Mate!” Harry latched onto my waist and dug his fingers in to tickle me, “Boyfriends don’t get ‘mate’, thank you very much.”

When we presented the cookies later on at crew afternoon tea Harry admitted that maybe I hadn’t completely ruined the batch, he ate four before anyone else got to them, and I didn’t try very hard at all not to be smug about how much he liked the treat. I watched him happily prattle away to different people, shovelling more cookies into his mouth with abandon as the social gathering went on.

“You made cookies so you’d have an excuse to eat cookies, didn’t you?” I confronted him when Harry handed me a cup of tea a little while later, “You’ve got a little bit, c’ mere.”

I wiped the corner of his mouth where a smudge of chocolate sat with my thumb, avoiding the heated look he was giving me, and he settled onto the sofa next to me, “I did nothing of the sort.”

“Hmmm,” I smiled, blowing onto the surface of my tea to cool it.

+++

Los Angeles, Day Two

You’re so cute when you play xx

“Concentrate, Harry,” I snatched the sticky-note he wrote for me off the end of his finger and stuck it to the piano.

“It’s true,” He pressed a kiss to my cheek and stood up off the stool, finally looking as though he was ready to take soundcheck seriously.

This was Harry’s idea, as so many crazy ideas were. He waited 24 hours after I joined him in Seattle before trying it out on me, casually mentioning that it would be cool if I could play the song we wrote together on stage with him one night. As with so many things, Harry broke the idea to me slowly, and I was swayed from my status of categorically absolutely not to where we currently were. Which was us both up on stage behind a grand piano during his last Los Angeles soundcheck.

A roadie set up a microphone at the piano for me to sing harmonies despite my telling Harry over and over I wouldn’t be using it. I knew what Harry was thinking though, that the more we rehearsed it through, the more I would get lost in the song and find myself humming along supporting Harry’s voice where the song needed it. He was using my instinct against me.

Or he would if he ever got to actually singing the song through. For now, he seemed content to mess about and get crew members to request songs for me to play.

“Harry,” I was finally reaching my threshold, my nerves eroding my ability to play along much further.

He looked at me and his face fell slightly, but he gave me a warm smile, “Okay, let’s do a proper run through.”

“Thank you.”

I started the intro slowly, closing my eyes to enjoy the way the sound of the keys spread through the venue. I really did love this song, and despite how often I heard it since it’s release, there was still a warming kind of magic to it. It took me back to meeting Harry and him seeing my musicality for the first time last year. They were such sweet memories, and I loved thinking about how little I knew at the time; how much I underestimated what Harry’s effect on my life would be.

When Harry started singing into his microphone I opened my eyes to watch him, he was facing the empty stadium, still as he let his voice carry. He told me earlier he was thinking about changing a few runs tonight but he didn’t want to distract or take away from the fact this would probably be the only time we played it live together.

By the time he started singing the second chorus I had tears in my eyes and his band were all quiet watching. None of them was setting up for the next song or distracted on their phones, everyone was watching Harry perform to the empty theatre.

His head slowly turned around to me when I started singing along behind him. He smiled through the next few lyrics, removing his mic from the stand and walking over to be closer to me. Our voices did sound lovely together, although I felt horribly exposed doing so. I stuck to just doing what the voices on Rodger’s recorded version did. We were missing the strings and some of the effects from the piano, but there was a simple beauty to just performing the song with this grand piano in front of me.

The instrumental came and I focused on getting the more complicated piano part I had written sounding perfect. Harry’s music director told me earlier if I wanted to extend it I could, but again, I was wary of settling too much of the attention on myself. This was Harry’s show and I wanted his fans to see him in a different way, not to be introduced too much to the idea of me.

“Fuck, that was amazing,” Harry said into the microphone as I played through the final few chords. He was grinning ear to ear, watching my hands on the keys.

“Your voice sounds beautiful,” I told him.

He reached over me for the yellow sticky-note stack and black sharpie, scrawling something out before tearing off the note and sticking it to the piano right in front of me.

I love you. x

+++

“You nervous?” “More nervous than I’ve been in years,” I hurried back without looking at who was speaking, I recognised the voice of Harry’s manager.

It was halfway through Harry’s set on the second night in Los Angeles. We were getting a charter flight from LAX straight after the show to Jamaica for four days. But before that, I needed to get through what was about to happen next.

There was a grand piano on stage that wasn’t usually there, and Harry’s band were going to clear off for the song, leaving just Harry and me on stage. He was confident that our relationship would stay under wraps. It was easy enough to let the thousands of fans in the audience believe that I was merely the girl who helped Harry write the song.

Harry’s band members came off, offering me wishes of luck as they all scrambled in different directions; some needing the bathroom and others on the hunt for a snack. I could hear Harry talking to the crowd, and I tried to tune into what he was saying.

“I have a treat coming up for you now,” He said slowly into his microphone, looking over his shoulder at where I was standing, probably checking I was there. The crowd roared.

“I’ll kill him for this,” I said to nobody in particular.

“You were magic at soundcheck,” Harry’s drummer told me, “Have fun out there.”

“The story of the next song is probably my favourite of any of my songs,” Harry’s voice drew me back, I ran my hands down my skirt and ruffled my hair nervously, “It was a sad little broken song until this person came along and saved it … I’m so excited to have her here tonight to play it with me … Now, you all need to give her a very warm welcome because I am absolutely sure she will never agree to this again. For one night only, this is Nina Lawrence joining me to play my favourite song from the EP, Life Is Grey.”

I stumbled up the stairs and into the stage lights, crossing quickly to the middle where Harry was standing at his microphone. His face was cracked open in a huge smile that made me laugh at him as he opened his arms for a greeting hug. It felt oddly platonic, but he whispered he loved me right into my ear, turning back to his audience with one arm over my shoulder and the other held out wide, encouraging the applause being sent out way.

He took both his hands back to his microphone after a moment, and I shuffled behind him to find my place at the piano. It had been a long time since I was last on stage playing an instrument other than my trumpet. The sticky notes from soundcheck were still stuck to the piano and I smiled at them both.

I adjusted the microphone at my mouth and held my fingers over the keys, strumming out a few chords as Harry told the story of the song and thanked the crowd for the umpteenth time. Then, he turned to me and smiled, “Let’s go,” he mouthed.

I nodded once and started playing without breaking eye contact.

+++

Whitehouse, Jamaica

“Chin up!”

Harry’s neck snapped back, his eyes hitting the ceiling, “It was! I swear, I looked down for a second.”

“You can’t look at your fingers,” I lowered myself onto the piano stool next to him, “It’s bad technique.”

“I was just checking,” He mumbled pathetically, ducking his cheek down to his bare shoulder to scratch at an itch.

“Your fingers are still there,” I told him gently, resting my hand on his thigh, his small yellow swimmer shorts showing more of his legs than I was used to, “It sounds lovely.”

“It sounds nothing like when you play it.”

“You’re grouchy, did you have a nap at all?” “No,” Harry frowned, when his fingers missed three notes in quick succession, “Shit.” “Don’t stop,” I encouraged, giving his leg a squeeze, “Keep going. A few missed notes are no reason to stop.”

I could feel droplets from my wet hair drip down my back, and one must have hit Harry because he turned to look at me with a smirk on his face as he inspected what I was wearing, “I like holiday Nina. She’s a bit of an exhibitionist.”

“Shut up! I’m wearing the same thing as you!”

Harry’s eyes dropped to my chest, biting his lip as his eyes hovered over my floral bikini top, “Trust me, it’s not even close to the same thing.”

“We’re fifteen metres from the beach!” I exclaimed, jumping up from my spot and stomping toward the kitchen, “Swimmers are perfectly acceptable attire.”

“I’m going to miss seeing your arse like this,” Harry had followed me in, he went over to the bar cart and got out two clean glasses, “Margarita?”

“Please,” I responded petulantly, my gaze going out over the small pool to the beach beyond our private condo.

Harry stayed here years before when he was writing songs for his first solo album, and I loved that he brought me here too. It was private and secluded and beautiful … And came with a baby grand piano where I was continuing to teach Harry to play.

We took our drinks out to the ocean, dipping down in the warm water when it was a comfortable depth to sit and sip at the cocktails. This was our evening routine before cooking a meal together—a sunset swim, a few cocktails and usually, sex in the shower before dinner. Harry was very good at the holiday thing.

“I’m going to write the album in London,” He said after a long silence between us. “Well, as much as possible anyway.”

I waited a moment before responding, “Are you sure?” “I am,” Harry replied quickly.

It was a decision he was taking his time on making, all his previous albums had been written in Los Angeles but for his next Harry was tossing up the idea of staying in the UK. I didn’t want to influence his decision at all, but in truth, the thought of him working overseas filled me with dread. I had grown so used to having him around, and the last four weeks, while he was on his micro tour, was insight enough into what it would be like if he wrote the album abroad.

Even worse was the thought of him writing the album in Los Angeles and then going straight into touring it worldwide.

“What are you thinking?” He asked finally, “You’ve gone quiet on me.”

“I don’t want to jinx it,” I swam a little closer to him, accepting the seat when he hitched his leg up in front of him.

Harry kissed my shoulder, his free arm snaking around my waist in the water, “Jinx it?”

“Well, obviously I’m extremely biased to the writing in London plan …”

“You are?” Harry grinned up at me, freshly freckled from the sun and his nose a little pink.

“Yeah,” I moved my arm around his shoulder and took the final mouthful of my margarita.

“I love you,” He told me, “You’re a lot of the reason to stay in London. I don’t want to write overseas and then disappear on tour. We’ll never see each other.”

I frowned, “You shouldn’t stay just for me.”

“I also think it’s time to try something new with my music,” He continued, “I’ve always run away to write … Usually, with a broken heart or a deep sense of dissatisfaction in my life. This time will be different in so many ways. I don’t have a reason to run away.”

“You know if you stay in London, you’ll end up coming to a hundred symphonies?”

“Sounds great,” Harry replied without blinking. “And my nosy girlfriends will be crashing in your living room after we day drink all summer in your backyard?”

He nodded, “I volunteer as Designated Driver.”

I screwed up my face, “You’ll probably end up with my hair ties all through your car, and I’ll take all your warmest socks?”

Harry mocked seriousness, “Right we’re buying you your own pair of those hiking socks, you can’t just rifle through my draws willy nilly.”

“I always eat more than half the ice cream,” I continued.

“You’re not going to convince me otherwise,” Harry kissed the side of my mouth, sweetly, “I love you, Nina.”

“And I love your socks.”

HELLO!

And now we’re really done!! Thank you so much for reading along and an every bigger thank you if you reached out at some point to say you liked this story. Your encouragement is worth more than gold.

#hina #fic: someday someday #1dff #one direction #one direction fanfiction #harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles stories #harry styles fic

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writingforyourpleasure · 4 years

Text

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Characters: GERARD WAY x Reader

Author’s note: There’s some cursing but nothing too much to worry about. I’m considering doing a part 2 but I’m not sure yet. Tell me if you’ll be interested ?

Word Count: 2k225

1. The name’s Y/N

You walk into the empty parking lot , looking back at your friend and bandmate Dex , who is just getting out of your tour bus. To say that you were nervous was the least, but you wanted to look cool and relax or else it would be extremely awkward . When your friend finally arrived beside you, you started walking towards the empty venue , quickly followed by the three crew member, Max your sound engineer ,Billy and Ames both your bus drivers and stage managers.

This morning , the air was chill and you were already cursing to yourself not to had dressed yourself warmer. You were just wearing a camo pant with a large white t-shirt and your leather jacket with your ranger’s boots. You lightened up a smoke hoping to get warmer at the nauseous smell, Dex threw you a disapproving glance .

The arena wasn’t open just yet, so you waited .

“First time we’re gonna play in an arena huh?” asked Ames .

Ames was Indian , had short black hair and dark eyes which he almost always narrowed looking pretty distant and angry , but as soon as you get to know him he was very kind and funny. He was pretty tall (6 feet tall) . He’s been around for three years now . Helping packing, and driving the bus , he was the one to introduce you to Billy, his roommate, one year ago. Ames was a sweetheart always willing to help , he truly was part of you band now.

“Yeah pretty scary I have to admit . So scared I’m gonna screw up during the show.” Explained Dex fingering his blue hoodie nervously.

Dex was always pretty nervous about anything so it wasn’t a surprise to you. Dex drunked a lot of coffee , he hated any kind of smoke . You and Dex knew each other since you were 10 . You never were the one to discuss with people in elementary school ,always more attracted to drawing to something, than talk about a new Barbie with the girls of your class and boys were pricks so you preferred to be left alone , day dreaming alone. It’s not that you weren’t talkative and social , you were a lot in fact . But you didn’t find anyone worth having a discussion with . You though they were all kinda assholes to be honest . Than Dex arrived at your school they were from Ireland . Everyone in your class started to befriend them , but you were their best friend . In fact you even had a crush on them at the time. They were an explosion of colors and were pretty fun to be around , and most important, not an asshole . They confide you that they were non binary during the summer before the start of high school. Dex was short and almost just skin and flesh . with a flamboyant white hair and hazel eyes. Today they were wearing their favorite hoodie which was more a plaid than an hoodie to be honest, some vans and a destroyed red wine jean .

You took a long drag of your cigarette not wanting to participate in the discussion. You had already so much on your mind , you didn’t want to show it to the guys.

“You screwing up ? Nah can’t happen men . Never had since I’m here at least .” Said Billy trying his best to reassure your bandmate , patting them on the right shoulder . Billy and Dex were best friends since he tagged along after one of our show back to one year ago. Billy was also Irish , but more like a ‘stereotypical’ Irish than Dex . He was more pale than the snow itself , had sweet freckles all over his face and body , you knew it because you couldn’t not remark the gentles dots all over his arms whenever he was packing your instrument in his metal merch T-shirt, he had long natural wave ginger hair, eyebrows and beard . He was much more massive than Ames who looked like a sixteen years old . He could be quite frightening when you jut looked at his appearance unlike Ames who looked like a cinnamon roll but had this angry vibe whenever he went , Billy on his side was the most kind and attentive guy you had ever met . Billy was tall, much more taller than anyone you knew.

“It’s because you’re around since only 1 year mate !” Laughed Ames , making me smirk along .

Max was listening without really doing it, more worried about freezing his ass off in the empty parking lot than to engage with the group. Max was an okay guy. Not one of the most talkative, except for when he had a drink or two. Max was from England just like you. He was quite pale too . He had brown straight hair , a little peach fuzz, couldn’t seemed to grow a bear . Max had little ring earrings and transparent olive glasses , he often wore grey beanies . He was pretty short and was the oldest of your little group. He was working for you since four years already, you knew him from this little bar where you used to perform at your debut .

As you were lost in your thoughts two other tour bus pulled up in the parking lot, soon followed by a third.

“Ha ! Finally !” sighed Max.

You took a long drag of your cigarette , eyeing closely for the crew to come out of it .

A large group of people were descending from it, laughing between them . They seemed a whole lot warmer than you, dressed appropriately in coats and beanies . They all looked older than the four of you, most of them probably stage manager and crew members. A guy came up running to you, he looked older than the group of guys chatting in front of their buses and a little more ‘polished’ in way.

“Hi! You must be Violent Gasoline ? I’m Damien, the tour manager. » The guy presented himself , extending his left hand.

You gave a quick nod in agreement, your smoke still stuck between your lips. Max extended his own hand to the guy activating his ‘business mode’ on.

“Nice to meet you in person Damien. My name’s Max I’m the sound engineer and I guess you could also say the tour manager. This is Billy and Ames , our stage crew and finally Dex and Y/N from Violent Gasoline!”

You jumped on your foots trying to warm up yourself , while everyone shook Damien’s hand. Yours were put away in your pant pockets too cold to even move .

“So I have called the arena crew and they’re supposed to open the private gate any minute now.” Warned Damien , giving us an apologizing look . “I hope you didn’t wait for too long …”

“No, it’s okay mate .” Said Billy lying , not wanting to make him feel responsible of anything.

“By the way, those are our staff/crew members” told us Damien , pointing at the crew next to the buses. “The guys should be here in an hour they went to have breakfast, before starting the day. Did you had any?”

“Yeah just before we arrived , in the tour bus.” Smiled Dex . They did , you just had coffee .

Than a guy dressed entirely in black from head to toe opened to us , you dumped your cigarette on the cold pavement , soon enough the crew joined you and you all went inside . You gladly welcomed the warmth of the space eating you up, relaxing a little. Dex seemed to have regained some colors on their side , while you felt comfortable enough to get your hands out of your pockets. As you were the one being here first you started soundcheck pretty early , adjusting lights and balance check . You placed yourself behind your drums as soon as Ames and Billy installed your kit. You were now playing since three hours and had removed two of your songs off your song list to replaced them by news songs from your next album in writing . Dex had some difficulties with the solo bass line from one of your new song .

“Dex, you know what , just let’s not do this one . We’ll replace it with ‘Do ré mi’ as usual ”You shouted to your bandmate, referring to your Nirvana cover, you used to finish every gig with this one. “We’re almost done anyway.”

“Y/N , no way, I’m not-“ Dex started turning to look at you , before being cut in the middle of their sentence by a loud ‘bang’ from a door closing .

Soon followed by loud chatting and laughter from a group of guys entering the venue from the left side in front of the stage. Quickly Damien arrived ruining up to them , hushing directly at them pointing the stage to them. Everything went silent.

“Awkward…” You whispered to yourself as no one moved .

“Sorry , we didn’t mean to be rude .” Excused one of the guys with blond hair. They all went to sit in the arena crowd.

You stand up from your kit , you went for your bottle of water. “ It’s okay, we were done anyway.” You took a sip at the bottle , before catching Dex looking frustrated over you not letting them redo his solo for the one hundred and fiftieth time of the day. They’ll get over it.

You left the stage , Dex jogging up to you trying to catch up their breath before proposing to grab a bite in your dressing-room for launch with Max, Ames and Billy . You were starving since you didn’t ate this morning. Billy and Ames had gone catch the rest of yesterday dinner in your bus which consisted to a pasta salad, with orange juice and clementines for dessert . Max was in the hallway talking on the phone with your label. Once you finished your plate you brought back to your bus the dishes and started cleaning it up, you were tired of your rehearsal so you went to your bunk to get some sleep setting your alarm to five pm and took a well deserved nap.

‘Prey for me’ from The fever 333 echoed into the room waking you up , you groan not really wanting to wake up from bed at this point. With a long sigh you stopped your phone from doing any more sounds, and got up. Once dressed you searched your leather jacket at the research of your pack of cigarettes.

“Where the fu-“

“Here” Ames was handing to you your pack of cigarette looking as you had just woken him up from his own nap on your couch . You jumped , taken by surprised by his presence but soon regain posture reaching for your cigarettes. Ames often borrowed some of yours paying you back later on so you weren’t even surprised.

“Where are the guys ?” You asked before he got back to his nap .

“Still hanging out in your lodge .” He said before resting his face on the pillow he found and closing his eyes , almost already snoring .

You got out welcomed by the cold from outside , winter was a pain in the ass. You reached for a cigarette before lightening it up and taking a long drag from it . By the time you crossed all the parking lot to the arena your smoke was long gone. Once inside you headed straight to your lodge. Before opening the door the room, you heard laughter coming from inside.

“Hey guys, what’s the joke ?” You said opening the door with a smirk.

Suddenly six eyes land on you. What was happening …? ‘Awkward’ you murmured yet again . On the red velvet sofa was seated three guys from earlier, on the couch next to them was slumped Billy, Dex and the blonde from earlier.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt guys !” you said trying to play it cool with a sly smirk on your face.

“No haha don’t worry dude ! They’re My Chemical Romance!” Stated Billy lifting up his beer to prove his point . The blonde stood up welcoming you by kissing your cheeks .

“Hi my name’s Mikey ! I’m the bass player , nice to meet you!” You gave a nod

“The name’s Y/N .” You said debating over whether to or not to kiss the other members. The browned haired boy with a lot of tattoos decided to help you out by lifting himself up to welcomed you.

“Hey , Frank. I’m the guitarist.” He said calmly handing out his hand for you to shake. Once done he returned on right side of the couch, while the guy on the left side got up to kiss both of your cheeks.

“Ray ! Also guitarist.” He had a sincere smile . Then the last one got up, he had dark hair, hazel eyes, red make up and was pretty pale.

“I’m Gerard , the lead singer” He said shaking your hand. You had to admit he was good looking, they all were to be honest.

#mcr #my chemical romance #fanfict #fanfict mcr #gerard way x reader #gerard way #gerard way imagine #frank iero #frank iero imagine #frank iero x reader #ray toro #ray toro x reader #mikey way #mikey way x reader #ray toro imagine #mikey way imagine

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quadraphonictypewriter · 4 years

Text

Rushing Whispers Part 13/?

Read from the beginning or Part 12

July 6 & 7, 1970 ((approx. 1950 words))

It was early evening when Cameron and I made our way to the bedroom. The English portion of the tour would start tomorrow, followed by our trip over the Channel to France.

“Run it by me again,” I told Cameron as I changed into a pyjama top.

“Well,” he accepted, “we’ve got a coach for the road, and should be in hotels most nights. I’d suppose that sometimes we’ll need to sleep on the bus, driving overnight to the next city.”

“Doesn’t sound that bad.”

Cameron took his shirt off and tossed it into the laundry basket. “It’s not,” he agreed. “But it will be more bearable this time, with you beside me.”

A smile spread across my face but before I could kiss him, the phone in the hallway rang.

Cameron left the room and answered on the third ring. Too curious for my own good, I leaned against the bedroom door’s frame and watched him.

“Evening, Geoff. You’ve got news?” Cameron spoke into the handset. He stretched, his waistband lowered a tad, and saw me watching him. He winked and gave me a sly smile, leaning against the wall.

‘I wasn’t gonna, but too bad for him,’ I joked to myself. I smiled sweetly at Cameron as he answered whatever Geoff had asked. I walked up to him and put my hand on his waist, kissing his cheek in a swift movement.

“We’ll be ready, then, it’s no issue,” Cameron told Geoff while smiling at me.

I lowered my lips, bringing them to his neck. My hands felt warm on his waist and I gently pulled at the belt loops on his jeans. My kisses moved to his chest and soon moved to just above his navel.

“What are you doing?” he whispered, his hand covering the mouthpiece of the phone.

I knelt down while looking up at him. “Nothing,” I answered in a quiet voice. Cameron put his head back against the wall as I continued to bring my kisses lower.

“Won’t be a problem, Geoff,” he said into the phone. I could hear the slightest quiver of his voice as he spoke. My hands unbuttoned his jeans and I lowered the zipper before tugging both layers of fabric down.

I could hear the faint murmur of Geoff’s voice on the line, but I ignored it, instead giving quick kisses as I massaged with my hand. Cameron was responding very well to my actions; I gave a long lick and put my mouth on him.

“Oh dear God,” Cameron gasped. I chuckled but didn’t stop my motions. “What? Oh, I’ve just... stubbed my toe,” he told Geoff.

A quick upwards glance showed me that Cameron’s hand was in his hair, and his eyes closed. I quickened my pace and heard him inhale sharply.

“Geoff, I’ve got to go,” he said hurriedly. “Someone’s knocked at the door. Yes, we’ll be ready.” Cameron slammed the phone down and groaned loudly. “Have you lost your mind?” he cried out to me.

“Maybe,” I answered, only stopping for a moment.

The breath that escaped his lips was heavy and quickly turned into a moan. His hands went to my head, gently touching my hair. It didn’t take long before he was nearly begging me to stop.

“I don’t want to finish with you on your knees,” he gasped. I wiped my mouth with my hand and he pulled me back up to my feet. “You’d better be on the bed by the time I take these off,” he warned.

I smirked, but didn’t take my eyes off of him. He removed his jeans and boxers before taking a step towards me. With every step he took, I retreated into the bedroom, my eyes still locked on him. He tossed the discarded clothes onto the floor. I took another step backwards and felt the bed behind me.

“You’re not on the bed,” he noted with a straight face. “How unfortunate for you.”

“I guess I’m not,” I replied. “Your move.”

I stopped counting after the third surge; it was clear that I had started something and Cameron was going to finish it. When we did stop, we laid beside each other holding hands.

“You must have lost your mind,” Cameron said with a laugh.

“Me?” I asked, mocking indignation. “I believe you were the one who said ‘oh dear God’ while on the phone with Geoff.”

We both laughed. Cameron gave me a long kiss, pulling me on top of him. “Speaking of Geoff, he said they’ll be coming by around five to pick us up. We’re the last, then we’ll leave for Newcastle.”

“Well, I guess we should get some sleep, then.”

“Probably should,” he said before kissing me. “But all I want to do is eat.”

I blushed, bringing my mouth close to his. “You’re still hungry?” I joked.

“For you? Always.”

True to Geoff’s word, the coach pulled up to the driveway at five the next morning. Cameron and I had been ready since four-thirty, waiting on the steps. We had filled my large suitcase and two smaller ones with our clothes and toiletries, which Cameron put in the bus’ luggage compartment.

We were greeted happily when we stepped onto the bus, even Willie didn’t seem so sour today. I put my purse on the seat beside Cameron, but before I could sit I was hastily motioned over by Sylvia, who clearly wanted to chat.

The drive to Newcastle-upon-Tyne took a little less than five hours, during which I had spoken with Sylvia and Lee, and snuck in a nap with Cameron. We arrived at the venue just before ten o’clock, the road crew with their equipment-loaded bus having arrived an hour earlier.

They were already hauling equipment into the club when our coach parked beside theirs. Lee and Clyde, with Sylvia in tow, had immediately gone to a nearby pub to meet with an old friend of theirs from a band they’d been in a few years previously. Geoff called Cameron and Willie to a mini-meeting by the stage, which left me with Dale.

We sat at one of the club’s few tables and began to talk. I was surprised when one of the staff came up to us and asked if we wanted a hot drink; Dale asked for tea and I ordered a coffee.

“So, Dale,” I began, “what made you get into singing?”

“My sister,” he chuckled. “We were born in Bristol, but moved to Scotland when I was ten. She was five at the time, and so frightened most nights that I’d sing her to sleep. Once I realized I had a good voice, it was all over.” He punctuated his story with a laugh and I smiled.

“That’s a beautiful thing you did for her,” I told him, thinking of my own sister.

“It helped her, at least. She’s gone now, got married two years ago and moved to France.”

“She got married young,” I noted. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-five. And you?”

I took a sip of my drink and answered. “Twenty-nine next month.”

“You old broad,” he joked, clinking glasses with me.

After the conclusion of the mini-meeting with Geoff and Willie, Cameron had taken me to a few of the sights in Newcastle as I’d never seen England before. By the time we got back to the club in the early evening, soundcheck was just around the corner and both opening bands were in the backstage area.

The club opened its doors at nine, with the lineup outside beginning nearly an hour earlier. The local act, Gun It, began their set at ten and didn’t sound too bad for a band that had just started out. While they played their thirty minute set, we mingled with the members of Riot Men, who would accompany us on the English tour this month and the Scottish dates in October.

I was standing at the table covered in bottles at the far end of the room when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around with a whiskey bottle still in my hand.

“Hi, are you Emily?” The man asking looked to be in his early twenties and had a jovial look on his face.

“Yes,” I answered. “You’re in Riot Men?”

“Yes,” he announced proudly. “Reggie, the loyal drummer.” He extended his arm and I put down the bottle to shake his hand.

“Nice to meet you, Reggie. It’s a good thing, too, because I really didn’t want to smash this fifteen year over your head,” I laughed.

“Fifteen year whiskey?” Reggie picked the bottle up from the table and took two glasses from a stack. “A dram for the lady?”

“Thank you,” I said, accepting the glass. “Where in Wales are you from?”

Reggie took a large sip from his glass, which had more whiskey than mine did, and chuckled. “Anglesey. And you? What part of Britain gives an accent like yours?” he quipped.

“I’m from eastern Canada,” I explained.

Reggie nodded. “Not in Nova Scotia, by any chance? My grandmother’s brother started his family there.”

“A little more west than Nova Scotia. I used to live near Montreal.”

He ran a hand through his hair and took another sip. “Where do you live now?”

I mimicked him and took a sip of my drink as well. “With Cameron.”

“Lucky man,” he said. Something caught his eye and he turned towards his bandmates. “We’re on shortly.” Reggie finished off his drink in one gulp and put the glass down on the table. “Very nice chatting with you, Emily.”

“Same here,” I answered. Reggie took off towards the other end of the room and rejoined his bandmates, who were discussing something among themselves.

I only had time to take a few more sips of my drink before Cameron strode over, announcing his arrival with his arm around my waist.

“Hello,” I giggled happily.

Cameron gave me a quick kiss in response. “I see you’ve met the Welshman.”

“I did. He’s nice.”

“He is,” Cameron agreed. “Their bass player, not so much. But Reggie’s a cool guy.”

“Have they played with you before?” I asked curiously, leading us to a small table nearby.

Cameron nodded. “They were with us for part of the tour last year. February and March, if I remember.”

Amoeba's set started at midnight, half an hour after Riot Men left the stage. I took my spot beside the stage, just as excited as everyone else for the first show of the tour.

“Hey! How are you tonight?” Dale shouted excitedly once he was on stage. “Happy to be here, let’s get something going for you all…”

The performance was a definite crowd-pleaser, though perhaps that is too mild of a term. The show ended with tables overturned and chairs everywhere, people everywhere. If this was a taste of what was to come, I was in for quite the experience.

The band got off the stage and entered the dressing room, but not before Dale was groped and Lee was forcefully given a woman’s bra. He held it by the strap and stared at it, mouth gaping.

“Your mouth’s only supposed to do that with tits, not just the bra,” Dale sneered. He took the bra from Lee and put it against his chest, parading around for a moment in full confidence.

“Fuck. Off.” Willie had a look like glass shards when Dale pranced up to him and flirted. I cackled without restraint, making everyone else laugh with me.

Cameron approached me and gave me a kiss, his hands framing my face.

“A fantastic show, my love,” I assured him with a smile. “You nearly started a furor!”

Part 14

#wip rushing whispers #romancewritersanonymous #romance wip #romantic #original wip

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prettywordsyouleft · 5 years

Text

What A Dream (Trick, No It’s My Treat dare)

@tanithrea said:

Dare To Write - (congrats on 4000, you are amazing) write your weirdest or scariest dream but with idols in all the roles.

Pairing: Yoo Kihyun x reader (feat. Monsta X)

Genre: dream au / cheesy fluff

Warnings: This is a dream. It doesn’t make sense. It’s fluffy, it’s stupid, it made me smile when I dreamed it and subsequently criticise it ever since!

A/N: I write my dreams out so often that I didn’t really have many to pick from, admittedly. This is the one I’ve remembered the most vividly, especially since I wrote it out play for play to my best friend after it happened! And it was either this or the dream where my Dad came to life again in his coffin, and I think I’ll save us all from nightmares over that so let’s go with this ridiculous Monsta X one, shall we?

Word count: 3354

“Go ask the ring helper for me,” your friend instructed and you nodded immediately. Emotions were running high and it made sense you go and speak to them first. Your friend, well, she wasn’t in the right frame of mind to talk about the problem calmly.

“Hey, the judge isn’t allowing four horses into the ring, any reason why? Entries have been paid and-”

“Ask the judge,” the less than enthusiastic ring clerk stated before you could finish and you sighed heavily.

“She’s running classes right now, one in which the rider I’m show groom for and three other paid to be in.”

“Well, I can’t do anything about a judge’s ruling.”

“Who do I place a dispute with then?” you asked and the clerk rolled her eyes. “Especially when it comes to your attitude?”

“Looks, like it’s been solved, they’re heading in now.”

You turned and found more chaos happening behind you than you expected. Nothing had been solved; the riders merely took it into their own hands and entered the ring. Cursing, you dashed back to the sidelines and watched on anxiously.

Showing was such a stressful equestrian sport.

“Wasn’t any help, was she?” your friend commented with a smile on her face, untying the unexpected first place ribbon from around her horse’s neck to hand to you. After patting the gelding, she dismounted, pocketing the money she had received for winning the round. You merely shook your head and began to laugh. “Turns out the judge thought he was a coloured because of how high his socks extend. When she saw his branding up close, I think it was love at, well, second sight.”

“The stress was worth it then, huh?”

“Oh, no. I’m still laying a complaint, but first, let’s go have some lunch.”

After untacking her horse and ensuring he was fed and watered, you waited on the rider to reappear in her normal clothes before heading across the field. It was noisy, just like every other agricultural fair, the rides swinging children around, and farmers competing in a range of classes, much like your friend had in her section. She had chosen to do two ridden sections for the day, and you had been up since 4 am getting everything ready for the long morning ahead.

The smell of a waffle stand made your stomach rumble and it was only then when you realised you hadn’t eaten yet in the flurry of events. Your mouth watered at all the smells of the food stands the closer you walked into the corner where food haven existed.

Your friend came to a stop at a particular stand, selling her usual favourite of deep-fried foods. Fries and a hot dog would be a given for her, for sure. You perused the menu more carefully, looking for things you knew you would be safe to eat since you were gluten intolerant. The last thing you wanted, even if you would happily eat it all, was to end your day stuck in a portable toilet.

“Y/N?!”

Whipping around at your name being called, you gasped when you saw four men approaching you, waving and smiling. It didn’t seem to faze you seeing four international superstars walking across the fairgrounds of all places towards you, and when Minhyuk, Kihyun, Changkyun and Hoseok all came to a stop at your side; you were far too excited to really care why they were here. Greetings were made and then everyone fell into discussing the food board in Korean.

“Who are they?” your friend asked, nudging you rapidly and you smiled up at her.

“Friends.”

“Really? Since when were you friends with their kind?” she retorted with a scrunch of her nose and you gave her a quizzical look before being dragged into the conversation by Minhyuk.

“A hot dog is on a stick here? No bun?” he questioned and whilst you were decent in understanding his mother tongue, your broken answer made you blush.

And it caused your friend yank on your arm again. “Y/N, what the hell?! Look, we can get food elsewhere where it’s not so crowded by people. Let’s go.”

Stepping forward, Kihyun slung an arm around your shoulders and you shook off her hand, wondering how you could even consider someone so narrow-minded a friend. “You really shouldn’t be so rude, especially to my friends.”

“Like they’re really your friends,” she bit back, eying them before puffing out her chest. “Whatever, it’s not like they understand me, anyway.”

Smiling, you shrugged. “English is pretty easy to learn when you’ve lived overseas, right Changkyun?”

“Oh yeah, I know some words,” he replied with a chuckle and nudged Hoseok. “We all do.”

“Speak it or understand it, we’re pretty good at it. Want to continue with your commentary, we’ll happily converse back with you,” Kihyun added on and then went up to the counter that was now free, ordering what everyone wanted in perfect English.

You couldn’t help but smile, especially when your “friend” was grumbling incoherently, face crimson with embarrassment.

She narrowed her eyes on you. “Now, Y/N. Let’s go.”

“Oh, she’s staying with us,” Hoseok mentioned, and Changkyun nodded.

“We’re performing here on the stage over there for charity tonight so Y/N is more than capable to hang out with people who are more respectful all day if she wants.”

Suddenly, you saw the stage he was pointing to, amazed that it had been there all along.

“We have my other horses to take care of this afternoon, Y/N. Are you seriously ditching me for these guys?!”

Kihyun returned to your side and you looked up at him, nodding. “Yeah, I believe I am.”

“Good, because I ordered for you as well. And I made sure it was safe for you to eat.”

“Ugh!” your friend screamed, stomping her foot. “Some help you are!”

Once she stormed away, you slumped into Kihyun’s side, who chuckled when he grabbed you. “You did well. Don’t worry about her. We’re not offended.”

“We would have been if you left with her, though,” Minhyuk teased and you rolled your eyes, shaking your head all the same.

“I didn’t know she was like that.”

“People surprise me every day too,” Hoseok lamented, looking down at the food he was holding and then shot Kihyun a look. “I asked for double.”

“You’ve got a mouth, go order some more then, hyung!”

“Hey uh, I just realised something,” you started, cringing a little at your predicament. “My bag’s in her car with my change of clothes. I only have my wallet and phone with me. Not to mention, I probably smell my dirt and have horse hair all over me. The last thing I should do is spend time with you guys like this.”

“Hey, don’t worry, in a couple of hours, we’ll all be smelly and sweaty from soundcheck,” Changkyun mentioned and the other three nodded, Minhyuk, all but dragging you over to where the others were.

He beamed at his team. “We found a Monbebe already!”

“You did, how? Were you recognised right away?”

Hoseok shook his head as he helped you up onto the stage. “Y/N was the one we recognised first.”

“Wow, I never expected to see you here!” Jooheon remarked with a grin and you sat down beside him, nodding lightly as you looked around the countryside.

“Well, of all the places to perform, right?”

Lunch passed by catching up and then staff started to ask the boys to get ready for soundcheck. You were beyond exhausted, and sitting around doing nothing hadn’t helped. Blinking languidly as you yawned, you smiled when Hyunwoo held out a hand for you to take. Getting to your feet, you chuckled. “Sorry, maybe I need a nap.”

“Here, follow me,” he offered, taking you around the back to a large van. He opened the door. “Get some rest in here. I would offer the waiting room, but everyone will be in and out so this will be the quietest place.”

“I doubt I’ll get any sleep when the music starts up, anyway,” you replied, though you slumped over the middle row, curling up. You felt Hyunwoo reach for something over the back and then draped it over you. You realised it was his hoodie.

“If it’s cold when you come out, just put that on.”

“Thanks!”

He slid the door shut and you nestled down, pulling his hoodie up to your face as you humoured the idea of sleep.

Surprisingly, you managed to sleep so well that you were disorientated when you stirred. Blinking as you looked around the foreign vehicle, you glanced down at the garment you had half strewn across you and smiled, realising the events that had occurred today weren’t a dream after all. Slipping it over your head, you then got out of the van and headed back into the venue. Rounding the side so you could go out to where the crowd would be watching from later on, you caught Hyunwoo’s gaze and mouthed him a thank you for the hoodie. He beamed and gave you a thumbs up before stepping into the next movement of the dance, smiling his way through the rest of the song.

When it was over, it was where there would be a talk scheduled and the staff moved back towards the group, discussing the details with them.

Kihyun approached you when he was done and you shifted to the stage’s edge, looking up at him as he crouched down, pouting. “Where did you get that?”

“Hyunwoo gave it to me to wear when I woke up.”

“If only it was mine,” he grumbled and you laughed, shaking your head.

“You and I both know I won’t fit your clothes, I’m too big.”

“I’m jealous hyung gets the glory of this right now,” he admitted and then jumped down to your level, smiling as he reached out for your hair to smooth it down some. “You look really cute from your nap though, Y/N.”

“Is it bad?!” you exclaimed, reaching up to pat it down yourself, and Kihyun smirked, shrugging at you. “Ki!”

“There’s a mirror in the waiting room, go through that door there and ask for Nami. She’ll help you.”

Thanking him as you rushed off, you found the room in question and their stylist in the room. After the initial confusion, she was all too happy to have company as she waited for the seven men to step backstage. And when they did, you proved to be useful, helping Nami with handing her tools she needed and other assorted errands. Before you knew it, everyone was ready for the crowd that was buzzing outside.

Sitting down as the boys grouped around, you smiled, they all looked so cool. Hyungwon frowned, looking over at you and then gestured for you. “What are you doing, get over here!”

“Oh no, I couldn’t-”

“Now, Y/N!” Minhyuk whined and the others started as well until you got up, stepping into their circle.

“We’re totally going to rock tonight because Y/N is here. Put your hand in to give us good luck!”

You did as instructed and seven others piled up on top as they loudly did their pre-performance chant and then pulled back. Changkyun bumped you with his hip and you shot him a look, which he merely chuckled at you over. “Don’t look so annoyed, I know you’re going to enjoy watching us tonight.”

“Just get out there and break a leg!” you called as they started to leave the room, and you cringed. “No, don’t break it but… oh, you know what I mean!”

“If I do, I’ll blame you!” he replied before the door shut and the room returned to a normal level of noise.

And then you noticed the look in Nami’s eye. “What is it?”

“How often do you wear makeup?”

“Hardly ever. I’m useless at applying it,” you told her with a shrug, her lips curling up wickedly. It made you hesitant. “Why?”

“Have the boys seen you with makeup?”

“Uh, I don’t know.”

“Not my makeup anyway. Want to humour me a little? It’s been forever since I’ve had a canvas like yours to work with.”

Before you could protest, Nami had you in the chair in front of the mirror, her beauty weapons of choice ready to attack.

“That’s not me,” you murmured after the woman pulled away to admire her work, turning you to face the mirrors. You were amazed at how different you appeared. “How did you manage to do this so seamlessly?”

She grinned and then shook her head, her eyes narrowing as she took you in. “Now, this face doesn’t suit what you’re wearing.”

Glancing down at your dirty jeans and top since you had taken off Hyunwoo’s hoodie during the makeup process, you cringed. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“I doubt we’re too different in size,” she commented, returning to her trunk across the room and started sifting through the layers until she returned with an outfit for you to wear. She motioned to the changing room and awkwardly, you got up, soon returning in the lace detailed blouse and faux leather jeggings. Nami was more than pleased now.

But you were cold.

“Oh! I have something I was instructed to give you, by the way.” She handed you another garment, this time a zip-up hoodie. You eyed it warily. She grinned. “It’s Kihyun’s, he insisted you come out wearing this.”

“Of course, he did,” you replied, shaking your head softly at his jealousy. Slipping it on, you left it undone and then turned to the door. “Are you coming?”

“I love those boys to death, but I’m not a crowd person. Enjoy it for me!”

Heading out of the attached space to the stage, you moved towards the crowd, surprised by just how full it was for an event so far from the city. A guard helped you around the barrier and you found a space where you weren’t going to bother anyone.

Enjoying the performance was far too easy when you loved the energy of Monsta X as much as you did. Singing along with the others around you, you grinned when Kihyun’s gaze found yours. He blinked and then looked away, trying to focus on the performance, but it wasn’t long until he was staring at you again.

You were certain he was blushing and it wasn’t from the heat of the lights.

When Trespass came to an end, the boys moved together to chat with the audience, wiping themselves with towels and gulping down water. You laughed when Hyungwon had to nudge Kihyun since it was his turn to talk and he visibly flinched, coming out of his daze.

“Uh sorry, it’s just that my girlfriend looks so hot,” he breathed into the microphone, looking right at you again. The crowd began to murmur and it was enough to remind him of his place, gesturing generously at them all. “Right, Monbebe?!”

You snorted. Nice save, Kihyun.

The rest of the performance went without any almost mishaps, and you had calmed down from Kihyun’s sudden announcement. Sure, you were still repeating the sentence now and then in your mind, feeling incredibly giddy about something that you had no confirmation was actually a thing. But it wasn’t all that preoccupied your mind when you were watching one of the best concerts you had ever attended either.

However, you were nervously waiting backstage after it finished, cheeks flaming with colour at the immediate teasing that began.

“My girlfriend looks so hot!”

“I had to hold back a snort, I really did.”

“The crowd was about to go wild, and not in the way they ended up doing so.”

“Poor Y/N’s expression, I had to look at her after he said it and she was so shocked.”

“I’m amazed you didn’t faint, Y/N. Every girl wants to be confessed to like that from the stage!”

“Was that even a confession? And why did she look hot, Kihyun? All you could see from there was your damn hoodie!”

Minhyuk approached you with a grin, placing a hand on his hip and then pointed between you and the final member who walked through the door, now staring at you again. “Tell me, since when is Y/N your girlfriend? Sure, you’ve known each other for a while, but-”

“Since now,” Kihyun announced, ignoring the loud jeering as he came over to hug you, pulling you into his embrace tightly. You were certain you had stopped breathing, and if you hadn’t, it was definitely halted when he whispered into your ear. “You look so beautiful.”

“Hey lovebirds, we need to go back to the hotel!” Jooheon called and you pulled away from Kihyun’s grip, smiling bashfully.

“I better head home.”

“How, we’re your only ride left. We’re not going to the city,” Changkyun mentioned and you glanced up at Kihyun wide-eyed. He rubbed your arms gently and ushered you out of the waiting room.

It wasn’t the pace you had expected when you had only gotten a boyfriend two hours previously. And yet, you had somehow found yourself in Kihyun’s hotel room, grateful that he had swapped with another member to have the solo room.

Not that it eased your heart any.

Standing by the couch, you pointed at it hastily. “I’ll sleep here.”

“It’s too small for the both of us,” he responded with a shake of his head.

“You’re not considering the alternative of us sharing, are you?”

Kihyun stopped lugging his suitcase into the room and returned to your side, giving you a tender smile. “What if I am?”

“But we only just… and we haven’t even kissed yet and-”

His lips slowly found yours and you melted into the embrace, reservations now evaporating with how right this all felt. He pulled away and brushed your hair gently away from your face. “We’ve kissed now so are you able to share with me? It’s just a bed, Y/N. I’m not prepared to move any further than this with you.”

“Really?”

“Unless?” he started with a teasing waggle of his eyebrows and you laughed, pushing him away playfully.

Soon under the covers, with the moon being the only thing lighting up the room, you spent an immeasurable time staring at Kihyun. He was doing the same, a small smile permanently curling up his lips. He then slipped an arm under your neck, drawing you into his side. “Want to know something?”

“Hm?”

“I’ve always wanted to hold you in my arms like this and fall asleep. Seems like a dream right now that I actually am holding you like this.”

You didn’t know how to respond, simply nestling into his side more comfortably and closed your eyes.

Feeling a set of lips brush over your forehead, you stirred, not yet ready to open your eyes and let the morning light in. But you were all too happy to reach out when his lips made their sluggish path towards your mouth, kissing him softly as Kihyun held you to his chest. “If I could wake up with you every day, God, I’d be so happy.”

Opening your eyes, you blinked against the morning light, smiling all too happily from his sentence. And yet, it was a mere whisper hanging in the air, the space beside you now empty.

Looking around frantically, the bitter taste of being fooled that it was all a dream rose in your mouth, causing you to curse out loudly. You didn’t care what the time was, flinging yourself back down onto your pillow and clamped your eyes shut. Pleading with the dream gods to take you back to Kihyun and his beautiful words, even if you knew it was fruitless.

You were now awake.

Confusion settled in as you replayed the events of the dream, chiding yourself for even falling for such a thing. And then you reached out for your phone, opening up the chat conversation with your best friend to type up all the weird and fantastical that happened so you would never forget it.

_________________

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dreams-madeof-strawberrylemonade · 5 years

Text

Heartbreaker - Part 3

Disclaimer: I do not own Greta Van Fleet, nor their songs. This series (as well as everything else I write and is a fanfiction) is pure fiction. I have not been alive in the 1960s, and most of the details have been researched beforehand. Also, the GIFs and photos I use throughout this series are NOT mine, they are just images I have downloaded from Tumblr. If you are the owner, please DM me, I would be more than happy to give credit. Warnings: smoking, mentions of drinking, language, slight smut (nothing explicit) Word count: 2,1 K+ A/N: PART 3 YAY! Soooo this chapter came together pretty easy, so I hope you will like it as much as I do!

Jake Kiszka x (female) Reader

Heartbreaker Masterpost // Fanfiction Masterpost

The following morning started with you having a terrible hangover. The moment you opened your eyes, you felt an enormous pain caused by the sun coming in the room through the window. You forgot to pull the curtains last night. The pain caused you to close your eyes shut, but slowly you opened them again and peeked at your surroundings.

Your eyes stopped on Jake, who has fallen asleep in the armchair. Your cheeks heat up at his sight. Did we – I don’t think so. I hope not. Your eyes searched for clues in the room, but everything seemed normal, besides Jake being asleep in your room.

You checked your clothes – you were dressed in last night’s clothes. On the small table you had an ashtray which was now full of cigars put out long ago. Memories slowly started to make their way back to you.

You and the boys went out to celebrate the success from Whisky a Go Go. You shared a drink with Jake and eventually ended up with more drinks. You didn’t count, but they were enough to get you down.

When you left the local, Jake told the boys he would get you to your room then go back. But he fell fast asleep in your armchair, before you.

“Fucking hell…” Jake grunted as he woke up. “What- Did we-?”

“No, I don’t think so at least,” you shook your head. You saw him rotate his neck as he tried to sit up.

“My neck hurts from sleeping on this,” he spoke lowly.

His morning raspy voice made your heart drop, as well as his whole image like that, there – off guard, relaxed.

The morning hours passed slowly. You had spent most of your time on the balcony of your room, working on the first part of your article. You watched the people and cars pass by, as you enjoyed the Californian heat.

A soft knock in the balcony’s window was enough to pull you out of your thoughts. You looked in the room and saw Jake on the other side, asking you to let him in. You kicked the door open and he stepped out next to you.

He put a cigar between his lips and light it up.

“How is it coming along?” he asked pointing at the papers all over your table.

“I barely have any content,” you sighed and trembled at the bare thought of your boss and at the article he was expecting from you.

“Well, is there anything I can help with?” Jake asked as he let out a small cloud of smoke, as he approached you, near the edge of the balcony.

Jake had a unique behavior. There were moments when he invested himself so much into you and spending time with you, and there were moments in which he spoke to you like he was obligated to. Every time you saw him, you couldn’t tell in which phase he was going to be in.

“Well, I don’t know. I guess you could-“ you started but were quickly cut off by Jake’s lips pressing against yours.

You were expecting anything to happen but this. Your heart skipped a couple of beats at this, but you kissed Jake back. As your lips were caught in perfect sync, you felt the slight taste of cigars and mint of Jake.

Jake put out his cigar on the wall behind you and cupped your face in his hands. The only time when your lips weren’t touching each other was only for the brief moments to catch your breath back.

Your hand travelled to Jake’s hair and your fingers got tangled there, as Jake softly pushed you up against the pale pink wall that was behind you.

“Will you be documenting this as well, baby?” Jake whispered between kisses. You were lost in his touch, feeling like you were on cloud nine. You just hummed a negative answer in a kiss, not wanting him to stop.

You could feel your heart beating faster, your eyes noticing every little detail around you, your ears hearing every little whimper or low hum coming from Jake. In that moment you felt as if the whole world had disappeared and it was only you and Jake left. You didn’t give a fuck you were on the balcony of one of LA’s most known hotels and people could see you nor that Jake had been acting funny when he came in there.

You felt one of Jake’s cold hands softly touching your back, half exposed because the tank top you were wearing hitched up a little bit.

“Go easy on her, tiger,” you heard another male voice coming from your room. Both you and Jake stopped in an instant and looked around to find out who was the one interrupting your moment.

Sam poked his head out through the balcony door and grinned at the sight of the two of you - you up against a wall, with swollen lips and Jake’s hair kind of a mess from your fingers tugging at it and roughing it up.

“Fuck off,” Jake laughed as he relaxed a bit at the sight of his little brother. “What do you want?”

“Josh said we need to leave for soundcheck at the venue,” Sam answered, still fixing the two of you with his eyes.

“Well, seems like I have to go,” Jake whispered to you as he pressed his forehead against yours and your noses were touching. “Promise I’ll still take you out for that drive in a bit, before the gig and maybe a walk, is that fine baby?”

You hummed in response and took off his sunglasses. You looked in his eyes for a couple of moments and kissed him once more. Jake pulled your body next to his in a tight hug before he left out the door with Sam.

“Fuck,” you whispered to yourself as you found yourself alone once again.

No losing control and no unprofessional behavior your boss’s words from just before you walked for the first time backstage ran through your head as you sat back at the table and looked over the papers in front of you.

As you started writing, you got so caught up in it that you didn’t even notice how fast time has passed. The boys were already back from the soundcheck.

“Hey, are you ready to go?” Jake asked as he walked on your balcony. “And honestly, you should close your doors, you’re lucky it’s just me who pays you visits and not strangers.”

Only then you remembered that you actually forgot to lock the doors since the morning. You even forgot to eat, or change your clothes for your getaway with Jake.

“Ready to go? Can’t we wait a little bit? I forgot to change.”

“No need for changing baby, you’re looking fantastic like this,” he smiled and started gathering your papers off the table. “Greta Van Fleet leads the way to a love and peace revolution,” he read your opening sentence. “I like that.”

“Happy to hear it!” you answered, all a smile.

Once Jake clipped the papers to the clipboard you carried around at all times, he helped you up and lead the way to the same rented car as the day before.

“Have you eaten anything today?” he asked as he adjusted his seatbelt. You just shook your head. “Then we’re going to a restaurant.”

Jake drove you to a restaurant on the promenade, by the ocean. Your eyes took in the wonderful view from the table that was assigned to you. You saw the waves washing the shore and you could see in the distance children running in the water, splashing each other and laughing. Their laughter filled the air. Even the restaurant’s atmosphere was so calming. Instead of chairs, there were couches, and the tables were quite low.

You and Jake have enjoyed a wonderful (quite late) lunch and shared a bottle of red wine. It was your favorite. At a point during your meal, Jake moved on the couch you were sitting on and pulled you close to him. You could smell the scent of his body- quality cologne and a tad bit of cigars.

“Baby, do you regret anything that happened this morning?” he blurted out of a sudden.

You couldn’t understand why would he think that you would regret it. “No, Jake, I don’t regret anything, at all. I loved it.”

A smile spread on his face, as his right hand touched your cheek. You looked deeply in his eyes and you realized you were truly mesmerized by the man sitting in front of you. You had fallen for him. Hopelessly in love with him.

Your lips touched and slowly engaged into a wonderfully in-sync movement. You couldn’t get enough of this feeling.

The boys just finished their second night down in Los Angeles, and just as the one before, it has been a complete success. This time, you managed to get to talk to each of them, individually, both before and after the gig. You noticed how they transfer their energy to the crowd, and somehow the crowd gives the energy right back at them and the cycle goes on. It was amazing.

“Do you want to go back at the hotel?” Jake whispered in your ear just as you finished your last bit of interview with Daniel.

“Thank you so much, Danny!” you spoke to the dark haired man sitting in front of you. He had such a gentle soul and such a happy spirit that every time you talked to him, or were near him, you couldn’t help but smile.

You gathered the newly written pages and sat up, as you followed Jake down the dark streets. As a matter of fact, the hotel wasn’t far from the venue they just played. It was only a ten minute walk.

On the way up the stairs, to your room, Jake kissed you and backed you up in the wall – again. You just kissed him back, laughing a little at your situation. Jake’s next move caught you off guard: he picked you up and walked up the stairs, all the way to your room, with you in his arms. You were playfully dangling your legs, earning laughs from the man in front of you. You felt happy, like you didn’t feel in a long time, like your responsibilities didn’t exist anymore and it was only you and Jake left.

Once in front of the room, he put you down and waited patiently for you to unlock the door, but the moment he heard the door click he picked you up right again. You laughed, turning on the light in the bathroom, enough light for Jake to see where he was going.

He kicked the door close and lead you to the double bed in which you slept last night, while he was on the armchair. But you knew that was going to change tonight. He put you down gently on the neat white sheets and he placed a kiss on your lips. You kissed him back almost instantly, taking off the sunglasses before getting your fingers in his hair.

Jake hovered over you placing little kisses on your lips, on your cheek, and slowly making his way to your jawline and down your neck. You couldn’t hold back the small whimpers that made Jake take control immediately.

“Do you want to do this?” he asked breathlessly.

“Yes.”

“Are you completely sure?”

“Yes, Jake, I am,” you smiled and kissed the tip of his nose. You kicked off your shoes and waited for Jake to do the exact same thing, before the both of you crawled on the bed. You could feel your heart beating faster and started feeling a tingling sensation all over your body. You were ready for this.

Without any more questions, Jake resumed what he was doing before. Once his kisses reached the material of your tank top, he stopped and smiled. “You kept it after all.”

You nodded and slightly arched your back at his touch on your inner thighs.

“I like the way you dressed and all, but I am afraid it has to go away completely,” he grinned as he tugged at your pants. “Nothing personal.”

You smiled as you stretched out your legs, making it easier for him to pull off the black pants you were wearing. Once he tossed them to the ground, Jake continued kissing you, while running his hands up and down your body.

His hand reached your inner thigh once more, and shortly after this you felt his warm breath on your exposed skin. This time your breath hitched a bit, letting out a shaky breath, almost a moan, earning a grin from Jake, as he proceeded further and got hold of your underwear and pulled it down your legs. “Keep doing that, angel.”

Tags: @myownparadise96, @jeordinevankiszka, @littlegeekwonder, @gretavanyeeeeet , @umbriellethenightfall, @songbirdkisses, @freeeshavacadoo, @sweet-dreams-on-butterfly-wings, @stevie-baby, @satans-helper, @bigthighsandstupidguys, @leterscam, @valleyd0ll, @mountainofthesunn, @retrodrummers, @itsametaphorbriansblog

#greta van fleet #gvf #greta van fleet fanfiction #gvf fic #gvf fanfic #jake kiszka #jake kiszka x reader #josh kiszka #sam kiszka #danny wagner #fanfiction #writing #60s #heartbreaker #part 3

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robinrunsfiction · 4 years

Text

'Cause Heaven Knows What You Do To Me

Pairing: Ryan Seaman x Female Reader Rating: General Requested By: None Word Count: 4,100 Author’s Note: When I was going through prompts for the Twelve Days of Christmas Challenge, I found the prompt “No one should be alone on New Years Eve” and about that same time Ryan posted an insta story of a hotel room in Vegas that he was staying in before a show and that leads us to this story. I hope you like it and have a wonderful new year! (also I have to say I can’t get over how wonderful he looks in the mood board below ok bye)

“Hey (YN), I was wondering what you’re doing for New Years Eve?” Ryan asked when (YN) answered the phone.

“Nothing, why?” (YN) asked suspiciously.

“Wondering if you wanna come along to our show in Vegas. The room is being comped by the hotel because of the show, all you have to do is pack a bag,” Ryan offered.

“But it’s New Years Eve in Vegas, doesn’t that just sound… overwhelming?” (YN) sighed.

“We don’t have to go out, we can just hang out with Dal and Breezy. Come on (YN), what other plans do you have for New Years Eve?” Ryan asked.

“None,” (YN) grumbled.

“No one should be alone on New Year’s Eve, so it’s settled,” Ryan said and (YN) could have sworn she could hear his smile through the phone and she couldn’t help but laugh.

“Fine, but promise me that we won’t get drunk and get married at a drive-thru chapel.”

“I promise, I won’t get you drunk enough to want to marry me,” Ryan laughed, but what (YN) didn’t realize was Ryan was running his hand over his face wearily as he paced his kitchen.

What Ryan didn’t know was (YN) had immediately regretted saying what she did and was cringing hard. “So I guess just send me the flight itinerary and stuff then?” she asked trying to change the subject.

“Yea, I’ll send that over and I’ll see you in a couple days.”

“Can’t wait,” (YN) smiled before saying goodbye. When she hung up, she rolled over on her couch and buried her face in a pillow and screamed. A paid trip to Vegas with the guy she’d been crushing on for years at New Years? She wasn’t entirely sure she could handle it. She and Ryan had always had a flirty kind of friendship. The little compliments they gave each other, touches on an arm, hand on the lower back in a crowd, attending events together because who else would they call? It seemed natural that he would ask her to come along on this trip, but that didn't make it any less intimidating.

Anxiety over the trip built over the following days, but on the morning of December 31st, (YN) woke up feeling surprisingly calm. She had packed a few outfits that she would feel confident wearing, and run over every possible scenario of things that could happen on this trip, which ranged from the most likely series of events (seeing the show with Breezy, going out to eat after with everyone, then retiring back to the room with Ryan to separate beds after ringing in the New Year with a responsibly consumed drink), to the least likely (an absolutely debauched, booze fueled, all-night rager that definitely included a hot tub and lots of sexy times with Ryan in said hot tub). But every time that idea popped into her head, she shooed it away, it was too much and ridiculous.

The flight to Vegas was short, but (YN) and Ryan had a ton of fun together as they always did. When they arrived at the hotel, (YN) was a little blown away, she’d been to Vegas before, but hadn’t stayed someplace this nice. Ryan went to the desk to check in, as (YN) wandered through the lobby. She glanced over at Ryan when she realized it was taking a while to check in. He ran his hand through his brown hair, and looked over at her.

“They only have a king bed room available,” Ryan said when (YN) came over.

“Oh, umm, I mean that’s ok with me,” (YN) replied, hoping it wasn’t noticeable that she was blushing.

“If you’re ok with it,” Ryan shrugged, trying to appear casual.

“Ok then, let’s get up there before you guys have to get to sound check,” (YN) smiled.

When they got up to the room, they were both blown away by how modern and cool the room was. (YN) managed to ignore the elephant in the room that was the king size bed, but then she spotted the hot tub in the bathroom and the steamy thoughts threatened to creep back into her mind.

“Oh shit,” she muttered shaking her head.

“Hmm?” Ryan asked.

“Nothing,” she smiled nervously. “I think I forgot something, but I'll manage. Did you see this view?” She asked walking up to the balcony doors.

Ryan came up next to her, standing a little closer than normal. “Yea the room is really nice. Well except for the bed thing.”

(YN) felt a pang of hurt go through her heart. “Yea,” she replied without looking up.

Ryan instantly knew he had said the wrong thing. He didn't mind the idea of sharing the bed with (YN), but he didn't want her to feel uncomfortable either. Just as he was about to open his mouth to clarify, his phone went off. It was the band's manager letting them know they had to head to soundcheck.

In the meantime, (YN) met up with Breezy in the lobby and they decided to grab coffee and walk around before heading to the venue for the show.

"So when did you and Ryan finally start going out?" Breezy asked as they stepped out of the coffee shop.

(YN) nearly choked on the iced coffee she was sipping. "What? No, we're just friends."

"Oh sorry, I just assumed since he brought you along and…" she trailed off.

"And?" (YN) pressed.

Breezy sighed. "You just seem to really be into each other."

It was (YN)'s turn to sigh. "Yea, but I don't think it's really something that's gonna happen. I mean, you'd think it woulda happened by now if it was gonna."

"Maybe the you guys just need a push, or to let the stars align, or just take advantage of being someplace new for a fresh perspective."

(YN) laughed. "You seem really invested in this."

"I just think I'm right and you guys just need to see what's in front of your faces" Breezy smiled knowingly.

(YN) and Breezy watched from the side of the stage as the band played their set with their usual gusto. IDKHow's set was in the middle of a day long musical festival with artists of all different genres. The concert was absolutely amazing, and the crowd was into the band, even though they weren't the biggest band performing, but to the four of them, the best part was the fact that their set was done by 7 PM.

(YN) loved watching Ryan play, the energy and enthusiasm he put into it was incredible and she could feel herself grinning the whole time. Ryan had spotted (YN) at the side of the stage and kept shooting smiles her way. He loved having her there and all he could think about as he played his heart out was that he wished she could be at every show.

“That was awesome, I swear you guys get better every time I see you play!” (YN) exclaimed when they came off stage.

“Thanks (YN),” Dallon beamed.

“We’re gonna go up and get ready while you guys get everything torn down and grab showers down here,” Breezy cut in before quickly whisking (YN) back upstairs.

“Do you wanna bring your stuff over to our room and we can get ready together?” Breezy asked as they rode the elevator up.

“Sounds like fun,” (YN) replied as the doors opened on their floor.

A while later, Breezy and (YN) were putting on the final touches to their hair and makeup as Dallon returned.

“Ready for a night out- woah! Babe you look incredible!” He grinned when Breezy stepped out of the bathroom, she had changed into black leather leggings and a sparkly green top. He took her hand and spun her around before pulling her into a kiss.

“Thank you love, but you should see (YN), she went all out!” Breezy replied when she pulled back.

“I think it’s too much!” (YN) called from the bathroom. She was tugging at her outfit and checking her makeup closely in the mirror. She was worried she had picked too flashy of an outfit since she didn’t know where they were going.

“No it’s not, come on out,” Breezy reassured her. Just then there was a knock on the door.

“I’ll get it,” Dallon said.

(YN) stepped out of the bathroom just as Dallon let Ryan into the room. When Ryan saw (YN) in her short black sequin covered dress and black tuxedo jacket he could have sworn his heart stopped. He always thought she was beautiful, and he had seen her dressed up before, but tonight she took his breath away like never before.

“Wow, (YN),” Ryan started, a dopey grin spreading across his face. “You look amazing.”

“Yea, you look fantastic,” Dallon commented as Breezy beamed.

“Thanks,” (YN) said with a light laugh. “Now can we get going? I’m starving.”

Dallon ushered the group out and down the hall toward the elevator. Ryan offered (YN) his arm and she grinned as she linked her arm in his as they hurried down the hall.

"Wait, where are we going?" (YN) asked as they got in the elevator and Dallon pressed the up arrow.

"We got reservations at the rooftop restaurant," Dallon grinned.

"Seriously?" Breezy grinned and Dallon shrugged smugly.

"They're going all out for you guys tonight!" (YN) said, astonished.

"I think it's the best we've ever been treated," Ryan laughed as the doors opened on the top floor.

The restaurant was cozy and dimly lit with decor that had a vintage feel, but was still modern and fresh. The group was taken to a plush booth in the corner of the bustling restaurant with Dallon and Breezy sliding in on one side, and (YN) and Ryan on the other. The conversation flowed easily between friends as drinks and dinner were ordered.

“What are we going to do after this? Dancing?” Breezy asked, looking from Dallon to Ryan and (YN).

“Oooh yea,” (YN) grinned.

“Sure,” Ryan shrugged.

Dallon groaned at first, but a smile crept on his face. “I can’t say no to you,” he replied to his wife.

Everyone chuckled at Dallon concession as their food was brought out. (YN) wasn’t exactly sure when it happened, but at some point in the shuffle of plates being passed, she found her leg brush against Ryan’s under the table, and to her surprise he didn’t pull away from her. Emboldened, she also didn’t pull away from the hidden contact and even glanced over at him, giving him a sly smile that he returned, much to her delight.

At dinner, they got a recommendation from their waiter of a club that was a short walk from the hotel. When they arrived they were able to find a table and ordered another round of drinks and watched the crowd for a while.

When the DJ put on a new song, Breezy’s face lit up. “I love this song, let’s go dance!”

“I’ll go!” (YN) grinned, jumping up and peeling off her jacket before going out onto the dance floor.

“How’d we get so lucky?” Dallon asked, sitting back contentedly, long legs extending out in front of him.

“Hmm?” Ryan asked, his attention being pulled from (YN) on the dancefloor to his bandmate.

Dallon nodded toward the women. “How’d we get so lucky to get ladies like Breezy and (YN)?”

“But (YN) and I aren’t together,” Ryan said confused, feeling like he was starting to blush.

Dallon laughed. “Come on, you mean to tell me you don’t have feelings for (YN)?”

“Well yea, but-”

“Then make your move. She’s obviously into you too,” Dallon smiled.

Ryan ran his hand through his hair. “What if she’s not though and everything gets screwed up?”

“Ryan, I saw the way you two were looking at each other during the show. I know that look, it’s the same one Breezy gives me,” Dallon replied knowingly.

Ryan laughed and then sighed. “Yea, I mean… yea, I should, I know I should. It’s just… how do you know when it's the right time to take that chance?”

(YN) and Breezy were enjoying themselves on the dancefloor when a man approached them. “Hey ladies, how are we doing tonight?” He ogled.

Breezy simply held up her left hand, displaying her wedding ring in response. “Not interested.”

The guy turned to face (YN). “How ‘bout you Toots, you married too?”

(YN) laughed. “Well no, but-”

“Then come dance with me!”

“No thanks, I’m here with my friends.”

“Aw come on, just one song, it’s not like I’m asking you to come home with me.”

(YN) shook her head. “We just got here ok? Let us be for a while.”

The guy took a step forward, looming over (YN). She could hear Breezy saying her name, but she was frozen in place, suddenly intimidated by the stranger.

“Hey, is this guy bugging you?” (YN) heard the words and felt a protective arm wrap around her waist. She looked up at Ryan who was staring the guy down.

“Yea, like a lot,” (YN) replied.

“Leave them alone,” Ryan commanded and the guy threw his hands up in defeat before walking away.

“Thanks Ryan,” Breezy said with a weary smile.

“Why can’t the creeps just leave us alone?” (YN) rolled her eyes as the group collectively relaxed now that the stranger was gone.

“Because you’re gorgeous,” Ryan said so easily that he didn’t realize what had rolled off his tongue until he saw the stunned and amused look that Breezy was giving him.

(YN) laughed and covered her face with her hand to hide how much she was blushing. “Thanks,” she mumbled. “Anyway, I love this song, can we please dance now?”

“Yes please!” Breezy said as she started moving to the music.

Ryan turned to go back to the table where Dallon was sitting, but (YN) grabbed his wrist. “Stay,” she said.

A smile crept across his face as his hands found her waist again as she moved her hips to the beat of the music. They had been to concerts together before, and therefore had danced together, but everything about this night felt different. (YN) draped her arms over his shoulders as they moved together to the rhythm of the music.

Neither was sure how many songs had played, only that they kept moving closer to each other. (YN) felt her heart pounding in her chest under Ryan's gaze as she played with the hair at the nape of his neck. She felt like if she leaned in right then, he would have met her halfway.

But suddenly Ryan looked up, something grabbing his attention. (YN) turned and saw what he spotted. Dallon had come out onto the dance floor as well, but instead of dancing, he was saying something to Breezy, whose face was concerned.

“Dallon’s not feeling well, he’s got a really bad headache and kinda wants to go,” Breezy told (YN).

“Oh damn. Yea it’s loud and I bet that’s making it worse, we can go,” (YN) agreed.

“I’m sorry to ruin the night,” Dallon said rubbing his forehead wearily as soon as the group was outside the club, the bass still booming as they headed back toward the hotel.

“It’s fine, we understand,” Ryan said sympathetically. As they walked down the sidewalk, bustling with people on their way to their New Years celebrations, Ryan tried to decide if he should try to take (YN)’s hand the way Dallon held Breezy’s. Bu before he had made a decision they were already approaching the hotel and he realized he had missed his chance.

(YN) kicked off her heels as soon as she got into the hotel room. "That was so much fun," she laughed sitting on the edge of the bed. "I'm so glad you convinced me to come with you."

"I'm really glad you agreed to come along," he smiled before taking a deep, nervous breath. "I just really love-"

Suddenly there was a knock at the door, interrupting Ryan. (YN) sighed as he went to answer it. She wanted to know so badly what he was about to say. Did he love her? Did he love Vegas? Was he about to confess his love of something, or someone, else altogether?

Ryan came back pushing a cart with a bottle of champagne and two glasses.

"Woah, where did that come from?"

"The note says ‘Sorry to cut the party short! Dallon and Breezy’.”

"Wow! Do we wanna wait until midnight to pop it open?"

"Sure," Ryan nodded, setting the note back down. "Um (YN), I was gonna say before, I really love being here with you and seeing that guy trying to get with you at the club… I just can't let any more time go by," he said rubbing the back of his neck and squeezed his eyes shut. As (YN) listened, her heart started pounding and her head spun. "I'm sorry if this makes things weird, but I'm crazy about you (YN)," Ryan said finally with a shrug, opening his eyes.

"Seriously?"

He nodded and ran his hands over his face. "I'm so sorry if this ruins everything between us, I thought-"

Ryan's rambling was cut off by (YN) standing up and closing the distance between them. "Ryan, I've had a crush on you for… years, I was just never sure you would feel the same way."

"How could I not? You're beautiful, and smart, and funny," he trailed off as her grin grew across her face. In that moment Ryan decided he had waited long enough. His hands found her waist and pulled her the rest of the distance between them.

(YN) looked up at him, one hand resting on his arm, the other on his chest. "Kiss me," she breathed and that was all it took for his lips to crash against hers. She gripped at his shirt as if it were a lifeline with one hand, as other found its way to his brown hair.

His kiss was full of longing, of hours spent laying awake at night never fathoming that this moment could really happen. And in case it never happened again, he wanted to remember every moment of it. How her lips felt against his, how her waist felt under his hands, the sounds that escaped her lips as he moved down to kiss her neck.

Ryan pulled back as he reached up and brushed the jacket off her shoulders and (YN) let it fall to the ground at her feet. She pulled him back in as she took a step back toward the bed, and he followed, barely breaking contact with her lips as she crawled up the bed and he followed, undoing the top buttons of his shirt.

(YN) deepened the kiss by letting his tongue slip against hers. She ran a hand through his hair as his hand ghosted down her side to rest on her hip, his other arm holding him up. He then began to again trace kisses down her jaw, back to her neck until he found a spot that made her moan lightly as he kissed it, a sound he decided he would never grow tired of hearing.

(YN) hadn't had a proper make out in what felt like years, but this moment with Ryan was more than she could have ever hoped for. Any doubt that clouded her mind about his feelings for her vanished when his lips met hers, the longing and caring she felt from him was incredible. The way he kept his hands on her, as if she might slip away, tugged at her heart because she knew there was nowhere else she could possibly want to be.

(YN) and Ryan were suddenly started by a loud bang outside the hotel room. They jumped apart as they looked at each other, confused.

"What was that?" Ryan asked breathlessly.

(YN) pushed the pillows away as she looked back at the bedside clock. "Fireworks, because it's midnight," she beamed.

"Oh yea," he laughed before leaning in to kiss her again. "Happy New Year (YN)."

"Happy New Year, Ryan. Do you want to open that bottle of champagne now?"

"Sure," he replied, getting up, and offering (YN) his hand to help her up.

"Do it off the balcony so you don't break anything in here," she laughed. They took a step out into the cold desert night and Ryan popped the cork off the bottle, launching it somewhere into the Sunset Strip. He poured each of them a glass before wrapping his arms around her waist to hold her close. (YN) let her head rest back against his shoulder and sighed contentedly as they watched the fireworks in the distance.

After they were done, Ryan pressed a kiss to the top of (YN)'s head as she yawned. "I'm suddenly realizing how tired I am. It's been kind of a long day."

"You're right, wanna go to bed?"

(YN) nodded sleepily as they went back inside.

The next morning, (YN) woke up with her head on Ryan's chest. He had his arm wrapped around her, holding her close. When he noticed her starting to stir, he pressed a kiss to the top of her head and she looked up at him with sleepy eyes.

"Morning beautiful," he murmured.

"Morning," she mumbled and Ryan couldn't help but smile at how cute she was when she was still half asleep. "What time is it?"

"Just after nine," he replied looking at his phone.

"I guess I was tired," she said, hiding her face against the crook of his neck and she heard him laughing a little as well.

"Dallon and Breezy were wondering if we wanna get brunch with them before we gotta catch our flights."

"Yea, sounds good," (YN) replied as she stretched, squeezing her eyes shut. When she opened them and looked back up at Ryan, he was looking back at her adoringly.

"What?" She giggled.

"I'm just thinking about how lucky I am. It's like the stars finally aligned for us."

(YN) leaned in for a long, languid kiss. "This year is gonna be the best yet," she murmured.

A couple hours later, Ryan and (YN) met up with Dallon and Breezy for brunch at another restaurant in the expansive hotel. Although no one dared to draw attention to it, the other couple was very excited to see Ryan and (YN) arriving hand in hand and quickly noticed the energy between them was different. The brunch was delightful, with everyone talking about their plans and hopes for the new year.

"Hey, I'm gonna run to the bathroom, (YN)?" Breezy asked.

"Oh sure, I'll come along," she smiled, getting up knowing exactly what she was in for.

"What happened?!" Breezy squealed as the door shut behind them.

"What do you mean?" (YN) replied coyly.

"You know what I mean," Breezy laughed. "You arrived holding hands and he's looking at you like you hung the moon, like more than normal."

"It was a really nice night," (YN) smiled and shrugged.

"Aww! I'm so happy for you two!" Breezy said while throwing her arms around her friend.

"I just hope this isn't just a vacation thing, ya know? Like when we get home, it's back to how we were before and it's like this never happened."

"I'm sure it won't be. He clearly adores you. I've been friends with him long enough to know."

After finishing their meals, everyone headed back to their rooms to finish packing. The reality that the whirlwind trip was almost over had finally hit and (YN) found herself feeling blue as doubts started to nag at her mind. She snapped shut her suitcase and sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Hey Ryan," (YN) started.

"Yea?"

"This isn't like just a 'what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas' thing, right?"

Ryan looked up from his suitcase and saw the sadness in her eyes and it made his heart break a little. He sat down next to her on the bed, taking her hands and looking in her eyes. "No (YN), I'm all in for this, for us, if you are?"

"Yea,” she nodded. “I don't want this to end here. I've waited too long to throw it away now."

He leaned in and kissed her sweetly, smiling and caressing her cheek lovingly when they pulled back. "Come on, we got a flight to catch."

"Back to reality," she groaned dramatically.

"We'll have to come back here sometime when we have more time. Maybe actually use the hot tub," Ryan suggested and (YN) couldn't help but grin.

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disinvited-guest · 4 years

Text

3/8/2020 Detriot

This show had some wonderful waiting! The weather was warm, and we never ran out of things to talk about. At one point, we saw an older man come out to the front of the venue and attempt to take a picture of the marquee. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but a few minutes after he left, Marty came out to the front of the venue, and crossed to the median of the street in order to take a picture of the marquee. Later, I saw the man with the woman who’d been with Marty, so I’m guessing they were both relatives of his.

The venue let us into the bar hours before doors, even checking ids and checking tickets ahead of time, so that when doors did open, we could go straight in. this all worked wonderfully, although the guy checking ids was pretty insistent that mine was fake. He asked me to tell him the address on the card, then for my license number, which I didn’t have any idea about. He eventually scanned the card and let me in, but it was really stressful.

Being in the bar so early, we were able to hear soundcheck, although there was nothing surprising except a bit of With the Dark, which they didn’t end up playing at the show. Once we got into the venue proper, we found ourselves along a security fence placed quite a ways from the stage, creating an aisle where security guards crossed continually throughout the show. I found a space further to stage right than I usually do, hoping it would allow me to see across to the drum riser, even with the added distance, which unfortunately didn’t quite work. It was a good angle to see most of the rest of the stage though. Fresh didn’t have interesting socks on, but he did have his hair in pigtails and under a ballcap, which he later switched for an orange bandana, and John Brunette was wearing glasses before the show started.

Since the first set was the same Flood set as before , I am once again shortening the format for this set, and doing a full recap on the second set.

Marty had a snack during the first few songs of the set, which he had been doing for the last few shows, but at this show Danny was eating a bit as well. He also put his pick in between the body and inlay of his bass to hold it while he ate.

There was a longer break-down during the instrumental part of They Might Be Giants than on the album, or than there had been the last few nights.

After messing up on We Want A Rock, Flans jokingly called a “band meeting” to discuss it, before greeting the audience and explaining the format of the show. “The first set is all Flood, the second set has hardly any Flood. Which will be better?” He then decided he wouldn’t be able to choose between the sets because “The sets are like our children. They’re all NEGLECTED!”

There was a bit of an awkward pause after that pronouncement, causing Flans to joke “next slide please” which he reused a few times throughout the show. He then promised us that this show had no teleprompter, and told us about a show he had seen that used one “It was bad, but that didn't make the tickets any less expensive.” Moving on, he asked Linnell “What did you- Did you get out today?”

Linnell explained that he had mostly slept, “We had a long day yesterday and a long trip here today,” and that everyone had been tired “I think we all lost consciousness at some point.”

Flans agreed, and demonstrated what it was like sleeping in a public place, his head leaned back and his mouth wide open, which both the audience and the guys onstage found hilarious.

Linnell then jumped in to assure us all that “We’re not completely straight-laced, but we’re not heroin addicts.”

Flans replied that there were only so many times you could deny that, saying he felt that “Saying you’re not a heroin addict is the sole domain of heroin addicts.”

Flans started out one verse of Your Racist Friend in a weird voice, but quickly realized it was unsustainable and dropped it a line in. During Hearing Aid, Dan sang along with the keyboard (which was using the voice setting) briefly.

Before Stilloob Flans introduced the song by explaining that “Lots of bands like to look back, but very few actually look backwards.” He explained what they were going to do, and attempted to ‘justify’ why they were doing it “When preparing we were looking for ways to make it interesting. Not just for the audience but for us.”

Linnell chimed in to say that it took a lot to prepare for this song, and it takes a lot to perform it “and we’re making it look hard.” He told us it wasn’t just musically difficult and compared it to eating a whole package of double stuf oreos, and how it seems like a really good idea.

Flans broke in, asking Linnell if he was”referring to the dedication it takes?”

“Yes!” Linnell answered, “The dedication, the GUTS!”

After Letterbox, Flans commented that the songs just keep getting shorter. The Johns then had a conversation about Harry Houdini. They had heard he was from Detroit, and asked the crowd for confirmation. The response was a bit ambivalent, with no clear cheer of yes like they were perhaps expecting. Eventually, peering out at the crowd, Flans said ”Some people are nodding. They're just nodding yes. He was from Detroit.”

A guy in the crowd shouted back at him “He’s still here!”

“He’s still here? Yes, he is still here,” Flans decided. Linnell then asked us if we had felt that, implying the presence of Houdini’s ghost. The lights did flicker the slightest bit when he said that, I’m guessing someone in the crew was being clever.

After Lucky Ball and Chain, Flans told us that on the album, that song had a fade out and that “Not many of our songs do.” He added that he wasn’t sure why, but that they were “probably tied with acdc for the fewest songs with a fade out.”

This reminded him of a supercut he had heard of ACDC endings, which he explained to us by demonstrating a few on his guitar. There was scattered applause and a sheepish Flans said quietly “That was three of them.”

Linnell chimed in, to demonstrate a few ACDC endings he thought were probably there, first yelling “Ehhhh!” and then “Yeah!” into his mic. The two then did one more ending together, with Flans adding his guitar to Linnell’s vocals.

An obviously amused Linnell told us to “Look for this on our next album,” with Flans adding that it would be called ‘Supercut.’

After the cheers and laughter died down, there was a beat, then Flans admitted “I don’t know what song is next.”

Rather than telling him, Linnell decided to give Flans hints, starting with the hilariously unhelpful “It’s off of Flood.” Which earned him a laugh from the crowd and a harried look from Flans. “I play a buzzer at the beginning of it,” Linnell continued. Flans still was confused, so he went to check his own copy of the setlist. While he was looking Linnell pointed out that a person in the crowd knew what they were playing next, because they had shouted it out. He pointed over in the general direction of the person, a few rows back from the drum riser, and they shouted it out again. Flans, returning to his mic, looked over and proclaimed “Oh look! It’s Mrs. Shut Up from shutthefuckup dot com! It’s good to see you, you don’t get out much.” There was a moment of shocked silence, and I think even Flans was a bit taken aback, because he tried to soften the blow, saying something about a talkative crowd.

They started Hot Cha, but Flans came in a little late, which meant it was just Linnell singing for the first line or so. Also, I keep forgetting to mention, Marty uses brushes for this song, which looks and sounds really neat.

Towards the end of the set, Linnell mentioned that they were still recovering from the travel and from the time change. (Since they had moved from central to eastern time, it felt two hours earlier than it was.) He joked that he expected their dopplegangers to show up for the show in an hour. “Whooaaa!”

Flans chimed in to point out “Houdini did live here.”

They finished out the set before leaving us for a “20 minute break that lasts an hour.” The crew got things set up for the Quiet Storm with no incidents, and it was soon time for the second set.

Godzilla was used for the intro music once again, and though Flans did a bit of his ‘creeping-onstage’ act from Chicago, he soon gave it up to bring his acoustic guitar over for Marty’s inspection. The two looked at the guitar intensely for a few moments before Flans pointed to a specific spot on the body of the guitar, which Marty inspected briefly.

Coming up to his mic, Flans mentioned jokingly that the line to the restroom had been short before they started into Music Jail. During the instrumental bit after the ‘form a band/take a stand’ part of the song, Flans moved closer to Marty, who turned and used his mallets to play the drum part on the body of Flans’ guitar! On top of being wildly interesting, it also sounded really cool!

Afterwards, Flans admitted “Marty and I have not done that move before in a public forum.” And pointed out a guitar owner in the crowd who had looked pained at the guitar’s treatment.

Linnell decided that maybe he was a mallet owner, suggesting that he was really thinking they were “Wreaking those mallets man!” which cracked Marty up.

Marty counted off for the next song and both Johns were ready, but Marty was not and stopped them abruptly. Looking over, Flans told Marty “I was there!” and Marty gestured towards himself, taking responsibility for the issue. I think he had forgotten to change a setting on his kit, because he messed with it for a moment, then counted them off again to start 2082.

The projection the band uses during this part of the show includes lightning flashes. This upset the security guards, who had told us all before the show that we couldn’t use flash-photography, and thought that someone was taking flash photos. They actually came down the aisle to tell random people taking pictures to turn off their flash.

Flans introduced the next song, Wicked Little Critta, as “hostile and actively aggressive,” dedicating it to their friends and relations in New England. Linnell claimed that they were deeply affectionate AND hostile, and that they could only express that affection with “mean feelings.”

Linnell flubbed a few lyrics during once verse of Wicked Little Critta, although he recovered quickly. Finishing the song, they left the stage to the Underwater Woman video once again. I’ll admit, I was a little tired of the video by this point.

They came back on stage part way through the last verse, and the crowd held off on cheering until the video was over. This meant they stood onstage in silence for a few moments, which was very strange.

Linnell acknowledged the cheers, when they did come, with the observation “We’re back again! We keep coming back!” They played Wearing a Raincoat, during which Flans must have made a mistake, because afterwards, Linnell said the song had used a “new introduction” and that from now on they were going to do it like that.

Flans told him “I’m yelling at myself so hard right now.” Linnell assured him that he had thought it was cool, but Flans just said “We’ll talk about it after the show.”

Moving on to introducing the next song, Flans told us it was from an album end of 2018 called My Murdered Remains “We did a lot of test-marketing on the title, and it turns out people are into hyper-violence.”

Linnell chimed in to say they had tested the title on “psychopathic focus-groups,” then used a deep voice to imitate them saying “Yeah! Good name!”

“We went to a screening of Clockwork Orange,” Flans decided, “and asked the audience afterward... what they thought would be a good name. And they just blinked three times for ‘Yes!’”

This led, of course, into The Communists Have the Music, followed immediately by Let Me Tell You About My Operation, during which Danny came up beside the keyboard to watch Linnell play. When Linnell caught him looking, he gave him a big smile.

Flans and Danny stood right next to each other for the intro to Older, which always looks incredibly cool with the symmetry of their instruments. During the bridge, Dan climbed up onto the rather tall drum riser to stand behind Marty and to pose dramatically during the pauses, often with the neck of his guitar pointing up and across the stage. This went perfectly with Marty’s super serious poses. Linnell did a cool bit on his Kaoss pad during the bridge as well.

From there, they played the Mesopotamians, after which Linnell brought up his new keyboard stand. He told us how long he’d had the old one and that he had started getting complaints and that he had “never felt wrong or bad until then.” He also told us the new one was a lot like the old one but it “has more stuff.”

“It has a sandwich,” Flans confided.

“There’s my math homework, but there’s also my lunch,” Linnell told us, adding that the jelly had soaked into the bread so that “the bread is turned blue on that side. Which is fine. I’m totally cool with that.”

“What we’re saying is stay in school kids,” Flans added.

He continued “We talk about healthcare a lot in this band. But…” he trailed off, then leaned into the mic “Next card on the teleprompter please.” Then started immediately into All Time What. The arrangement was different from 2018, with Linnell staying on keys, and Dan’s part covering the difference. At one point, Dan was air-playing the keys a bit.

From there, they played Ana Ng, and then Damn Good Times. There was an extra long pause between the chorus and second verse of Damn Good Times, Flans had stepped away from the mic, then took tiny steps moving back up to it. At the same time, Dan and Danny had what looked like a staring contest, which stopped when Flans began singing again. When it was time for Dan’s blistering solo, Flans told us all to sway along. At the speed needed, this moved quickly from difficult to nearly impossible, although some of the crowd hung on doggedly until the end. Danny thought the whole thing was hilarious and watched with amusement as most people fell behind and dropped out. They played New York City, going back to a part-rocking version this time.

Flans then told us “We’ve saved the best for now. Join us in welcoming-ing,” he paused, and when he went on was obviously still amused at his own blunder. “Mr. Curt Ramm on the trumpet back to the stage.” This meant, of course, that Curt was doing the intro to Istanbul, which was a nice switch up, even though I still would have loved another intro by Dan. While Curt was amazing us all, Linnell wandered off stage left for a bit, and Danny sat down on the edge of Marty’s riser. Istanbul was as high-energy as always, with Dan and Curt switching off for one ending, and Curt finishing it with a ridiculously high-note as always.

Dan and Marty left the stage after the song ended, while Flans told us they wanted to thank everyone in the audience individually, “Not every show is this fun for us. We have emotional problems.” He then introduced the last song of the evening as the opening song from Flood.

Linnell spoke over the crowd’s cheers with “just a note.” “Apparently this song is the exact length of time that it takes for you to wash your hands. So we encourage you to consider singing this next song rather than Happy Birthday the next time you wash your hands… Immediately after the show.” They played Theme From Flood, then left the stage to enthusiastic cheers and applause.

As soon as they left, a bunch of security guards took up posts along the front of the stage. It didn’t really obstruct the view at all, but I’m still a bit amused they thought these fans were going to cause trouble.

After a few minutes, they were back onstage. Flans looked out over the crowd as he got on, holding up one hand and moving the other in a circle. The crowd thought he was asking for more appreciation and increased their cheers. After a few moments though Flans stopped the gesture and said, still looking to the back of the venue “That doesn’t mean anything to us.” He did not sound pleased. I think someone on venue staff must have been making that towards him in a “wrap it up” type gesture.

Linnell said “You need an orange vest to do that,” although I’m not sure if he was talking to Flans or the person gesturing at them.

As the crowd started to quiet down, Flans told us they were ”having a conversation backstage about the nature of encores.” He explained that “Everything, including interpersonal relationships, is all just theatre.”

He then revealed that they time their encores, so that they don’t seem too nervous “At some point we realized we were basically walking offstage and turning around.”

Linnell added in a mock-desperate voice “Please don’t stop clapping! We’re insecure”

Flans continued, explaining that they time it to avoid looking like “the hambones that we are” but that they never take the time to explain why they do it. Because of this, people assume it is “a weird make ‘em earn it thing.”

He finished “But such is the nature of theatre ladies and gentlemen. Your attentions may be beautiful, but their effects are horrible.”

He then realized he had no idea what the next song on the setlist was. Linnell told him that the amazing thing was that their discussion “is the perfect segue into the song.”

Flans, halfway to look at his setlist, suddenly said “Oh! I remember! I remember.”

“Aggh!” Linnell replied, disappointed.

“I wrote the setlist,” Flans told us all, now back up at his mic. “Okay, here we go!”

They then launched into Fingertips, the beginning of which was marked by Dan gesturing wildly offstage making sure his mic was on. Flans did an exceptionally passionate boy band impresion for Heart Attack. As always, the whole thing was wonderful in the way that only Fingertips can be.

Flans told us all “We gotta get outta here!” Thanked us all for coming and for bringing our friends, then said “We know you have your choice of They MIght Be Giants-like bands, and we’d like to thank you for coming to our show, which we think of as the original show.” They then played Doctor Worm. Linnell didn’t change the settings on the keyboard for Dan this time around, and I think the keyboard setting they used was different because of it. As they left the stage, Flans pretended to smash one of the security guys on the head with his guitar.

The cheers for the next encore were noticeably quieter than they had been for the first one. I guess if people knew they weren’t coming out for a certain amount of time they were going to pace themselves.

After the correct amount of time had passed, they all came back onstage, with Linnell commenting “Was that 60 seconds? I feel that it was.” Linnell then pointed out another feature of his keyboard stand, the rearview mirror. “Marty has to look at me when we’re playing, in case I’m making faces.”

He then asked “You guys ready?” This got a cheer from the crowd, which surprised Linnell. “I...wasn’t talking to you, sorry. That’s okay, we’ll start over.”

They then started the always beautiful End of the Tour, then went straight into The Guitar from there. This performance had Flans using one Jim and one Dan, and an especially awesome-sounding Future of Sound.

They then left the stage for the evening. I think it might have been due to venue policy, but they didn’t give out any stickers, although Marty came out and gave out setlists and his sticks and drumhead from the aisle between the stage and the security fence. While I had another show, this was the end of the run for a lot of friends, so I said my goodbyes outside of the venue before heading back to the hotel.

#tmbg #recap

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archivedatl · 17 years

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AP web exclusive: All Time Low tour diary

Posted by Scott Heisel on 08-Dec-06 @ 04:43 PM

Last month, Baltimore pop-punkers All Time Low took to the road with Sugarcult for a series of shows on the West Coast. Here's some of what they saw, in words and pictures. Learn more at www.alltimelow.com.

#1------------------------------------------------------------ Ooohooo So last night we celebrated two awesome occasions...well 3 since matt's molars finally grew in...anyways yesterday was Haloween and our first night of our tour with Sugarcult. I must say, it is pretty strange touring with a band who I spent the better years of my middle school life watching on MTV. Regardless of where this band has been, it definetly didn't eff with their personalities. They were all super nice to us and each came up and introduced themselves. The show went pretty well but it wasn't a good judgement of our the whole tour is going to be because Sugarcult didn't even headline, the Eagles Of Death Metal did, and the tickets for $25 on Haloween night :) I'm sorry but I would never go to a show if those were the circumstances...I'd be out expanding my collection of holiday treats. Tonight the 'real' tour begins so we will see how it goes. We are playing Washington State University in Pullman Washington. We haven't done too many college shows, so this should be interesting...anyways before we got on the road a couple days ago we were couped up in Ben Harper's (formely of yellowcard, now in amber pacific) house/studio in long beach, CA working on our new CD :). We demoed some hot licks that were going to send over to our producer matt squire so that he can put in some input. I heard my blogs are going to be posted on the Alternative Press website for this tour, so if that's the case then...helll yeah! Well I just woke up from sleeping in the van so I am gonna walk out into the freezing streets of Pullman, WA crack my back and grab some Qudoba. Much Love, Jack --jbstar #2------------------------------------------------------------ Yoo dooodds, So I'm gonna update you guys on the passed couple shows...on Wednsday we played Washington State University. Those kids are freaking crazy! Everyone seemed to be having a good time and we made some awesome new friends. I cannot stress enough, how cool the Sugarcult guys are. Which is really cool because I have been listening to those guys since 6th grade! Anyways before we played, matt thought it would be a good idea to have a fork and knife fight backstage...yeah it turned pretty ugly and we should have some footage online soon enough. That night we partied at 'The Christmas House'. Lets just say that I'm pretty sure alex made out with a dog...I really miss Hit The Lights :( Anways...we played Seattle after the college show and it was offf the hoooook. Everyone in the room was dancing and it got pretty redic. As soon as we told them the alex/dog story they went nuts. We met up with the Pink Spiders that night. We were nervous about that because we've heard some stuff...but for real those guys are the shit. There all super nice and we have no complaints about them. We have yet to tour with a band who we don't get along with (fingers crossed). We also heard that we may be doing a few shows with Cobra Starship in Dec, if that happends that would be sick. I'll keep you guys updated. Someone made us a bucket of the craziest donuts ive ever seen at the portland show last night!! They were reallly good. Sorry for the lack of pics, I'll make sure my next post has more, its just hard to take good pics on a sidekick :). Talk to you guys soon!!Jacko #3------------------------------------------------------------ Yo Babaayyss, Last nights show was off the hook! I love playing at The Boardwalk in orangevale calii. The crowd was as wild as usual and a bunch of kids were singing along. A lot of the same kids who saw us there on the Amber Pacific tour came back. Its always cool to see so many familiar faces,,,cough cough hint hint nudge...you get the idea folks! The next couple shows should be interesting...reno and vegas. I wont be able to gamble but at least ill be able to look at a lot of lights. We all have family comming out, so that should be exciting. I havent seen my brother and sister in ages and i know their gonna be wasted so that means they will be even more friendly :) Also Meg n Dia join up in vegas which is sick, SO SIKED FOR THAT!!! We met them on warped and their super nice. anyways i think its time, i go to In and Out because after this tour im not going to be able to go back for a while :( im going to eat there everyday twice a day until we leave Arizona. Ive attached pics from our set on the Epitaph stage at this years Bamboozle Left and also some pics of our acoustic set the 2nd day! Thanks to everyone who watched us either/both days :) love you peace peace n a bottle o' hair grease, jack #4------------------------------------------------------------ Wow...vegas has to be one of the strangest places on this earth. First of all we showed up in Reno (shity city) only to find that only sugarcults crew was there and the show probably wasnt going on. We were welcomed by a hooker in a pink tanktop and no teeth asking if we had any shirts we could give her...Thankfully we have power windows and middle fingers. Thankfully zack was asleep or he might have took her up on some of her offers...he's getting desperate you know..just kidding! Anyways we decided to hang out with sugarcults crew for a little then start the drive to vegas early since it was 8 house. We got to go over the Hoover Damn which was sweet. It's seriously Vegas Vacation all over again! Anyways, we got to vegas around midnight and it was a fantastic site! My bro and sis were staying at the MGM so thats where i headed. Rian to the Excalibur, Alex and Matt to the Venecian and Zack to the Luxor. We all split up and hung out with our fam for the evening. My brother took me around vegas and boyyy was it interesting. I was approached by numerous drunk people. It was basically like an Ocean City, Maryland for older people. It's just a place for adults to drink, walk around drunk, act like teenagers and maybe gamble a bit here n' there. it was Akward to say the least. Anyways the next day was the show at the House Of Blues at Mandalay Bay...probably one of the nicest venues we have ever played. We introduced ourselves to the Meg n Dia folks and got to know our new tour mates as we shared a dressing room. We soon found they are awesome people and they share a love for getting wild! The show was pretty cool, and the crowd was big. It was weird though because the merch was not in the venue, it was in the cassino haha. Anyways Vegas was an experience we wont forget, and I cant wait till we go there again. I hope the next time we go, were 21...actually nevermind because that would be three years :)stay rad, Jack #5------------------------------------------------------------ Lame! Tonight was our last show on the Sugarcult Tour featuring The Pink Spiders and Meg n Dia :( Damone will be taking our place on this great lineup. I am jelous that they get to join up! Anyways we made some lifetime friends on this tour and it was a great experience for everyone. Every single show was amazing and the fans never let us down. Traveling to bumfuck arizona and hearing a couple hundred kids sing your song is the coolest feeling ever. Sugarcult was very warming towards us and their personalities suprised the shit out of me. they were such cool guys and even when zack was sick they made him soup and gave him Emergen-C. WHO DOES THAT !?!? Thats like something my mom does...so in a way Sugarcult are our parents. They actually reffered to us as their younger brothers on stage. At the last show of the tour in Little Rock, Arkansas us and Meg n Dia ran on stage during "Bouncing Off the Walls" and started bouncing around and took over Tim's Guitar n Mic, Marko's (my twin) guitar and Airens Bass. It was so fun to bro down with a band that ive been listening to since middle school haha. Alex also got to soundcheck with sugarcult at Texas AM College because tim was at the hospital taking care of his sickness (i think he had a nasty cold). It was so crazy to see alex soundcheck with a band who for the past few years have held a special spot on my ipod and in my cd player :) I attached a pic of him sound-checking for fun. At the end of the show we said our goodbyes and gave our hugs. This is'nt the end of these friendships though, only the beggining...now we head home to write a new cd. Catch us on the road in the northeast in december when we head out with Cobra Starship! Stay safe, Jack

#2006 #blog #Jack Barakat #text #alternative press #all time low #sugarcult tour

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atlfics · 4 years

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Appendicitis- All Time Low Fanfiction

Alex gets appendicitis on the road. Word Count: 3556

More notes at the end.

“Hey Alex, how’re you feeling?” Jack asked as he took a seat next to Alex in the back lounge.

“About the same as yesterday,” Alex replied. The day before, Alex had gotten sick, and his symptoms led him and his band to think that he had a stomach flu. He had a fever, chills, and couldn’t seem to keep anything down. His stomach hurt a bit more than it normally did when he was sick, but he figured that he was either being dramatic, or that he had just caught a bad version of the bug. Luckily, it had hit him on an off day, so he was able to spend it resting up for the show that they had the next night.

“I’m sorry to hear that, man. I hope you feel better before the end of the tour, but at least there’s only four shows left after tonight,” Jack said.

“That’s true, but I do hope this clears up. I hate playing feeling this awful,” Alex replied. Seconds later, Alex’s eyes widened, and he put a hand to his mouth.

“Are you going to get sick again?” Jack quickly asked. Alex just nodded as Jack helped him stand up, then took him to the bathroom. Jack sat on the floor and rubbed Alex’s back as he started to gag. After ten minutes, Alex got sick then looked up at Jack when he was done.

“Thanks for being with me,” Alex said, wrapping his arms around his stomach.

“No problem, man. I’m just sorry you feel so bad. I’m surprised you just puked, I don’t remember you eating anything last night,” Jack pointed out.

“That’s because I didn’t. I had some water in the middle of the night. The last time I had food was like this time yesterday,” Alex replied.

“Well, that’s not good. Are you sure you’ll be okay to go onstage tonight?” Jack asked, feeling concerned.

“I’ll be fine. I’m hoping that I’ll start to feel better by tomorrow, and I’ll only have one bad show,” Alex explained.

“I hope that’s what happens, I hate seeing you push yourself when it’s so obvious you’re miserable,” Jack replied.

“I appreciate the concern, but I’ll make it work,” Alex replied.

“If you feel like you’re done in here, you might want to get dressed. We’re supposed to arrive at the venue by three, which is in, like, fifteen minutes,” Jack suggested.

“Oh yeah, good idea,” Alex replied. Jack helped Alex up, then Alex changed into fresh clothes before meeting up with the rest of his band in the front lounge.

“Hey Alex, how’re you feeling?” Rian asked as Alex sat on a couch by Jack.

“Pretty terrible. My stomach is really killing me,” Alex replied.

“Take some anti-nausea medicine,” Zack suggested.

“I don’t think it’ll stay down,” Alex admitted in a small voice.

“Zack’s right, I think you should at least try it. Maybe it’ll help you be in less pain. Let’s see what happens,” Jack said, getting the medicine, then giving it to Alex.

“I hope you’re right,” Alex mumbled as he took the medicine.

“We’re sorry you feel so bad, Alex. I don’t know if we’ve ever seen you this sick before,” Rian stated.

“I mean, it’s just a stomach flu. I guess it’s just a shittier version than what I normally get,” Alex replied. The bus arrived at the venue a couple minutes later, and the four of them walked inside. The stage lights were still being set up, but their instruments were already there and set up since their crew had arrived before them.

“Since we already know the set pretty well, why don’t we just do the first verse and chorus of each song so Alex can have more time tor rest before the show,” Zack suggested.

“I’d really like that,” Alex replied.

“We’ll do that, then. Let’s get started,” Jack said. Throughout the soundcheck, Alex could feel his stomach pain getting worse and worse. Once they got to the encore of their set, Alex felt his stomach flip, which he knew wasn’t good. He stopped playing and gave his guitar to his tech as he quickly ran offstage to find a bathroom. Jack and Zack stood by Rian’s drum kit and exchanged looks of concern with each other.

“Damn, he’s really sick,” Jack stated.

“I know, it’s not good,” Zack replied.

“I really don’t know how he expects to perform tonight,” Rian added.

“Do you guys think we should try to reschedule the last shows? I think it would really help him,” Jack suggested.

“You know he won’t go for that. I think we just have to get through tonight and then we can ask him what he thinks about everything,” Rian explained. Seconds later, Alex walked back onstage, holding his stomach.

“Sorry about that, guys,” Alex said.

“Don’t apologize, it’s okay. I think we got enough done to be finished. Why don’t we get you set up in a green room? Then you can try to rest up before the show,” Jack suggested.

“Sure,” Alex said. The for of them found that one of the green rooms had a big couch, so they set Alex up there. From that point until they had to go on, Alex either tried to sleep, or tossed and turned due to the nausea.

When they stood by the stage entrance waiting to go on, Alex felt a lot of pain from his stomach, but tried to ignore it. The first half of their set went mostly fine, but in the second half, Alex started to feel really sick to his stomach. After they finished Stella, Alex knew that he was about to get sick again, so he quickly ran offstage, leaving the other three unsure of what to do.

They ended up bringing some fans onstage to play covers with them, and Alex came back out after about fifteen minutes. After apologizing to the crowd, they started to play, and eventually finished out their set. Once the show was over, Alex went right to his bunk, hoping that he’d feel at least a little better the next day.

----------------------

“I don’t get it, it seems like you’re a lot worse now,” Jack said as he sat on the bathroom floor with Alex the next day.

“That’s how I’m feeling. Not that I thought performing would help me feel better, but I didn’t expect to feel this bad right now,” Alex explained, hugging his stomach tightly.

“Do you think you’re done in here?” Jack asked, not knowing what else to say.

“I don’t know. I don’t think I have anything else left in my stomach at this point, but I still feel nauseous. I don’t think my stomach ahs ever hurt this much in my life,” Alex replied.

“Damn dude. You know, we can still cancel tonight if you feel you need to. You seem really miserable,” Jack stated.

“I feel awful now, but I’ll feel ten times worse if we do that. We have four shows left, I don’t want to cancel them over this,” Alex explained.

“Okay, fine, we’ll go on tonight. But please be careful, Alex. I don’t want you to hurt yourself, and neither do Rian and Zack,” Jack said.

“I appreciate it, but I’m going to make this work these next few days, then rest up a bunch after tour is over,” Alex promised.

“Good. I know you still feel iffy, but you’ll be a lot more comfortable on the couch. I’ll put a bucket out there or something. I just want you to be comfortable,” Jack stated.

“Okay, I’ll try that,” Alex replied. Jack helped him slowly stand, then grabbed the trash bin right before walking Alex to the back. He set Alex up on the couch, then started to channel surf. He looked back to ask if Alex had a preference but saw him holding his stomach with a pained look on his face.

“Do you think you’re going to get sick again?” Jack asked.

“No, it just hurts now,” Alex replied. Jack sat next to Alex, and started to rub his stomach, making Alex wince more.

“I know you’re trying to help, but that’s making me feel worse, especially when you press here,” Alex said, pointing to the right side of his stomach.

“Oh, I’m sorry man. Do you want some anti-nausea medicine?” Jack offered.

“Nah, I don’t think it’ll stay down. And, like I said, it’s more of a pain thing than a nausea thing. I guess I just have to wait it out,” Alex replied.

“Okay, if there’s something I can do to help, let me know,” Jack requested.

“I will. Thanks for everything you’ve done for me man, I seriously appreciate it all so much,” Alex replied with a small smile.

“Of course, man,” Jack replied. The two of them stayed in the back together until they got to the venue. Since Alex was feeling so terrible, the band decided they’d do the soundcheck without him so he could rest as much rest as possible before the show.

While Alex knew that this was for the best, he couldn’t help but feel frustrated. This wasn’t the first time he’d gotten sick on the road, but it was one of the few times that it really prevented him from being able to do his job. He loved every aspect of touring; the bus life, moving into new venues every day, meeting fans, and of course, the shows themselves. It was very frustrating for him that he wasn’t able to enjoy any of that right now.

He sat in the green room while the band did soundcheck. Over time, the pain in his stomach grew more and ore intense. He tried to not think about it too much, he figured that being upset about everything was making him feel worse than he really was. A little over an hour later, the band walked into the room.

“Hey Alex, how’re you doing?” Zack asked, as the three of them all sat around Alex.

“Still bad. It almost feels like the pain is worse now,” Alex replied.

“Have you gotten sick at all?” Rian asked.

“No, I don’t feel nauseous, I just feel an intense pain,” Alex said, hugging his stomach tighter.

“Are you sure you can go on? You seem pretty messed up right now, dude,” Jack said, looking as concerned as he sounded.

“I’ll be fine. Besides, we go on in like an hour. So many kids camped out here all day, we’re not going to fuck them over by canceling now,” Alex replied.

“As long as you’re sure. We’ll stay back here with you until the show starts for in case you need anything,” Jack said.

“Sounds good. Thanks, you guys,” Alex replied. They spent the next hour watching whatever they could find on TV. Alex was very concerned with how the night would go but was determined to get up onstage no matter what.

Once an hour had gone by, they walked to the stage entrance and got their instruments. Alex’s guitar felt heavier to him than usual and supporting its weight made him feel even worse. He tried to hide this discomfort from his band as they tuned up their instruments. Seconds later, they walked onstage and started into their set.

Due to the discomfort, Alex stayed in one spot for the first few songs, not moving around or jumping or interacting with Jack or Zack. By their fourth song, it hurt Alex to belt out the notes to the songs, which he knew wasn’t good. The pain he had only seemed to intensify over the night, especially on his right side.

They’d just started into their seventh song when Alex decided he had to get offstage. He stopped singing and walked offstage as fast as he could, his arm wrapped around his stomach. The rest of the band quit playing, and looked to each other, unsure of what to do next. The crowd made noise as one of their crew members came onstage to tell Jack that there was no way Alex wouldn’t be able to come back onstage that night.

“Hey guys, Alex has been really sick the past few days. And I’ve been told that he’s feeling too sick to come back out tonight. We’re so sorry. We will come back and make this up to you, we promise,” Jack said into his microphone. The crowd yelled their well wishes as the three of them said their goodbyes before walking offstage. When they got backstage, they saw Alex sitting in a chair, holding his stomach and gagging some.

“Hey man, what’s going on?” Jack asked, sitting by Alex and starting to rub his back.

“Stomach really hurts,” Alex replied.

“Have you gotten sick?” Zack asked.

“No, it just hurts a lot. Especially here,” Alex said, pointing to the right side of his stomach.

“Alex, I know you don’t want to do this, but this seems like more than a stomach flu. I think we should take you to the ER,” Rian suggested.

“As much as I don’t want to do that, I know that I probably should. I’ve never felt this bad in my life,” Alex replied. Zack and Rian arranged for a car to drive them to the closest hospital so they wouldn’t have to go in the big bus.

On the ride, Alex sat next to Jack with his head on Jack’s shoulder and an arm still around his stomach. It concerned Jack to see Alex in such bad shape, he couldn’t help but wonder what was making Alex so miserable. As soon as they got to the hospital, Alex was given a room and some paperwork. Alex laid in the bed while Rian and Zack started to fill out the papers.

“I hope whatever you have isn’t too bad. I hate seeing you like this,” Jack said, looking at his friend.

“I hate feeling like this,” Alex replied. Not much later, a doctor and nurse walked into the room.

“Hey everyone, I’m Dr. Catlett, and I’m going to help figure out what is going on with Alex. While I run some tests, would you three mind stepping out of the room? We’ll call you back in shortly. Also, you can hand the papers to my nurse, Shelby,” Dr. Catlett explained. The other three got up and made their way out to the lobby.

“What do you guys think is wrong with him?” Jack asked as they sat down.

“Since he’s having pain on his right side, I almost think it could be appendicitis. For his sake, I hope it isn’t, but that’s what it sounds like,” Zack explained.

“I think we should cancel the last few shows. I know he won’t want to, but it sounds like the best idea at this point, regardless of what he ends up having,” Rian suggested.

“I think you’re right. We can do that later tonight, or at least get someone from the crew to do it so we can be here with Alex,” Jack replied. After twenty more minutes of anxiously waiting, the three of them were called back to hear the diagnosis. They followed the nurse to the room, all of them feeling nervous for Alex. When they walked in the room, they saw Alex, now in a hospital gown, slowly sipping at some water. They all took seats by his bed as the doctor walked in.

“So, it looks like Alex has appendicitis. In order to fix that, we need to remove his appendix. Are you all from here?” Dr. Catlett asked.

“No, we’re in a band currently on tour. We all live in Baltimore,” Jack replied.

“I see. I think the best way to do this, then, is for me to perform the surgery here in a few minutes. We have the room being set up for it right now. Alex will have to stay here for about an hour after the surgery to make sure that he’s hydrated and that his temperature doesn’t rise. Once that hour is up, I’d say you will be safe to travel back home so he can properly rest and recover. I’d take at least a week off from playing shows, so he has a smooth recovery,” Dr. Catlett explained.

“That all sounds great, thank you so much, sir,” Rian replied.

“Of course. I’m going to go see that the room is ready, and I’ll be back for Alex in a few minutes. That way, you all can have a minute to yourselves,” Dr. Catlett said before walking out of the room.

“Well, it looks like you’ll be feeling better in about an hour,” Jack said.

“I hope so. I’m bummed we have to cancel the last few shows,” Alex replied.

“We know, but it’ll be okay. And, we can come over and take care of you while you recover,” Rian said.

“Yeah, we’ll help you any way we can. You’re going to be just fine,” Zack added.

“Thank you, guys, I really appreciate it. I’ve got to be honest, I’m a bit nervous for the surgery,” Alex admitted.

“I know, we’re all nervous for you. But it’s all going to be okay, and in about an hour from now, everything will start to be okay for you again. You’ve got this,” Jack said with an encouraging smile. Seconds later, Alex was taken from the room he was into the operating room. The bus had been driven over to the hospital, so the three of them got on so they could contact the venues they were scheduled to play and explain what was going on and why they couldn’t play. Once an hour had passed, they all went back inside the hospital and were immediately called back to the recovery room. Alex looked half out of it while Dr. Catlett looked at something on the computer.

“Everything went great! He’s still in the process of waking up. In about an hour, I’ll come back to discharge him. If you all need anything, push the big red button on the wall, and a nurse will come in here to help out,” Dr. Catlett said, leaving the room. the three of them decided to leave Alex alone until he spoke, since they didn’t want to freak him out by talking while he was so out of it. After about twenty minutes, Alex sat up some in his bed.

“Guys?” he called out, sounding a bit weak.

“Hey Alex, how’re you feeling?” Jack asked as the three of them moved closer to him.

“My stomach already feels better,” Alex replied.

“Good. Dr. Catlett said everything went great,” Rian said.

“Thank god. I’m glad that’s all hopefully over now,” Alex said back.

“We are too, man. You’ll get to leave in like half an hour, then we’re headed back to Baltimore,” Zack added. They spent the next thirty minutes flipping through channels until Dr. Catlett discharged Alex. After a three-hour bus ride, the four of them arrived at Alex’s house. They grabbed all of their things then helped Alex inside, and were ready to do as much for him as they could in the week ahead.

-------------

Alex’s recovery had gone very smoothly. The other three ended up staying at Alex’s for the whole week, and took turns doing things for him at home, running errands, and whatever else Alex needed. A week after the surgery, the band was still at Alex’s, and Alex was feeling significantly better. Alex was set up in the living room on the couch, like he’d been all week when the other three walked in.

“Hey, how’re you feeling?” Jack asked.

“So much better, all thanks to you guys. Can we all go downstairs for a minute? There’s something I really want to do,” Alex requested.

“Sure man, what is it?” Rian asked.

“You’ll see. Come on,” Alex replied, slowly standing up. The four of them made their way to Alex’s basement, which he’d turned into a studio almost as soon as he’d moved in many years ago. He got his acoustic guitar before sitting down on the couch.

“I’ve missed playing shows so much. Since I’m finally feeling better, can we jam out to some of our songs?” Alex asked, making all four of them smile.

“Of course, man,” Zack said as they all grabbed their respective instruments and sat down in the room. They played Jasey Rae, Weightless, and Dear Maria before stopping.

“Looks like you’ve still got it, dude!” Jack exclaimed, setting down his guitar.

“Yeah, you sound great, man,” Rian said.

“We’re glad you’re feeling better,” Zack added.

“Thank you, guys, so much for everything you’ve done for me in this past week, it all means the world,” Alex relied, making them all smile.

“Of course, dude, we’re family,” Jack replied.

“It all means a lot. Thanks for helping me on the bus, too. Especially you, Jack. I can’t express how grateful I am for all of you,” Alex said.

“You’re our brother man. We’re just glad you’re doing better,” Zack replied.

“Me too. Want to do a few more songs?” Alex asked. Everyone said yes as they started into Coffee Shop Soundtrack. Alex was glad to be doing better, and grateful beyond words for the amazing family he had in his band.

A/N: Hey guys! This was a request I got on my AO3 (awgaskarth0805)! It ended up being much longer than I expected it to be, but I think it turned out fairly decent! I have another request written and I hope to publish that tomorrow! Please send me requests if you have them, they’re so much fun to write, and I like writing what you guys actually want to see! Lots of love, Liv.

#Alex Gaskarth #Jack Barakat #Rian Dawson #Zack Merrick #all time low #ATL #atl sickfic #atlsickfic #Jalex #sickfic

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