#but yeah I owned a few albums by this band | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

starlightkun · 2 months ago

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⏯ word count: 18.3k ⏯ genre: band au, retired floprockstar/venue manager!kun, rookie/keyboardist!reader, age gap (kun is older), fluff, v v suggestive (lol it’s a kun fic written by me this gets so unhinged im sorry), ft. jungwoo/mark/chenle/jisung as reader’s bandmates, wayv as kun’s coworkers & some special guest appearances maybe?? ⏯ warnings: uhm there’s some maybe weird power dynamics going on here? reader is a former fan of kun’s but like his band flopped and they never met back then so 🤷‍♀️ read at your own peril ig, not necessarily a warning but since i do avoid describing the reader’s appearance in my fics, i wanted to give a heads up—reader is in a punk/alternative band and is mentioned and/or implied to have some tattoos and piercings (other than earlobes). i don’t get super detailed, but since it’s there, i wanted to make sure y’all weren’t caught off-guard ⏯ extra info: set in the same universe as filler episodes & sugarcoated brain, but u don’t need to read those in order to understand this one at all i prommy ⏯ author’s note: those teasers of emo kun for frequency coming out right after i wrote a punk venue manager kun into sugarcoated brain??? oh i was not going to get out unscathed ⏯ now playing… frost – txt | doing this again! – bears in trees | entropy – beach bunny

── ⋆⋅♫⋅⋆ find more stories from backstage at venue:hell here!

“He played the keys in Vizions!” You hissed, anxiously looking over at the hallway as if Kun might reappear.

“You should see if he’ll sign your album,” Jungwoo suggested with a grin, nudging you with his elbow.

“Or fuck him,” Chenle deadpanned. “You’re in a band now too, not just a fan.”

“Venue:Hell…” Chenle hummed as he parked the band’s van in the alleyway in the back of the building. “When was the last time we were here?”

“We had a set at their Valentine’s Day event, remember?” You leaned over the console from the backseat. “When the lead singer of Roses for Eyes got decked in face?”

A chorus of ‘oh yeah!’s and other noises of recognition sprang up around you, as well as a few snickers and hisses of sympathy at the memory. You all had already performed that night and were in line for the bar nearby when the incident happened, practically front row for it.

“And we agreed to come back,” Jisung snorted.

“If we can make it out with no broken noses, I think that’ll be a success,” you grinned, reaching over Mark to open the side door.

After grabbing some of your equipment from the back, the five of you approached the back door. It was unlocked, as promised, and you all descended into the cool, dim basement venue.

“Hello? We’re Doing this Again! The new band!” Jungwoo called out from the front of the group. You shut the door firmly behind you.

A young man skidded around into your line of sight, bright smile on his face. “Hey! I’m Yangyang.”

“Our assistant manager is out for the next few weeks, so we’re kind of all sharing custody of you guys,” he explained, gesturing for you to follow him. “I’ll show you the green room, we’ll get the rest of your stuff, then our manager should be out here before your soundcheck.”

Yangyang and another employee, Kunhang, helped unload your equipment from your van, and began setting it up on stage. You learned that Yangyang was their sound guy, and Kunhang did lights and the rest of their tech.

Once your equipment was all set up, Yangyang and Kunhang exchanged uncertain looks, glancing over towards a hallway attached to the main room that you were in. Yangyang shrugged one shoulder and made a gesture for Kunhang to go ahead. The tech rolled his eyes at his coworker, but stepped forward anyway, flashing you all a bright smile.

“We’ll show you around since he’s not out yet. He said he wanted to talk to you before soundcheck,” he explained apologetically.

Kunhang and Yangyang showed you most of the building, ending in the main green room backstage.

“Uh, you can settle in,” Yangyang waved his hands around vaguely. “We’re going to go see if the old man finally keeled over or something.”

“I heard that.” A stern voice resounded from just outside the green room, making the two employees jump and turn around.

A third man had joined you all, focusing an unamused gaze on Yangyang and Kunhang. He was dressed in black from head to toe, a black leather jacket over black button-up shirt and black jewelry glinting from his neck, ears, and knuckles. He wore dark pants and big black work boots too, so you were doubly surprised at how quietly he could move. While you could tell he was older than the rest of you, you definitely wouldn’t call him old. As soon as his sharp eyes flicked over to you from under a curtain of jet-black hair, a jolt of recognition zapped through you, and you grabbed Jisung’s arm at the same time that you bit down on your tongue to avoid making a sound. Your friend’s arm tensed in surprise, but he thankfully stayed quiet too. The newcomer’s gaze went back to his employees as quick as it had flitted over your band.

“Go find something to do,” he shooed them away with one swift hand movement.

“On it!” They replied in unison, shoes squeaking on the concrete floor as they quite literally ran away.

He turned back to you all, taking a few steps in to fully enter the green room. The annoyance drained from his face, and his features became beautifully neutral as he greeted you all politely. “Sorry, I was on a call, it took much longer than I thought it would. If they didn’t already tell you, my assistant manager is out, so it’s a bit hectic around here right now. Normally our weekly act is her responsibility.”

“Is she okay?” Jungwoo asked.

“Yes, she’s fine,” the manager replied. “She’s assisting our usual weekly with their mini-tour. Which is why you all are here, of course. We appreciate you agreeing to fill in for RFE on this temporary basis.”

“Thanks for the opportunity,” Mark replied automatically.

“If you all do well, it might not have to be temporary, hm?” He said, and though his words were kind, his expression didn’t change. You were beginning to taste blood. “I’m Kun, manager of Venue:Hell. Please let me know if you have any issues while you’re here. I’ve delayed your soundcheck already, so I’ll let you go ahead.”

With that, Kun stepped out as briskly as he had arrived, leaving no room for further conversation or introductions.

As soon as he left, Jisung yanked his arm from your grip and looked at you incredulously. “Christ, Y/N, what the fuck—”

“He played the keys in Vizions!” You hissed, anxiously looking over at the hallway as if he might reappear.

“Wait, like that band that only released one album like a decade ago that you’re obsessed with?” Chenle questioned doubtfully. “How can you be sure?”

“She went to like every gig they had,” Mark recounted. “Got us grounded, and then would insist on sneaking out while we were grounded to go to even more. If anybody is gonna recognize a member of that band, it’s her.”

“You should see if he’ll sign your album,” Jungwoo suggested with a grin, nudging you with his elbow.

“Or fuck him,” Chenle deadpanned abruptly, dropping onto the well-used couch, stretching his legs out. “You’re in a band now too, not just a fan.”

“You guys don’t get it, I didn’t just think he was hot—”

“That was definitely part of it,” Mark snorted.

“—He was awesome on the keys! And he wrote all of their songs, and produced their entire album by himself!” You defended yourself. “He made me realize I didn’t just have to do piano recitals and that I could do something like this.”

“Alright, sorry, Y/N,” Chenle said softly. “We were just messin’ with you.”

“Do you think he recognized you? Since you apparently went to so many of their shows?” Jisung asked.

You shook your head. “No way. I never had the courage to talk to them. And that was like ten years ago anyway.”

“I still think you should see if he’ll sign your CD.” Jungwoo patted your shoulder. “It’d probably make his day.”

“I don’t know, clearly the band thing didn’t work out for him,” Chenle added. “He might want to just forget it all.”

You bit the inside of your cheek nervously, then let out a dejected sigh. “Nah, it’s not like I carry the CD with me everywhere…”

Your set at Venue:Hell that night was a hit, if you did say so yourself. It wasn’t nearly as big of a turnout as the Valentine’s event you’d played at, but that was to be expected for a random Thursday night. The crowd was surprisingly engaged, especially since you were careful to incorporate a couple covers of popular songs into your set.

Running off the stage, the five of you immediately tackled each other in a group hug that was all yelling, elbows, sweat, laughing, and chaos.

“One down, three to go!” You cheered, ruffling up Jisung’s matted hair.

“Oh my god, we’re doing this again!” Mark added breathlessly.

“Boo!” You all immediately jeered at the corny joke he made every chance he got. “Tomato! Tomato!”

He laughed loudly as you and Chenle pushed and jostled him, but not enough for him to fully leave your circle. Jungwoo tugged him back in.

“Good job, guys,” Dejun, a stage tech, congratulated you as he passed by, starting to break down some of the equipment on stage.

Your band broke apart to help the staff shut down the stage for the night as other music played over the speakers of the venue and patrons chatted and danced on the floor. A few came up to the stage to talk with you as you worked, interested both in you all as the new weekly, and what had happened to the old weekly. They seemed relieved to hear that Roses for Eyes wasn’t gone for good, and were really enthused in the feedback they had for you.

After putting your equipment that you would be taking home in the green room, you all decided to stay and mingle for a little while more. If this was only going to be for four nights, you wanted to make them count and do as much as you could to get your band’s name out there. You ordered a drink from Sicheng the bartender, at which time you found out that the 50% employee discount applied to you too for the time being. Turning back to the crowd, you strained to spot any of your bandmates among the bodies.

“Hey,” Kun had appeared next to you at the bar, and you jumped out of your skin.

“Fuckin’ Christ, dude,” you coughed, trying to catch your breath. “Can you teleport or something?”

“Sorry.” He seemed more amused than apologetic. “Good set.”

“Thanks.” You took a sip of your drink to avoid looking him in the eye.

“Who did the arrangement for that first cover?”

“I did. Uhm, it obviously wasn’t for a rock band, so I had to do some tweaking…”

He nodded, looking actually impressed. “You compose?”

“Me and Mark for the most part, yeah. The other guys pitch in on songwriting sometimes, too. Chenle’s adlibs are crazy good.”

“Cool. See you next week.” Kun pushed off the bar, disappearing into the crowd.

Mark and Jungwoo found you still rooted to that spot, robotically sucking down your drink.

“Woah, I know we did good, but I don’t know if it was ‘get absolutely smashed’ good,” Mark laughed, pulling your drink down from your mouth.

“Come on, we got Jisung dancing!” Jungwoo took your drink and put it on the bar.

Your eyebrows shot up at the news that your wallflower drummer had apparently joined in the fun. “Really?”

“Yeah, let’s go!” He grabbed your arm and toted you off with the two of them.

The next week when you all arrived in the green room, you were a little surprised to see a plate of cookies sitting on the table in the center of the room. You all exchanged uncertain glances, looking around for any clue as to who the cookies were from or for. Jungwoo was the first one to take one from the plate and bite into it.

“Pretty good,” he gave his approval through a mouthful, encouraging the other guys to each take one or two.

You were still wary as you approached, picking a cookie up and taking a small bite. It was soft and chewy, and soon you were taking another bite.

“Oh good, you guys found the cookies,” Kun was in the doorway, having once again snuck up on you all.

Jisung started choking on his cookie, and Chenle had to smack him on the back to get it back down the right pipe. Kun’s lip twitched as he was clearly trying not to laugh, a dimple appearing and disappearing on one cheek instead.

“Did you buy these?” Mark asked, muffled through the cookie in his mouth.

“Baked them, yeah.”

“You made them?!” You stared at him, half-eaten cookie in hand.

“Unless they’re bad, then Ten made them.” He winked at you before slipping out of the room without another word.

“God, Y/N, stop drooling,” Chenle snickered, wiping at your chin teasingly.

You smacked his hand away, glaring at him. “Shut up.”

“You seriously looked like you were about to pounce on him,” Jungwoo added helpfully, tweaking your cheek as he walked by.

“Ugh, you guys are the worst!”

Week three found you alone on the stage before your soundcheck. Your bandmates were out on a food run, but you didn’t feel like getting back in the van, so you were messing around on your keyboard. The venue staff was also scarce, you had only briefly seen Yangyang since showing up today. Tapping your foot to a familiar beat, you closed your eyes as you hummed a melody that you knew by heart, fingers flitting across the keys. It wasn’t your own band’s song, but one by Vizions, a powerful ballad.

“Haven’t heard that in a long time.”

Errant notes rang out as your eyes flew open, heart jumping out of your chest. “Fuck!”

You spotted Kun down on the floor, covering his mouth as he started laughing. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You always mean to scare the shit out of people.” You rolled your eyes at him, crossing your arms over your chest. “It’s like your favorite hobby.”

“Alright, guilty.” He held his hands up, still grinning. “Seriously, how the hell do you even know that?”

“I used to go to your shows like, all the time,” you admitted, staring down at the keys. “You were like, kinda a big reason I started doing this at all.”

“Wait seriously?” All the humor had fallen from his face as he stared at you with confusion and a touch of wonder, brows furrowed and mouth parted.

“Yeah, I uh—” You grabbed your bag from the ground at your feet and fetched the CD that had been sitting in there for the past two weeks, since your first night at Venue:Hell. “I still have your CD.”

Kun jumped up onto the stage with you, taking the plastic case from you and turning it over slowly in his hands. “I don’t even have one of these anymore. God, I remember desperately trying to sell these at shows after we had them made…” He peered a little closer at your face, then shook his head. “No, I don’t remember you, sorry.”

“It’s okay, I never talked to you guys at any of the shows,” you assured him. “I mean, what if you were creeps?”

He let out a few hearty chuckles at that, nodding. “Okay, fair. Good self-preservation skills.”

“Also, I think someone else was at the table when I bought it.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve heard any of those songs.” He handed you the disc back.

“I didn’t realize you were going to hear me,” you muttered. “When I was playing that, I was just—”

“I’m not mad,” he reassured you. “I’m just… shocked. That’s all.”

“Great, because I kind of want to die in a hole right now, so—”

“When did you realize? Who I was?”

You rubbed the back of your neck. “As soon as I saw you…”

“That makes sense,” he nodded. “I thought I had scared you too, when you grabbed Jisung.”

“You did, just not the same way you scared Yangyang and Kunhang,” you joked. Then, panic flooded your veins as you quickly went to tack on, “I’m not like, obsessed, by the way, I just really like your music, and it was a big inspiration for me to switch from classical to—”

Kun started laughing again, waving his hands in front of him to try to calm you down. “I believe you, I believe you. It’s okay, I swear, I believe you.”

“Oh thank god,” you groaned, covering your face with both hands.

“You’re a lot better than I ever was.” He dropped off the stage, starting to set up the stools around the perimeter of the floor.

“What?! No!” You immediately argued.

“You improved on what I wrote, I heard it. That little—” he imitated part of the melody you had been playing, the fingers of one hand tapping imaginary keys in the air. “—that you changed in the bridge. I like it.”

“I was just messing around waiting for them to get back with the food, I wasn’t—”

“It’s good,” he insisted. “You’re good, Y/N.”

“So were you,” you muttered, futzing with the knobs on your instrument.

“Could you do me a favor?”

“Huh?”

“Don’t mention any of this to my employees.”

“What? They don’t know?”

“No.” He shook his head. “They know I’ve been around the scene for a while, they know I can play, that’s it.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Will you do that for me?”

“Yeah, sure, Kun.” You weren’t sure what sudden surge of confidence possessed you in that moment, but you picked the CD up off your keyboard. “If you’ll sign this for me.”

He blinked. “What?”

“You’ve got a Sharpie around here, right?”

“Yeah, in the-in the office.” He pointed over his shoulder.

You hopped off the stage, looking at him expectantly. He led the way through the venue in a bit of a daze, until you got to a door at the end of a cramped hallway. Kun ushered you into the back office, and you tried to ignore how fast your heart was going as you stepped inside. You’d never been in the admin office of Venue:Hell, only ever the main floor area, stage, and backstage.

The walls were plastered in album covers, most of which you recognized. A small futon was pushed against one wall while a desk and office chair were cramped into another corner. Kun dug through a cup of pens sitting on the desk until he had secured a black Sharpie.

“Seriously?” He double-checked with you.

“Seriously.” You pushed the plastic case into his hands.

He chuckled, uncapping the Sharpie with his teeth before quickly scrawling his signature in the bottom right corner. He fanned it a couple times to dry the ink, then handed it back to you.

“15-year-old me would be geeking out right now,” you beamed down at the fresh signature.

Kun spat the Sharpie cap back out onto the desk. “Fifteen?! We always played at 18-plus venues!”

You snickered. “Bold of you to think that I couldn’t get my hands on a fake ID, or that most of those places were actually carding in the first place.”

“Point taken,” he groaned.

“Anyway, your secret’s safe with me.” You made a motion of zipping up your lips and throwing away the key. “And the rest of my band. I kind of already told them.”

“As long as they don’t say anything either.”

“I’ll make sure they know.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you,” you echoed, shaking the CD case. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Kun shook his head, gesturing towards the door. “Nothing. Good luck tonight, Y/N.”

“Right. Thanks!” You opened the office door.

On the other side was Yangyang, who glanced between the two of you suspiciously. “Oh. Y/N. What were you doing in there? With the door shut?”

You kept the CD tucked between your arm and your side. “Had some questions about the weekly slot.”

With that, you practically skipped away, giving the sound tech no further opportunities to ask questions. Of you, at least.

Kun approached the stage from the floor as you all were doing your soundcheck for your final night at Venue:Hell. He waited patiently for you to finish the song that you were on. When he saw that you all had removed your in-ears, he spoke up.

“Got word from Roses,” he started. “They’re going to be moving to every other week when they get back. How would you guys like to alternate the weekly slot with them? My staff and regulars all really like you, we’d love to keep you on. Talk about it, let me know by Wednesday?”

He didn’t wait for an answer from you all, pivoting back around on his heel to take care of whatever else was on his never-ending checklist. The five of you looked at each other, and you already knew the answer. Chenle and Jisung high-fived while Jungwoo hastily took his bass off to grab you and spin you around. You yelped and laughed, half-heartedly smacking his back to get him to put you down as he nearly crashed the both of you into Mark and his instrument.

At your first performance as a semi-permanent fixture around Venue:Hell, you were antsy as soon as you entered the basement, looking around expectantly.

“I’ll be back in a sec,” you told your friends over your shoulder as you left them on the main floor.

“Where are you going?” Mark called after you.

“I just want to see if Kun’s here, I want to tell him thanks for keeping us on.”

Knowing jeers and snickers sprang up behind you, but you ignored them, walking down the cramped hallway to the admin office. The door at the end was ajar, and you ducked around a precariously perched box of t-shirts to grab the door handle.

Through the crack, you could hear someone humming a faint melody. It wasn’t any song that you knew, but you did stop to listen for probably longer than you should have. You couldn’t help it, you were curious. Finally, when you started feeling like maybe a bit too much of a creep, you knocked softly, pushing the door open even more.

“Yeah?” Kun called out.

You poked your head in. “Hey.”

He looked over at you from the computer screen, nodding for you to enter the office fully. “Y/N, what can I do for you?”

“What song is that?”

“Huh?”

“That you were just humming, what is it? It’s nice.”

“It’s nothing,” he brushed it off. “Just a tune I’ve got in my head.”

“You’re still writing songs?” You asked eagerly.

“No. I haven’t in quite a few years.”

“Really? You stayed around the scene, I figured you might’ve at least had a notebook somewhere? Lyrics in your notes app? Some demos recorded on your phone?” After each one, he shook his head, and your hopeful gaze fell more and more. “Nothing?”

“Nope.”

“Huh.” You sat on the desk next to the computer keyboard, loosely crossing your arms over your chest as you tried to absorb that information. “Do you miss it at all?”

“Writing songs or performing?”

“Any of it.”

“Bits and pieces, yeah,” Kun admitted, leaning back into the office chair. “I wouldn’t go back, though.”

You tilted your head. “Why not?”

“We were broke, for one thing.” He laughed. “Don’t get me wrong, the excitement of having all those what-ifs in front of you, it was awesome. And I do miss the music. But I also like my life now just fine.”

“I didn’t mean to put down what you’re doing now, by the way,” you added. “I was just curious.”

Kun’s eyes crinkled as he smiled up at you warmly. “It’s okay, I didn’t take it like that. I thought I was going to be in the band forever too.”

You looked down at your lap, thinking about your own band, and felt an uncomfortable pressure pushing down on your chest.

“So, did you come in here for anything specific? Or to just watch me create the employee schedule for next month?”

“As thrilling of an offer as that is,” you chuckled, “I did have a real reason. I wanted to say thanks for offering us this slot. We’re all really grateful for the opportunity.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “You’re welcome. I’m glad that you guys accepted. I hope Venue:Hell can be the starting point for much more.”

“Thanks.” You stood back up, showing yourself out. You nearly slammed into Yangyang on the other side, though, and jumped back in shock. “Jesus fucking Christ, Yangyang! Why are you always in the damn hallway?!”

“Why are you always in the office?!” He retorted, just as exasperated.

You rolled your eyes and shouldered past him.

You had settled into your biweekly sets at Venue:Hell, becoming familiar with the staff, regulars, and rhythm of the venue. A private event was renting out the space tonight, so your set had gotten moved way up, to the early evening. You didn’t mind, it meant that instead of arriving after dark, you arrived before sunset.

Kun was out setting up the stools and tables around the perimeter of the floor when you all entered the building, and gave you a wave of acknowledgement over his shoulder.

“Do you live here or something?” Chenle asked. “I’ve never seen another car out there, and you’re literally always here.”

“I might as well,” the manager mused, continuing to set up.

“Pretty sure he’s a vampire,” Jungwoo laughed. “Never seen him out in daylight.”

“Very original,” Kun replied dryly. “I’m wearing all black, I work underground…”

“You’re old!” Ten interjected from what sounded like backstage.

“I sign your checks!” He immediately barked back.

“Uh, guys?” You looked at your bandmates pointedly. “I think the call is coming from inside the house?”

They all looked down at their own dark outfits and various smatterings of tattoos and piercings, muttering among themselves before walking off. You shook your head, following after them.

The performance itself was smooth like usual, some different faces in the crowd than usual, which you chalked up to the different time. You swore you saw Kun standing in the back of the venue with someone, but they were too far back and shrouded in shadows for you to be sure. After your set, you all couldn’t hang around like usual, having to pack up everything and get out so the private event could start setting up.

Your bandmates had already taken everything else out to the van, you were the only one left in the green room, gathering up the last of your stuff to bring out. You had just finished packing one duffel bag and were stuffing another when there was a light knock on the doorway.

“Y/N, you’re still here.” It was Kun, followed by another man that you only saw out of the corner of your eye.

“Sorry, I’m almost gone,” you promised, rushing even more now.

“First, I’d like you to meet someone.” Kun’s words made you slow down, looking up properly as he gestured to the tall man with him, inked from neck to fingertip. The heavy tattoos and time didn’t make it any harder for you to place the face, though, before Kun had finished the introductions, “Johnny, this is Y/N, she plays keys in Doing this Again! Y/N, this is Johnny, he—”

“—was your drummer in Vizions,” you finished, wide-eyed.

Johnny’s eyebrows went up before his face relaxed into an easy-going smile. “Damn, I thought Kun was bullshitting when he said he’d found a fan of ours.”

“No, I’m real,” you shook your head and laughed.

“Well, I’m honored.” Johnny beamed, holding a CD case and Sharpie out to you. “Would you mind?”

“Huh?” You stared down at the items in confusion. It was your band’s CD, a new press that was available at the venue’s merch table.

“Kun invited me out to see your set. I’m a fan of yours now. I’d be stoked if you could sign my album.”

You looked between Kun and Johnny uncertainly. Kun smiled encouragingly, mouthing ‘go ahead’ at you. That was the final push you needed to take the disc and pen. Your hands shook as you signed across the plastic CD case, and you hoped it hadn’t messed up your signature too much.

“Thanks.” He took both back, fanning the CD to dry the ink. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to check out the bar now. It was an honor meeting you, Y/N.”

“Y-You too, Johnny.” You shook the hand that he had offered, his palm noticeably calloused. “Thank you.”

That left you and Kun in the green room now, and you plopped down exactly where you stood, wrapping your arms around your knees and burying your face in your legs to muffle your screams. Kun chuckled as he patted you on the head.

“Woah, you alright?”

You glared up at him. “How could you do that to me?”

“Do what?” He asked, still laughing. “I thought you liked our band?”

“Yes, but you can’t jumpscare me with your former bandmates!” You whined, hiding your face again.

“If I had told you Johnny was coming tonight, you would’ve been freaked out before going on stage.”

You huffed. Unfortunately, he was right.

“I’m going to take your silence as admission that I’m right.” After another long stretch of silence, Kun added, “He was being sincere, you know. He really did like your set, bought your CD with his own money.”

You pulled your head up, resting your cheek on your knee. “Let me guess—Getting me to sign it was your idea?”

“All him.” At your suspicious squint, Kun smiled, “Johnny likes supporting new acts on the scene. And why is it so hard for you to believe that people actually think you’re good?”

You let out a drawn-out sigh. “Typical—My parents don’t.”

He squatted down in front of you to be eye level with you. “What did they want you to do?”

“My dad started teaching me piano ever since I could sit on his lap and press the keys. They wanted me to do classical,” you commiserated. “The first time I said no to a recital, I thought the world was going to explode.”

“Did it?”

“No. They didn’t get mad, or yell, or force me to do it anyway. It was so… anti-climactic. I had this big idea of teen rebellion in my head, I guess.” You let out another heavy sigh. “But they’ve never supported me since I started doing this. When I bought my first keyboard, Mark had to help me carry it home from the music store. They’ve never come to a single gig, never even ask how it’s going. When I do talk about it, they don’t say anything, just wait for me to stop talking. They just… pretend like it’s not real.”

“If you all don’t talk about your music, what do you talk about?”

“When I’m going to choose a career path, or get married. Pretty much those two things.”

“I’m sorry your parents don’t support you, Y/N. That sucks, and I won’t take that away.” Kun squeezed your forearm, resting his hand there. “I’m sure you know this, but it doesn’t hurt hearing it again—You’re good, really good, whether or not they acknowledge it. And I hope you let yourself see that.”

You couldn’t quite smile, but blinked slowly, and nodded in acknowledgment. “Thanks, Kun.”

“Here,” he stood up, grabbing one of the duffel bags and slinging it over his shoulder, “I’ll help you with your stuff.”

His words had made you feel a little better, but you were slow to move, still self-pitying. Kun held both his hands down for you. “Come on. Normally, I’d let you pout all night, but other people have rented this space and that contract did not come with a pouting keyboardist.”

You reluctantly put your hands in his, letting him pull you to your feet.

“So yeah, that’s what Retro Rewind is gonna be like,” you finished brightly, looking between your parents hopefully. “Do you think you think you can make it? I-I don’t expect you to stay the whole time, but we’ll be going on first, so just for our set? Maybe?”

Your mom pushed around food on her plate, eyes trained on her dish. Your father took another bite of his food, washing it down with a sip of water. The only sounds in the room were of your breathing, and utensils occasionally scraping against plates. With every passing second, the shame that usually forced you into quietly changing the topic transformed into a white-hot rage, the kind that made you feel like a teapot that was about to boil over, steam bursting from your ears as they went on ignoring you.

“Hey!” You yelled, gripping your utensil tighter. “Look at me!”

Your mother finally met your gaze, her features stern. “Quiet down.”

“I asked a question. Are either of you going to answer it?”

“You do not speak to your mother like that,” your father interjected furiously.

“Well, I’m the one doing all of the talking here, I thought I could speak however I like,” you retorted.

Your mom tried again, “Y/N, please—”

“Please what?” You stared her down. “I try to engage you guys in conversation and keep you updated on my life and get shut down every single time, but I still try the next time anyway. All I’m asking, for once, is that you acknowledge—”

“Acknowledge what exactly?” Your dad snapped, a vein in his forehead popping out. “All you do is recount grimy basement after grimy basement, events that don’t pay you, long stretches of time where you’re not even booked, clearing out your savings to record an album with no label to distribute it. What accomplishments, exactly, are we supposed to be acknowledging?”

You held his eye contact, clenching your jaw so tight it felt like your teeth might break.

“We wanted the best for you, sweetie,” your mom added weakly. “Concert halls, opera houses… not this.”

Broiling hot tears stung your eyes as you stood up, pushing your chair back with a blood-curdling screech of the legs against the floor. You swallowed down the sharp thorny thing growing in your throat enough to speak, “All I wanted was for you guys to listen to me. I didn’t realize you have been. It turns out you just hate what you’ve been hearing.”

Your mom cast her eyes back down to her plate as your father grabbed his glass, lifting it to his lips to drink, his eyes focused on something in the middle distance, looking right through you. The chair was knocked over entirely in your hurry to get the fuck out of there, and the doorframe shook and rattled as you slammed their front door closed behind you.

Running down the sidewalks, your feet pounded the pavement like it had done you wrong, and you took hiccupping gulps of air as tears streaming down your face. When you tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and narrowly avoided skinning your entire face only by skinning your hands instead, you finally slowed down. You hissed in pain as you looked down at your bloodied hands, then up at your surroundings. The street you were on was somewhat familiar. You should be about ten minutes from the venue.

A rather miserable but not terribly long walk later, you were at the backdoor to Venue:Hell. Fumbling your keys from your pocket, you unlocked the door, shutting off the alarm that you were very thankful to know the code to. You washed your hands off in the sink of the women’s bathroom. After drying them with probably too many paper towels, you could see that the bleeding had stopped, and the skin there would just be a bit raw for a little while.

Walking back out to the main floor, your keyboard was still set up on stage from your set last night. Without another thought, you were hopping up onto the stage and turning on the equipment. You needed to do something. Completely ignoring your usual warm-ups, you went right into the most vitriolic, hardcore song that you could think of, uncaring of how hard you were bringing your fingers down against the keys. In fact, the repetitive blunt force sort of felt nice against your bones. A different sort of pain than the anguish tearing through your chest, at least. You lost track of time, only thinking about the music blaring out of the speakers and shaking through you.

“Y/N?!” Kun entered the main floor from the direction of the stairs, plugging one ear. “Y/N!”

You immediately stopped playing. “Oh. Kun.”

“I got a notification that the alarm was set off, and nobody responded to my text saying it was them, so I figured I’d stop by…”

You took your phone out of your pocket. There was in fact a text from Kun from twenty minutes ago in the Venue:Hell groupchat, asking if anybody was at the venue right now, followed by several ‘no’s from the venue staff, other members of your band, and Roses for Eyes.

“Sorry,” you muttered.

He took another moment to look you over, then sighed. “Alright, come on.”

“What?”

“You’re going to break your keyboard like that.” He hopped up onto the stage, shutting off your keyboard and all the other sound equipment. “Come on.”

Interest piqued, and with nothing better to do, you followed him. Kun turned off all the lights and set the building alarm before locking up behind you. He took a sharp turn down the alley that your band normally parked your van in. The two of you walked in silence, which you were grateful for. If he tried to press you on your sour mood, you were sure you’d snap at him and just feel even worse.

Just a couple minutes later, and you were at an apartment building. Kun held the front door open for you, then the door to the stairwell. After an arduous hike up the fourth floor, you stopped in front of an apartment. He unlocked it, and led you inside.

“Is this your place?” You asked, toeing off your shoes by the front door as he did.

“Yup.” Kun pointed to the kitchen sink. “Wash your hands.”

With that, he disappeared further into the apartment. As you washed your hands, you looked around. From where you were, you could see the kitchen and adjacent living room. It wasn’t a very big space, only one bedroom if you had to guess, but Kun kept it tidy. A few vintage framed band posters were on the living room walls that you had walked past to get to the kitchen, and he had a nice plush-looking couch.

Kun returned as you were finishing drying off your hands. You looked at him expectantly. “Now what?”

He guided you over to a countertop, where he had a bunch of graham crackers double-bagged in two ziploc plastic bags. He held a rolling pin out to you. “I need these crushed into small crumbs.”

It felt good to swing the rolling pin down, to watch the cracks form in the crackers as they burst apart, then became smaller and smaller as you kept hitting them. Rolling the rolling pin along the bag would probably be more efficient, but this was more fun. Kun, for his part, said nothing about the noise as you repeatedly whacked the bag over and over with loud bangs. He was busy with something else, you didn’t really care—your attention was fully on the crackers. By the time the crackers were a fine dust, you had worked up a sweat, but the raging tension in your muscles was no more. You were still pissed, of course, but no longer had the itch to slash somebody’s tires at least.

Kun came by to review your handiwork. “Good. Dump that in the bowl, then do the other ones.”

You obliged, opening the bags and shaking out the crumbs into a metal mixing bowl before refilling the bags with a new box of graham crackers. With the bags zipped back up, you went back to work obliterating the crackers inside. You didn’t even realize somebody was knocking on Kun’s front door until he was opening it, and you heard an unfamiliar man’s voice.

“What the fuck, man? Are you doing fucking construction in there?”

“You’re complaining about noise right now?”

“Yeah, I’m trying to fucking sleep.”

“It’s two in the afternoon.”

“Keep it. The fuck. Down.”

“Get out of my fucking face.”

“Whatever. Just keep it down.”

Kun quietly shut the door, calmly doing his locks and deadbolts back up. You looked between the rolling pin in your hands and the crackers guiltily. He wordlessly pulled out his phone, and with a few taps, a hard rock song was playing out of speakers in his living room at full volume.

He rejoined you in the kitchen, having to raise his voice as he explained, “Downstairs neighbor. I can hear him and his girlfriend fucking or fighting every night. Sometimes at the same time.”

You burst into laughter, turning back around to take another swing at the graham crackers. Once those ones looked pulverized enough, you dumped them into the bowl too.

“Done?” Kun asked.

“Yep!” You nodded. “So, what is this for, anyway?”

“Cheesecake bars.” He slid the bowl over to him, pouring melted butter in and mixing them together. “This is the crust.”

“Ooh, sounds good.”

He placed a square glass baking dish in front of you. “Press the graham cracker into an even layer on the bottom.”

You did as he instructed, singing along to the next song that had started playing as you worked. Meticulously smushing the crust into the bottom of the dish, you squinted as you tried to figure out if it was even or not. As your focus increased, your singing dropped out, and you realized that there was another voice humming in the kitchen too, almost unintelligible past the loud music. You looked up from the crust to where Kun was mixing something in another bowl, his attention fully on that. Your ears strained to catch more of his voice.

Then his sharp gaze was on you, eyebrows raising inquisitively. “Done?”

“Yeah, I think.” You straightened up to let him take a look.

He gave it his nod of approval before popping the dish into the pre-heated oven. Kun went back to the other bowl, cracking two eggs into it. You followed him to that corner of the kitchen, hopping up onto the countertop next to the stand mixer. He gave you a brief look of intrigue before continuing on with his task. He secured the bowl in the stand mixer then turned it on. You watched with interest as the ingredients were incorporated together. Kun stopped it, scraping down the sides with a spatula and adding more ingredients before turning it back on. Finally, he stopped the mixer again and took the bowl and attachment from it. He handed you the mixing attachment that had just been in the batter, covering the bowl with plastic wrap and putting it in the fridge.

When he turned around to see you still dutifully holding the attachment, he pointed to it, “You can clean it off. We won’t need it again.”

You didn’t need to be told twice, taking your finger and scooping off a big chunk of batter. It was pleasantly sweet and creamy, and you eagerly licked off the rest. The sink was in arm’s reach, and you leaned forward to deposit the now-clean(ish) mixer attachment in with the rest of the dirty dishes.

Kun rolled his sleeves up to his elbows as he turned the tap on, and you shamelessly ogled his hands and forearms as he washed the dishes. Despite being in the scene for so long, he only had one tattoo between the two areas, an abstract ink swirl that started on his his right pinky finger and flowed around his arm and disappeared into his shirt. You remembered that tattoo from all the concerts you’d attended, watching these same hands play the electric keyboard.

When he held a soaking wet dish out towards you, you blinked at it, startled from your nostalgic reverie. A drop of water dripped off and onto your leg, making you panic and take the bowl from him. “Fine—Ack! It’s wet!”

“Towel’s on the oven door next to you.” He indicated with his gaze before going back to washing.

You grabbed the dish towel from its place hanging off the oven door, hastily drying both the bowl and your own hands. Another song came on that you knew, and you hummed along to the introductory guitar riff as you dried the next dish Kun handed you. As the actual vocals came in and you started singing too, you could hear Kun had started humming as well.

Pushing on his shoulder, you got an incredulous look in return, but simply grinned and pushed more insistently as you sung louder. He shook his head and poured more soap on the spatula he was cleaning.

You pushed his shoulder a third time, taking a guitar solo as an opportunity to say, “Come on, Kun. I know you can sing. And I know you’re not afraid of getting a noise complaint.”

“I haven’t performed in years—”

“You’re not performing! You’re singing with me while doing the dishes!” You gestured at said dishes zealously. “Please?”

He remained silent, then the guitar solo was over, and he joined in when the singer on the recording came back in. You were so surprised that actually worked that you ended up missing the cue, which Kun immediately noticed. He pinched your thigh, and you jerked your leg away from him with a pout, but started singing with him nevertheless. Kun had only ever done background vocals in his band, but you’d listened to that CD so many times that you knew every layer of sound, every adlib, every second of every song by heart. That’s how you could also immediately tell that Kun’s voice had matured in the years since they’d recorded that album. He’d already told you that he was out of practice, but even if he wasn’t maybe hitting all the notes perfectly, there was something richer about his voice now that left you wanting this song to last forever.

Right as he passed you the last utensil, the timer on the oven beeped, and Kun dried his hands off to attend to that, ending your sing-along. He took the cooked crust from the oven, setting it on a cooling rack. After adjusting the oven temperature, he brought the cheesecake batter back out from the fridge, pouring it over the crust. Kun put it back in the oven and set the timer again.

“Fifty minutes,” he informed you.

You swung your feet. “So what are we going to do for fifty minutes? Other than blast music to piss your neighbor off?”

Kun walked into the living room, and you hopped off the counter to follow him. He paused the music on his phone and sat on the couch, picking up the remote from the coffee table, turning on the TV, then tossing the remote at you. “You pick.”

You sat down on the couch too, quickly trying to figure out all the buttons on his TV remote. A few minutes of unsuccessfully scrolling through streaming services later, and you turned it back off with a huff. “I don’t want to watch anything. Can’t we just—I don’t know, talk or something?”

“Sure.” Kun shifted, leaning back against the armrest. “You guys have your setlist for Retro Rewind yet?”

“Ugh—Not about work,” you groaned, dropping your face into your hands.

“Okay… Do you feel better?”

“Huh?”

“Y/N, I walked in on you Phantom-of-the-Opera-ing your keys this afternoon. You looked one chandelier away from burning our shitty opera house down,” he said frankly. “I won’t ask about what—But do you feel better now? Even a little?”

The mention of Retro Rewind and opera houses brought your conversation with your parents back to you, and you pressed the heels of your palms hard into your eyes to banish the thoughts, to keep living in this nice time now with Kun. You nodded. “Yeah. I do. Thanks, Kun.”

“Good.”

“I got lunch with my parents.” You stared down at your feet. “This whole time I thought they weren’t listening to me… They were, they just wish I was somebody else. They really think I’m a fucking failure.”

“Shit…” He breathed out, scooting over to rest a hand on your shoulder.

You let out a sharp laugh, lolling your head around to look over at him. “That’s it?”

“You don’t need me to tell you I’m proud of you. You’re a kick-ass musician without me or your parents.”

“Can you tell me anyway?” You mumbled.

Kun chuckled, stroking your hair. “I’m proud of you.”

His praise made you feel warm, especially with the gentle hand still petting your hair and his playful but genuine gaze fully focused on you. You suddenly had never wanted a man more in your life.

You tilted your head curiously, “Wait, you said your neighbor and his girlfriend are always…”

“Fucking and fighting,” he repeated for you, hand resting on the nape of your neck. “At all hours of the night. At least the nights I’m here, you know.”

“Have you ever gotten payback?”

Kun took a millisecond too long to point to the speakers, as if he’d caught on but wanted to see if you’d really go for it. “I just did…”

“No, I mean…” You stood up, leaning over him and grabbing the back of the couch next to his shoulder, ignoring the roadburn on your palm. “Ever given him a proper taste of his own medicine? Fucking and fighting…”

He calmly watched you. “I haven’t.”

“Do you want to? We don’t even have to fight after.”

“You just got in a fight with your parents, I’m someone older that you used to look up to—”

“Diagnosing me with daddy issues, nice,” you snickered derisively, caging him in with your other arm. “Maybe it’s that. Maybe I feel shitty and want to feel good. Maybe I think you’re like the hottest man I know, and we have at least forty minutes until those cheesecake bars are ready.”

“Forty minutes isn’t a lot of time,” Kun mused.

“Oh?”

His eyes flicked down to your lips, then back up to yours. “You sure?”

You answered by crashing your mouths together, every nerve in your body coming to life. Kun grabbed your waist, encouraging you to sit on his lap. He let out a groan into the kiss when your hips pressed down against his, guiding you to do it again. You wrapped your arms around his neck, tangling the fingers of one hand in the hair at the back of his head, pulling every so often. He kept the rhythm of your hips as he kissed and nipped a wet trail from your mouth under your jaw and down your neck. He bit down harder at the junction of your neck and shoulder, soothing over the indents of his teeth with his lips and tongue. You were already letting out needy, obscene noises and all your clothes were still on. At this rate, his neighbor would never sleep.

“Ah! That tickles!” You giggled, trying to push Kun’s hands away as they crept under your (his) shirt and skimmed over your sides.

Kun’s chest shook against yours as he laughed, hands continuing to explore your skin again. “Sorry, baby. I can’t help it, I’ve got a fucked out, pretty girl in my lap.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“You want to play the blame game right now?”

The hint of chastisement in his tone made you shift unconsciously on top of him, leaning in to kiss him again. He indulged you, hand coming up to cup your cheek as his tongue slipped into your mouth. You had just grabbed his hand and started guiding it lower when a faint jingle rang in the background, past the blood roaring in your ears and lewd sounds of you two kissing.

Kun pulled away with a regretful sigh, planting one more lingering kiss on your lips before whispering, “The cheesecake bars.”

“No,” you whined, dragging out the ‘o’ as you pulled his mouth back to yours.

“Yes,” he mimicked you, also dragging out his vowel in a petulant tone. Kun flipped the two of you over, depositing you on the couch and taking advantage of your surprise to loosen your arms around his neck and stand up. He stretched his arms over his head, walking into the kitchen.

You slumped into the couch cushions, opting to rest your eyes for the moment. You could hear Kun turn the timer off, open the oven door, and take the pan out before setting it on the cooling tray. Then, his footsteps reentered the living room, and you peeked your eyes open again.

Kun stopped in front of you on the couch, tucking his hands into his sweatpants as he looked down at you. With you wearing his shirt, you could very clearly see his other sporadic tattoos on his bare torso—over his hip bone, ribs, one on his inner bicep, shoulder, and you knew there was one on the back of his neck too. He cocked his head as he looked down at you. “Taking a nap?”

“Yes. Honk shoo mimimi.”

“That’s too bad. The cheesecake bars have to cool for one to two hours.”

You sat up straight. “I can nap later.”

He offered his hand. “Come on, I’m fucking you in a bed this time.”

“Couch isn’t so good for your old bones?” You teased, accepting his hand as you went to stand up. Your legs wobbled, and you only stayed upright because you were already holding Kun and used him for balance.

“I don’t think I need to say anything,” he snickered, pulling you closer until your back was against his chest. “Let’s go, my pretty girl deserves a real pillow.”

Kun reentered his bedroom with a plate stacked high with cheesecake bars and glass of water. You smiled as he sat down in front of you, insistently handing you the water first. You gulped down half of it in one go before reaching for a cheesecake bar.

As soon as you bit into it, you groaned in appreciation. “So good.”

“Do you always make obscene noises when you eat?” Kun scoffed.

“Sorry,” you mumbled through another mouthful. “‘S really good.”

You held the rest of the cheesecake bar in your hand out to him. He wrapped his hand around yours, holding it still for him to lean forward and wrap his lips around your fingertips, taking the food in one bite. You watched him, unblinking.

When he finally let your hand go, you were snapped from your trance. “Now who’s being obscene while eating?”

He laughed, covering his mouth to keep crumbs from flying out.

Noticing that it had gotten darker out, you glanced at the time on his bedside clock. “Do you have to go to the venue tonight?”

“No, I’m off today.” He squeezed your thigh. “Not kicking you out.”

You looked down at his hand on your leg, your fingers tracing his ink up along his arm. There was a small clink as he set the plate down on the nightstand, then he was tilting your chin up so you’d look him in the eye. You twisted your head out of his gentle grip, looking back down, away from his too-intense gaze.

“You’re pouting again, baby,” he stated, breaking the long stretch of silence.

“Maybe so,” you admitted with a huff. “It’s my thinking face.”

“And what are you thinking about?”

“What—” Your throat closed up as your brain was going too fast for your mouth to keep up with. You decided to pick a simultaneously simpler yet much harder question, “Now what?”

Kun raised an eyebrow. “I need you to be more specific, because I don’t think you’re asking about dinner.”

“That’s what I mean! Are we going to eat dinner together? Or is that too much? Is it going to be just work from now on or like… something else? Some people just know but I don’t! I don’t know anything and I can’t do that!” You covered your face with your hands to hide your tears from him, embarrassed at your outburst, embarrassed to be young and insecure and having the ‘what are we’ talk right after sleeping with an older guy, embarrassed to be crying in front of him, embarrassed, embarrassed, embarrassed. God, that’s all you’d ever done since you’d met Kun, embarrassed yourself.

“Ah, Y/N,” Kun sighed, taking his hand back. “I’m too old for this shit. I thought you were awesome the first night we met. When I got to see you perform, then you told me about the arrangement you made. Even after I found out you knew about my old band, I tried to support you as crew because I figured you wouldn’t want to get tied down to an old flop like me.”

You sniffed, messily wiping your face on the sleeves of Kun’s hoodie that you were wearing. Finally meeting his eyes again, you said, “This whole time, you’ve been getting on me about not believing that I’m a good musician. Why can’t you believe that you were too? I haven’t seen a keyboard or anything around here, you don’t write songs anymore, don’t tell anybody about it at all, you won’t even sing while doing the dishes!”

He smiled bittersweetly and shrugged. “We didn’t make it.”

“You run an underground punk venue, you should know that success doesn’t equal skill!” You insisted. “Or are you the exception for some reason?”

“You… are probably right. It seems I have some esteem issues to work on as well,” he acquiesced.

“You’re not a flop, at least not to me. And even if you were, you’re a lot more than that too.” You crossed your arms. “Like, if anything, you’re just retired.”

“Okay, now that really makes me sound old.”

“Says the man who literally just said, quote: ‘I’m too old for this shit.’”

“About the petty relationship stuff.” He wrinkled his nose. “Retirement is just too far.”

You giggled at his reaction, and while he rolled his eyes, the corner of his lips twitched, betraying his amusement too.

“Let me be even clearer then,” Kun declared, sandwiching one of your hands between both of his. “If you want something—a relationship—I’m all yours.”

You practically launched yourself at him, throwing your arms around his neck and locking your lips together. He let out a noise of surprise, wrapping his arms around your waist to steady you nevertheless. You mumbled ‘mine’ against his mouth, to which he immediately nodded, cradling the back of your head and pulling you closer. He slowly eased back onto his elbows, encouraging you to straddle his hips as his thumbs stroked the bare skin of your thighs. You grabbed his shoulders, pushing him flat to the mattress as you disconnected from the kiss, sitting up higher to look down at him. He looked up at you, arching an eyebrow as he stayed down.

“Now what, pretty girl?” He questioned.

“Say it again?” You requested sweetly, leaning down to kiss his throat.

“I’m all yours.” The words vibrated under your lips, and you moved back up to kiss them right out of his mouth.

“Welcome home.” Mark was sitting on your couch when you got back to your own apartment the following afternoon, feet kicked up on the coffee table as his fingers flitted over a video game controller.

“Feet!” You reminded him loudly, throwing the front door closed.

Your roommate removed his feet from the coffee table, sitting forward with his elbows on his knees instead. He kept his eyes on the TV screen as you walked by. “So where were you?”

“I told you, I had lunch with my parents.”

“All night?” He snorted.

“You’re a smart boy, I’m sure you can figure it out.”

You went into your room to change out of your outfit from yesterday. You had already showered at Kun’s place but definitely needed some fresh clothes. Emerging from your room in a new set of pajamas, you plopped down onto the couch and stretched your legs into Mark’s lap.

“You usually give me a heads-up in case the guy’s an axe murderer,” Mark commented, shifting to accommodate your feet. “Were you wearing a crew hoodie for the venue when you walked in?”

“We work there?” You pointed out rather than admitting that it was actually Kun’s. “Anyway, sorry I forgot to text you. He wasn’t an axe murderer, by the way.”

“Figured as much when you came back with your head attached.”

When his character onscreen died, you snickered. “You suck.”

He turned the TV off, sitting back as he asked, “How’d lunch go?”

“Awful. They finally said the quiet part out loud: They think I’m a failure and will never support me doing this,” you sighed.

Mark winced, but nodded sympathetically, more than familiar with your strained family relationship. “Damn, I’m sorry, Y/N. I really thought they would’ve come around by now.”

You shrugged. “Yeah, it fucking sucks. But we’re really good, even if they’ll never come to a show.”

“Hell yeah!” He offered a hand out, and you smacked yours against it in a resounding high-five. “Ooh, hey, a couple of the guys from RFE told me about this guitar shop that I wanted to check out. Do you want to come? We can get dinner after?”

“Sure.”

Rock music played over the speakers of the guitar shop, guitars of all shapes and sizes covered the walls and displays, accented by the neon lights lining the floors and ceiling. You meandered with Mark, letting him gasp and gush over the instruments as you kept your hands to yourself, looking at the cool variety that was in stock.

“Anything in particular you guys are looking for?” The man that had been sat behind the glass counter called out as your path through the store brought you closer.

When you turned to look at him over your shoulder, intending to let him know that you all were just looking, he lifted his head from where he had been replacing the string on an acoustic guitar, shifting his long hair from his face and granting you your first good look at his features. He had large sunglasses perched on his head, dark makeup around his eyes, his nails painted black, and thanks to the black bleach tie-dyed tank top he wore, you could see the chain and lock tattoo going around one of his biceps.

You screeched to a halt, desperately smacking Mark to make sure you weren’t seeing things. Your friend yelled and fought back, swatting at your hand. “Dude, what the hell?”

The worker was still looking at you, amused confusion on his face as he tilted his head curiously. “Is everything okay?”

“Sorry, this might be weird—Were you in a band like ten years ago?” You asked hesitantly, despite being very sure of the answer yourself.

Whatever he thought was going on, he clearly hadn’t been expecting that, looking pleasantly surprised as he sat up a bit straighter on his stool. “Yeah, actually. I—”

“You played bass, and your band was called Vizions,” you finished. “Yuta.”

Yuta chuckled. “Right on the money.”

“Seriously?” Mark’s eyes were popping out of his head.

“We saw you guys perform a few times, actually.” You pointed between you and your friend. “In like, high school.”

“High school?” Yuta must have had the same realization that Kun did, but just smirked. “Cool. You guys are actually not going to believe this, hold on—” He stood up, leaning over the counter to yell out towards another section of the store, “Hey! C’mere!”

A few moments later, another man came around the corner, looking a bit out of place. He was wearing a rainbow pastel checkered sweatervest over a white button-up shirt, with brown corduroy pants and sensible-looking tennis shoes. His light brown hair had soft waves as it was neatly cut and styled, and he pushed a pair of square clear-framed glasses up the bridge of nose. As he stopped at the counter near you, Mark, and Yuta, you could faintly make out the faded marks where he had let piercings close up in his eyebrows, nose, along the cartilage of his ears, and a few open ones on his earlobes that had no jewelry in them. The change in style threw you off for an extra second, but seeing him next to Yuta gave you enough context to place his face as well.

“TY!” You immediately named the newcomer.

He startled, but his features were immediately overcome by a bashful smile, blushing from his ears to his neck. “Please, Taeyong. Nobody calls me that anymore.”

“Right, sorry…”

“It’s fine…?”

“Oh, Y/N, and Mark,” you introduced both of you.

“They used to go to our gigs when they were in high school,” Yuta informed Taeyong with a grin.

Taeyong paused on this, letting out a short sigh. “As a teacher, I will say that I can’t condone that anymore… but we may or may not have had fakes in high school as well.”

You perked up. “You’re a teacher now?”

“Yes, I teach music at a primary school.”

“I own this place,” Yuta added, gesturing to the guitar store. “Do some songwriting on the side.”

“That’s so cool that you guys still do music stuff!” You said brightly.

“We’re not the only ones,” Taeyong said. “Kun, our keyboardist, he works at a music venue. The other two, not so much. Johnny, our drummer, he’s a tattoo artist, but he goes to so many gigs it’s like he never left the scene. And then Jaehyun…”

Both of them laughed, and you and Mark exchanged a glance as you were on the outside of the joke.

Taeyong continued, “Stay at home father of four.”

“That’s fucking crazy.” Mark shook his head.

“Well, that’s pretty much why Vizions is no more,” Yuta explained. “Jaehyun’s girlfriend got pregnant, and he wanted to be a dad more than he wanted to be a rockstar. We decided that was a good place to call it, and started doing our own stuff.”

You shot Mark a look. “If you leave the band because you knock a girl up, I’m going to kill you.”

He held his hands up defensively. “Woah! So not called for! And who was at some mystery guy’s house last night?”

“Shut up!”

“You brought it up first!”

Taeyong cut into your squabbling, “You guys have a band?”

“Yeah, it’s called ‘Doing this Again!’” You answered brightly, jabbing your elbow into Mark’s side to make sure he knew that you had won. “I play keys and do some vocals.”

“I play guitar and sing,” Mark added through gritted teeth. “We’ve got another guitar, drummer, and bass.”

“You got any upcoming shows?” Yuta asked.

“We uh, we actually have a recurring slot at Venue:Hell every other week,” you answered. “We rotate out with another band, Roses for Eyes. Our next set is this Thursday, but there’s a special event next month, Retro Rewind.”

Taeyong and Yuta exchanged a confused look before the shop owner spoke up. “Wait, Kun’s place?”

“Yeah, he’s the manager.”

“Have you told him you know about our band?”

You nodded. “He signed my CD.”

“You should’ve brought it,” Mark clicked his tongue regretfully.

“You still have one of our albums?!” Taeyong’s eyes went wide.

“She’s obsessed,” your roommate muttered.

“Shut up, no I’m not,” you hissed back, smacking his arm this time. “You say that like your first electric guitar wasn’t the same kind Taeyong had because you—”

Mark slapped a hand over your mouth. “It’s a good guitar!”

You stuck your tongue out, and he immediately jerked his hand back, wiping it on his pants. “Gross! God knows where that thing was last night. Do I need to get a shot or something?”

“I’m going to shave your head in your sleep.”

You entered the green room just enough to toss your bag onto the couch, then pivoted right around. “Be back!”

“Where are you going?” Jungwoo called after you.

“To piss!”

Walking right past the bathroom, you stopped outside the closed admin office door, knocking on it eagerly.

“If you’re Yangyang, figure it out yourself!” Kun’s annoyed voice rang out from inside.

You poked your head in, offering him a sheepish smile. “Bad time?”

The peeved look on his face faded, and he waved you in with a tired smile. “No, not at all. Perfect timing, actually.”

“Why’s that?” You quietly closed the door behind you, moving to lean against the desk.

“I was stressed out, and seeing you makes me feel better.”

“You’re in the same clothes as when I brought you lunch yesterday,” you observed suspiciously, then looked over at the rumpled pillow and blanket on the futon. “Did you sleep here?”

“We had these back-to-back events—”

“You live a block away!”

“I went home to shower—”

“But you couldn’t grab a change of clothes while you were there? Or sleep there?”

He rubbed the back of his neck guiltily. “Old habits, I guess.”

You tilted your head. “What?”

“After Vizions, when I first got hired, business at the venue wasn’t really great. The owner at the time let me crash here until I could afford my own place.” He stared at the old futon and chuckled, “Turns out the venue was failing because the owner was keeping everything for himself. When the current owners took over, they started paying me a living wage and suddenly I had an apartment and a real mattress.”

“Kun.”

He turned his gaze from the piece of furniture up to you. “Hm?”

“That’s not your life anymore,” you told him firmly. “No shitty boss, no shitty futon, none of that.”

“Ah, you’re right,” he sighed, then a sly smirk creeped across his lips. “I might be more inclined to sleep in my own bed if I had a pretty girl in it, though.”

“A pretty girl?” You echoed pointedly.

“Just one.” Kun picked up your hand to kiss the back of it. “Just you, pretty girl.”

“Are you closing?”

“Mhm. I can give you my key if you don’t want to wait around here after your set.”

“Is it a dance night?”

“Mhm.”

You closed your eyes as you thought, enjoying the feeling of him pressing more kisses to your hand and fingers. “I’ll hang out.”

“Can’t wait.”

When your eyes fluttered open, they landed on the futon again, and your mind was still stuck in that bygone era that Kun had told you about, after his band broke up. You squeezed his hand to get his attention. “I forgot to tell you—Mark and I went to this guitar shop the other day.”

Kun sat up to look at you as you spoke, keeping a gentle hold on your hand. “Oh yeah? He get anything?”

“A new capo, but uh, the shop was actually owned by Yuta.”

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Really?”

“And Taeyong was there too.”

“A two-for-one, huh? Lucky you,” he laughed, easing back into his office chair again. “I think you’re just missing Jaehyun now?”

“Yeah,” you nodded. “Kun, why did you make it sound like your band broke up because you guys didn’t make it? They told us about Jaehyun having kids…”

“It never felt right to me to blame the kids, or even Jaehyun.” Kun ran a hand through his hair.

You frowned. “I don’t think it’s blaming anybody to say that he wanted to be a dad more than he wanted to be a rockstar. That’s just… what being a person is like. One day you want to be one thing, and then something happens and you want to be something else.”

“You make some good points,” he admitted. “I’ve never thought of it like that.”

“Not just a pretty face, hm?” You teased, getting to your feet.

He stood up as well, pecking your cheek. “Never said you were, baby. Beauty and brains, of course.”

You grabbed the back of his neck, pulling his lips to yours. As his mouth moved with yours sweetly, one of his hands cupped your cheek, the cool metal of his rings resting against your skin. A timid knock came at the closed door, and he let out a low groan against your lips. As Kun pulled back to address whoever was at the door, you peppered barely-there kisses along his jaw and neck.

“If you’re Yangyang, fuck off!” He called out, grip tightening on your hip when you nipped just above the collar of his venue crew t-shirt, on the front of his throat.

“No, not Yangyang,” Yangyang replied, his voice garbled as he deepened it in an attempt to disguise it. “Uh, I’m uhm, Sicheng! Yangyang wanted me to ask you about—” He was cut off by a hacking cough, then resumed in his normal voice, though a little strained, “Fuck! God! How does he do that? Felt like I was deepthroating my own tongue! Ugh!”

You burst into laughter, immediately trying to muffle it behind your hands.

“Woah! You got a girl in there, Kun?” His shit-eating grin was audible through the door. “We always joked about what the futon was for, but I didn’t know you got down like that, old man! Do you want me to leave? ‘Cause like—”

“Yes, I would like for you to leave because you are giving me a migraine!” Kun finally cut him off loudly.

“Alright, alright! Don’t need to tell me twice!” Yangyang acquiesced. “Doing this Again is going to start their soundcheck soon, so maybe keep it down? Or don’t, it should actually be the perfect cover for any—”

“Liu Yangyang!”

“Bye!”

Finally, you could hear the sound of his footsteps retreating down the hallway, and lowered your hand from your mouth, letting out a few giggles. Kun wiped his face from forehead to chin, red with anger. You could even spot a vein on his neck that wasn’t always visible.

“I’m going to kill that boy one day,” he swore, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I think I understand vampires now.”

He blinked at you. “What?”

You poked his neck vein. “I get it…”

He grabbed your hand with both of his, bringing it down, away from his neck. “And on that very normal note, pretty girl, you have a soundcheck to do.”

“You love that I’m extremely normal and say very normal things,” you teased, heading towards the door.

Before you could make it, he tugged on your hand, bringing you back into his arms. He dipped his head to attach his lips to your neck, teeth finding a spot that had already been fading. He finished it off with one last tender kiss to the area.

“There,” he murmured. “We can match.”

“I am definitely late for soundcheck now,” you whispered, reaching for the doorknob behind you with one hand even as you pulled him in for one more kiss with the other.

“Have fun, baby.”

With one last peck, you opened the office door and slipped out. Amazingly, you didn’t bump into Yangyang in the hallway. Instead, you quite literally tripped over him turning the corner out of the hallway and into the main floor area.

“Shit! Sorry, Yang!” You apologized as you stumbled over the employee who was squatted down behind the wall.

“Wait, Y/N?!” He didn’t even seem to care that you had just knocked him to the floor, scrambling to get to his feet and follow you as you hurried towards the stage.

The rest of your band was already set up for soundcheck, tuning their instruments and making other tweaks.

“Bathroom’s over there,” Chenle deadpanned into his mic, pointing to the ladies’ room on the opposite side of the floor.

“I peed and then got caught up talking to Kun.” You jumped up onto the stage, grabbing your in-ears and pack that somebody had already gotten out for you. “You see, people can travel from one place to another using these things attached to our torsos called legs.”

Jisung giggled from behind you as Chenle rolled his eyes. Yangyang was still looking between you and the hallway, obviously bewildered.

“You were in there when I was talking to him?” Yangyang asked, face screwed up in confusion.

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“There wasn’t anything for me to say?” You retorted, putting in one of your in-ears. “He was pissed at you, dude.”

“What were you guys talking about?”

“Retro Rewind.”

Jungwoo interrupted, “As thrilling as this play-by-play of Y/N’s conversation with Kun is, we’ve really got to start our soundcheck, Yang.”

“Sorry, yeah.” Yangyang shook his head, jumping over the ropes that served to divide the main floor from the crew-only entrance to backstage. He disappeared behind the curtain, emerging by his sound equipment just off-stage.

“Pizza?” Jisung suggested hopefully as soon as you all stumbled into the green room off the stage.

A chorus of agreeable sounds—varying from cheers to grunts—came from around the room, a new rush of energy pumping through your friends at the mention of food.

You packed your bag, but didn’t put your two cents in on the prospective pizza order. They ended up split on what restaurant to go to, and looked to you to be the tiebreaker.

You held your hands up. “I’m hanging out here. You guys will just have to play rock-paper-scissors or something.”

“You’re staying here?” Jungwoo cocked his head curiously.

“And I won’t be home tonight,” you told Mark specifically.

Mark’s jaw dropped. “He’s here?!”

“Who?” “What?” “Who are you talking about?” “Huh?” The others clambered around you two for a scrap of context.

“Y/N has been seeing a mystery guy who she swears is not an axe murderer, but she refuses to tell me anything about,” your roommate narrowed his eyes at you.

“God, it hasn’t even been a week, and you wonder why I don’t want to tell you anything,” you scoffed.

“Uh, sorry I don’t want you to get axe murdered, dude?”

“If I get axe murdered, you can get up at my funeral and say ‘I told her so.’”

“Come on.” It was surprisingly Chenle who saved you, grabbing Mark’s backpack and yanking him away from you. “I’m hungry and you’re taking too long.”

“Dude!”

Mark flailed as Jungwoo joined in, taking Mark’s hand in his to drag him along too. “Pizza!”

Jisung gave you a quiet wave goodbye as he followed the others, leaving you in a remarkably silent green room. You let out a deep sigh to calm yourself down, then walked out as well. Your bandmates made quick work of hauling Mark out, as you didn’t see or hear any of them when you stepped into the main floor. Keeping close to the wall, you sneaked around to the back office, intending on dropping off your bag before finding Kun. Instead, you found Yangyang in the office, nosing around for something.

“Uh, what are you doing?” You asked, plopping your bag onto the empty office chair.

Yangyang shot to his feet, spinning around to flash you an obviously guilty smile. “Oh, you’re still here.”

“Yeah, I’m hanging out for a bit,” you replied noncommittally. “What are you doing?”

“Close the door?”

You obliged, stepping and shutting the office door behind you. “Okay?”

“Promise not to tell Kun?”

“What are you doing? Booby trapping his office?”

“No, it’s not April Fools yet.”

“You’re going to booby trap his office for April Fools?”

“Pff, no!”

You arched an eyebrow in disbelief. “So what are you doing now?”

“Looking for proof,” he whispered, rubbing his hands together. “I’ve worked here for like three years and the old man’s never had a partner, talked about going on dates, brought anybody around, nothing. Now, in one week, he’s been late to work, come to work with hickeys, had somebody bring him food, has been smiling down at his phone instead of rolling his eyes at it—He’s humming, for fuck’s sake, Y/N! Humming! I’ve never seen him consistently in such a good mood since… ever!”

“Maybe that’s just because you piss him off all the time,” you pointed out.

“But the rest of it!”

“What kind of proof do you think you’re going to find in the office? His diary?” You snorted.

“Ooh, you think?”

You stared at him.

“You’re fucking with me,” he realized. “That’s not funny.”

You were already giggling. “It really is.”

Yangyang pushed the rolling chair out of the way to wake the computer up, cursing when he saw that it was locked.

“Anyway, why are you so pressed about Kun’s love life?” You questioned, watching Yangyang type in wrong password after wrong password.

“Aren’t you curious?” He asked. “I know you haven’t worked here as long, but the man is an enigma. After three years, I feel like I know as much about him as I did on my first day.”

“Have you tried talking to him? Since you’re so curious?”

“Have you?” He retorted, then his face lit up like he’d gotten an idea. He turned away from the computer that he still hadn’t unlocked. “Actually, you do talk to Kun, right? About like, your weekly slot and stuff at least, right?”

“Yeah…?” You answered hesitantly, unsure of where he was going with this.

Yangyang suddenly lunged forward to grab both your hands, smushing them between his as he pleaded with you. “Can you find out for us if he’s seeing anybody? Like, not be super obvious, but try to see if he’ll bring it up? Or say something about them?”

“‘Us?’” You repeated the one word that had caught your attention. “I take it the rest of the crew are in on this too?”

His eyes widened as he seemed to have realized his slip-up, then he grinned. “You’re clever, Kun won’t stand a chance. Thanks!”

“I didn’t say yes!” You yelled after him as he ran out of the office.

With a shake of your head, you walked out of the office as well, quietly shutting the door. Out on the main floor, you milled around for a little bit, ordering a drink from Sicheng at the bar before chatting with a few venue regulars about this and that.

“I’m excited for Retro Rewind,” Sunny, a regular who was a little younger than you, buzzed with excitement, and maybe a bit too much alcohol. “I love seeing you guys and Roses on the same night!” She suddenly gasped. “You should totally do a collab song or something! That would be fucking awesome!”

You laughed, endeared by her enthusiasm as always. “Could be fun. Those guys are pretty cool.”

“Oh my god, don’t look, but he’s totally looking over here!” Tsuki, the other regular that you were talking to, whisper-shouted over the music, grabbing her friend’s arm.

Sunny immediately whipped her head around rather obviously. You also peered around a bit more inconspicuously, curious as to who they were talking about. Sunny must have spotted whoever it was, as she squeaked and ducked her head again. The only person you met eyes with was Kun, who had finally stopped running around and was now calmly watching over the crowd from the back wall. You gave him a little smile before turning back to the two squealing girls in front of you.

“What’s going on?” You asked, swirling your drink around in your glass then taking a sip.

“Sunny thinks the manager is cute,” Tsuki giggled, much to the chagrin of her friend, who belatedly smacked a hand over her mouth.

You choked on the sip that you had just taken, barely avoiding snorting it back out your nose. Thumping yourself on the chest, you managed to swallow it down instead of doing a spit take all over the patrons. Tsuki only laughed even harder as Sunny covered her face.

“You didn’t have to laugh that much,” Sunny whined.

“Sorry, sorry,” you apologized quickly. “Not laughing, just uh, just went down the wrong pipe.”

“She’s just sensitive because I like to tease her about how she comes to a music venue and doesn’t even look at any of the acts, she looks at the manager,” Tsuki explained.

“It’s called practicality!” Sunny huffed, then looked at you hopefully. “Is he single? Do you know?”

“W-Well…” You stammered, trying to figure out what the hell you were even supposed to say right now.

“Oh, he’s totally like, married with five kids or something,” Tsuki snickered, making Sunny even more distraught.

“He doesn’t have a wedding ring!” Sunny argued.

Finally, you decided to go with, “He’s seeing someone.” At the way the girl’s face immediately fell, you awkwardly added, “Sorry, Sunny…”

Tsuki wrapped an arm around her shoulders as Sunny mumbled, “‘S fine, he wasn’t even that cute.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” her friend murmured supportively, patting her on the head. Tsuki looked up at you with a knowing smile. “I think we’re going to get another drink. Thanks for hanging out with us, Y/N.”

“You’re really fucking cool,” Sunny sighed, squeezing your hand as she let Tsuki guide her away.

Skimming your eyes over the crowd, you made eye contact with Kun again, still monitoring the room. You slid off your stool at the bar and shouldered your way through the crowd until you could sidle right up next to him. Leaning back against the wall, you propped up one foot, taking another sip of your drink and watching the crowd too.

“Found Yangyang snooping through the office earlier,” you informed him.

Kun groaned, letting his head drop back against the concrete wall with a thunk. “Do I need to check my chair for thumbtacks now or some shit?”

“That’s what I thought too, but you’re safe until April Fools.”

“So what was he doing today?”

“Looking for proof that you’re seeing someone.”

“And did he find any?”

“Nope. Well, technically yes, since I was in there, but he didn’t realize it,” you said with a grin. “He recruited me to try to covertly get information about it from you.”

“Kid’s a fucking idiot.”

“Not completely, the reasons he gave as to why he thinks you’re seeing someone were pretty observant.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Let’s see… Hickeys, you’ve been late to work, had a mysterious person bring you food, and are apparently smiling at your phone and humming.” You listed them off on the fingers of one hand. “I think if he doesn’t find proof of you seeing someone, Yang is going to start doomsday prepping.”

He rolled his eyes. “He needs a hobby.”

“Maybe he should take up crochet or something.”

“Anything to keep him out of my business.” Kun crossed his arms over his chest. “Is everything okay with those regulars you were talking to?”

“Sunny and Tsuki?” You tried to find them in the crowd, spotting them sitting in stools that they had scooted together at the bar, Sunny already looking much livelier again. “Yeah, I think she’ll be fine.”

“Good. What was it? Too much to drink?”

“Probably a little of that.” You leaned in towards him, your shoulder pressing against his as you lowered your voice, “She asked me if you were single.”

“Wait, really?” Puffs of air washed over your cheek as he chuckled.

“What are you laughing about?”

“Sorry—What did you say?” There was still a curl of humor in his tone.

“I said you were seeing someone.” You squinted at him as he started laughing again. “What?”

“Not laughing at you, baby, sorry,” he said through chuckles, his hand that was closer to the wall sneaking under your jacket and pulling you closer by the hip. “Just thinking about how many guys have asked me or the other staff about you. It’s kinda funny that it happened to you.”

“Oh? And what did you tell them?”

“That it’s against our policy to give out private information on our talent, of course.”

“Ooh, how professional,” you teased, biting on your straw.

“I am nothing if not a professional,” he smiled, thumb running over the skin just above your waistband.

You checked the time. “Only half an hour left.”

“Counting the minutes, pretty girl?”

“Until I’ve got you all to myself? Shamelessly.”

“Me too.” He looked at his watch. “Twenty-nine minutes.”

You let out a melodramatic sigh, looking around at where the other venue staff were. There was no line at the merch counter, Ten scrolling on his phone with his feet kicked up. “I’m going to go bother Ten for a bit. I’m afraid this drink is starting to taste like I should kiss you stupid right now.”

Kun tightened his hold on your hip, reaching for your drink. “Can I?”

You let him take the half-empty glass. He shook it first, the ice cubes clinking around, then he drank from the rim. A small sip, then another one. He tilted his head back and forth, humming thoughtfully before nodding, “You’re right. It does taste like that.”

That was all the permission you needed, grabbing his face with two hands and eagerly connecting your lips. He still tasted like your slightly sweet drink, and you greedily took kiss after kiss, biting down on his bottom lip. Kun groaned softly into your mouth, letting his thumb dip below your waistband then back up. Your head was spinning as your blood roared in your ears and you wished he’d just drop the fucking drink to have both hands on you, shattered glass and spilled alcohol be damned.

To his credit, he didn’t drop the glass, even when you suddenly pushed him back against the wall, kissing the column of his throat instead. When you lightly bit at an unmarred spot, he hissed and laughed, pinching your side.

“You were serious about that vampire thing, huh?” He teased. “Menace.”

“Who, me?” You asked innocently, taking the drink back and finishing it off.

He chuckled, using two hands on your hips to turn the two of you around, pressing you back against the wall now. Your free hand bunched the fabric of the front of his shirt, pulling his mouth to yours again. Kun had just grabbed your chin with one hand, tongue entwining with yours, when you felt him suddenly turn away from you. You instinctually whined at the loss, trying to pull at his shoulder as your eyes fluttered open, pout already forming on your kiss-swollen lips.

“—just can’t play grab-ass here, guys.” You caught the tail-end of what Yangyang was saying as he seemed to be giving some pre-rehearsed spiel, his eyes squeezed closed as he talked. Once he was finished, he opened his eyes, immediately jumping back as he registered who exactly he was talking to, “Jesus Christ! Ahh! What the hell?! What the fuck?!”

“Shut up.” Kun scowled at him.

“No?!” Yangyang replied indignantly. “What are you doing?!”

“Telling you to shut up.”

“Y/N!” The sound tech looked at you next, horrified. “You really want to do this?”

“Excuse me?” Kun snorted.

“Kun, come on dude, you’re better than this—”

“Excuse me?!” You pushed past Kun, fully intending on giving Yangyang a shiner.

Kun held you back, but you could tell that he was getting pissed too. “Yangyang, what exactly do you think is going on?”

“You’re cheating on your new girl with Y/N!” Yangyang gestured wildly. “Y/N, I totally thought you were a girl’s girl, by the way—”

“Shut up!” Kun yelled, loud enough that a few patrons even looked over. He glared at his employee, “You’re an idiot. I’m not cheating on anybody with Y/N.”

His face screwed up with confusion. “So you’re not seeing anybody? Then what was all—”

“It’s me!” You finally blurted out. “He’s seeing me! We’re seeing each other! Fucking Christ, Yang, you saw us making out and can’t process that?”

Yangyang blinked at you. “But he’s so… old?”

This time you had to grab Kun’s arm to keep him from doing something, and the sound tech skittered back a couple more steps.

“Go away, Yangyang,” Kun demanded sharply.

“God, can’t believe the couple Ten asked me to break up was you guys,” he shuddered, walking off.

You and Kun exchanged a knowing look. “Definitely not a coincidence…” You scoffed.

Looking back to the merch counter, you saw Ten wiping tears from his undereye, still laughing as he held onto the counter for stability.

“Does Ten have a car?” You asked.

“Yes, why?”

“I want to key it.”

Kun laughed, wrapping an arm around your waist and resting his chin on your shoulder. “As fun as that would be, how about I schedule him and Yangyang for back-to-back closing-opening shifts for a full week next month instead?”

“Oh, boo.” You let out a huff, leaning back against him affectionately. “Vandalism and property damage would’ve been so cathartic.”

He kissed your cheek apologetically. “I know, baby, I’m sorry.”

You were gently pulled out of sleep by a quiet tune and fingertips skimming over your forearm. Yawning, you squinted an eye open, watching Kun’s fingers trace the lines of your tattoos. With your mind still foggy with sleep, you listened to what he was humming.

“Hey…” You mumbled, shifting onto your back.

“Hey,” he repeated humorously, pressing a soft kiss to your temple.

“You were humming it again.” You rubbed your eye.

“Did I wake you up? Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. That song…” You frowned. “It’s not from somewhere?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Hm.” You repeated the tune, your throat a little scratchy this early in the morning. “It’s nice.”

“You think?”

Rolling over, you buried your face in the crook of his neck. “Mhm.”

Kun rested a hand on your back. “Your phone was going off, by the way. You were still sleeping, I put it on silent, hope you don’t mind.”

You let out a big sigh, blindly reaching out towards the nightstand where your phone was. He grabbed it for you, placing it in your seeking hand. Turning your head just enough to see your phone screen, you saw three missed calls from Mark and a text.

“He better be dead,” you groaned. “Or I’m going to kill him.”

Opening the text, you saw that it was only one word, and from around two a.m., several hours before the phone calls.

[mark: KUN????????????????????????????]

[you: wrong number?]

You decided that you’d call him back if he didn’t text back in ten minutes.

That determination was useless, however, as he almost immediately called you. You declined it, texting him instead.

[you: DUDE are you fucking dying or something??]

[mark: the axe murderer is KUN????????]

[you: did yangyang text the whole venue gc or smth???]

[you: also he’s not an axe murderer jfc]

Another incoming call, which you once again declined.

[you: im going to block you if you keep calling me]

[mark: ARE YOU WITH HIM RN?!!!!?!??!?!?!]

[you: girl where tf else would i be? i told you i wasn’t coming home]

[mark: ok i did a few calming breaths]

[mark: idk what ur talking abt w yangyang but we figured it out at pizza last night. chenle saw ur FRESH HICKEY AFTER COMING OUT OF KUNS OFFICE]

[you: i hate to sound like my parents rn but maybe u guys actually should get real jobs and leave me tf alone]

[you: average unemployed friend behavior tbh]

[mark: bro the call is coming from inside the unemployment office??]

[you: actually it’s coming from kun’s bed rn xx]

Finally, your phone was silent, and you harshly dropped it back onto the nightstand. You only had a few moments of peace before a different ringer was going off. Letting out a guttural groan, you smushed your face into your pillow as Kun reached over you to grab his phone.

“Morning, Mark,” he answered, sounding very amused.

Your head snapped up automatically, eyes going wide with fear at whatever the hell your friend was saying. Kun rested one of his hands behind his head as he leaned back against his headboard, listening with interest.

“Oh, I thought you had a question about work,” he said with a grin. “You know, it’s against our policy to give out private information about our talent.”

You covered your face with your hands, shaking your head.

“Mhm, see you, Mark.”

As Kun set his phone back down, you lamented into your palms, “So much for keeping it private at first.”

“Yeah, I think we forfeited that last night,” he reminded you, pressing a kiss to your shoulder.

You took your face out of your hands to properly argue. “Not my fault you looked like that.”

“I thought it was the drink?”

“Mm, both.”

He chuckled. “Anyway, did I mention that I’m off today?”

“All day?” You looked at him hopefully.

“All day,” he confirmed. “I don’t have to be back at the venue until tomorrow night.”

“We’re practicing our Retro Rewind set later, but other than that, I’m free today too.” You beamed. “Can we go somewhere?”

“Somewhere?”

You shrugged. “I don’t know. Somewhere other than the venue or your apartment.”

“I do have some errands to run…” Kun mused. “Groceries, the laundromat, I have a package to drop off at the post office—”

“No, I mean like a real date!”

“There we go, just wanted you to use your words, baby,” he snickered, pinching your bottom lip. “You’re pouting.”

“You’re being mean to me.” You rolled onto your back, your elbows getting tired from propping up your head for that long.

“Aw, I’m sorry.” He leaned down to kiss you. “Get dressed, I know where to take you.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Not the grocery store, laundromat, or post office?”

“A real date, I promise.”

The destination Kun had in mind was apparently within walking distance, as the two of you took off down the sidewalks hand-in-hand.

“So what’s your day job?” He asked.

You weren’t expecting that. “What?”

“What do you do when you’re not doing music? You know, to pay rent and stuff?”

“Oh, I work with a temp agency and a babysitting agency. Picking up gigs here and there, you know?”

He almost seemed amused. “Really?”

“Yeah.” You touched your nose jewelry habitually. “I know I don’t look like your average office worker or childcare professional, but I clean up good, okay? Take out the nose ring and eyebrow piercing, put on some longsleeves, they never know. That’s why I don’t dye my hair crazy colors.”

“What sort of places have you temped at?”

“Lots of different places.” You hummed as you thought through a brief list of the various businesses that you’d worked at. “I usually do their filing, answer phones, that kind of stuff. I’m really only there for a few weeks at a time. I think the longest place I worked at was for… three or four months? That was actually at a music studio, so it was pretty cool.”

“Meet anybody cool?”

“There were some big names that came through. I got everyone’s coffee.” You shook your head, then looked at Kun curiously. “Have you ever thought about working somewhere other than the venue?”

“Oh, plenty of times,” he sighed. His face turned contemplative as he went on to admit, “I didn’t tell you the whole truth before. I tried to get back into songwriting and composing dozens of times over the years. I tried everything, every process out there, every tip and trick I could find—nothing. I couldn’t even remix our old tracks into something palatable. The staff at the venue only know I used to play the keyboard because when I finally gave up, I sold mine to Dejun.”

You couldn’t help the frown on your face when he described the creative block he had faced. “When was that?”

“Three, maybe four years ago now?” He seemed much less perturbed by it than you, like he had long accepted his fate. “I like working at the venue because I like being in the scene, even if I can’t contribute anything new to it.”

“That tune that you’ve been humming—”

“—Is not going to go anywhere. That happened before. I would think I had something, but as soon as I sat down to write, nothing,” he insisted calmly. “It’s fine.”

“So you just… got rid of everything?”

“It’s not like I denounced music forever,” he chuckled, squeezing your hand. “Just changed my focus.”

You thought about your own band, about all the half-written songs in your notes that you were working on, the demos you had recorded on your phone that you hoped to release someday. Would you let it all go one day too?

“We’re here,” Kun announced, gesturing to the business you had found yourself in front of.

“Mini golf?” You strained to read the faded sign.

“Unless it’s not good enough. I mean, I’ve got a long list of things that aren’t the post office…”

“No, Kun, this is perfect,” you laughed. “Let’s do it.”

“Great.” He smiled, pecking your cheek before grabbing the front door for you.

Tonight was Retro Rewind, and the venue was abuzz with excitement. Doing this Again! was opening, and you were on stage waiting for the rest of your band to join you for your soundcheck. The staff were all bustling around getting set up, and you were at your keyboard, absorbed in your own world as you played around with a tune that had been stuck in your head.

Kun slowed to a stop in front of you, taking his headset off to listen with fascination. “That’s…”

“The tune you were humming. Plus some other stuff,” you confirmed, pausing your playing for the moment. “I figured since you weren’t going to do anything with it… I started messing around with it.” You jerked your head for him to join you. “C’mere.”

He obliged, hopping up on stage and letting you drag him behind your keyboard with you as you explained your idea. “I think it’ll be better layered. Can you play it an octave down?”

To your relief and delight, he didn’t argue, hands immediately finding familiar places on the keys to your left. As both of you started playing, you listened carefully.

“Mm… A step down?” You requested, and he immediately complied. You grinned. “Hell yeah.”

“And then it’s…” He trailed off as he followed your lead into the part that you had added onto his tune, playing it entirely by ear.

“Mhm, and then I was thinking you repeat and I would—”

He did as you said, repeating the melody as you added even more on top, making him absolutely beam. “Alright!”

“But then I get stuck there.” You frowned and took your hands off the keys. “On the bridge.”

“That little flair you had going…” Kun said carefully. “If you slowed it down, and dropped it a full octave…” He played a portion of your part again on his half of the keyboard exactly as he had described. “Could be something.”

“Play it again?”

“Mm?” He made an indicative noise as he went to do so.

You listened and contemplated it, slowly nodding. “Yeah, I liked that. Really moody.”

“You got any lyrics yet?”

“Nah, just messin’ with it.” You started from the beginning again. “If that’s alright with you. I was planning on having more to show you when I asked your permission to make a real song with your tune.”

Kun blinked at you, his hands sliding off the keys and hanging by his sides as he stared at you with wonder. “You really… want to?”

“Yeah, of course.” Your head bounced to the beat as you skipped to the moody bridge that he had just suggested. “I really like this, the more I hear it. That was a good—ack!”

Discordant notes rang out as Kun had surprised you by throwing his arms around you. You took a step back to stay upright, wrapping your arms around him too, rubbing his back.

“Uh, hi?” You murmured uncertainly.

“Yes, you have my permission. I-I’d be over the moon.” He cupped your cheeks, eyes sparkling as he looked at you. “God, you’re so perfect, baby.”

You let out a sputtering laugh, ducking your head as your face heated up from his adoring gaze. “Kun, fucking hell, you’ve got to warn me.”

“You never warn me.”

“Before doing what?”

“This.”

“Eh?!” You made an indignant noise, looking around at your general demeanor. “What am I doing? Breathing?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Okay, I can’t warn you every time I breathe.”

He snickered, giving you a quick peck. You huffed, immediately leaning back in for another, longer kiss, hooking one arm around his neck.

Giving a final wave to the audience, you ran off the stage arm-in-arm with Jungwoo, laughing and grinning madly. Your bandmates all followed, hugging and cheering. You all couldn’t take up space there for too long though as the next act got ready to go on. You hastily gave Roses for Eyes your best before heading further backstage. Chenle, Jungwoo, and Mark packed up their instruments and idly chatted with a couple of the acts that were hanging out in the cramped space. Everybody was sharing what instruments they could, meaning that the drumset and keyboard were staying onstage, which made yours and Jisung’s lives a bit easier.

“We’re gonna go catch some of Roses’ set,” Mark announced to the room in general, tapping your arm in a silent indication for you to join the rest of them. A few of the other performers who wouldn’t be going on until later got up as well, and you fell into the group too.

When you got backstage, however, your eyes were habitually searching for someone, and you quietly slipped away. The office door was thrown open as soon as you got to it, and a breathless smile came to Kun’s face when he saw you.

“Hey, I wanted to catch you when you came off stage, but there were way too many people.” He pecked your forehead. “You did so good, baby.”

“Thanks.” You kissed him on the lips. “Do you have time to watch RFE’s set? Or—”

“Hey, sorry.” Ten’s head poked around the corner into the hallway. He pointed over his shoulder into the main room. “Uh, these guys are saying they know you?”

Kun offered you an apologetic look, stepping past you down the hall. “Sorry, everyone says they know the manager. I’ll be—”

“Not you.”

With Ten’s gaze focused on you, you pointed to yourself in surprise. “Me?”

He nodded. You exchanged a confused glance with Kun, but as soon as you saw one of their heads poking over Ten’s shoulder, your jaw dropped.

“Nono, it’s fine, Ten,” you informed him hastily. He stepped aside to let the gaggle of men in.

Kun was possibly even more baffled than you. “What are you guys doing here?”

“We were invited,” Yuta informed him with a wide grin, gesturing to you.

“Oh my god, I didn’t think you’d actually come!” You bounced up and down with excitement, hugging him, then Taeyong, who was still in his kindly teacher attire.

Taeyong directed your attention to a figure at the back of the group. “We brought somebody.”

The man went to introduce himself, “Hey, I’m—”

“Jaehyun! Ah, sorry!” You slapped a hand over your mouth, thoroughly embarrassed.

“They said you might do that.” Jaehyun smirked, offering you a hand to shake. “It’s really nice to meet you, Y/N. You were awesome up there.”

“Thank you. It’s so cool to meet you.”

“Good to see you again, Y/N.” Johnny squeezed past Jaehyun to wrap you in a bearhug.

“Johnny! Hey!” Your greeting turned in a squeal of surprise as he lifted you off the ground. “Woah!”

Kun cleared his throat, appraising eye scanning over his former bandmates. “And uh, any particular reason I wasn’t told about this reunion?”

“We wanted to surprise you!” Taeyong explained as Johnny put you back down.

“Well, you succeeded,” Kun chuckled and crossed his arms, but you could tell that his smile didn’t reach his eyes, his gaze locked on where Johnny’s hand lingered on your back.

Giving Johnny one last friendly pat on the arm, you stepped back over to Kun’s side, eyes shining as you looked them all over. “Seriously, this is so cool. When was the last time you were all together?”

They looked at each other as they thought. Jaehyun asked, “It was probably for Juju’s birthday, right?” There were murmurs of agreement, and Jaehyun gave you a firm nod. “So, yeah, a couple months ago for my daughter’s fifth.”

“We’re going out after this, you guys should totally come!” You offered.

“Oh, your band?” Yuta surmised.

“The home team; us, Roses, some of the crew…” You trailed off, your eyes widening as soon as you realized your mistake. You winced as you turned to Kun, “Sorry, is that gonna be okay? I wasn’t thinking—”

“It’s fine,” he reassured you, wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you closer. “They all need something new to talk about anyway.”

The others exchanged a knowing look, Yuta pointing at Kun with a smile. “Mystery guy, I presume?”

“Wh—Ugh, you seriously remember that?” You groaned as Taeyong giggled behind his hand.

Kun glanced between the three of you, confusion apparent. “What?”

“When Mark and I went to his shop, Mark was freaking out about the ‘mystery guy’ I was seeing,” you explained. “I can’t believe you guys remember that.”

“You two were funny.” Yuta shrugged.

“Anyway, I think Roses for Eyes started their set,” Johnny cut in. “The drummer is one of my clients and I told him I would watch.”

Everyone acquiesced, starting to filter out of the cramped hallway and back to the main floor. You laced your fingers with Kun’s, making sure to not lose him in the crowd. He squeezed your hand back, following your lead.

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hannamoon143 · 5 days ago

Text

You drew stars around my scars ✮⋆˙

Life is hard. Some people don't know how to cope with that. Some people just try to feel mentally better by causing physical pain instead. How ironical, isn't it? Oh but bless you, that lee felix is in your life. Because this man never misses a thing.⋆｡°✩

Genre:Angst,Hurt/comfort

Warnings:Sh,a bit childhood trauma, Depression, Crying, mentions of food,mentions of bad eating habits

Lee felix x fem.Reader

Words: 3,9k

a/n: hey everyone<33 To write this fic brought me some comfort too, and it's healing me a bit more everytime i can use my own experiences,emotions and thoughts to write something that comforts others too, and relate to y/n a lot. And i know i'm not the only one, so i hope this can bring everyone that reads it a bit comfort. And pls always remember what of a beautiful person you are. Hurting yourself is never ever the only solution. If you need someone to talk, reach out to someone, anyone, also me if you don't have anyone. I'd rather have literally any person cry for hours in my arms, or vent to me in my dm's than have them hurt their own bodies, that always supports them. Everything felix says in that fic is true, and they r my own thoughts about this. I love you all, take care of yourselves.<3

Depression takes a lot from you. It takes your motivation, productivity, the will to socialize, and your happiness. It’s unfair isn’t it? Little, happy children become tired, broken adults.

People always think depression is something where you sit in your bed the whole day and cry. Well that is half true. Yes, there are days like that, but that’s far not everything. The worst are those dull days, when you feel entirely numb, but your life has to go on anyways. No joy in your heart, and no tears in your eyes. Just a big nothing in your mind.

After a while you figure it out though. It’s always those numb episodes, until every emotion you thought didn’t exist the days before, crashes down on you. And it’s overwhelming. Every.single.time.

But what if you’d find something that could ‚help‘ you? Something that brought you pain and relief at the same time? That made you feel alive, in the numb episodes and distracted you from the pain in the days where you broke down? The price was just your beautiful skin, and blood...

A problem was though, once you’d start, it would be very hard to stop again. But why should you anyways? Why should you stop when it was the only thing seemingly bringing you comfort for some short time?

It started off by you, picking at your skin absimendtly whenever you felt anxious, or when you just didn’t pay attention. It felt relieving. It was the burning pain when you scatched on your skin so hard it was slightly bloody, making you feel like your feelings actually mattered. And then that one night. That night everything crashed down on you. Your friends wanted nothing to do with you anymore, the few you had before, cut contact. You couldn’t even be mad at them. Who wouldn’t be annoyed by someone who constantly cancelled plans, and gave off a „depressing, annoying attitude“? Well these were their words. Oh but you saw it coming. All the overthinking in the middle of the night, those worst case scenarios, they had come true.

And your family? You never had a healthy relationship with them. So now, that you were grown up, the contact was almost entirely dead. And yeah, there was your boyfriend felix, but you’d never burden him with your problems. He already had enough on his mind with the world tour and all the new released albums, of the band he was in.

And that was it. No one there that you could reach out to, no one to comfort you, when your heart and mind were breaking into millions of glass splitters. Every person reaches their breaking point someday. And that day was yours. You remembered the night clearly. You were sitting on the bathroom floor, crying out all the emotion you had been holding in for too long. You had no friends anymore. No family. And pretty sure soon no boyfriend too. Nothing to hold onto.

Then you reached out to a drawer. You didn’t really register what you were doing as you took it out. A simple, silver blade. A little cut on your wrist. A line of crimson red blood on your skin.

At first you were terrified. What had you done? Why weren’t you affected by the stinging pain on your wrist, and the blood building in the small cut? Why did it in fact feel good? And then you decided to try it again, just to answer those questions right?

That’s where it started.

You knew you had depression. But going to a therapist? You were scared, probably too lazy, and you could never tell all your problems to a complete stranger. And most of all you didn’t want felix to worry either. He was the only one left, and soon he would surely leave too. He was the sweetest, sunny person on this earth, he deserved someone that matched his energy, and wasn’t so… hard to love.

Every single task felt like a hard, impossible chore. Getting out of your bed felt like doing the unbelievable. Doing the most simple things like showering, or brushing your teeth seemed so far away, that you could only master them on your best days. Some days, you went to work, did everything you had to, with a straight, stoic face. That was until you came home, laid into your bed, and silent tears would build wet spots on your pillow.

But somedays, even crying seemed too overwhelming. All you could do was lay in your dark room, staring at the wall. It was just the darkness and you, and somewhere in your mind, a voice whispering that it would help to cut...

And then there were these rare days, on which you felt almost too overwhelmed. It were those days you came home, and added another scar to the gallery of them on your arms. You questioned your life on these days. Because truly, you didn’t see a reason why you should be here right now. No, you weren’t proud of it. But who was there to stop you? Why should you quit if it was the only thing keeping you sane right now? When it was only the stinging pain who could make you slip out of the monotone haze in your mind, for at least a little bit time.

But it would be stupid to assume felix didn’t notice something was off. Lee felix was a pure person. Someone who could make even the rainiest days shine bright. And he cared about the people he loved more than anything else.

When you started cancelling plans it was already alarming for him. You were someone who never cancelled plans with him. You were usually a happy person, someone who made jokes that were actually funny. Someone who made him laugh with your little quirks, that he noticed over time. Someone who comforted him when he felt bad. And most of all you were the most excited person when you two would meet up. You never missed to tell him how much you loved him, that he was your happy person, and your comfort person.

That was before

Before suddenly everything stopped. He rarely got to see your beautiful face now anymore. You took a long time to respond to his texts, and when you did, they were short, and dry. This didn’t feel like you. Felix knew you. And that wasn’t you. This wasn’t the happy girl he met. And he surely wasn’t planning on letting things go like this forever. Something wasn’t right. And no matter what you said or did, to try and get away from him, and shut everything out, he would stay by your side. He would find out what was wrong and do everything possible in this world to make you feel like yourself again.

It was another day today. Another number on the calendar. You stopped looking at it. It didn’t matter anyways. Those were just numbers on paper, and they would never change anything. So you dragged yourself out of bed, feeling even heavier than usual. Like a zombie you just quickly got dressed, not even registering what you were wearing, and drank a mug of coffee. It would make you feel a bit more awake for at least a few hours. Eating breakfast had become impossible in the last few weeks. You were barely eating anything the whole day, to be honest. Sometimes, you just couldn’t stand up and make yourself something. But most times, you just didn’t feel hungry.

You went your usual way to work. At the bus, you took a short glance at your phone. You used to be on your phone a lot for the silliest things, but now you hated it. You hated the brightness, and that everytime you looked at it you had to interact with others. And the worst was, it remdinded you of what you had lost. The spark you had in your eyes on photos from a long time ago.

Something popped up on the screen

A message from felix. Of course. He messaged you every single day. You couldn’t ignore him, no matter how shitty felt, you couldn’t bring yourself to ignore him. So you opened it.

Hey sunshine<3How are you today? I thought of maybe grabbing some takeout and watching a movie together tonight, since i have off early! I’ll even let you pick one of those cheesy romcoms you love so much. Love u^^

You sighed. He was still so sweet, so caring, when he should be really annoyed, right? His girlfriend was a walking zombie, why didn’t he already break up with you?

Hey lix, sorry no time today.

Then you quickly put your phone away. You couldn’t stand thinking of his lips turning into that sad pout, when he’d read your answer. But you couldn’t meet him. You didn’t care how stubborn that was, but you wouldn’t let him see you like this. He would see right through you, and get you to tell him what was wrong.

You stopped making excuses someday. Who even cared? Sooner or later he’d leave, just like your friends. No lame excuses would matter then. Someone like you was unlovable. And that would never change.

As felix read your response he sighed.

That was enough. He wouldn’t let your relationship carry on like that. He wouldn’t let you carry on like that. Something was clearly wrong and he wouldn’t stand so far away and watch you slowly shut down from the entire world. Not anymore. Tonight he would come to your apartment, if you wanted to or not.

You didn’t remember what you did throughout the day. When you tried to recall it, there were only hazy memories, covered in a grey, thick fog. You didn’t even remember how you came home. Everything just happened. Now, you were walking through your apartment door, kicking off your shoes and coat. With a deep sigh, you dragged yourself to the bathroom. You shut the door, immediately sinking down on the floor. You were exhausted. More than that. The past days, or maybe even weeks you had held everything in more than usual. You felt like passing out right then and there, on the cold bathroom tiles. But there was something else. You knew that feeling. When you would have spent too many days in numbness, then at one point, every emotion, everything you thought wasn’t there before, creeps up in your throat from the depths of your soul. You feel the grieve, the sadness, the anger, the guilt, every single emotion crashing down on you at once. And then you can’t stop it anymore.

Tears started to well up in your eyes, and you pulled your knees up for a bit comfort.

These were the moment you hated the most, besides the numbness. Being numb is uneblievably tiring, but when all the feelings, everything comes up at once, that is even worse. You never knew how to deal with your emotions well. When you were a kid you never got the chance to express emotions. Crying was not allowed. If you did, you’d hear „ Stop it, or i’ll give you a reason to cry.“ If you screamed or hit out of anger you’d get punished in some way. Only a polite smile was, what was allowed to show on the outside, what to show to other people. That was probably part of the reason why you’d grown into a person who had these unhealthy, shitty habits, instead of expressing and coping with their emotions well.

You knew you should just let it pass. Endure these feelings. Maybe text someone to try and distract yourself. But somehow, you always went back to drowning out emotions with physical pain. You took the sharp blade from the bathroom drawer, your hands going unbelievable shaky like they always did when you took it out. You only started to cry more. You hated that you did it. You hated that you were a person that couldn’t handle their own feelings like a responsible adult, and had to shut them out with self harming instead. And still you did it again and again. You hated the way your arm looked when you put your sleeve up now. White lines from old cvts. Slightly reddish ones from some that happened some time ago. And those brightred ones. Reminders of not too long ago. They made you so angry. Reminding you of who you were. Of what you were.

So you decided to look away. You just put the blade to your wrist, looking at the blank bathroom wall. It was already so familiar, you knew where it would hurt the most without even looking.

Felix was searching around his apartment for that gray hoodie you wanted to have everytime you saw him wearing it. Maybe it would cheer you a bit up. As he finally found it, he grabbed the brownies he had made for you earlier, and his keys, heading out his apartment, to head to yours instead.

He started his car. It was a short drive so there was not much time for thinking. But there were some thoughts in the back of his head. Wasn’t he overstepping? You clearly didn’t want to see him, maybe you were also just annoyed?

But felix shook those voices off. He knew you. He had known you for years, and this wasn’t you. He had to do this.

And then he was already at your apartment. Slowly he got out of the car, taking the things, and started to walk up the stairs.

Soon he was in front of your door. Should he knock? He knew where your spare key was but he didn’t want to be respectless. So he softly knocked on the door.

„Y/n? It’s me, felix. I know you didn’t want to meet, but… i was worried. Can we talk please, my love?“

He waited for a minute. But there was no answer. Maybe you really weren’t at home? He decided to just try it. To his surprises the door was unlocked. That meant you were home, but also why would you let your door stay unlocked? He sighed, and locked it from the inside. He quietly took off his shoes, and put them on the side. Yours were scattered messily on the floor, and your coat too. Usually you hated when something in your apartment wasn’t organized. Maybe you were in a hurry before. He went into the kitchen, wich was dark, putting the brownies on the counter. „Y/n?“ he softly called out again. Still no answer.

But there, suddenly he heard something. A quiet, mumbling or...crying? His brows furrowed and he tried to follow the sound. There. In the bathroom. It seemed like you didn’t hear him calling you. At first he considered just going back to your kitchen and waiting there for you to come out, but when he heard another deep sob from you, he knew what to do. Whatever was going on right now, he wanted to be by your side. So he took a deep breath and opened the door.

„Y/N, what is g-“ His eyes widened in shock, and your head perked up immediately at the door clicking open, your gaze changing from surprise, to confusion, to somewhat realization and guilt. The sight in front of him horrified him. His beautiful, lovely girlfriend sat on the bathroom floor, her face red and puffy from crying, and a sharp blade in her hand. And your arm… How couldn’t he notice? He just stood there, in the door, staring at you.

You couldn’t read his face. Was he mad…? Of course he’d be mad. You quickly reacted as you got to your senses again. You jumped up, letting the blade fall, and a drop of blood dropping down on your white bathroom tiles.

„Felix…. I can explain, i h-haven’t, it’s not what it looks like o-okay? I’m okay, p-please i know you’re mad but-“

You got cut off. You couldnt’t even say anything more, because suddenly you were wrapped up tightly in your boyfriend’s comforting, warm embrace. You forgot how good a hug from him felt… And when you got a little glance at his face that was it. No anger, no twisted kind of any emotion against you. There was pure sympathy and love. When you also saw a tear rolling down his face, you couldn’t take it anymore. You buried your face in his neck, and let go. You sobbed uncontrollably, your arms and legs trembling so much, to the point your knees gave in, and felix slowly sank to the ground with you. Why did the cvts on your arms suddenly really hurt for the first time? He had you pulled on his lap, rocking you back and forth, stroking your hair gently. „Shhh, it’ll be alright. I’m here now, you are not alone.“

Good thirty minutes later, your sobbing had stopped, and only warm paths of tears remained on your cheeks. Felix lifted your head from his neck a bit, so he could look into your eyes. Though you had just cried your heart out, it was still the most mesmerizing pair of eyes he had seen in his life. He gently tucked a strand of hair behind your ear.

„Let me treat those, okay?“ He simply said, glancing at your cuts.

He was gentle. He desinfected every single cut, apologizing every time you hissed at the sharp pain. Then he put some healing ointment on your fresh ones, and some at your older ones too. Then, with gentle, calm hands he bandaged your arms. He ended his treament with featherlight kisses on them. Then he got up, helping you up too. He had his hands on your side, his eyes on your face.

„Love…I won’t ever judge you, or get mad at you for anything, i hope you know that okay? I know that this is probably your way to cope with things, and i know that you know it’s not healthy. But it’s okay. Please just promise me, you will come to me instead of doing that, from now on hm? Everytime you want to do it you call me, text me, whatever. I’d rather have you crying in my arms for hours, venting to me for hours, you screaming at me, or do whatever you need to, than have you hurt and bleeding entirely alone on the floor. I’ll come over, and do whatever i need to, to cheer you up alright? And don’t shut me out from your life. I want to be a part again. I miss the way you’d text me when you see something that makes you smile. Or when you send me pics of the cute cats you saw on the sidewalk. Or when you just simply tell me about your day. And most important of all, i’ll stay by your side okay? No matter what. I will do everything to help you recover, and build up your life in a way that makes you happy okay? Let me help you sunshine. You don’t need to do it all alone.No matter how hard it in the past was, I’m here now, and I don’t plan on leaving soon.“

Tears welled up in your eyes again, but this time you smiled at him. „Okay lixie. Okay. I’ll try.“

Then he softly smiled at you, and guided you to your livingroom, where he made you sit on the couch. He rushed off to the kitchen, and was soon back again with a plate of brownies and his gray hoodie. „It seems like you didn’t eat much lately, you’ve been getting a bit too skinny, love. But don’t worry, now i’m here to feed you with everything you want to eat. You don’t need to move a single finger.“ He mumbled, as he first handed you the hoodie, wich you put on immediately and snuggled into it. It had always been your comfort hoodie, since it was big, fluffy, and always smelled like him a lot. Then he put down the plate in front of you. Felix’ brownies had always been one of your favorite things. They were delicious like no one else’s.Everytime you asked him what he was throwing in there, he always told you that it was his love and care wich he made them with. You believed him, this man made everything better with his sunny personality.

You simply smiled at him, and took one of the brownies, taking a big bite

„That’s my girl.“ He chuckled, ruffling your hair. As you were munching, and he was watching you with a fond smile, he suddenly asked „Do you have a marker somewhere here?“ You looked up, raising a brow. „Yeah, in the drawer over there i guess, why?“ He just stood up, and opened said drawer, taking the marker. He was back by your side in an instant. „Please give me one arm love“ He said, politely like always. You were still pretty confused but how could you say no to that? So you slowly laid your bandaged arm in his hands. He kissed it once and then softly started to draw on it. „What are you doing?“ you asked, mouth full of brownie.

„Those my love, are battle scars. It isn’t beautiful how you got them, but they are a part of you now, and they make you the person you are. They deserve to be called beautiful now too, like every single body part of yours. I love every part of you. And when they are healed, I’ll kiss each and everyone of them, but for now, they deserve to be treated with care. They will only heal properly, if you let them. If you’d always be angry when you’d look at them, they would never really heal. You would never really heal. You need to forgive yourself, and someday you will be able to move on. They show how far you’ve come, that it was very hard, but you never gave up. Battle scars, my love.“

You looked into his eyes. He said all that so sincere, you believed every word. And then as he was done you saw what he did. A lot of little stars, and a pretty moon in the middle were drawn on the bandages. And next to the moon he wrote a little note

„Because i want you to never forget who you are. You are Y/n L/n, a fighter, and the most beautiful woman i know.“

„How did i deserve you lee felix?“ You murmured in awe.

„You deserve the world, and more my love.“

And that really was a turning point. Thanks to felix, your days weren’t dull anymore. He was always there with you, laughing and talking a lot, but he also respected when you wanted some alone time. And when you came to him somedays, crying and telling him that you wanted to do it again, he took you in his arms, wrapped you both into a blanket and rocked you back and forth, until no tears were left anymore, and the world seemed a bit brighter again. Then he mumbled soothing reassurances into your hair, kissing you on the forehead.

And like this, you were willing to try. You were willing to try and recover, and create a life that you loved living, with him in it.

a/n: now a note to: @athenawindwolf because I didn't have the courage to say it that night ( we ignore that i'm writing this while you are texting me,still in that night), i'll be your chan friend, and in the context of this fanfic your felix friend, whenever you need me. I hope yk, I never judge anyone, and i've been through a lot too so rlly i would never ever judge or tell anyone if you tell me smth. We said we r the big sisters of our friends now, so that means we r sisters right? Come to me whenever you need to talk. Now this was for u, and I also have to say i'm thankful someone is sharing one of my interests now<3 Ily di angelo.@athenawindwolf (and i hope i didn't make you cry with this fic)

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fobarchiveteam · 4 months ago

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The Fall Out Boy 2001 Demo... and the fact that there's actually two of them!

A few years ago, the wonderful Dave Hofer, who owns the DuPage County Hardcore Archive, uploaded the first Fall Out Boy demo from 2001 onto his archive, revealing its existence to the world. Dave was able to locate both a copy of the CD and the cassette versions of this demo, finding out that limited amounts of CDrs and around 100 cassettes were ever made. The CDr has uncut and unmastered versions of the recordings that later appear on the Project Rocket split, but the cassette contains completely different recordings for the first two songs, while an original song that is found nowhere else called “A Nice Myth” replaces Moving Pictures. The truth is that these are actually two separate demos: the cassette recordings came first. These demos were both made in 2001. For the first demo, the band consisted of Patrick on vocals, Pete on bass, Joe on guitar, and two other members who only lasted for a short time in the band: Ben Rose on drums, and John Flamadan on rhythm guitar. It was recorded on an 8-track in Ben’s basement. That 8-track was later turned into the cassette, of course. Both Ben and John left shortly after, and Jared Logan and TJ Kunasch replaced them on the CDr recordings respectively. What you may not know is there was an even rarer version of the CDr demo made: two types of lathe cuts.

These lathe cuts were posted on Discogs as pictures years before Dave’s discovery, so they sat dormant and undiscovered by FOB fans for a long time. After researching the cassettes and CDs for our archive, we stumbled upon these pictures and were perplexed that nobody has mentioned this version elsewhere before. Although this was not really a “new” discovery, we were still intrigued. We contacted the uploader of the picture, and this is what he had to say:

Hey!! Yeah it's honestly a crazy story on how I acquired it, but I believe it's legit. Basically, a few years back (I think 2018 or 19? The listing on the page for the clear version that sold for $0.50 or something crazy was from me, that's how I bought it). I messaged a guy on here that had the CD added in his collection if he would be willing to send me the mp3s/WAV files for his copy, and he did. We talked for a bit about the band and he said I seemed knowledgeable about the band and asked if I wanted his second copy of the lathe (he had two, one clear, one black). I obviously was like "hell yeah dude" and he said he would ship it to me. Fast forward a few weeks (he lived in Australia or some shit) and low & behold, I actually got the damn thing in the mail, plus two promo trading cards from the TTTYG album cycle, one with Andy & one with Joe. A few years later he messaged me that he got in touch with the dude that made the lathes for the band (he was based in Chicago which makes sense). Apparently 26 copies were cut & only 20 got labels thrown on them, members of the band slapped them on themselves. They were only in white paper sleeves, not any picture sleeves unfortunately. The sound quality on them is actually pretty decent for a lathe made in 2001, which is what leads me to believe it's legit. Also, like you had mentioned, the songs didn't leak until a few years back, when I got it I had never heard these versions (it's just the Project Rocket split versions uncut & unmastered essentially, same versions as the ones that leaked from the CD version. That is pretty much all the info I have on it, I hoped that helped some!!

Cheers from Florida - Jake

He later followed up with:

If I'm not mistaken, I believe the guy I got it from got both the clear and black copies verified to be legit by the guy that made them. Also small detail I forgot to include before, he obtained both copies through a lot of FOB merch from eBay. He was looking to get a complete set of TTTYG trading cards, which is why he bought it. But I know in the lot he also got the two lathes & a demo CD, I forget what else he had mentioned. It's odd that the band hasn't spoken of their existence, maybe they forgot? The lathes were probably more of a novelty item than anything, considering that vinyl wasn't very popular in 2001 & they weren't packaged as "properly" as the CDs & tapes, plus they made a lot less of them. I'm assuming they just kinda got tossed around between friends of the band or got sold at random at their early shows. Either way, it's been one of my prized possessions since I've acquired it, let me know if hou have any other questions on it haha

Currently we have no idea who this elusive Chicago lathe maker is, but maybe we may find out one day. These lathe cuts may possibly be the rarest FOB merch in existence.

Side note: The fact that the top title on the cassette specific insert says "Fallout Boy - Growing Up" and then later lists Growing Up as a song below, it may have been intended to be the title of the cassette, and the song was a title track. This is unconfirmed though.

#fall out boy #joe trohman #patrick stump #pete wentz #andy hurley #fob #chicago hardcore #evening out with your girlfriend #eowyg #fob patrick #fob pete #fallout boy #fob andy #fob joe

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starkidmunson · 1 year ago

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glitter & crimson

Realistically, Steve knows the band won’t hang around Chicago forever. He knows they’re out promoting a new album; knows they’ll have to move on and that Eddie has to go with them. It doesn’t stop him from wanting Eddie to stay; to live in the quick familiarity he’s built within Steve’s little found family.

Eddie and Robin seem to have already created their own secret language, all gestures and movement and eye contact Steve picks up on but can’t quite read. He’s already picking on the Party like he’s known them their whole lives; ruffling Dustin’s hair, elbowing Mike, throwing his arm around Will’s shoulders, and giving Lucas little shoves.

It’s easy; so easy to get caught up in how charismatic Eddie is. Steve has a hard time keeping his eyes off him, and Eddie knows. He keeps making comments, throwing winks in Steve’s direction, seeing right through every wall he’s ever built around himself and Steve is caught between being obsessed with it and terrified.

He stops drinking after the one beer, worried he’ll make things weird if he gets anywhere near tipsy, opting to stay as far away from the possibility as he can. If anyone notices, they don’t comment.

Lucas is chatting animatedly with Jeff, Max sitting close by, twisting braids into El’s hair. Dustin, Mike and Will appear to be grilling Gareth and Freak about dungeon and dragon campaigns Eddie used to run. Nancy has her arm looped through Robin’s, but her attention is on the phone in her hands, as Eddie and Robin talk about what touring is like.

“Where else are you going on this tour?” She asks as Steve tunes back into the conversation.

“This isn’t really a tour, we just haven’t been on the road in a while and we just stopped the album, so we lined up a few shows to get our feet wet before we hit the road for real this summer. One more show out in LA on Tuesday, then we’re done until May, for now.” Eddie explains.

“We’re in LA on Thursday!” Robin exclaims, and Steve’s stomach drops because, yeah. LA on Thursday. He trains his eyes on the glass in front of him, not willing to actually look at anyone they’re around.

“We could totally meet up again if you guys are able to swing it?” Freak offers, and Steve forces a little smile onto his face and nods.

“We can figure it out later,” Eddie says after a few beats, and Steve is grateful for how the conversation rolls onto the next topic. When he finally looks back up, though, Eddie’s still looking his way. Steve hits him with what he hopes comes off as a reassuring smile, but it doesn’t seem to pay off the way he hopes.

Once the tab is closed and the staff is tipped well, Steve catches Eddie’s elbow on their way out the door. “I would like to meet up in LA, if you’re interested. I didn’t mean to get weird about it, it’s… I’ve been in my head a bit about that game since it was announced.”

“Oh, hey, no worries. We’re in LA the whole week, then we’re heading home. So no pressure, honest.” Eddie hooks his hand over Steve’s softly.

“Well, we should get in Wednesday, but we could totally do something after the game or even Friday?”

Eddie smiles and nods, patting over Steve’s hand. “Text me about it.”

“I can do that. How much longer are you guys in town for, anyway?” Steve asks.

“Ah, the dreaded question comes,” Eddie’s playful, and it makes Steve’s face heat up. “We’ve got just under another 24 hours in the Windy City before hitting the road again.”

“Oh,” It pulls his chest in a way he wasn’t expecting, in a way that shouldn’t be happening for a rockstar he was adjacently aware of in high school. “Are you busy tomorrow?”

“Harrington,” Eddie’s teasing again, and it does nothing to help the blush on Steve’s face. “You can’t possibly miss me this much when I haven’t even left yet.”

“Shut up,” Steve shoves him away then, crossing his arms over his chest with a pout, only for Eddie to pull him in with an arm around the shoulder.

“We can grab brunch or something? We leave around 8 to avoid rush hour, so I’ll have to be in the bus by 6, or I’d say dinner.”

“Brunch works for me.”

~~~~

The trip back to the hotel doesn’t go as Eddie expects; everyone is silently chatting amongst themselves, nodding and tapping along to the music and not causing a scene. He almost points it out, but elects not to bring unwarranted bullying upon himself instead. The guys had been giving him shit about Steve near constantly, so this was a nice change of pace after the last few days.

There was actually quiet as he made his way back to his room. A hot shower finally restored warmth to his bones the hockey arena had stolen, and he was drying his hair when he heard his phone vibrate with a text notification.

Steve: anything you're craving for brunch tomorrow so I can pick a place?

It’s practically too easy to flirt with Steve; he sets up lines without even seeming to realize. But Eddie still can’t get a real gauge on how Steve feels about the flirting, so he sidesteps the easy pass he could have made about Steve being enough of a meal, in favor of actually answering.

Eddie: French toast?

The next series of texts come before Eddie even moves his hands back to the towel over his hair.

Steve: sick, I’ll pick you up around 10:45

Steve: you mentioned going home, did you mean like, back to Hawkins?

Eddie twists his hair up in the towel, and lays down on the side of the bed he doesn’t sleep on before firing off an answer.

Eddie: nah, I’ve got a place in Nashville and no reason to go back to Hawkins anymore. My uncle moved to Indy, so that’s usually as close as I get.

Steve: any reason you moved to Nashville?

Eddie: are we playing 20 questions?

Steve: sorry.

Eddie bites his lip, and only hesitates for a moment before flipping over onto his belly and hitting the FaceTime button. Steve answers on the second ring, looking embarrassed, but Eddie doesn’t let him get a word in.

“My mom was born and raised in Memphis, but she always told me her favorite city was Nashville. I was there with her a few times when I was little and she’d just, like, light up. And music is so heavily engraved into every inch of the city, it’s hard to not find inspiration everywhere you turn. So. I bought a place in Nashville the minute I had enough saved up, and it’s kind of my home base now.” Eddie explains, watching as Steve’s face softens and he relaxes into his chair listening to Eddie’s answer. “Do I get to ask a question now?”

“I really wasn’t trying to be annoying, “ Steve looks ready to keep going with an apology, but Eddie cuts him off.

“Why do you play hockey?” It stops Steve dead in his tracks, and he genuinely looks confused for a moment. Eddie almost offers to drop the topic, but Steve fumbles his way into an answer.

“My, uh. My dad wanted me to play before I was even born. Because he played. Professionally for a few years when I was growing up, then he went on to coach.” Steve explains, and it sounds a little rehearsed. Eddie’s sure it’s something that comes up often if his father played and coached. “Gotta keep the Harrington legacy alive, I guess.”

There was a bite to Steve’s words that wasn’t lost on Eddie. “You don’t sound too thrilled about it.”

Eddie can see Steve working over how he wants to answer before he shrugs and sighs. “Because it’s all a show for him. The part we don’t talk about is how I got hurt and benched most of my senior season and he cut me off when I didn’t get full rides. Convinced me it was better to not go to college at all, despite the other scholarship offers, than to not get promised a spot on the ice. Convinced me to self-sabotage so I had to fight tooth and fucking nail to get into the league at all.” Steve pauses, then, and lets out a quiet laugh. “Sorry, that’s so unbelievably whiny of me. I love getting to play professionally, and I don’t take the opportunity for granted.”

“Not whiny. Dads can be the fucking worst.” Eddie offers, gently, and is grateful when Steve doesn't press on that particular bruise.

Instead, he takes his turn to ask a different question. “Why music?”

“This is lame, but the answer is once again my mom.” Eddie rolls his eyes at himself, but he smiles. “She was a musician. There were always instruments around and music was always playing and we traveled for her to perform. I knew my whole life I wanted to be a musician like her, but it wasn’t until after she died that I figured out that songwriting… telling stories and painting pictures with words and melodies and making people feel something…” Eddie trails off, lost in the thought.

“I’m sorry you lost her. It sounds like you enjoyed your childhood with her.” Steve offers, hopes it doesn’t sound like a forced nicety, but Eddie smiles and his nerves ease.

“She was a force to be reckoned with. Firing on all cylinders at once, chaos and home bundled into one.” Eddie’s soft a quiet for a moment, and Steve appreciates the silence by taking in how relaxed the other is to be talking about his feelings; it’s a refreshing break from many of his experiences with teammates or opponents who don’t know how to get emotional in a healthy way. Eventually, though, Eddie clears his throat. “Anyway. Back to 20 questions,”

“I wasn’t trying to start a game, really, I just… like talking to you,” Steve admits around a blush, tucking his chin into the collar of his shirt in an effort to hide the shade of his cheeks, but Eddie’s smile says his cover is blown.

“ANYWAY!” He announces louder, then taps at his chin. “Favorite and least favorite teams to play and why, go.”

“I’m not a dog.” Steve laughs but thinks about his answer anyway. “Favorite is probably the Flyers in Philly. Their fans are absolutely brutal, and their mascot is hilariously terrifying.”

“I have seen many a Gritty TikTok, so I completely understand,” Eddie gives him a few beats before he prompts. “Least favorite?”

“The Kings. LA. Billy Hargrove.”

“The…, what the fuck? How many guys from Hawkins are professional hockey players?” Eddie asks, because honestly, how had he not known there was more than Steve?

“He’s technically from LA, which is why he went back, thank God.” Steve mumbles, before dropping his head back against the wall behind him. “But, for whatever it’s worth, there’s me, Billy, and Tommy Hagan in the league.”

“Well isn’t that a fun bunch to surround yourself with,” Eddie muses out loud. Tommy and Billy were two of the biggest assholes Eddie had ever met, and it sounded like Steve wasn’t too fond of the other pair either.

“I actually…” Steve trails off, before trying again. “I was going to invite you guys to come to the LA game, but I’m really not sure it would be a good idea, so I’m… I’m actually going to ask you guys not to come, if that’s not too much of a dick move? I can get you tickets to literally any game you want for the rest of the season, just. I don’t think it’s worth it to get Billy started, and if he’s heard any of the press about us, I’m already going to hear it even if you’re not there.”

“Homophobe extraordinaire still, then?” Eddie guesses, and Steve chokes out a laugh, before covering his mouth and holding up a finger to ask for a moment to compose himself.

“He's… a lot of things.” Is the response Steve opts for, but Eddie can tell there’s more there. Whatever the two of them are doing, it doesn’t feel like Steve is ready to elaborate, so Eddie moves on.

“I think it’s your turn.”

~~~~

Nothing changes after Corroded Coffin leave Chicago, though. Not in the ways Eddie had expected, at least.

Steve still texts him throughout the day, answers his Facetimes whenever he’s available. Eddie makes him the playlist he promised, and Steve gives feedback on which songs he likes and which ones he really doesn’t, after Eddie promises to not take Steve’s opinions personally. Which, to be fair, he tries really hard not to.

The concert in LA comes and goes, and Steve seems to send him every TikTok he comes across from the show. It’s a refreshing break, as every few videos in Eddie’s feed are of him cheering for Steve at the game, or Steve watching from sidestage in Chicago.

A text from Robin eventually confirms their arrival in LA, and Steve and Eddie make plans to meet up after the game. Since Steve had expressed concern about Eddie going, he decides to just watch from the bar they agree to meet at. Televised games make it easier to track the puck, but Eddie decides he likes being there in person better.

Eddie’s sipping absently on his beer and in the time it takes him to look down at a text from Chrissy, several of the people around him react to something. Eddie looks around to make sure someone in the bar hadn’t passed out. When he looks back at the screen, absolute mayhem has broken out on the ice. The refs are trying to separate players from one another, and Eddie’s scanning through the numbers on each Blackhawks jerseys before he finally spots Steve, slightly off to the side from everyone else. The camera pans away from him, zeroing in on the fight, now between a Blackhawks defenseman and none other than Billy Hargrove.

Billy’s helmet and gloves are off, teeth shining with blood as he grins like a psycho and starts to skate in Steve’s direction. One of the refs pulls him back, though, escorting him into the penalty box while another Kings player gathers his helmet, stick and gloves and clears them to the bench.

The camera finally pans back to Steve, who is now sitting with his back against the boards. He’s got a gloved covering the lower half of his face, but his white jersey is covered in blood. A ref and the Blackhawks goalie are kneeling on either side of him as someone else speaks with him. The camera zooms in as the TV crews work to make out what is happening, just in time for Steve to lower his hand and shows off a gnarly gash along the side of his face. He leans forward a little and spits out blood onto the ice, and the TV jumps to the announcers in the booth.

The volume is off, but they show a slow-motion replay of the few moments Eddie’d missed; Steve passes the puck off to another player on his team, just before Billy slams into his side. The impact sends both of them into the boards and down onto the ice. Billy swings his stick around and cracks Steve in the face with the blade heel. Steve reacts, throwing his whole arm into Billy’s face, before a sea of white Blackhawks jerseys sweep in and suddenly Billy’s a few feet away, with players from both teams piled up.

Eddie’s hand hovers over his phone; has no idea what to do in this situation. Texting Steve is useless; it would likely be hours, if not days, before he even thinks about looking at his phone. He doesn’t want to bother anyone, but he’s… well, he’s stressed. Even if Steve isn’t interested in him the way Eddie’s interested in Steve, they’ve still built a weird little friendship and that was an awful lot of blood.

So, Eddie ends up firing off a text to Robin. It’s just a simple 'let me know if there’s anything I can do,' but his phone lights up with a call immediately.

“How bad is it?”

“I’m not back with him yet, but just… meet us at the hospital, if you can?” She asks. While her voice waivers a bit, she’s calmer than Eddie expected her to be.

“I’ll be right there.” He agrees, hangs up and exits the bar before the game even returns from commercial break.

#hockeyplayer!steve harrington #steddie #rockstar!eddie munson #stranger things hockey au #glitter & crimson #sorry this took like 2 weeks #we're going to try to keep the momentum going here #steve harrington #eddie munson #robin buckley #platonic stobin #corroded coffin #steddie fanfic #starkidmunson writes #oh i almost forgot #one of the most important tags for this one #anti billy hargrove

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itsangelll · 6 months ago

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𝙵𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚊 𝙳𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 ❦

A/n:WELL it’s been a bit since I’ve had a damn fic out and I’d sincerely like to apologise. I forgot I had tumblr for a while and I know I’m lazy with fics. BUT HERES THIS ONE!! Took me 3 months to finish it it’s insane guys but I hope you all enjoy!! 💋

pairings:Tom 2010 x f!reader

genre:smut

warnings:swearing fingering and squirting!!

Under 15 dni

please don’t steal or copy my works thank you.

You and Tom were at an after party with the humanoid album just released it made a huge difference, it was selling world wide. you were chatting with the band “Tom I’m gonna go grab a drink I’ll be back.” He nodded and continued chatting with the band barely paying any attention towards you.

You walk over to the bar nodding at the bartender “what can I get for you?” she asked “whatever I don’t mind.” A few seconds later you skulled your drink down to feel somewhat tispy to at least lighten up this party, you feel a tap on your shoulder you turn around and you were greeted with a handsome man.

“You want some company love?” he asked looking intrigued you look over at Tom seeing he’s still wrapped up in a conversation, so you nod “yeah sure have a seat”. He smiled and sat next to you “so how come your all alone?” “Oh I just went to grab a drink since my own boyfriend is too wrapped up in a conversation to talk to me.” skulling down another drink he nods.

“Well I must say you’re quite beautiful if I was dating you I’d make sure all my attention was on you.” you swat his arm playfully laughing. Tom looked over in your direction his expression darkened, his grip tightened on his glass it could shatter.

He excused himself from the group and made his way over to you. You and the guy from the bar were laughing your asses off till you felt a pair of arms grip your waist tightly, Tom lowered his head as he whispered “Go upstairs now.” you shook your head standing your ground, “I’m actually having a conversation with someone if your not fucking blind you can wait.”

Taking another sip of your drink you could cut the tension with a knife Tom pulled you up from the stool “I told you to get the fuck upstairs.” you ignored him and without another word, he pushed you foward forcing you upstairs you didn’t move still standing your ground. “Do I have to do everything my fucking self” he muttered he lifted you up off the ground and took you up the steps into a room slamming the door behind him.

He set you down gently on the ground his gaze burning into yours leaning against the wall “So you wanna explain to me what the fuck happened downstairs?” His voice raised you shrugged “Nothing happened someone wanted to keep me company so I let him am I not allowed to talk to other guys now?” a bit of attitude in your tone.

He scoffed “You sure nothing happened because you two looked pretty cozy from where I was sitting.” You rolled your eyes “You weren’t even paying attention to me anyways at least someone was.” Tom got off the wall and walked closer to you trapping you between his body and the wall. He gripped your chin firmly making you look up towards him his jaw clenched.

“You know I’m getting real fucking sick of your attitude towards me liebe I do everything for you and this is how I get treated?” His voice low and firm you stayed silent not knowing what to say, “Typical” you stared daggers at him “You know what fuck you tom if you payed some attention to me we wouldn’t even be arguing now.”

Tom absolutely snapped he grabbed you and threw you on the bed he towered over you crashing his lips onto yours in a hungry kiss “you’re such a fucking brat” he murmured against your lips then biting on your bottom lip. He grabbed your hips tightly, you whined against his lips desire coursing through your body.

He bit down on your lower lip before pulling away, his dark orbs boring into yours. His hands ripping of your shorts then your underwear throwing them somewhere in the room. “You know I’ve done everything for you and this is how I get treated?” Tom spoke, you couldn’t say much cause it was true you’ve been acting like a bitch these past few weeks.

He scoffed and lifted your chin up, his lips connecting with your neck. Before biting down harshly on the skin you hissed the pain coming through more than normal. His calloused fingers snaked its way down to your cunt before brutally plunging a finger deep into your hole (okay no.) you moaned your hands gripping the bed sheets.

Tom’s lips left your neck his forehead resting against yours, his finger still moving in and out of your cunt before slowly sliding a second finger in, then his thumb moving in harsh circles on your clit, “T-Tom it’s too much please.” your voice shaky “Hush you can take it you’ll be fine.” His voice sharp.

You moaned and writhed against him. His fingers not letting up carefully putting a third finger in and that fucking hurt his thumb moved even more harsh on your clit it becoming puffy and swollen. (no.) the knot in your stomach was getting tighter and your legs started shaking but Tom wasn’t letting up, he kept going at his harsh pace.

Within a few seconds you couldn’t take it anymore you hand clutched his jeans and you moaned his name loudly, squirting all over his fingers he moaned lowly at the sight of that. “Well well would you look at that.”

The smirk evident in his tone Tom removed his fingers out of your cunt grabbing a tissue to clean his fingers off, getting up from the bed and grabbing a towel to clean you up. (AWH AINT HE SWEET??) He pressed a kiss to your forehead and wrapped his arms around your waist. You blissfully fell asleep in his arms.

A/n:It was a bit rushed towards the end but I’m hoping that I can come out with more fics rather than every three months cause I’ll feel bad if I starve you guys :( but I hope you guys enjoys mwah mwah bye cuties <33

Taglist:

@itsmealaiah

@jadedchar

@chinoslefttoehair

@bambiwrites

@memzyyy

@tomsbbg

@tomksslut

@rottinglilys

#tokio hotel #tom kaulitz #billkaulitz #georg listing #gustav schäfer #tokio hotel x reader #tom kaulitz smut #2010s

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weirdgenetic-fuckup · 9 months ago

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Could you do one where the whole band is in the studio and reader is so desperate that she rides axl in front of everyone. Preferably the original line up in the current era please I love you❤🌷

A/n: I may have gone a little crazy with this but that's ok because who doesn't love the whole pretty boy band <3

Warnings: Smut, gang bang, riding, fingering(f receiving), hand jobs, breeding kink, if you think I missed anything please let me know otherwise enjoy :3

Guns N’ Roses was finally back from tour and you couldn’t have been happier to get to be with Axl again. You called everyday while he was away, with the calls often ending in phone sex, but it wasn’t enough.

You knew from the get go with him that you wouldn’t be able to be with him as much as you might have liked to be, it was just part of being with someone in a band. Didn’t mean you didn’t miss him, in more ways than one.

You’d spent the first few days together, as per usual, but one morning you woke up to find him getting ready to leave.

“Hey, babe, where’re you going?” You asked as you walked into the bathroom where he was.

“Going to the studio today.” He answered through a mouthful of toothpaste. You glanced at his reflection in the mirror then back to him.

“Why? You guys just got back from tour.” He spat into the sink and rinsed his mouth.

“Yeah, where I had a lot of time to think of new songs.” He explained. He planted a kiss on your forehead before heading out of the bathroom and to the walk-in closet. “We’re going to a studio to work on the instrumentals of some of them for our next album.” You watched as he sorted through clothes.

“What about me?” You asked, looking up at him with a small pout.

“What about you?” He asked with a chuckle.

“You expect me to just sit here all day?”

“Don’t you do that a lot anyway?” You glared at him, arms crossed over your chest and he gave you a kiss instead of apologising. “It’s only a few hours and then I’ll be home again.” You scoffed. He started changing in front of you, you watched him shamelessly.

“I’m coming with you.” You stated and started picking out your own outfit.

“No you’re not.” He looked at you with a confused expression. “What would you even do?” You shrugged.

“Nothing.” You said as you found an outfit for yourself. “But I want to be with you, so I’m coming.” He stared at you for a moment before deciding that he’s not going to be able to change your mind.

“Fine, be ready in ten minutes or I’m leaving without you.

You finished getting ready, it took longer than ten minutes but you knew he wouldn’t leave without you, and of course he didn’t. He was still waiting in the kitchen on his phone, completely having lost sense of time.

Upon entering the studio you were met with familiar faces all around. Slash was looking down at his Les Paul, Izzy was watching him and strumming along a rhythm to it. Steven and Duff were talking about dogs. At least you assumed so since they were showing each other pictures of dogs.

They all greeted you and Axl when you came in. Axl guided you to the couch and sat next to you, throwing an arm around you and holding you close to his side.

They were all talking about one thing or another, the tour, home life, stuff like that before actually diving into what they came there for which was the next album.

You were bored out of your mind. No one cared when you went on your phone, you didn’t really have much reason to be there anyway other than them asking your opinion on some things, which lyric fit better, whether or not they should add more solos. You enjoyed helping when you could but you were so fucking bored you were losing your mind.

You started reading about Axl, finding smutty fics about him to pass the time. It did help, to a point. After a few minutes of reading all you wanted was to act it out.

You knew he had his phone in his pocket so you texted him, saying how needy you were. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and looked at it, glancing back at you before responding. He told you to go deal with it in the bathroom. You huffed and stayed seated on the couch.

As they kept talking you decided ‘fuck it’ and started pushing the joint in your thumb against your clit through your thin, summer shorts. It wasn’t much but it was some form of friction, friction you were craving.

You kept your eyes on your phone for the most part but when you heard Slash’s low chuckle you had to look up. His glasses covered his eyes so you couldn’t see exactly where he was looking but you could tell he was looking at you, watching you touch yourself. His hand covered his mouth but he was smiling, you could see it in his cheeks. That much was a motivator to keep going.

You spread your legs and reached your hand into your shorts, continuing to touch yourself but this time with a viewer. Slash kept watching, smiling, chuckling to himself.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Slash?” Axl finally asked. His tone wasn’t angry, even though you couldn’t see his face you could hear the way the corners of his mouth were pulled into a smile.

The guitarist shook his head and gestured to you. You quickly closed your legs and hid what you had been doing so when Axl turned to look at you there was nothing to see. Sure enough he asked Slash what you’d been doing.

“Go deal with your girlfriend.” He mumbled, aiming his gaze to the ground. Axl turned around again and took a closer look at you. Your cheeks were flushed, sweat was starting to collect at your hairline and your breathing was heavy.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He came over to you, getting your pants and panties off. You started squirming and reaching for your clothes, not expecting him to undress you in front of his band. “I told you to stay home but no you just had come along, now look at you.” He gestured to your now half-naked body. You still tried to cover yourself but he wouldn’t let you, holding your legs apart as his bandmates gathered around behind him to gawk at your glistening folds.

Axl slapped your thigh. “Get up.” You did as he asked, though still wanting to cover yourself. Axl got his half-hard dick out of his pants and sat down behind you before pulling you down on him, slipping into you with ease given how hot you made yourself prior.

He got your legs onto the couch so you were straddling him, backwards cowgirl style. He wanted you to do all the work, since this was what you wanted in the first place. He also wanted this position so that his friends could see everything, from your pretty little cunt to the faces you made when you came.

“Go on, give us a show.” Duff said, already palming himself through his jeans. Axl patted the space beside him for Duff to come sit. He did and pulled out his hard member for you to jerk. You let out a soft whine and reached for him, starting to bounce yourself on Axl’s cock while stroking Duff’s.

Steven came over as well, standing to the side of you so as to not abstract Slash and Izzy’s view of you. He dropped his own pants and waited expectantly for you to let him in on the fun. You glanced back to Axl. “Can’t keep him waiting.” He said with a grin. You looked back to Steven and started pumping his shaft as well.

You thought this was a lot but you knew it wasn’t the end of it either. Izzy and Slash were both standing farther back working themselves. It seemed that you watching them acted as confirmation and they came over.

They didn’t make you take them into your mouth like you thought they would, much to your delight. Instead, they started jerking themselves off in your face and all you could do was wait for them to cum on you.

Your body was getting tired, arms wanted to fall to your sides and your legs began to shake under you as you kept bouncing on Axl. Seeing this the ginger started fucking up into you, making it a little easier.

Of course he knew your body better than anyone and knew exactly which spots to hit to make your eyes roll back. You had five men around you, all with their dicks out for you. It made everything feel better, especially when Duff reached over to rub your clit.

He has long, talented fingers that quickened everything you were feeling. “Fuck! ‘M-’m gonna cum, gonna cum!” You whined, hands clenching and unclenching around Duff and Steven’s cocks which seemed to get Steven over the edge, white liquid spurting onto your lap.

You looked down at it with stars in your eyes. It was then that you realised how badly you wanted all of them to cum on you. You kept jerking Steven off, his voice getting higher now. You could feel Axl twitching inside of you so you looked back at him.

“Please cum inside, want it so bad, please.” You whined. Axl had always wanted kids so you learned early on in your relationship that he had a breeding kink and asking him to cum inside your tight cunt was a sure fire way to make him cum.

Sure enough he grabbed your hips and held you down on him while his cum filled you up. That feeling alone almost made you cum but what really did it was Slash toying with your nipple.

You hadn’t been looking at him so his warm hand was already a surprise but the way he fondled you made your eyes roll back into your head. Your body shook and the couch under you, along with Axl’s lap, was now drenched.

You heard Duff groaning beside you and looked over just in time to catch his dick leaking, thick liquid coating your hand. His hand didn’t stop working on your clit, rubbing it, pinching and flicking. Seeing what made you moan the loudest and sweetest.

Izzy turned your head and thick ropes spurted onto your face. You stared up at him, lips parted as his seed slipped into your mouth. You were in such a trance for a moment you almost missed the feeling of Slash cumming on your chest.

More than once you’d caught him staring at your chest, really anyone’s chest. You smiled up at him and moved up and down Axl a few more times so he could watch your tits bounce while he came.

You were all breathing heavy, panting on one another as you came down from your highs.

“Get up.” Axl said with a heavy breath, patting your thigh. You got up and then started questioning what he wanted, your mind still in a haze. Sweat and jizz mixed together on your body and dripped down.

“Why..?” You asked out of breath and legs shaking beneath you.

“You wanted to get fucked so bad,” the ginger started, “why not give everyone a turn?” You stared up at him with wide eyes as you felt Slash’s big, warm hands wrap around your waist.

#guns n roses #guns n roses fanfic #guns n roses x reader #guns n roses smut #gnr fanfiction #gnr #izzy gnr #duff gnr #slash gnr #axl gnr #axl rose x reader #axl rose smut #axl rose fanfiction #axl rose #axl rose gnr #axl rose imagine

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ladykailitha · 11 months ago

Text

Icarus Part 4

Oops! I didn't realize this one had so many chapters done. I had been using it as my "I'm stuck on the other two stories so I work on this one to clear my head" story and I currently have five chapters backlogged. So instead of Batshit Soulmates today, you're getting two of this one. One now and one tonight.

In this chapter we have Eddie doing his research and we find out how he recognized Steve. Also Jeff&Eddie besties for life!

Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3

@mira-jadeamethyst @rozzieroos @itsall-taken @redfreckledwolf @emly03

****

The last few days in Hawkins went by in a blur. Eddie couldn’t do the research he wanted to, not without alerting everyone else what he was up to, so he focused on buying both their albums and listening to them nonstop.

“This that band you went to go see?” Wayne asked after three days of him having both albums on constant repeat. “The one you were whining about have to go to?”

Eddie sat up from where he laying on the floor with headphones on and took them off, resting them around his neck. He pulled one knee up and draped his arms around it casually.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “Dustin has been gloating about it, so I would rather you didn’t add to the pile.”

Wayne crouched down so that they were eye level. “This about that secret you found out?”

Eddie opened his mouth to lie but Wayne just raised an eyebrow and he snapped his mouth shut with a click. He let out a low shuddering breath and then nodded.

“Yeah,” he said, “it’s about that.”

Wayne picked up the vinyl sleeve and looked at the cover. He studied the image a moment or two before he said, “You think that someone you know is in the band, don’t you?”

Eddie bit his lower lip and then sighed heavily. He knew he couldn’t keep it from Wayne, but he had hoped he would have been back in Cali before he realized it.

“I’m not one hundred percent sure,” he said tilting his head back, “but yeah. I think I know someone in the band.”

“You jumping to conclusions?” Wayne asked in that gruff but gentle way that was a staple of Eddie’s childhood.

Eddie looked up at Wayne and then shook his head. “I don’t know enough. Not yet.”

Wayne got to his feet with a grunt. “Good. You keep it that way. There’s probably a good reason for all that.” He waved at the vinyl sleeve. “So don’t you go pushing your friend’s buttons until you know that reason.”

Eddie nodded. “I read you loud and clear.”

Wayne ruffled Eddie’s hair and walked away, leaving Eddie with plenty of time to think.

****

Dustin was staying in Hawkins for the whole summer, so when Eddie left, he was finally on his own.

Finally able to get out of his head and do some real research. He also knew better than to do anything than listen to his own music mid-flight. Too many wandering eyes.

Any one of his fellow passengers could be some blogger, Youtuber, Tiktoker, influencer or actual fucking press.

Thankfully the flight was most empty and short.

He was met at the airport by his manager Chrissy Cunningham.

She grabbed his bag, leaving Eddie to juggle his guitar better.

“Record management has all four of you in a hotel nearby,” she told him as she stowed the bag in her trunk. “They want you sequestered this time.”

Eddie winced. It wasn’t for any music related reason, though he didn’t doubt the sequestering would help with the process.

Nope.

It was because last time Gareth and Brian went on a three day drinking bender and were too sloshed to function for at least two days after that. Almost a whole week of recording down the drain because half the band went off the rails.

“Roger that!” Eddie said with a jaunty two fingered salute.

“You can have alcohol sent to your room,” she continued as they got into the car. “But Gareth and Brian aren’t allowed. So if you share your stash, that’s on you.”

“You can count on me and Jeff not contribute to the delinquency of our bandmates,” Eddie bit out. “We were just as pissed as the label when we couldn’t get a hold of them for those five days.”

Chrissy nodded. “Fame can really do some fucked up shit to people.”

Eddie hummed his acknowledgment. “Just please tell me I’m not sharing with anyone. You know they all hate sleeping in the same room as me.”

Chrissy snorted. “Only because you stay up all hours of the night perfecting song, while they actually want to, oh I don’t know...sleep?”

Eddie cackled. He was the world’s worst insomniac when they were working on an album. The rest of the time he was a sound sleeper.

“But no,” Chrissy hummed, “you all have your own suites. With Brian and Gareth on opposite sides of the hotel so they don’t fuel each other’s vices.”

Eddie let out a deep sigh. “That’s great news.”

They went up to Eddie’s suite and he immediately got to unpacking. He couldn’t stand living out of his suitcase and didn’t know how anyone else could.

He ordered a couple of six packs of beer, his favorite vodka, and a couple of whiskys that should last him at least a couple of weeks. He stashed the beer in the suite provided mini-fridge and settled down to watch Youtube on the big screen TV.

He was just devouring everything he could on The Fallen. He started with their music videos. The one for “Kiss the Boys/Kiss the Girls” was especially sweet. He found out that the lead singer was bisexual and that the song was about finding love in whatever form that took. With a full verse on non-binary peeps despite the title.

But the videos weren’t helpful. The band themselves were rarely in them. So Eddie turned to interviews. Impromptu ones on red carpets and podcasts, as well as sit down interviews for talk shows and entertainment press.

Again the lead singer was charismatic and charming. And it was looking more and more like his theory was correct.

Then he came across the interview.

“How does Azrael see out of his mask?” the Vanity Fair interviewer asked.

The drummer pulled out another mask and handed it to Abbadon. It seemed like it was part of the shtick that the drummer never spoke.

Abbadon held up the mask to the light. “You can see that the eyes are a mesh-like material. It works like a one way mirror. You with the strong light, can’t see in, but Azrael with darkness of the mask can see out.”

Eddie hummed his interest. That was a cool trick. It meant that the drummer wouldn’t get hurt while still maintaining that anonymity.

And it appeared that the interview thought the same as they nodded along, impressed.

“What is the reason for the masks?”

Astraeus leaned forward into the mic. “Because when we first got started no one would take us seriously as ourselves?”

Just then the hotel door swung open and Eddie quickly pressed pause. He sighed with relief when he saw it was Jeff.

Jeff stopped in his tracks to stare at the screen. “Oh hey, The Fallen. They’re pretty cool.”

Eddie whipped his head around and glared at him.

“How do you know about them and I didn’t?”

Jeff laughed. “Dude, the radio embargo was you thing, not an everyone thing. They’re really good. I love their new single ‘You’. It’s really sweet.”

Eddie nodded, it was really good. It was one was of his favorites, too.

Jeff got closer to the TV. “Wait. Is this the ‘metal fans would hate us if they saw who we really are’ interview?”

Eddie nodded. “Yeah.”

“That’s such bullshit,” Jeff scoffed. “Metal fans are the most welcoming group of fans out there.”

Eddie chewed on his bottom lip and thought about Steve. And how preppy he still dressed even this far outside of high school.

“Not if they were preps,” he said softly.

That brought Jeff up short. “What now?”

“I think Abbadon is Steve.”

Jeff started laughing and laughing like he couldn’t stop. Eddie rolled his eyes and pulled up the picture he had taken of The Fallen’s lead singer. Once Jeff had gotten control of himself, Eddie showed him the picture.

“Okay...” Jeff said. “I’m not sure what this shows other than your obsession with necks.”

“Zoom in.”

Jeff rolled his eyes but did as he was told. “Okay, so what am I looking at?”

Eddie licked his lips nervously. “You see those two moles, just under his chin?”

Jeff half shrugged. “I mean, I guess.”

“Steve has moles in the exact same place,” Eddie explained. He took the phone back from Jeff and went through his IG feed. He pulled up a picture of Steve. The angle wasn’t exact, but it was close enough.

He handed it back to Jeff. “Now zoom in on the neck.”

Jeff did as he was told.

“Holy fucking shit!”

Eddie pursed his lips and chewed on the bottom one. He played with his rings and was just fidgeting.

“Dude!” Jeff cried. “We should tell someone!”

Just then Eddie’s fidgeting hit the remote and the video began playing again.

“Is there any chance of a future reveal?” the interviewer asked.

Asmodeus leaned into the mic and said, “Ask us again in ten years when we’re world famous.”

Eddie managed to get a hold of the remote to pause it again and in the resulting silence Jeff and him shared a glance.

“Fuck, dude,” Jeff said. “We can’t say shit, can we?”

Eddie shook his head. “It would be like outing a queer person before they were ready.”

Jeff came around the sofa and flopped down next to him.

“Wow,” he said with more than a little awe. “So Steve Harrington is in a metal band...” He let out a shuddering sigh. “And is good. Not just good, but damn good.”

Eddie nodded. “Is it bad that I kinda feel like I’ve been tricked?”

Jeff let out a slow breath. “Look, I’m not going to tell you how to feel, but if no one knows, that it’s not personal.”

“You mean to tell me that no one knows?” Eddie hissed, getting to feet. “Not Robin, not Dustin? Or any of the kids? Because I call bullshit!”

Jeff looked up at him. “Robin, maybe. Those two are attached at the hip. Hell, Robin could even be their slinky and sexy manager, Celeste. But Dustin, man? I wouldn’t tell that kid shit. Not if I wanted it to still be secret ten minutes later.”

Eddie fought to calm his breathing. Yeah okay. That tracked. Robin with makeup and a black wig would completely disguise her to the point that not even her own mother would recognize her if they passed on the street.

“Dustin wouldn’t–” he began but Jeff cut him off.

“This is the kid that spoiled Will’s surprise party that he was planning,” Jeff said, counting off on his fingers. “The kid that would go searching through his mom’s closets and under her bed looking for birthday and Christmas presents. The same one that announced our second album six hours before it was set to drop. I wouldn’t tell Dustin Henderson the time of day if I didn’t want everyone to know about it.”

Eddie huffed. He wanted to argue that all that was little shit. Not really that important. But then he remembered all the times where Dustin would say something out of context, something that all his friends would jump on him for, only for it to be revealed later that Dustin had spoiled some surprise. It was just that no one had realized it at the time.

This time he let out a long sigh.

“Yeah, okay,” Eddie said, sitting back down next to Jeff on the sofa. “And I know that if Steve had come to me and said he wanted to form a metal band, I would have laughed in his face.”

Jeff gave his knee a squeeze. “We all would have. So let’s do what we do best. We change the culture. We make the metal scene open to people of all walks of life, not just the freaks and outcasts. We make it safe for them to come out.”

Eddie let out a shuddering sigh. “Yeah. I could do that. We could do that.”

“Good,” Jeff said, patting Eddie’s knee. “It’s not going to be easy, but we’ve never liked easy.”

Eddie laughed as Jeff got up. “So what are you doing in my room anyway? Don’t you have your own?”

Jeff opened the mini fridge and took out a can of beer. “I forgot to order beer and I hate it warm, so I thought I’d steal one of yours.”

Eddie threw a throw pillow at him, which Jeff deftly caught and lobbed back at him.

Jeff came over and kissed his cheek. “Get out of your head and do something with all that restless energy you’ve built up with this eating away at you.”

Eddie let out a deep sigh. “Yeah, man. Thanks.”

Just as Jeff reached the door, he called out. “What would you and the boys think about inviting them to open for us on our next tour?”

Jeff grinned. “They would probably kiss you on the mouth.”

Eddie threw back his head and laughed. “Duly noted.”

****

Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25

Tag List: @cryptid-system @counting-dollars-counting-stars @papergrenade @spectrum-spectre @estrellami-1 @zerokrox-blog @gregre369 @a-little-unsteddie @chaosgremlinmunson @messrs-weasley @danili666 @chaoticlovingdreamer @maya-custodios-dionach @val-from-lawrence @goodolefashionedloverboi @i-must-potato @carlyv @wonderland-girl143-blog @justforthedead89 @vecnuthy @irregular-child @yikes-a-bee @bookbinderbitch @bookworm0690 @anne-bennett-cosplayer @awkwardgravity1 @littlewildflowerkitten @genderless-spoon @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @y4r3luv @dragonmama76 @scheodingers-muppet @ellietheasexylibrarian @thedragonsaunt @useless-nb-bisexual @disrespectedgoatman @eyehartart @dawners @thespaceantwhowrites @tinyplanet95 @iamthehybrid @croatoan-like-its-hot

#my writing #stranger things #steddie #ladykailtiha writes #rockstar steve harrington #rockstar eddie munson #rockstar au

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jamneuromain · 11 months ago

Note

Hii!!! I just read A Whiff of Blood and it was amazing!!! Omg its been a while since I read Lloyd being caring without having another motive. This is pure goodness 😍

I was wondering if there could be a scene where y/n asks to leave work early bc she has a date. Lloyd says fine but ends up at the same restaurant as her with Danny to spy🤣 and y/n saw them and this will be the first time she yells at her boss. how would the boss react? falling for her even more or trying to save his dignity and ego 😎

Hi babe! So sorry that this one-shot is taking forever to come out (and I've made a little adjustment to it :3 hope you don't mind

A Rush of Blood

Lloyd Hansen x You

Warning: Mob AU, Mob!Lloyd, Secretary!Reader, Lloyd is being a (surprisingly) softie(?

Summary: You asked whether you could leave early for a date, while Lloyd decided not to keep his feelings bottled up any more.

W/C: ~4.5k

A/N: This is the final sequel to A Whiff of Blood, Thank you for all your love for Mob!Lloyd<333

Lloyd can’t help but look at your empty seat for the fifth time in a row. The boring-ass meeting for the quarterly revenue of his properties drags on, yet you haven’t returned for a while now.

Lloyd checks his watch.

It’s been fucking two minutes and forty-two seconds since you excused yourself with your phone buzzing in hand.

The ticking watch gets him more annoyed and impatient by the second. Two minutes and forty-four seconds, two minutes and forty-five seconds, two minutes and forty-six - where the heck are you?

You pick up the call as soon as you reach your desk, “Allie?”

“Hey hon. Bad news, I’m stuck at the airport. There has been a huge blizzard here in Alaska and all flights are banned from taking off.” Allie remains her chirpy sound, but a hit of restraint peeks from her words.

Allie has been your friend since high school. You’ve bonded over the mutual love of boy bands during your teen years. Though you have moved on from your love of pop singers/bands, Allie maintains her enthusiasm for K-pop idols.

“I’m in the middle of a conference, so, sorry about making this short,” you sigh, “I assume they can’t get any plane in or out for today?”

You scheduled for fine dining with Allie at one of Lloyd’s restaurants later this evening. At this rate, you are no longer surprised if he owns the Hollywood landmark too.

“Not in this damn weather, no.” She curses under her breath, “Not for three days as far as I’m aware.”

“Jesus.” You rub your temple as it is throbbing, “Sorry about the weather. I’ll reschedule the dinner.”

“No… don’t be.” Her hesitation on the phone sounds slightly suspicious.

“Allie?” You raise your voice dangerously, “What did you do?”

“Don’t be mad,” she holds a pregnant pause, “I’ve got this really cute boy – he’s a year behind us, by the way – and he’s working now in LA, Scott McCall – that’s double C in McCall, and I planned to introduce you two during dinner.”

“The fu- Allie!” You whisper-yell in the phone, “You’re gonna dump me and let me have dinner with a completely random person?”

Allie squeezes a few dry laughs over the speaker, “Eh- Sorry?”

“You better pray there’s no plane in three days because I’m going to crawl through the phone lines and strangle you if I have the chance.” You sputter a curse, “And burn all your K-pop albums.”

She gasps, “NOT THE ALBUMS!”

Typical Allie.

“Seriously though, you had the chance of meeting him two months ago... at an exhibition. The gallery downtown near the bakery? The Retro-modern Exhibition? The one you left early? It took him a lot of strength to get to me and then to you, so … just try, okay? If it doesn’t work out, it’s fine.” Allie sounds unlike her usual self, “If it works out … I guess you’d have a great story to tell your kids.” She can’t help but joke at the end.

“Yeah yeah, ha-ha, very funny.” With a sigh, you agree to her match-making plan, “Fine. But I really have to go back to work now, ‘kay?” You roll your eyes instinctively when the other end of the phone passes a squeaky “yes” to your ears, “I’ll be there on time. Dinner, six thirty, he’d better not be late.”

“You’re my life-saver. Mwah! Love ya’ bye!” After blowing a kiss via mid-air, Allie hangs up the phone as if fearing you will regret your decision in less than a second.

You end the call at the same moment the door to the conference room swings open, and out came a few executives for his real estate.

“Sorry, Mr. Hansen,” you put your phone into your pocket, straightening your shirt because you have been leaning on your desk. You know how much Lloyd hates disturbance, and creases on a shirt.

Lloyd purses his lips with a frown, an expression he wears often to indicate he’s not happy.

“If it’s okay for you, Mr. Hansen, I’d like to leave early today.” You request rather boldly.

For three years of your work as a secretary, the only other time you left early was a medical emergency of your mother. She fell down the stairs, hit her head, and had a broken femur. Though it wasn’t much of a big deal when she was transferred to a ward later, it scared the hell out of you to take the call from the local hospital, telling you your mother was sent to the ER in an ambulance.

Lloyd was generous enough to grant you a week of leave, but you got back on Day 5 after making sure your mother was well and taken care of.

“Is your family alright?” He asks, clearly still remembering the last time when you got kidnapped on the street, for which he had to assign Claire – a bright young lady, whom you’ve grown fond of over these past weeks – to act as your bodyguard and occasionally your assistant. Under Lloyd’s orders, she went to oversee the security cam installation at your apartment door.

“They are fine.” You suppose it’s better to tell him the truth regarding your leave, rather than having him meet you in his restaurant a few hours later, “I uh… have a date tonight.”

“A date?” He raises his eyebrows, repeating syllable by syllable, “A date, you say?”

“Yes, a date.” It feels like a betrayal all of a sudden, a betrayal of your work ethic. Your throat tightens, “Ahem, I’ll be leaving at five, if that’s alright with you, Mr. Hansen.”

Lloyd studies you for a moment.

“Okay.” He shrugs, sounding carelessly, “If you finish the work for today.”

You are pretty sure that there’s no more itinerary for either Hansen or you after this meeting, but you still play your role as a dutiful secretary and ask, “Anything else you would like me to do?”

“Call James and tell him to pick up the loan I gave out to the Dawson scum, five mil’ in cash or non-bearer bonds. If Dawson returns even one dime short, I want his arm broken. And deliver the drycleaning to my place by five tonight. Tell my butler, while you’re at it, he can hold off the repair down at the basement, this can wait till January. And,” he pauses, “I want you to tell Dani, head to her place personally, and tell her that I’m cancelling the Cuban appointment.”

“Yes, Mr. Hansen.” You pick up the landline straight away, ready to dial James’ number.

“You are not taking any notes whatsoever.” Lloyd narrows his eyes, “What are the tasks I just gave you?”

Lloyd seems extra grumpy today, plus you are not a note-taker anyway. You cover the speaker with your palm, though puzzled as to why he’s moody all of a sudden, but comply with his demands, “Call James, collect the debt from Dawson; get the drycleaning to your house by five, and tell your butler Marlin not to rush on the basement repair; and lastly, tell Dani you’re cancelling the Cuban appointment.” And you have no clue what this “Cuban” appointment is. Darn, Lloyd does keep a whole lot of secrets from you, “Anything else, Mr. Hansen?”

Fuck.

He sounds like fucking Cinderella’s stepmom dumping beans into the fireplace. Since when did he get off on ordering you around doing meaningless chores? He could perfectly do them himself, not to mention some of the biddings he has just told you were unnecessary – the basement repair? It was a damn doorknob getting stuck, not a pipeline that leaks like a faucet.

“Claire’s not here, take Avik with you.” He grumbles, returning to his office and slamming the door shut.

Avik is a silent, tanned man who often acts as Lloyd’s muscle. He emerges from thin air – or probably from some corner, standing rigidly behind you like a statue.

“Hey Avik, mind if I drive?” You put a warm smile on your face, swinging the car key on your finger.

Avik merely nods, gesturing that he’ll walk in front of you.

After picking up Lloyd’s drycleaning and telling Marlin the exact words from Lloyd's mouth, you head off to your next assignment.

Dani.

Dani is a woman approximately your age, speaks fluent Spanish, English, and Italian, probably a couple of other languages that you couldn’t understand too, and rumored to be Lloyd’s ex.

She is a charming lady living in a mansion away from the glamourous nightlife of LA, but not shy of parties. In fact, you’ve accompanied Lloyd to a few that she hosts, and if you ever need a party planner, she would be your No. 1 choice – if you can afford it.

You tap on the steering wheel somewhat anxiously, checking your watch. It’s five to six, and Dani’s residence is halfway across the city, and you have yet to finish the job that Lloyd told you to.

It feels like double standards when you explicitly told Allie that your date cannot be late.

Dani’s lovely butler, Mrs. Santos invited you in, leading you to the guest room.

“To what do I own this honor of having Lloyd’s personal assistant arriving at my place?” Dani flips her hair and giggles.

“Lloyd has sent me to tell you that,” you still remember the strange code phrase word by word, “He’s cancelling the Cuban appointment.”

Dani carefully studies you for a moment, before bursting out laughter, “He… He said that? The Cuban appointment?”

Darn, even when she’s laughing, she’s charming as always.

“Yes.” You answer her question, “If there’s no message you want me to forward to him, I’ll be out of your hair.”

Dani hangs a mysterious smile on the corner of her lips, her honey-toned skin practically gleaming as she speaks, “None. But if you don’t mind me asking, do you have any plans for tonight? I want to borrow you for one of my parties – you know,” she shrugs, “connections and all that.”

Dani’s parties are always filled with delightful cocktails and exquisite people she knows from all over the world. It’s a perfect chance to refresh your connections with all sorts of people – thieves, CEOs, fences, politicians - part of the reason why she asked you to stay.

Yet, you were already booked for tonight.

“Sorry,” you politely rejected, “I’d love to, but I have a date tonight.”

“Well, you-” Dani points at you with her perfectly manicured finger, sounding cheerful, “are welcome at my place, anytime. You can bring your date here even, if you need a place to chill.”

“Thank you, Dani.” You respond, “Have fun at your party.”

Dani cocks her head to the side. The bright flashy diamond earrings peek from under her hair, swaying as if they were about to fall. She hums thoughtfully before wishing you a pleasant evening.

As soon as you step out of her estate, Dani picks up her phone and dials Lloyd’s number, “I recall a certain someone claims that he needs absolutely no help landing a girl,” She twirls her hair around her fingertips, chuckling, “the Cuban appointment, Lloyd? Wow, you must be really desperate. Now, you want me to help you sabotage her date? That I can do...”

With Lady Luck by your side, you’ve successfully reached the restaurant five minutes early with someone already at your table, while Avik sits at a table on the other side of the aisle, keeping an eye on you.

“You must be Scott.” You pull your chair to sit, trying your best to ignore the bulk of muscles on your righthand-side, watching as the young man across the table hastily puts down his water glass and stands abruptly with his face flushed.

“H… Hi.” He can barely stop the grin on his face, “It’s so nice to finally meet you.”

Allie is right. He is cute.

Scott scratches the back of his head, plopping down on his seat, asking hesitantly, “If this is not too intrusive, how did you get a reservation? My friend has been dying to try this place for a week and the nearest spot available is three months later.”

“My boss is a close friend of the restaurant manager.” Lloyd practically runs this place. The manager gets scared shitless every time he needs to deliver the quarterly books to Lloyd and he asks you to do it in his place. Hence, he’s greatly in your debt. But you are not going to tell Scott you work for the largest gang in the city, so you feign your interest and ask, “What about you? Allie didn’t tell me what you do for a living.”

His face goes flushed pink again, “I uh… I work as an assistant curator,” he adds, “but I paint.”

“Oh really? That sounds fun. What do you paint?”

Scott chats on and on about his love for contemporary art and various ways of making a beautiful moment permanent when you notice Avik stands up and leaves.

“… sorry,” you apologize to Scott, for you have missed the question he asks, having paid too much attention to the bodyguard Avik who doesn’t seem like returning, “what was that again?”

Scott shuts his mouth momentarily before managing a small smile, “I was just thinking that we should get the waiter. Is there anything you like on the menu?”

The food was divine, and the wine was savory too. Though the waiters seemed a little distracted – you guessed it was probably their boss telling them to stay away from your table for you to enjoy your date. After exchanging pleasant conversations, you know it’s time to end this lovely date.

Before getting the check and leaving, you excuse yourself to freshen up.

Scott nods with his curls bouncing.

Scott is nice.

He is smart, funny, and cute with his untamed curls.

You put on a thin layer of lipstick. Looking into the mirror, the polite smile breaks away when you watch your reflection.

Scott is a decent guy. Why don’t you like him?

A vague outline rises in your head, before evaporating.

Stop it. You tell yourself. Scott is a nice guy. You should enjoy this date.

Only when your figure disappears behind a few tables, did someone sit on your spot.

“Evening.” A moustache man traces his finger on the cup from which you drank, crossing his legs, “Scotty, right?”

Scott clenches his hand on the arm of his chair, but Avik appears quietly behind him, grabbing his shoulders to have him sit down. A hard piece of metal is pressed to the back of his head. It doesn’t take much common sense to understand that Avik has a gun pointing at him.

“Don’t get all flustered,” Lloyd pours some wine into both glasses, “I’m just here to… be nice.” A wicked grin creeps up his lips as Lloyd continues, “The woman who you’re dating tonight?”

Scott gulps, squeezing a “yeah” out of his teeth.

“That’s my girl.” Lloyd dead-pans, massaging the light smudge of your lipstick on the glass, “So, if you have any wrong idea, or any thoughts about her…” Lloyd has a cold gleam in his eyes, shakes his head and tuts, “Don’t.”

Poor Scott has his face drained of colors. His lips quivering, “I-I’m not- I don’t want to be part of this…”

“Good.” Lloyd smirks. Drinking from your glass, he licks his lips to savour the sweet honey taste of your lipstick, before giving his final order, “Now be a good boy, say your ‘nighty night’s, and get the fuck out of my turf.”

“Boss.” Avik’s eyes dart to the lavatory, signalling that you are approaching this table.

“Aaaand that’s my cue.” Lloyd stands up from the chair, looking content, “Keep this little interaction between us, will ya’?” He pouts, “I’d hate if she gets upset.”

By the time you reach this table, Scott sweats in buckets like he has just been to a sauna.

“Is everything alright?” You can’t help but ask.

“Yeah… yeah.” Scott could barely mask his trembling voice, or keep his eye contact, “I’m … feeling uncomfortable… right now.”

“Is it the food? Do you need to go to the bathroom?”

“No… I mean, I think so. The asparagus was raw.” Scott wipes the sweat off his pale face, “It’s been lovely, but …”

Your eyes dart to the table where Avik was sitting. Nope, he isn’t there. For a second you thought that Avik might have terrorized Scott into backing out. Such a stupid idea, why would Avik do that? You throw this thought to the back of your head, before suggesting if Scott needs a lift home, or to the hospital.

Scott nearly jumps from his spot upon hearing the offer, which confuses you as he avoids speaking or looking at you, as if you were a plague.

He takes his belongings, bids you good night before sprinting out of the restaurant.

What the fuck have you done???

You trouble yourself with the question when Avik returns to your side without a single sound, “Avik, I was wondering where you’ve been.”

“The backroom where I can observe the surveillance footage, ma’am.” His voice booms, “Shall I drive you home?”

“Yes, I suppose.” You sigh.

Avik gestures for you to walk, but you stop in your tracks.

“Avik?”

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“Did you have any food yet?”

You did not see him ordering anything when he was sitting across the aisle, nor do you believe that he’d risk losing his job over some half-cooked asparagus.

“… No Ma’am.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose. The exhaustion of trying to satisfy Lloyd’s tasks and doubting whether he’s being paranoid again takes over you for so long, you seem to lose a little bit of human emotions – neglecting dutiful Avik, as a result.

“Sorry about that, Avik.” You apologize, feeling slightly better that you’ve come to your senses after a long day, “I’ll have them prepare something vegan for takeaway.”

“…thank you, Ma’am.”

Grabbing a waiter passing by, you tell him about your request, before resting on your chair.

Out of sheer boredom, you tap on your glass, scraping the lipstick smudge off the crystal-clear surface with a used napkin.

Avik coughs as if he has just choked on his own spit.

“Everything alright, Avik?”

It seems like you’ve said this for the second time tonight.

“Yes. Ahem. Yes, all is well.” Avik clears his throat uncomfortably.

“Because you can totally have tonight off. I’m more than capable of driving home myself.” You offer sweetly, expecting him to take the suggestion and leave you here.

“Thank you, Ma’am.” Avik replies rigidly, his shirt collar tightening around his tanned skin as he speaks, “Thank you, but your safety is my priority.”

You should have known better than to negotiate with Lloyd’s muscle. They follow his orders like workers around a queen bee. Pursing your lips together, you decide not to spend time bargaining with Avik, but scroll on social media to distract yourself.

Avik lets out a long, slow exhale when you are focusing on your phone. He’s great at bodyguarding, but terrible at being a double agent.

The takeaway package arrives shortly – or it could be you are too tied up in the TikTok drama to notice time slipping away from the tip of your fingers. Avik takes the wheel while you sit in the back, trying hard not to think about the sudden change in Scott’s attitude.

It’s not like you don’t enjoy Scott’s company. You do. But Scott’s dashing out of the restaurant leaves a certain impression that you don’t think you’d forget anytime soon. Maybe the food was raw. Or burned. Or he had some pills. Still, it doesn’t explain why he ran out of the place like a bloodhound was chasing him.

Or is there something wrong with you? Something he’d grow repulsive of?

“Stop the car, please.” The thoughts in your head are preventing you from breathing. With Avik’s puzzled frown in the rearview mirror, you shrug, “You can go park the car. I want to have a little walk and some fresh air.”

After what must be an internal debate in Avik’s silence, he slowly stops at the curb, agreeing for you to have your fresh air.

The street is silent, not a living soul in sight. You close your eyes and breathe in the fresh air.

Oh well, maybe the air is not so fresh after all, with the smell of gasoline and dust and … smoke?

You turn around.

Lloyd’s Rolls-Royce follows you like a toddler in small steps, with a hand outstretched from the window that flicks his cigarette stub to the curb.

“Mr. Hansen?” You could’ve been dreaming. Why would Lloyd’s car follow you? Why – “What are you doing here?”

Lloyd steps out of the vehicle, popping a peppermint into his mouth. Crushing the candy with his jaw, he mumbles, “Just having a late-night stroll.”

A ridiculous idea comes into mind, and you ask in disbelief: “Are you following me?”

“No.” Lloyd stares at you straight into your eyes, but you’ve seen him lie better, “This is my turf. And you can’t ban me from patrolling my own territory.”

You can’t help but roll your eyes.

Sure. Patrolling. Very convincing. He just happened to stumble in front of your apartment building among hundreds of thousands of streets.

“Of course.” Maybe it’s the wine, because for crying out loud you would be tongue-tied if you were to say this at work, but the sarcasm drips out of your tone like water out of a broken faucet, because you are not in the mood. At all. “Good night, Mr. Hansen.”

“I had a great night.” Since he counts the scurrying of one horny young man as a win, Lloyd casually drops, “Can’t say the same about you.”

What the heck is wrong with him?

Now it’s definitely the wine that does the talking, as you poke him square in the chest with your index finger, your voice littered with fury, “It’s after-hours, and you don’t own my after-hours, in case you don’t have a watch, okay?”

Lloyd offers his characteristic lop-sided smile, “What - you’re gonna buy me one?”

“No?!” You huff out in disbelief. Has he taken hallucinating drugs? Why on earth is he acting funny? “This is not - look, Mr. Hansen-”

Lloyd steps closer. You get that whiff of smoke from his body, and the musky cologne that he occasionally uses in rare circumstances, and your words somehow get stuck in your throat.

“Lloyd.” He pronounces his name, loud and clear, “C’mon sunshine, lllllloyd.”

Lloyd. The name rolls to the tip of your tongue. It feels natural and soft, unlike Lloyd Hansen himself. But the syllable drives your heartbeat wild. He is your boss. You are obligated to call him Mr. Hansen.

Well, maybe not obligated. But you would feel more comfortable calling him Mr. Hansen. The name Lloyd sounds like an over-step of your work relationship.

Your work. Your beloved secretary job. Which is fine. Which you enjoy, as you handle his affairs with some effort. But the name. He’s asking you to call him Lloyd and that sounds more intimate than what you should be calling your boss.

“I- ” You are at a loss of words. What does he want? Does he want you to be his mistress? Which is ridiculous, because you don’t want to be the type of canary living in a birdcage and sing for him whenever he pleases. More importantly, he cannot be having thoughts about you – or does he want this to be a one-night thing where he could pull up his pants and comment on how long since he had a good fuck?

-stop it. It’s an insane thought. He’s not interested. So are you.

You accidentally look at his eyes, and you recognize the burning desire rooting deep down. It scorches you instantly as your eyes meet, before you lower your head to avoid the demanding gaze.

“You’re my boss…” You mutter weakly, knowing well that this stupid excuse does not prevent you from enjoying (or feeling safe at) Lloyd’s presence – most of the time, when he’s not bloody or throwing punches – or from the plain fact that maybe, just maybe that you feel a little different towards him, and that for the briefest of moments, you wished that he was sitting across the dinner table tonight, taking you out on a date.

Lloyd’s expression goes still for a second.

You can’t tell whether he’s mad or upset.

He sighs, taking a step towards you to close the space between you two, before framing your face in his hands and whispering in frustration, “God, you’re so dumb.”

His lips are soft, contrary to his mean words. They land on you with a bitter taste of burned tobacco, as his tongue swipes the seam of your lips, forcing an embarrassing mewl out of you.

It felt like Lloyd and his roughness. It felt like an iceberg breaking into chucks, whales lifting their head to breathe and the dam that withholds feelings inside your head cracks. It felt … right.

He slowly breaks away the kiss, sighing again, right next to your lips, his moustache making your cheek itch.

“Am I about to get a kick in the balls?” He asks softly, nose gently rubbing on yours.

“No…no.” Not that you don’t want to, because how dares he! Following you and kissing you like that! But because your head turning into a warm mush.

“Good.” He nibbles on your lips, you can feel his lips curving into a smile, “ ’cause I kinda like them.”

“Hmm?”

“Never mind.” He lands another kiss on you before pulling away. The bad-boy grin visible on his face.

You feel like you need to say something. Anything. So, you open your mouth and: “Do you want … a cup of coffee at my place?”

Lloyd cocks his eyebrows in surprise, but there’s no way he’d let slip of this chance, “Sure, why not.”

The mush in your brain refuses to leave. Your body acts on auto-pilot, leading you away from him.

You don’t even notice that he’s not following you this time, until he calls your name out of the blue, with a hint of amusement in his tone.

“Yes, Mr. Hansen?”

Lloyd decides to let slip of your poor choice of words this time, simply pointing his thumb in the other direction: “Your home is this way.”

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