#i was sent the full album early n have just been Waiting to listen again at release and now tjat its out n im listening to it all again its-

[digifag]

cannot stress enough how good 1.23 is pleaseeee give it a listen if u can

[aereres]

Loving You Is Easier Than I Had Expected - Matthew Tkachuk | Rock Band AU

Summary: Being one of the most popular rock band’s personal assistant was never easy: between rushing through traffic, running around, and listening to music, Chordback was part of Deborah Miller’s day-to-day life. As if her schedule wasn’t already busy enough, the band’s drummer - Matthew Tkachuk - stumbles into her life like a tornado, unexpectedly turning her world upside down. 

A/N: Oh. My. God. This fic has truly become my baby. No Joke. I’ve worked on this for almost a month and I’m so proud of what it came out to be. Hope you enjoy it!

Word Count: 18,4k (damn)

Warnings: swearing (lots of it), anxiety, fighting, cockiness (also lots of it), drinking and partying, physical fights, wounds, blood, perverts, bad relationships with families, angst, mostly fluff

Chordback needed her. More than anything.

The thought made its way into Deborah’s head as she watched the band sluggishly walk around their shared penthouse, bags under their eyes as they scrambled for their luggage and important belongings. They moved without a care in the world, as if their schedule wasn’t packed with things to do, and she didn’t need to be a genius to realize that they had partied too hard the previous night.

“Move out of the way,” Noah muttered Johnny’s way, pushing past him with his suitcase in hand. “Deb, when’s the flight?”

“The flight isn’t the problem,” she stated, holding back a sigh as Elias came out of the bathroom with toothpaste still painting the side of his lips. “There’s a reason why you decided to fly privately,”

“Then why are we rushing?” Johnny said matter-of-factly, shaking his head sassily while he closed his own bass case.

“Because you have places to be after the flight,” the only woman in the house finally let her sigh out, pushing past the men to clean the white remnants off of Elias’ face, ignoring the smug smirk on his face. “Where’s Matthew, now?”

“Chucky!”

The room fell silent for a moment as she prayed - for anyone up there - that Matthew hadn’t fallen back asleep just when they needed to leave. His frame pushed past the threshold of his bedroom soon after his name was called, his signature drumsticks in hand as a relieved sigh left Deborah’s parted lips when their eyes met.

His phone was pressed to his ear, eyes far too awake for the early morning hour that made her wonder if he had gone to sleep the night before or just stayed up until sunset rolled around. His eyebrows were furrowed, the look she saw just so often painting wrinkles on his forehead as he stayed in silence.

“Taryn, I don’t have time for this right now. I’ll call you later,” the words were rushed, his voice dark and sporting a tip of annoyance before he pressed the red button on the screen. The phone was discarded in the back pocket of his jeans a second later, his eyes finding Deborah’s and making her realize she had been staring, pushing her back into action.

“Are we ready?” She asked, loud enough for everyone to hear. All she got as responses were a few grumbles, followed by the familiar sounds of the luggage the band carried around way too often moving through the penthouse.

The ride to the airport was spent in silence, a few moans and groans leaving the guys’ lips whenever something would be too loud or, in general, too exaggerated. Going through security was just as boring, with Deborah being able to share just a few hushed words with Jean - the band’s manager - before Elias or Noah would shut the two of them down.

“I told them not to drink too much,” Jean muttered under her breath, taking a look at the way Johnny’s eyes had closed. “God, is this what being a mother feels like?”

The older woman looked exasperated as she frantically walked around the boarding area, restraining herself from giving the tired men another lecture about partying like animals and how it affects their public image.

With her arms folded over her chest, Debby watched over the guys slightly older than her. She was still wondering why Matthew was carrying himself better than the rest of his friends, but it was the look on his face that truly left her curious.

His gaze was fixated on his phone, fingers tapping quickly as the wrinkles on his forehead stayed in their place. She was staring. Again. Frustrated with her own self, Deborah turned around to face the floor-to-ceiling windows of the airport, the early sun illuminating the world before your eyes.

She felt peaceful, mind clearing from the stress of the morning right before the flight attendants led her and the band towards the private jet. The luxury of its insides were nothing new to the personal assistant, and it was the same for the inappropriate glances the captain had been sending her way ever since she had started the job.

Noah dropped on one of the leather seats, eyes closing as he shut the world out, Johnny following his actions. Elias and Matthew settled in the seats opposite them, giving Deborah a clear view of the drummer’s features even from your position in the far back.

“We should get there on time,” Jean sighed, gracefully settling down next to the young woman just as the captain started to walk away. His eyes met Deborah’s one last time, a chill running up her spine when he sent her an unwanted wink, as he always used to.

To say she felt uncomfortable was an understatement.

With her heart beating loudly against her chest, she let her fingers play with the bottom of her shirt, eyes trained in front of herself. That man needs to take a hint, was all Deborah could think, so focused on blocking out the rest of the world she didn’t even notice Matthew’s eyes on her.

He had been glancing her way curiously ever since he’d noticed her body stiffen, right when she had walked inside the plane and greeted the conductor. Her demeanor had changed, and he wanted to know why.

He stayed in his seat, though. He watched from the distance, let his eyes trail over her features until she relaxed and hoped she wouldn’t notice. Because that’s what he’s always done: admire her from far away.

-----

“Listen, why can’t you just shut the fuck up and get in there?” Noah hissed, the heated conversation between him and Elias taking place inside the control room of the studio in New York. “You’ve argued about this track ever since I put it down- thank you, sweetheart,”

He grabbed the coffee Deborah handed him with a thankful smile, the flirty nickname not even impressing her anymore as she silently sat down on the closest couch.

“Dude, this track doesn’t represent us!” Elias said, pushing his sheet music around angrily before citing the words of the song. “Oh, why can’t I have you, sweet love of mine? Are you joking, Noah?! These lyrics are pop bullshit. New album is not gonna work if we write shit like this,”

The lead blew out a heavy sigh, fists turning into balls at his sides as his eyes closed. “Actually, you know what? I need to get some air,” was all Elias mumbled, pushing past his best friend with nothing but anger painting his features. Deborah was about to run after him to make sure everything was okay, but Noah’s hand dismissed her attempt.

“Let him go, he needs to cool off,”

The singer didn’t seem too pleased with his friend’s shenanigans, turning to face the empty booth in front of his eyes as another sigh turned his body stiff. Fights had occurred before: Deborah wasn’t new to arguments about where the group was going to eat, or even fights because of girls; but things had started to become too tense, too complicated between the four men.

“Chucky, your turn,” Noah mumbled, snapping the only woman in the room out of her trance to see Matthew walk past her, drumsticks in hand.

He was silent as he sat down in front of the drum set, pushing the pair of headphones over his nest of curls. His tattooed arms were in full display as he gave Noah a thumbs up, a cocky smile painting his lips. Matthew was the living description of a rock star, and Debby couldn’t keep her eyes off of him.

The drummer’s eyes closed as the music started playing in his ears, his drumsticks making a quick turn between his fingers before he began doing what he loved the most. Watching him play had Deborah mesmerized: the way he attentively looked in front of himself to catch Noah’s reactions, or just the movements of his hands as he gave his everything into the performance, even if his only audience were her and Noah.

Deborah was lost in his gaze, his light, stormy eyes making her heart skip a beat. The sounds coming from him came to a halt before she knew it, a satisfied smirk coating his lips as he waited for Noah’s judgment.

It was silent for a few seconds, heavy breathing coming from the singer as he revived the moment and the melody in his head. “Jesus, Matt,” he breathed into the speaker, trying to muffle the shock in his features by batting his eyelids. “You got it perfect on the first time, damn,”

Matthew’s smirk grew bigger, taking its usual cocky mark as he stood up and finally noticed the assistant. When he strutted back inside the control room to grab his belongings, he snickered at her mesmerized gaze.

“Close your mouth before you catch flies, honey,” was all he said, cocking his brow as his smug smile still sat on his lips. The remark had Deborah’s face turn into a scowl, his cocky words engraving themselves in her mind as he walked away.

She bit her lip as she turned back around to face Noah, trying to push Matthew and his cockiness out of her head, with no success. The lead, on the other hand, looked in distress: he was hunched over the console, clearly in his own head as silence engulfed the two of them in a stressful hug.

“Tell me you know how to play the guitar,” he mumbled, rubbing his tired eyes as he turned around to face Deborah. “Or at least how to book a place for us in a bar, tonight,”

“I can do the latter,” she sighed, knowing that Noah’s plans to finish the song would need to involve a night out, alcohol, and girls willing to drool all over Elias’ charm.

“And please, come out with us, Deb,” he continued. “Jean doesn’t want things to go too wild, so we might need you to keep us on track,”

She held back a sigh. Her plans for a relaxing night at the hotel had been crushed. Again. Though a night by herself looked way better than a packed club, Deborah’s job was calling, and she couldn’t refuse.

“Alright, I’ll be there,” she said, taking her phone out of her bag to start the search for the night’s location. “I’ll text you the details,”

“Drinks are on us,”

-

Debby’s ears felt like they were going to bleed soon, and the headache was making her head throb so hard she was hoping not to faint in the middle of the most popular club in New York.

The VIP area was everything she had expected it to be: leather couches that probably cost more than her apartment back in Calgary, enough drinks to make an army drunk, and the entire female population of the city. What could she say? It was Chordback worthy.

Elias’ cheeks were tinted a dark shade of red, eyes gleaming even in the darkness of the club as he held two blondes close to his body. The smirk Deborah knew so well was painting his lips - the one he reserved for flirting purposes only - as she watched him charm another set of girls in his hotel bed.

He was the second oldest in the band, but it hadn’t taken the assistant years to realize his maturity level wasn’t what every girl on the internet expected it to be. Clad in his tight, pitch-black skinny jeans and shirt - not exactly what people would expect a rock star to dress like -, he knew how to attract girls.

Noah had tried to convince him to record his guitar solo the moment their drinks were placed in front of them, but he had ended up with no success when the guitarist had left the table mid-conversation to go dance. The lead’s patience was running low, and Debby was sure his night wasn’t going to turn out as good as he had thought it would.

If that wasn’t enough, she felt stared at. Everywhere she went, a pair of eyes was following her. Debby would turn around to find scowls coloring the groupies’ faces, their orbs giving her disgusted once-overs whenever she’d go as far as to grasp Noah’s arm to avoid falling over, or even lean close enough to ask where Matthew had gone. She had never liked being the center of attention, hence why she had decided to work behind the scenes.

By the time midnight hit, though, she had had enough. The day had been tiring, the club was anything but enjoyable, and the glaring had gone from bearable to annoyingly uncomfortable. Almost stomping her way towards the couch, Debby’s arms folded over her own chest as she stood before Matthew Tkachuk’s relaxed body.

“Okay, I’m done with this bullshit,” she yelled loudly enough to be heard over the thumping bass of the music. “Do I have something on my face?”

Matthew’s smirk paired with his arched eyebrows did its job at making the younger girl feel embarrassed. In some ways, it sent her back to the days in high school, where the popular girls only needed one of their disgusted glances to make her shut herr mouth and feel embarrassed.

Deborah ignored his expression, waiting for a response as a girl sat next to him - so close she was almost straddling his lap. “No? Why would you think that?”

“Because everyone is staring at me as if I have shit smeared all over my face,”

The words snatched a chuckle out of his system, tongue wetting his lips as he gave Debby’s body a once-over. “They think you’re a new one. One of them,”

Her eyebrows furrowed as she tried to unravel his riddle, but nothing seemed to make sense in her mind. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“They think you’re a new groupie, that you’re stealing their place,”

“I’m not a fucking groupie,” she said, confusion clear in her features as she watched him sling his arm over the girl at his side. “I’ve been your PA for two years now!”

All Matthew did was shrug, smirking as he watched the look of annoyance spread over the personal assistant’s face. She was done. She wanted to leave the busy club behind with all the nasty glares and go back to the hotel to sleep.

Skimming past sweaty bodies, she reached Noah’s side after a few minutes. She had expected him to be having fun, but his features were still sporting a bothered scowl. “Noah!”

His attention snapped towards her in a second, his eyes boring into Deborah’s as he waited for her to speak up. “I’m heading to the hotel, I can’t stand this club anymore,”

A small nod was all she got in response, her eyes falling among the crowd to see Johnny making out with a smaller brunette, his hair sticking all over the place. Glancing towards the side of the room, she found Elias sitting on the couch, enjoying the sloppy kisses being spread all over his neck by the two blondes from earlier. Matthew, on the other hand, was still sitting on the couch - this time without his companion - his light orbs focused on Noah and their assistant.

“Can you please keep an eye on the rest of the guys?” She asked Noah, looking up at him as she waited for his response. He gave you a curt nod. “And don’t stay out too late,”

She left the club soon after, strutting out of the packed room with relief. Debby still felt eyes on herself, but not the ones of the rabid fans that had hated her since the moment she had stepped inside the room. Matthew’s eyes.

They watched her walk away, ignoring the pair of manicured hands touching his arm to catch his attention. He had been the reason why everyone was looking at her, and it wasn’t hard to tell. Yet, she was oblivious.

They had thought Deborah was a groupie because of the way he looked at her, because what his eyes held whenever he’d let himself glance her way wasn’t just curiosity. It was fondness, hunger, a cocktail of emotions that he had been trying to avoid for his own sake.

But, that time, he had lost at his own game.

-

“What the hell were you thinking?!”

Jean’s voice was sharp, so shrill it sent bolts of pain through Deborah’s temples. She had watched the scene unfold in front of your eyes, starting with the unexpected awakening in the middle of the night, ending with all the band members getting lectured by their agent.

The woman in her forties looked like she was about to tug her dark hair off of her scalp, an angry look on her face as she looked at the men sitting in front of her. “Jean, calm down. It was just a fight,”

“Don’t tell me to calm down, boy!” Jean pointed her finger sharply at his face, nostrils flaring. “Just a fight, Elias?! It’s all over the internet!”

Guilt washed over Debby as she took in Noah’s beat-up face, including his cut lip and purplish left eye; Matthew, next to him, wasn’t doing any better. She was supposed to be there, to keep an eye on the guys.

Jean had woken her up in a rush an hour after coming back to the hotel, mumbling under her breath as she dragged Deborah to her personal room. Chordback was already sitting on the edge of her bed, their eyes cast on the floor as the assistant noticed their bruises and cuts.

“I hate to say this, Elias, but you’ve been causing problems for the past month,” Jean sighed, rubbing her forehead with the palm of her hand as her tired eyes focused on the landscape out of the hotel’s window. “First the schedule, then Noah’s song, now whatever happened at the club,”

She let another sigh slip past her lips before her voice took a gentler tone. “John, what happened?”

There was a beat before the bass player spoke, and Deborah took a moment to examine his face. He was by far the one that hadn’t been affected by the fight, at all. “I- uh… I don’t know,”

The assistant had to refrain from holding back a sigh herself, her tense body language catching Elias’ eye. “Why are we the only ones getting lectured? Deborah was supposed to stay with us,”

“This is not about Debby,” Jean stated harshly, sending him a glare. “She wasn’t getting paid to follow you at the club, and she had every right to leave when she felt like it. John, keep going,”

“I said I don’t know anything,”

“Matthew?”

The curly-haired man sighed, his head lifting upwards just then to let his eyes meet the wall briefly. “I was talking with a girl, people started yelling, and I heard Elias talking shit about Noah’s song”

Deborah’s stomach filled with an unknown feeling when he mentioned a girl, sending her head in a spiral to ask herself what the hell was she experiencing. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

“And I just couldn’t take it,” Matthew stopped, his fingers ghosting over the cuts on his knuckles. “Man, that’s a heartfelt song and you went around to talk shit about it to strangers,”

Elias kept his mouth shut, jaw clenching as his friend continued talking. “Noah and Johnny also came in, but just in time to separate us,”

“Then what happened to your face, Noah?” Jean asked, concern evident in her voice.

“I- uh… I was seeing red,” Matthew mumbled, silence filling the room soon after the words left his mouth. Deborah was left to look at a desperate Jean - clearly close to having a mental breakdown - and hope things would get better by the time morning would roll in.

Her mind, though, couldn’t focus on anything but Matthew. He looked beaten up, both physically and mentally; he looked like he was holding so much on his shoulders, so much pressure she wanted to relieve him of.

“Matthew, John,” Jean sighed, looking behind his shoulders at the two men briefly. “You can go get some sleep. You too, Debby,”

She had never shuffled out of a room that quickly in her entire life, the tension being so overwhelming she needed a breath of fresh air. Johnny and Matthew were silent as they stepped out of the room, a physical and emotional distance separating them as they parted ways.

The moment was awkward, Matthew turning around just in time to see his friend shut the door of his room behind himself, a sigh leaving his lips. His eyes met Deborah’s for a quick second, a wave of shame flowing through them.

In some way, she felt like part of that shame was directed at herself too: his snarky, cocky words were still impressed in her mind, but she could see his regret. She wished her heartbeat hadn’t started picking up, but looking in his eyes, she couldn’t help it.

He was asking for forgiveness, and who was she to not give it to him? He was the only person she couldn’t stop thinking about day and night, anyway, for some reason.

“Come with me,” Deborah whispered, her voice shallower than she had thought it would be as her hand caught his. He didn’t ask questions when she opened her room’s door, he didn’t speak a word as she led him towards the en-suite bathroom, and he didn’t run away when she made him sit on the edge of the bathtub.

More silence settled between the two of them as Debby grabbed the first-aid kit the hotel supplied, wetting a cotton ball with disinfectant before letting her hand grab Matthew’s again.

There was a soft hiss when she first let the material touch his bloody skin, his jaw clenching as he closed his eyes. “I feel like a monster,”

His words made the woman’s heart clench, her stomach turning into jelly. “You’re not a monster, Matthew,”

“I hit my best friend because I couldn’t hold myself back,” he breathed out, voice unexpectedly shaky as he kept his gaze on the tile floor. “I’m a monster,”

Deborah sighed, letting her fingers grasp his chin so he could lift his head up. Their eyes met as she prepared another cotton ball, ready to clean the cut on his bottom lip as they let silence fill the room.

Cradling his head in her hands, Debby took a few minutes to wipe some dried blood off his skin. Matthew was tired, she could tell from the way his eyes were struggling to stay open, but regret was keeping him up, keeping his brain active.

She let herself gaze at him for a small moment before patting his shoulder. “Get some sleep, Matt,” she whispered. “Really,”

He nodded gingerly, following her towards her door. “Thank you, Deb,”

“Don’t worry about it,”

He took a moment to admire her, letting one of his hands gently push a strand of stray hair out of her face. Her body heated up, heart rate quickening as she watched him leave silently, a small smile on his lips.

In a trance, Deborah went back to bed, sleep not on her agenda anymore. Her mind kept repeating the moment she had had with Matthew, every single second of it, and it felt new, unexpected.

Matthew Tkachuk was making her feel things she had never felt before, and everything was so unknown to her.

That night, Deborah struggled to fall back asleep.

-----

“You’re gonna catch a cold,”

The evening air was making Deborah’s hair flow around herself, her eyes focusing on the sunset before turning around to meet Matthew’s. A small smile formed on her lips, her arms folding over her chest. “Nah, my body won’t betray me like that,”

The chuckle that left his lips was enough to push the butterflies in her stomach back to life. His body reached Debby’s side as he focused too on the setting sun disappearing behind the New York skyscrapers.

“Truly the best time of the day,” she mumbled under her breath. “Sunsets are just so beautiful,”

Matthew sent a quick glance her way. “But the night,” was all he said, voice holding a tone of fondness as he looked in front of himself. “The night is just so beautiful,”

“The night is lonely,” the assistant pointed.

“The night is peaceful,” he corrected her, the smile on his lips so tender it made her melt. “Everyone goes to sleep at night, and it gives you time to think,”

There was a beat of silence as she took in his words, heart racing as she unconsciously scooted closer to him. The question was risky. It rushed through Deborah’s lips, and her eyes almost closed in fear of rejection. “What do you think about? At night, I mean,”

“I think about good memories,” his answer was quick, no sign of discomfort on his face. “About my childhood, or people I miss,”

He glanced her way with a smile on his lips, the air from the top of the building making his curls move slightly. “And what do you think about? At night, I mean,”

“Life, I guess,”

There was a nod from his side, his eyes turning back to focus on the landscape as another round of silence filled the distance between the two of them. Deborah’s mind started to think about his words, pushing her away from reality as she tried to keep herself at bait. You weren’t his type, and what about Taryn?

The identity of Taryn was still unknown to the girl, but something was telling her she was eventually going to find out. She was so into her own world that she barely registered the soft material of Matthew’s leather jacket slipping onto her shoulders, his eyes glancing her way.

His body leaned against the railing of the terrace, slipping unbelievably closer to hers as the two of them admired each other. “God, Deborah,” he whispered, letting one of his hands graze over her cheekbone. Her heart was beating out of her chest so loudly she feared he could hear it, his palm slowly cupping her cheek as he let his eyes admire her. “I wish I could have met you earlier,”

His lips were extremely close to Debby’s, so close she barely even paid attention to what he had said. As the words registered, she opened her mouth to ask for an explanation, but the ringing of his phone interrupted the moment.

His eyelids shut in annoyance as he slipped the device out of his back pocket, answering as soon as he could. “I’ll be down in a sec,”

He was off the railing before he even ended the call, leaving Deborah on her own on the terrace of the building that hosted Chordback’s recording label. He turned around just when she called his name, voice strained by the sudden end of just what had been about to happen.

“Your jacket, Matt,” she pointed, starting to shrug it off just so she could hand it back to him. His hand rose in the air, putting her movements to a halt.

“Keep it,” he said, smiling gingerly before opening the door to head back inside the warmth of the building. “It looks better on you anyway,”

-----

“I wanna do it again,” Johnny said from the booth, looking at Noah as he strummed lightly his bass. “I fucked up the last part,”

From her spot on the smallest - and most uncomfortable - couch she had ever seen, Deborah watched Noah nod his head, pressing a few buttons on the console. The bass player’s head started bobbing when the music started filling his headphones, eyes almost closing as he started playing his melody.

Her tired eyes fell down on her phone, the brightness of its screen almost making her curse out. It was well past midnight, and Deborah’s day had been more than busy: the boys had to record a podcast episode with a famous producer, and she hadn’t even had a moment to settle down at the studio before a call from Jean pushed her up on her feet and around New York.

Her head was pounding, but she wasn’t allowed to leave the studio until the band decided to finish their session and go back to the hotel, so she sat in silence next to Matthew. He was silent too, glancing in front of himself as the faint sound of Johnny’s bass sent him in a trance.

As Debby’s eyes struggled to stay open, she stretched her back, holding back a moan when she felt just how tense her muscles were. Her movements snapped Matt out of his daydreaming, his orbs finding hers in the dimly lit studio as she settled back into her initial place.

“You okay?” He asked, voice uncharacteristically soft as he kept his gaze trained on the assistant.

“Just tired,” was all she said, pushing out a sigh as she folded her arms over her chest. Who turned on the AC, for fuck’s sake?

“Johnny prefers working in the cold,” Matthew murmured, almost reading her thoughts. “You want me to turn off the AC?”

Deborah shook her head, trying to hide a veil of shock at his unexpected words, kindness spilling out of them like a fountain. “No, no. It’s fine, don’t worry,”

Though she had been trying as hard as she could to keep herself awake, her body found itself scooting closer to Matthew’s, his warmth making her eyelids finally close. Debby’s head dropped to his shoulder, finally letting her relax for the first time of the day. A content sigh left her lips.

Matthew’s heart was beating out of his chest, emotions he had felt just once making him shiver. One of his arms wrapped itself around the girl’s waist, holding her close and hoping the moment would never end.

She was so close, so soft in his hold he never wanted to let go.

So he closed his eyes, putting his world to a stop just so he could hold her for a little more, just so he could imagine what it would feel like to be hers.

He was woken up after what felt like hours, Noah’s smirk being the first thing he saw after the midnight nap. Deborah’s head was on his chest, eyes closed and a relaxed smile painting her lips as she peacefully slept.

“And then I’m the obvious one,” Noah joked, referring to all the chirps he had gotten for always looking smitten, when he liked someone. “Should I be waiting for a love song from you?”

“Shut the fuck up, man,” Matthew hissed, a smile forming on his lips even after the chirps. “What time is it?”

“One a.m.”

“Damn,” Matthew sighed, rubbing his eyes before looking down at Debby again. “I’ll wake her up. Just wait outside for us,”

“Don’t fuck on the couch,” Noah joked, making Matthew roll his eyes. The lead shut the door behind him and Johnny, leaving Deborah and the man able to make her heart skip a beat on their own.

Matt took a moment to admire her peaceful state, one of his calloused hands cupping her cheek before pushing a strand of hair out of her face. The movements had Deborah stirring, her eyes slowly opening just to see - and feel - Matthew close to her.

With her cheeks burning, she pushed herself off of him, an awkward chuckle leaving her parted lips. “I’m, uh- I’m sorry,” Debby stuttered, running a hand through her hair. “How long was I out for?”

“An hour, maybe?”

She looked down at her phone to check the time, nodding her head when she saw the digits at the top of the screen. “Everyone is done?”

“They’re waiting outside,” he said, voice tender as he watched her rise to her feet. With a nod, Deborah grabbed her purse and let her eyes meet with his. She didn’t know what to say, so the two of them were left in silence before she muttered something and left the room in a rush, heart beating quickly against her rib cage.

By the time Debby reached the rest of the group outside - Elias still missing in action -, she was faced with grins. Nobody talked, though, and by the time she shut the hotel door behind herself, she was a nervous mess.

What the fuck had just happened?

-----

The last morning in New York was sunny. Deborah’s sunglasses barely could do their job as she sat between the band on the outside of the overpriced café they loved. The slight breeze was bringing the first few hints of summer in the busy air of the city, and the woman enjoyed her last moment in the Big Apple by taking a sip of the warm drink sitting in front of her.

It was the first time Chordback actually sat down together after the fight between Noah and Elias, and it felt refreshing. Johnny and Matthew - who was sitting beside her - were talking, just like the old times, and Elias was taking a moment to admire the city. Noah, on the other hand, wasn’t paying much attention to his background: his eyes were focused on his phone, a smile that Debby could only refer to as smitten painting his lips.

“So, what are the plans for the day, hun?” Elias caught the assistant’s attention, the pet name making her chuckle.

“Hun? Oh my God,” she giggled, pushing the conversation behind herself before opening her mouth again. “We gotta catch the flight back to Calgary and then you’re free,”

A whistle came from Johnny, happy chuckles filling their surroundings. “A day off? Wow,”

“No partying, though,” Deborah warned, pointing a finger Elias’ way, who shrugged innocently. The moment was short-lived, being interrupted by a younger fan asking for a picture. The guys all put on a smile, rising to their feet and getting in position. Noah took more time than necessary to put down his phone, but eventually joined his friends and greeted the girl, who looked like she was about to faint.

By the time the photo was taken, the girl was running off to her family holding back happy tears. The band members sat back in their places to finish their breakfast, silence thickening at the table.

Deborah’s eyes met Matthew’s, remembering what had happened during the band’s last studio session, her cheeks heating up. There hadn’t been any moments where the two of them could discuss not only the cuddling, but also the time when she had helped him clean his wounds up after the fight at the club, and Debby was feeling torn.

She didn’t know why, but in some way she didn’t want to discuss the events. She thought it was ridiculous that she couldn’t figure out what she was feeling, what Matthew was doing to her. Debby couldn’t figure out her own feelings, and figuring his out was more difficult than she had expected.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the devil himself, pushing her back to reality with his voice. “Hanifin, what the hell are you doing with that phone?” Matt teased, his signature smirk painting his lips.

“I, uh-” the lead stuttered, finally putting his device on top of the table as he looked up at the assistant and his friends. “I was just sending a text,”

“Just one?” Johnny chirped, chuckling when Noah’s cheeks turned a dark shade of red. “I think he’s hiding something from us, guys,”

“I sent the demo of ‘As Long As I’m With You’ to the person it’s written about,”

There was a beat of silence as Elias, Matthew, and Johnny all took in their lead’s words. “‘As Long As I’m With You’ as in the song we fought over?” Elias asked, voice filled with surprise as he waited for a response. Noah just nodded, biting back a smile as his eyes met with Matthew’s.

“Chucky knew,” he mumbled. “That’s why he punched you in the face when you talked shit about it,”

“Oh! That’s what he meant with ‘heartfelt’,” Elias laughed, shaking his head before breathing out a guilty sigh. “I’m sorry, man. Should have just kept my mouth shut,”

“I told you, it’s fine,” Noah said, his eyes glancing down towards his phone when the screen lit up, the guys finally finishing their breakfast.

“What’s her name, man?”

“Aleena,” just the mention of her name made the lead smile. “She’s back in Calgary,”

“And you didn’t tell us?!” Matt exclaimed, dramatically holding a hand to his chest. “This one hurts, man,”

“Did she like it?” Elias asked.

“The demo? She loved it,” Noah chuckled, cheeks turning uncharacteristically red. He gulped down his coffee, eyes glancing Deborah’s way as he stood up. “Ready to go?”

And by the time they reached the airport, the band was back as if the fights, bickering, and internal annoyance hadn’t happened. She had always been surprised at how strong their bond actually was that she found herself hurting when the thoughts of them possibly separating even crossed her mind.

The wait at the gate was not as long as the one from weeks prior, the private plane already waiting for everyone by the time they had gone through security. Deborah had to repress a groan when she realized the pilot was going to greet her, just like every time.

His dark eyes were on her before she could even walk inside the aircraft, the edges of his mouth turning upwards into a creepy smirk as he shook Johnny’s hand. It felt like a routine: Debby would greet the two kind flight assistants, share a knowing look with them before sticking her hand out to shake the pilot’s. The wink he sent her way wasn’t new, and neither was his hand squeezing her waist before he walked back to his seat.

Her eyes portrayed the usual emptiness they always did after entering the plane, and Matthew was quick to notice. That time, though, he knew why she turned the world off as soon as they’d board. He had been guessing Deborah was afraid of heights, or that flying made her sick, but he would have never guessed it was because of the pilot.

He elbowed Noah without even thinking, his eyes still glancing the assistant’s way as his best friend hissed. “What the fuck, Chucky?!”

“We need to talk,”

Noah sent Matthew a confused glare, eyebrows scrunched together as he followed the drummer’s gaze. He looked at Deborah, then back at his bandmate with a look of confusion still coloring his face. “Well, talk, then,”

“Later,” Matthew mumbled. “We’ll talk when we land, this needs to stay private,”

Noah nodded his head, trying to ignore his friend’s weird manners before pushing his earbuds back in. Matthew, on the other hand, stared at the girl a few seats away. Anger made his skin boil as he thought about the man that had harassed her. If the fucker hadn’t been driving the plane she was on, he would have already been dead.

The newfound protectiveness sent a thrill of shock through his spine, but he ignored it. Deborah didn’t deserve it, and the man was going to regret every single glance he had sent her way. You don’t mess with a Tkachuk, Matthew thought. The man was going to pay.

-----

The city of Calgary held something Deborah couldn’t quite place. In her eyes, it looked like home.

Home, though, was back in Arizona - the complete opposite of what Calgary is. With the hot sun burning your shoulders almost the entire year and the endless summers, Arizona was the place Debby went back to just for her family. She had always preferred the cold, after all.

Thanksgiving was around the corner, the Canadian air was starting to thicken with the winter cold, and home was calling. And she was single, again. It wasn’t because of her parents - they truly knew she was one to put work before anything else -, but rather the rest of her family.

Deborah had grown up knowing that her father’s side of the family was ruthless when it came to getting back home alone, and it had been bothering her ever since she had first moved out. The snarky remarks coming from her aunt and her husband had always been following Deborah around the walls of her childhood home and, no matter how hard she tried to push them away, she just couldn’t.

And, God. She hated it so much.

In some way, it made the woman want to spend the holiday on her own, away from the prying eyes of her relatives and away from the stress they caused. But she loved her family too much, and leaving them behind wasn’t an option.

When Deborah walked inside the band’s penthouse, she was met with unexpected silence. The entry hall was tidy, the guys’ respective coats hanging one next to the other; the kitchen was clean, plates and cups stored in their designated cupboard; the living room, on the other hand, wasn’t empty.

Matthew was sitting on one of the two couches, a notepad in his hands as he looked out of the window. His eyes were glancing at the gray clouds painting the sky, covering the first few rays of sunlight of the morning.

“Good morning,”

Her voice seemed to shake him out of his trance, body snapping around to meet her eyes as she slowly pushed her coat down her shoulders. “‘Morning, D,”

“Where are the guys?”

“Still sleeping,” Matthew mumbled, watching Debby’s every move as she let her purse sit on one of the kitchen stools. She made her way towards the couch, sitting down next to him as she tried to ignore the tension rising between the two of them, just like it always did.

The trip to New York had seemed to make a big difference in what their friendship - if you could even call it that - was, even if anything barely happened. Seeing him play, falling asleep on his shoulder, taking care of him after the fight - in some way, it all made a difference, and Debby was sure Matthew could tell, too.

That night she had fallen asleep in the car and he carried her to her hotel room? The tea he had brought her that one morning when she was feeling sick? And the talk. The sunset talk.

He didn’t seem to notice the way her heart beat for him and him only, he was so oblivious it made Deborah frustrated.

“How are you doing?” He asked, the soft thud of his notepad hitting the floor making the assistant bat her eyelashes and bringing her back to reality.

“I’m okay,” she admitted, running a hand through her hair as her eyes focused on him. “Just thinking about Thanksgiving,”

He chuckled. “You going back home?”

“I mean, I probably should head back to Arizona,” she sighed, shaking her head before opening her mouth again. “I’m just not ready to have the ‘oh, why can’t a pretty girl like you find a good man to marry?’ talk again,”

“Oh, God,” the man in front of her chuckled. “Been there,”

“What about you? Are you going home?”

There was a beat before his voice darkened, eyes glazing with something Deborah couldn’t quite place as his hand toyed with the hem of his shirt. “No,”

He let his answer linger in the air, the penthouse turning silent again as he stared ahead of himself. From Debby’s spot next to him, it seemed like he was in his thoughts, his lips pushed in a straight line as he let the emptiness of the house hit the two of them.

Another beat. “My family and I are not too close,”

“Oh,” she murmured, eyebrows furrowing as she let her eyes focus on something else other than his face. He looked saddened, in some kind of way, but mainly pissed. “So, uh- spending it with anyone special?”

“Oh no,” his tense jaw slowly turned back to normal as he repressed a chuckle. “I’m single,”

Then who the hell was Taryn?

He seemed to catch on to Deborah’s confused gaze, an eyebrow cocking as he looked at her. “What?”

“Nothing,” her cheeks heated up, embarrassment making her heartbeat quicken as shee looked at her fingers. The look on his face spurred the woman on, her voice becoming shallow as she spoke. “I just- I heard you talking to a girl named Taryn, so I just kind of assumed-”

His laughter interrupted her, waking up the mass of butterflies in her stomach just when his head lulled back against the couch’s headrest. “Oh my God,” he laughed, holding his stomach before looking back at her. “Taryn is my sister,”

“Oh,”

Deborah erupted in a fit of laughter too, shaking her head before letting it lean against his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, I don’t even know why I thought that,”

“Don’t worry,” he chuckled. “Some groupies went as far as to call her to tell her to leave me alone,”

The confession made her eyebrows scrunch. Girls did that to him?

Silence settled back between the two of them as Debby’s eyes focused on the city starting to wake up outside the window. The thought that crossed her mind felt wrong from the moment she even tried to phrase it. But there’s nothing worse than spending Thanksgiving on your own, was all her heart could say.

She glanced quickly at Matthew, who was scribbling something on his notepad. The light redness painting his cheeks had her heart clenching with longing, her hands tingling, begging to run through his messy curls. He was truly breathtaking, Deborah couldn’t get enough of him.

“Come to Arizona with me,” the words were rushed, unexpected. They had her surprised when they left her own mouth, and Matthew’s shock was evident as he turned his head around to glance her way.

“I-”

“Spending Thanksgiving on your own fucking sucks,” Debby pointed out. “And I won’t let you experience that on my watch,”

He laughed, shaking his head before letting their eyes meet. “I don’t want to intrude,”

“You would never intrude,” the woman said, voice gentle as she restrained herself from cradling his cheek. “And my mom has been begging to meet you guys ever since I started working for you,”

That confession made a laugh ripple out of his lips, the sound making her body feel alive. “So? Yes or no?”

There was a moment where he let his gaze meet Debby’s, his fondness hugging her warmly as she momentarily forgot how to speak.

“Only if the tickets are on me,”

She frowned jokingly, biting her lip to hide a smile before speaking. “We’re set,”

-----

“Oh my God, I missed you so much,” Deborah’s mother wept as she left her arms around her daughter’s frame, the crispy wind of Thanksgiving Eve making the afternoon air unexpectedly chilly. “I told you, you should come home more often,”

Debby chuckled at her comment, pushing herself away from her mother to introduce Matthew - her boss and her date. She was fucked. “Mom, this is Matthew. He’s the drummer of the band I work for,”

“It’s so nice to meet you, Mrs. Miller. Thank you for having me,”

From the smile on her mother’s lips, Deborah knew she was sold. The older woman had never been one for tattoos, but Debby had caught her admiring Matthew’s full sleeves from the moment he had crossed her vision; he had helped his date carry her luggage, and she was sure her mom had also noticed that, hence why she was smiling at him as if he had just proposed to her only daughter.

“Come in already, guys. Grandma has just arrived, too,” she mumbled, waving a hand in the air as a signal for the two to get inside.

“Grandma?”

The sight of her sitting on the couch, eyes focused on knitting made Deborah almost tear up. Grandma was home. Her voice shook the elder out of her trance, her body slowly rising to its feet to embrace Deborah in a longing hug. “Oh, Peaches,” the nickname still held all the memories from her childhood, and her arms circling the assistant made her feel at peace. “I missed you,”

“I missed you, too, grandma,” Debby sniffled, pulling away to introduce Matt to her, too. Her grandmother’s eyes were curious as they scanned him, probably blocking out her granddaughter’s introduction to focus on him instead.

“Where are you from, son?” Her phrase - especially the name she gave Matthew, who was almost twice her height - had the youngest woman in the household repressing a giggle. Matthew, on the other hand, grew quite nervous.

“I was uh- born in Arizona, but grew up in St. Louis,”

The grandmother gave a curt nod, sitting back down on the couch and motioning for Debby to sit down next to her. Her mother joined the room with quick steps, her hand finding Matthew’s shoulder to push his eyes off of the woman that stole his breath away every passing day.

“Deb, I figured Matthew could stay in the basement? Would it be okay?”

The man in question nodded, a smile forming on his lips as he thanked Debby’s mother. He was led towards the stairs before she knew it, a reassuring smile being sent her way before she was left on her own with her grandma.

“He seems nice,” the older woman mumbled, eyes still focused on the hat she was making. “You said he plays the drums?”

“Yes, he’s great,”

There was a beat of silence before she looked up at her granddaughter, eyebrows wiggling jokingly. “You together?”

Deborah’s cheeks heated up, her head shaking quickly soon after as her eyes focused on her lap. There wasn’t a response from her grandmother, who silently went back to her previous tasks and letting her think.

What the hell were the two of them even doing?! Matthew was practically her boss, if something went wrong, she’d probably get fired, for God’s sake. Deborah’s life was literally walking on a thread: one wrong decision and she would be done.

No more working for Chordback, no more traveling with the band. No more Matt.

And she couldn’t let that happen. Her heart was beating for the drummer, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Whatever was going to happen during the holidays, she was hoping it wasn’t going to end everything between her and Matt before it even started. She wasn’t going to let that happen.

She felt like her happy ending might have been closer than she had thought.

-

The morning after Matthew and Deborah’s arrival was busier than the latter had expected. The loud noises coming from the kitchen woke her up from her deep, peaceful slumber, and by the time she made it downstairs, the house was in full swing.

Her mother and grandma were zooming around the family home, rushing around with pots and pans, not a care in the world when it came to waking up the rest of the household. Her father, on the other hand, was sitting at the kitchen island, a comical look of exasperation painting wrinkles on his face.

The stairs leading towards the basement weren’t empty either: a quite shocked - and still sleepy - Matt stood right on the last step, watching the net of nerves Deborah’s family had created unfold in front of his eyes.

“Well, good-fucking-morning,” the woman giggled, turning around just in time to catch him chuckle, his body clad in an old band tee and a pair of plaid pants she had never seen him wear. His arm lifted itself up in the air, hand signaling her to come closer before he could wrap the limb around her body, his relaxing scent filling her nostrils.

“Good morning,” he hummed, voice still hoarse after the multiple hours of sleep. “Looks pretty chaotic in here,”

“And you haven’t seen Christmas,” Debby giggled, the sound of his laughter making her heart skip a beat. “Dad’s having breakfast, I’m sure he won’t mind if we join,”

The curls on top of Matthew’s head bobbed along with his nod as he followed her towards the main source of sound - and chaos - in the household. Deborah translated her father’s grumble into what she could only guess was a ‘good morning’, and took it upon herself to make coffee for her and Matt.

Debby longingly watched him talk to her father as she waited for the warm beverage to get ready, realizing that with each day passing, she was falling for him even more. It was a shock to her, if she had to be honest. She was falling deeply in love with someone she hadn’t even shared a kiss with, but God, she was more than smitten.

The beeping of the coffee machine shocked her out of your lovesick trance, Deborah’s eyelashes batting a few times before she grabbed their mugs and headed towards the island.

“Yeah, the Oilers are definitely having a good season,” Matthew agreed to whatever her father had said. “Leafs have been doing pretty well too,”

“You’re right, son,”

“What are you talking about?” Debby asked, a smile on her lips as she sat next to Matthew.

“Hockey,” her father said, tipping his head back to finish his dark coffee. “Matthew told me his brother plays for the Senators,”

The girl’s eyes widened, searching for Matthew’s face. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he chuckled, eyes not moving from his coffee until he changed the conversation, leaving her utterly in the dark about his family situation. Deborah thought it was funny that just a few minutes prior, she was thinking she was falling in love with the man sitting beside her, when in reality she knew just a few things about his life. “So, uh- should I wear anything specific today?”

“Just something slightly elegant, mom doesn’t care too much,” she said, smiling when he nodded his head.

“Should I wear a tie?”

“Oh, God,”

“Hey, I brought one with me just in case!” He said, a hint of joking in his tone as he sipped on his coffee. “Ties are cool,”

“I’ve never seen you wear one in your life, Matt,” Deborah giggled. “And I’ve been working with you for two years,”

“Maybe I wear them in my free time, how could you know that?”

She laughed, shaking her head as the world came to a halt around them. It was just her and Matthew, joking in the kitchen at half-past-eight in the morning, voices still hoarse as they sipped on their coffee. Debby’s brain could only think that, maybe, she could get used to it.

By the time dinner rolled around, she felt nervous. She watched herself twirl one last time in front of her mirror, the flowered dress she was wearing moving with her as she breathed out a sigh.

Another Thanksgiving. Debby was secretly hoping it would be better than all the other holidays, and something in her was telling her it was going to be the best Thanksgiving of her life. Because Matthew came along.

Closing her childhood bedroom door behind herself, Deborah heard the familiar voices of her relatives coming from the first floor, her aunt’s shrill tone standing taller than the rest.

“And who’s the new addition to the family?”

Debby’s eyes widened, a muttered curse leaving her lips as she sprinted down the stairs, all the attention being lifted onto her when she almost fell face first in the middle of the living room.

“Debs! Happy Thanksgiving!”

The greetings were all quickly sent her way, followed by hugs and small talk as she greeted the new guests. Deborah’s aunt, though, didn’t take long before going back to Matthew, a mischievous look on her face as she gave him a once-over.

“Back to you, darling. New addition to the family? We haven’t met yet,”

“I’m Matthew,” Debby’s - well... - date said, a charming smile that would be able to make millions of girls swoon painting his lips. Your aunt’s hand moved in the air, spurring his presentation on in an embarrassing way. “I’m uh- I’m Deborah’s boyfriend,”

The silence that filled the room only highlighted the assistant’s shock even more. Matthew Tkachuk literally had told her entire family he was her boyfriend. What the actual fuck.

“Oh my God! And you weren’t gonna tell me, Debs?!”

Her aunt pulled her in a bone crushing hug, hopefully not noticing the panic evident on her features. “Finally! I thought you were going to stay single forever!”

Deborah pushed out a fake giggle, looking up at Matthew with confusion in her eyes. What she got in return was a wink, the smile on her fake-boyfriend’s lips spurring her to keep the act going.

“Dinner is served, everyone!”

Debby had to refrain herself from pushing out a sigh of relief, her hand lacing with Matthew’s as she tapped her mother’s shoulder. “I gotta talk to Matt, we will be back in a second, I swear,”

Without waiting for a response, Deborah pushed past the people surrounding them before reaching the closest bathroom, locking the door behind the two of them. “Matthew, what the hell are we doing?”

The chuckle that left his lips made her eyebrows furrow, arms wrapping over her chest. “This is no joke! Now my entire family thinks we’re together!”

“Let’s just act like we are, then,” he pointed, shoulders shrugging as he let his fingertips play with the edge of her dress. “You look beautiful, by the way,”

Ignoring the way her cheeks heated up and her heart started racing, Debby pushed him down to sit on the edge of the bathtub. “God, why did you do that?”

“You said you didn’t wanna face the usual nosy questions, I helped with that,” Matthew smirked, his hands inching higher until they ended up holding her waist. “All we need to do is act as if we’re in love, and that’s not hard,”

Normally, Deborah wouldn’t have paid much attention to his last remark, seeing how easy it had been for Noah to fake a relationship for PR once, but his tone held something. She couldn’t quite place it, but it made it sound like the words had a deeper meaning. On the other hand, he was right: acting like she was in love with him would be easier than expected, because she looked at him as if he hung the stars in the sky, and she couldn’t deny it.

Deborah smiled at the genius in front of her, though, taking one last look at his glacial eyes before letting their hands slip together.

“I knew you were trouble, Matthew Tkachuk,” but God, she loved him for it.

-

Dinner went better than expected, and for the first time in years, Thanksgiving brought a smile to Deborah’s lips. Was it because Matthew was by her side? She didn’t know. What she did know, though, was how good his arms around her felt, how addicting his lips on her cheek and temple were.

By the time her relatives left her house, Deborah was still buzzing. She had drunk a glass of wine, but she wasn’t buzzed on alcohol. She was buzzed on Matthew’s attention.

The two of them stood by her parents as they waved her aunt’s white car goodbye, his strong arm wrapped around her waist as he smiled oh so tenderly.

“Dad and I are heading to sleep,” Deborah’s mother mumbled. “We can take care of the dishes tomorrow morning,”

“Alright,” was all the daughter said. “I’ll be upstairs in a few,”

Matthew wished her mother goodnight, tugging Debby along inside the household as soon as the older woman reached the top of the stairs. His eyes filled with their familiar glimmer Debby knew too well, a smile forming on her lips as he twirled her in his arms. “We should get into acting,”

“Totally,” she giggled, her arms wrapping themselves around his neck as their eyes stayed in contact. “We slayed it,”

“I knew we would,” he admitted, head so close to hers his breath fanned over her nose. “Loving you is easier than I had expected, Deborah,”

The words were unexpected, but they engraved themselves in the woman’s mind as soon as her brain recepted them. The butterflies in her stomach were making every single muscle in her body tingle, and when one of Matthew’s hands cupped her cheek, Deborah feared her legs would give up on her.

His scent invaded her senses the second he came closer, his lips ghosting over hers as the newfound moment became sweet, tender. “Can I kiss you?”

The sudden ring of his phone snatched them out of their trance, Deborah’s lungs inhaling sharply after what felt like hours. The two of them separated, her cheeks feeling warmer than normal as she watched him look at the screen with what she could only call annoyance.

The device was vibrating in his hand, but he looked like he was contemplating on whether picking up the call or not. The screen read ‘Dad’, and the grimace on his face was what made Debby’s heart clench.

“You should take it,” the words left her mouth before she could even stop them.

“I probably should,” was all he mumbled, sending her a quick look before letting his eyes focus back on the device. Just as he swiped right, Debby pushed herself to the tip of her toes, pressing a swift, lingering kiss on his cheek.

“Goodnight, Matthew,”

As she made her way up the stairs and towards her room, Deborah let her cold fingertips graze the spot where his hand had rested, right on her cheek. She felt like a teenager in love again, a frustrated one, though.

Though they had almost had their first kiss together twice, something had always been in the way. First Noah, then Matthew’s father. Why was everyone keeping her from kissing him?

She wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around him again and let their lips meet, but the universe had been thinking otherwise for what felt like ages. As Debby sat on her bed - still too happy to give up on all the newfound emotions -, she wondered what his lips would taste like, what it would feel like to be his.

After another moment of thinking, she forgot about everyone and everything and rushed down the stairs. The first floor was empty, but the lights in the basement were still casting shade over the stairs, inviting her to step closer.

As she rushed down that smaller flight of stairs too, Debby wondered if it was the right time to do it. To finally live her life a little. She swung the door open, Matthew’s light eyes rushing up from his dark phone screen to her face, a look of shock evident in them.

He sprung to his feet and caught her right before she could fall in his arms. She took a second to wrap her arms around his neck, letting their lips meet in the sweetest kiss she’d ever experienced.

His lips felt softer than clouds, so gentle against hers she thought she could faint; his arms - tight around her waist - were keeping Deborah close to his body, their warmth familiar. Everything about the moment was perfect, from the way their bodies fit together, to the way she started to struggle for breath.

They parted ways just when they couldn’t take it anymore, their foreheads meeting tenderly as they caught their breaths. “Wow,” the breathed exclamation made Debby giggle, Matthew’s plush lips painting with a smile as he admired her. “That was-”

“That was fucking awesome,” she finished his line, giggling at how childish she sounded. With a shake of her head, she let herself untangle from him, her body missing his warmth. “I uh- I probably should go to sleep,”

Deborah’s gaze was stuck on her feet, rising to meet his eyes just when his thumb and pointer finger lifted up her chin. There was a second before he leaned down to give the woman one last sweet kiss, his lips tenderly moving against hers before parting again.

“Good night, Debby,”

-

Deborah wrapped her cardigan tighter around herself as she leaned on the railing of the balcony overlooking her garden, watching the sunset longingly. The silence surrounding her was peaceful, and she felt relaxed, happy to be free for one last day.

“You’re gonna catch a cold, again,”

Debby turned around to face Matthew with a smile on her lips, jokingly rolling her eyes as he wrapped an arm around her. “I’m pretty sure colds don’t work like that,”

He chuckled, turning around to face the setting sun too. A feeling of déjà vu sent shivers down the woman’s spine, even if she knew that it wasn’t just a sensation: her and Matthew had experienced the sunset together before, it wasn’t just a feeling.

“Thank you for letting me come along,” he mumbled, a hand soothingly playing with her hair as he looked at the sky. “Your family is great,”

His words held a small hint of sadness, so subtle yet present enough to let Debby catch onto it. A part of her wanted to know what caused this sadness every time someone’s family was mentioned, the other wanted to let him take his time, talk about it whenever he was ready.

She had never been too patient in her entire life: as a kid, she’d stay awake during Christmas Eve’s night just to wake up as soon as the sun rose to open presents; as a teenager, she felt frustrated whenever she’d have to wait months to see her favorite artists in concerts. It was something she had always hated, but was never able to control.

For Matthew, though, Deborah was willing to wait.

“You know, I haven’t really had a Thanksgiving like this ever since I was sixteen,” he admitted, voice taking a gravelly tone as he avoided her eyes. “Ever since uh- the band grew famous, I guess,”

Debby watched his features take a bitter tone as he kept his gaze focused on the orange landscape. “You don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t feel like it, Matt,”

“Someone needs to know,” he sighed, shrugging gingerly before glancing her way. “The guys know I’m not close with my family, but they don’t know why. I trust you, and I want you to know,”

Panic set Deborah’s body on fire as she realized she was the first person to know about his family situation. He trusted her.

“My dad played hockey professionally for almost twenty years, it was in my blood to follow after his footsteps,” he started, interrupting her inner panicked conversation. “I was on skates before I could even walk, had a stick in my hand before I learned how to write, skated behind a puck before I even made friends. He thought it was in my blood.

“But, fuck, when I first saw a drum set at the age of five and heard my first rock song a few days later, I couldn’t care less about hockey and what my dad wanted. I started playing at a friend’s house: his sister owned a drum kit and let me use it twice a week, and music made me happy in a way hockey couldn’t,” Matthew admitted. “I played behind everyone’s backs just so they wouldn’t get disappointed in me. I’d go to hockey practice and work my ass off to make my father happy, then I’d get on my bike and ride to my friend’s neighborhood to play the drums.

“I took music during High School, and my teacher saw me play. He wanted me to join the school’s band, but I needed my parents’ signatures for that, and I didn’t want them to know. Eventually, he accidentally told them I should have pursued my dreams and that night was a fucking mess,” he sighed. “My mom, she- she didn’t mind, she was proud of me. She was happy I was doing what I really wanted to do, even if it was behind their backs. My dad, on the other hand, was pissed that his firstborn son wasn’t following his father’s footsteps. He had never been one for music,”

Debby let one of her hands slip into his, squeezing his palm gently to send him a non-verbal message of comfort. He was safe to speak, with her. “You know, I was his pride and joy growing up. He saw me playing ever since I was a child, and when he lost all hope in me when he learned about me playing the drums, it hurt. He loves my brother and sister because they do what he did, my brother even plays professionally like his old man. I was the disappointment of the family, in his eyes.

“I barely even remember how Chordback got together, but we got famous quickly, and I moved out as soon as possible. I wanted to enjoy my life without being under his disappointed glares, you know?” He sighed, shaking his head slightly. “Now I barely go home, and my mom hates it,”

There was a moment of silence as Deborah took in his story, shock filling her body as she breathed out shakily. “Matthew, I’m so sorry-”

“Don’t be,” he chuckled, shrugging as he let his eyes meet hers. “Mine isn’t a sob story,”

“So, he called?” She asked, remembering Matthew’s father had called a few nights prior.

“He wished me a happy Thanksgiving. Mumbled the usual bullshit about the fact that they miss me, that I should go home to at least see my mother,” he sighed. “Same stuff Taryn said over the phone a few months ago,”

Debby bit her lip, watching his tense body as he ran a hand through his hair. She didn’t know what to say. She had never expected him to have a story like that: he always looked fine, not a worry in his eyes as he went along with the flow. Yet, so much was hidden behind the barrier that kept the world away from his fragile heart.

Debby did the only thing that seemed to make sense in her mind, which was wrap him in a hug. He didn’t reciprocate the embrace for a second, but when his arms wrapped around her waist and his head dropped to the crook of her neck, she knew he needed it.

He needed someone to stabilize him for a second, to silently tell him everything was going to be alright, even if he felt like life was not okay.

She held him until he let go of her, because she remembered her grandma’s words: you never know how much someone needs a hug, so don’t let go until they do.

And by the time the two of them went back to watch the sunset, the future looked clearer.

-----

Life went back in full swing the moment Debby set foot in Calgary, Matthew by her side. Her phone rang with a call from Jean when the two of them went to pick up their bags at the airport, and the overwhelming nerves that came with working in the music industry made their way back in her system.

Days went by before she knew it, her head living in a limbo where all that mattered was her job. And Matthew.

Thanksgiving night couldn’t leave Debby’s head, and she didn’t want it to. She found herself thinking about it at night, alone in her cold bed as she begged for some rest, but her mind always thought otherwise.

Seeing Matt at work wasn’t easy either: her hands tingled, wanting to touch him; her lips begged to be kissed again, and she couldn’t just take it anymore. Staying away from him was what she was bound to do with her job, but all she wanted was to be his.

But it almost seemed like he didn’t reciprocate the feeling. There was distance, a lack of communication that was needed between the two of them. How could she figure out what the two of them were, if he didn’t talk to her? That was what Debby kept asking herself.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a familiar hand on her shoulder, Noah’s eyes the first thing Deborah saw after daydreaming. “We’re boarding,”

“Alright,” she nodded her head, inhaling sharply before rolling her suitcase behind herself. The band was headed to New York again, and her and Jean were coming along for the ride, as per usual.

Growing up, traveling was something Debby had always wished to do, especially when she had reached her teen years. Taking the opportunity to become Chordback’s PA meant that she would have been traveling non-stop, and she had been ecstatic when she landed the job.

Looking back at it, Deborah’s happiness was still there, and saying she loved her job was an understatement. Did she wish for a break every once in a while - even from traveling? Yes, but the music industry never went to sleep.

Debby followed the band towards the plane, her eyes focusing on the sunny sky until the back of a familiar hand ghosted over hers. She looked up to see Matthew’s side profile, a trail of warmth filling her chest when his skin brushed hers, the sleeves of their coats hiding the motions from everyone else surrounding them.

Shivers rushed down her spine as the cold wind pushed her hair out of her face and, eventually, Matthew left her side, her high hopes of seeing any kind of emotion from him slowly lowering. Debby walked up the few small stairs that led inside the jet, shock stopping her right on the last step.

The woman that was greeting the team was smiling widely, her brunette hair pulled into a tight bun as she sported the sharpest uniform Debby had ever seen. She looked beautiful, confidence spilling out of her body as she shook the personal assistant’s hand.

“I’ll be your new pilot,”

A smile broke out on Deborah’s face, so wide she was scared it might get stuck there. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,”

By the time she reached her spot next to Jean, she felt quite confused, though. Why had the pilot been fired? Debby was sure nobody had caught onto the way he had been acting with her and how uncomfortable he had her feeling, so why was he gone?

Jean seemed to read her mind. “Matthew fired the old pilot right before Thanksgiving,” she whispered as she touched up her signature red lipstick. “He said the guy was a perv to the flight assistants,”

Deborah nodded her head along, eyes meeting with Matthew’s. She knew he had been listening to her conversation with Jean all along by the smug look on his face. “Yeah Jean, I also beat him up. Just thought you should know,”

The lipstick in her hand almost fell to the floor, a smudge of red painting the corner of her mouth as her eyes widened. “You what?!”

“I gave him his last paycheck to make him keep his mouth shut, don’t worry,”

“Matthew, that’s even worse!” She screeched, hands shaking as she searched through her purse to find her phone. “Oh my God-”

“The guy deserved it, Jean,” Matthew continued, voice becoming serious. “He was harassing the assistants and- and Deborah,”

The attention inside the plane shifted towards the woman in question, her heart beating out of her chest as an infinite amount of questions rushed through her mind. How did he notice? Had it been that obvious?

“Debby, is it true?” Jean said in a whisper, shock evident in her voice as her eyes stayed on the assistant’s features.

“I-I mean,” she stuttered, shrugging slightly. “It wasn’t anything too big, but it sure was creepy,”

“You could have told me sooner,” the manager said, her warm hand resting on Deborah’s forearm in a reassuring manner. “I would have tried to fire him as soon as possible,”

Debby gave her another shrug before shutting up, not wanting to discuss the matter any further. She felt embarrassed enough to let a man do that to her and not react, but when Matthew - the man she had more than a crush on - found out about the entire situation? She had never been more embarrassed.

She popped her earbuds in and watched the land fly past her from her window, hoping that everyone would forget about the matter by the time they landed. It wasn’t the case, though.

It was almost night by the time the band arrived in New York, to say Debby was more than tired to reciprocate the kind smiles coming from the hotel clerks was an understatement. Her room card was handed to her after just a few minutes, and the thought of crashing on a bed almost had her yawning.

Matthew walked past her, sending a small smile her way before the doors of his elevator closed. She had been successful at blocking any thought regarding the flight, but the questions still kept her curious, even in her tired state.

Deborah headed towards her room, catching one last glimpse of the drummer disappearing behind her neighboring door. She blew out a sigh, getting inside her room and letting her suitcase fall to the floor, ready to slip into comfortable clothing and get in bed.

With the covers up to her chin, though, her eyes just couldn’t close. Debby found herself staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city still awake at the ungodly hour, just like her.

As pathetic as it sounded, she wanted nothing more than to know how Matthew had found out, or even why he had taken it upon himself to fire the pilot. Why had he been so selfless?

The questions kept her awake, and all she wanted was just to sleep. She knew, though, that her body wouldn’t rest until her mind shut down, too.

She pushed the covers away, slipping a pair of slippers on and leaving the room sluggishly, eyes tired. As Deborah stopped in front of Matthew’s door, she felt suddenly awake. Nerves started to make her anxious, and she had to push herself to knock before she could rush back to her room with her tail between her legs.

There was a second before the door opened, Matthew looking quite tired too as he ran a hand through his messy hair. “Deb?”

“How did you find out?”

From the look on his face, Debby knew she didn’t need to elaborate her words, to explain what she really wanted to know.

“Come in,” was all he mumbled, opening the door wider for her. She followed his instruction, entering the room that looked the exact copy of hers before sitting down on the corner of his bed.

There was a moment of silence as he stood in front of her, tattooed arms folding over his chest as he bit his bottom lip. For a second, Deborah’s body lit up on fire, craving to feel his lips pressing against hers. She came back to reality and cooled down when she remembered why she was in his room. She needed answers.

“I uh- I noticed you always disassociated when we boarded the plane,” Matthew started, the look on his face turning serious when his eyes met with hers. “And at first I thought you were just scared of heights or something, but it didn’t make any sense,

“Then the other week I boarded the plane behind you and that motherfucker started hitting on you,” his voice became darker, a hint of protectiveness in his tone Debby had never found before making her hands tremble. “And it was clear you weren’t reciprocating,”

“You didn’t need to do that for me, you know?”

“I wanted to,” he admitted. “I couldn’t stand seeing you like that. I have a sister, and I wouldn’t be able to be at peace with myself if I knew something like that was happening to her and didn’t do anything to keep her safe, and same applies to you,”

Deborah tried not to acknowledge the warmth inside her chest as her eyes fell to her lap, a sigh leaving her lips. “It wasn’t worth it, Matthew. If people find out you hurt him, there will be chaos,”

“Everything I do for you is worth it, Debby,” he whispered, pushing her chin upwards so their eyes could meet, his orbs laced with fondness. “Even if it means I’ll have to punch a perv and ruin my career. Why can’t you understand that?”

The woman shook her head, repressing a small smile before sighing again.

“I need you to be safe, Deborah,” he whispered, voice as tender as a cloud as he spoke to her. “I wouldn’t forgive myself if something happened to you without me even noticing,”

The words had tears well up in her eyes, but she fought the urge to let them streak down her face. Nobody had ever cared that much about her, and she felt full of something she couldn’t quite place. Love? Fondness?

“Promise me you’ll stay safe,” he asked, voice shallow as he cupped her cheek.

“I promise,”

His body inched closer to hers, the only thing separating the two of them being a thin layer of air. His lips fell on Deborah’s after a second, sweetly carefree as she got lost in his scent, his presence.

He was kissing her. She felt more than confused from all the times she felt like he had been avoiding her, but he was kissing her, and she ignored any red flag she could have possibly thought about.

Debby wished to never let go, but her body reminded her that she was more than tired by making her legs give out on her, her embarrassed laugh ending the kiss. “I’m uh- I’m exhausted from today, I should probably go to sleep,”

Matthew nodded, a silent smile painting his slightly swollen lips as he pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Of course you will,”

-----

Tomorrow was quite eventful, though. Deborah woke up late, the sound of her alarm not being loud enough to wake her from her deep slumber; she stumbled around her room to get dressed up, sending a quick text to the band to tell them she was going to be late to breakfast, receiving a string of messages explaining they were going to wait for her.

When she left her room, Debby was still half asleep. She registered the voices of the guys, and she registered Matthew’s soft smile, but she went on autopilot when she followed the boys towards the breakfast spot.

Her rough, real awakening happened in front of the café, where an unfamiliar girl was waiting for them - or, at least, Noah. She was tall, hair a beautiful shade of blond as a breathtaking smile painted her lips, directed to Noah and Noah only. It looked like she only had eyes for him, and from the way the lead didn’t shy away from her attention, Debby realized who she really was. Aleena.

There was a brief moment where they hugged, sharing a laugh as Noah bent down to press a kiss on her cheek before turning around to face Deborah and the rest of the band. As the assistant looked around in pure shock, she noticed that Johnny, Matthew and Elias all shared her same expression.

“Guys, this is Aleena,” Noah said, holding back laughter at the looks on their faces. “She’ll be joining us for breakfast, I hope this isn’t a problem,”

“Uh, no! Not at all!” Debby exclaimed, pushing herself out of her trance to shake the girl’s hand. “I’m Deborah, the band’s personal assistant,”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Aleena said, a gentle smile on her lips. The few minutes that followed the encounter were spent with introductions, a thin layer of shock still coating the air as everyone got inside the café to place their orders.

“Damn,” Matthew whispered from behind Debby, chuckling as they queued behind other people. “I wasn’t expecting him to introduce her this soon,”

“Me neither,” the assistant admitted, looking at him with a smile. “She’s nice, though,”

He nodded, agreeing with her as she moved forward, repeating her order in her head. “You think they’re going public?” Deborah asked, checking her phone for the time before looking back up, waiting for an answer.

“I think Jean is in the dark about this as much as we were,” Matt mumbled, letting his hands rest on her shoulders subconsciously, her heart skipping a beat at his touch. “So I think he has to tell her first,”

Debby nodded her head, a smile forming on her lips when she came face-to-face with the barista. She placed her order calmly, reaching for her wallet when the moment to pay arrived.

“I’ve got it,”

Matthew placed his order and paid for the both of them, not even giving the assistant enough time to fight and pay for her own stuff. “Well, thank you, then,” she said, jokingly rolling her eyes as they grabbed their drink and headed for their table, the drummer sitting next to her after a few seconds.

He had talked to her, paid for her drink, touched her shoulder. At that point, Debby was asking herself where they really were standing. There were moments when she felt like a stranger to him, when he barely even sent a smile her way; other times - mostly behind closed doors -, it felt like she was his, but just when it was needed, not always.

The empty table became quite crowded after everyone sat down with their breakfast. “So, new album and tour this year, boys,” Elias smirked, taking a sip of his coffee. “Missed that shit,”

“Album drops in a month, so you’ve still got some time to put some final touches,” Deborah pointed out. “Then tour is in a couple of months,”

A few nods came from around the table, her eyes settling on Aleena as she silently sipped on what Deborah could only guess was a latte. “Are you coming along, Aleena?”

The new addition seemed to be shocked by Debby’s question, almost choking on her drink as she opened her mouth to speak. “I uh- we haven’t really talked about it, yet,” she said, looking up at Noah with so much admiration it made the assistant’s heart clench.

Debby nodded, smiling her way before sipping her drink, a hint of jealousy of what the couple had sending shivers down her spine. Breakfast went faster than she had expected as she found herself talking to Noah’s girlfriend with the group and enjoying her company, and by the time they left the place, Deborah was sad to leave Aleena behind.

The band needed to get to the studio to discuss the upcoming release and tour, though, and the group and Aleena had to part ways.

“I think we should celebrate,” Elias pointed out, leaning on his chair with his arm behind his head. “Have a few drinks, go to a club,”

“We haven’t even released the news, Elias,” Jean sighed, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Why not, though? We could just have a party before everything gets released, just us,”

Jean spit out a laugh at the ‘just us’, making the guitarist scowl jokingly. “Back to the album. It’s done, then?”

“Almost,” Noah corrected. “We could pull an all-nighter tonight and just finish it,”

Matthew nodded, followed by Johnny and Elias. Everything seemed to be on board, and Deborah felt happy. The band was back to normal: the fights had come to a halt, they were about to release their newest - and best, by far - album, and they were going on tour again.

One thing was holding back her happiness, though, and it was confusion.

What the hell was happening with Matthew?

The walk from the café to the studio had been enough to send her in a spiral of thoughts, finally realizing that what was going on between the two of them wasn’t quite right. For some reason, she wanted nothing more but to know where she stood in his life, if she mattered or if she was just another groupie.

Bitterness filled her mouth as she found him staring, embarrassment making her feel numb. It had taken her so long to realize that he was playing a game, and she felt stupid.

Debby lifted herself up from her chair, grabbing her purse. “I’ll head out to take a breather,”

And when he didn’t even spare her a glance, she knew she needed to figure out what was really happening between the two of them.

Deborah wasn’t another fucking groupie, that she was sure of.

-

“Alright, we’re almost done, guys,” Noah mumbled, eyes cast on the laptop sitting in front of him as Johnny stood behind him, arms folded over his chest.

“Final touches?” Elias popped from the bathroom, still drying his hands with a paper towel.

“Yeah,” Matt murmured. The drummer was sitting on the couch right in front of Deborah’s, a look she couldn’t quite read painting his features.

The all-nighter the guys had pulled had been going on for hours, and she was quite tired. The moon was peeking over a thick set of curtains, wishing to get her attention by painting a white streak inside the studio. Her head was pounding, but she wanted to assist to the start of Chordback’s new era. Sleep wasn’t on her schedule, at least until the band finally was done.

The late hour was taking a toll on everyone, but even through their almost bloodshot eyes, Debby could tell the guys were more awake than they had ever been. The air felt exciting, and she felt like she had nothing to lose.

“And we’re done,”

Noah’s words had the entire room in silence, even the rustling of the wind outside came to a halt when he spoke. Debby’s heart raced, a smile forming on her lips as she looked up at the lead, nothing but respect in her eyes.

“Holy fucking shit-” Elias whisper-yelled, running a hand through his messy hair before breaking the silence with a shocked laugh. “Holy shit-”

“We’re done!” Johnny exclaimed, his voice louder than his bandmate’s.

“Fuck yes,” Matthew smirked, throwing a fist in the air in celebration before pulling Noah in a hug. “We did it, man,”

Deborah congratulated the boys, hugging each one of them like a proud little sister before she got to Matthew, her heart clenching. Where the hell did she stand? “Good job, Matt,” she smiled awkwardly, leaning in to give him a quick side hug.

“Deb-”

“Should we pop a bottle open?” Elias asked, his frame hunched over the minibar. When he rose back to his full height, he was holding a bottle of champagne, his familiar smirk keeping the left corner of his mouth up.

“Hell yes!” Noah chuckled, looking around to find some flutes only to find himself helpless: there weren’t glasses to celebrate with. Debby didn’t need him to even send a glance her way, her hands already gathering her stuff.

“Debby, can we-”

“I’ll go get someone for you,” she said to the lead, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “I was heading out anyway,”

“Already? Darling, this is the best part and you’re leaving,” Elias said, voice holding the flirty tone that she knew he couldn’t even control.

“I’m sure we can celebrate when the dates will be released,” Deborah winked his way, opening the door and stopping right before she could walk inside the fancy hallway. She turned around, facing all of them before pointing a finger their way. “Don’t do anything stupid,”

“Yes, ma’am,” was the only answer she could hear as she stepped out of the room, reaching the closest desk where Maria - the kind receptionist she grew to be friends with - was smiling, not a trace of tiredness in her dark eyes.

“Maria, can you please send some flutes to Chordback’s studio?” She asked, slipping her coat on just as some footsteps started to sound behind her. “They just finished their album,”

“Of course. Heading out?”

“Yes,” she sighed, stopping in her tracks just when she heard a familiar voice calling her name.

“Deborah, wait,”

Matthew was rushing down the hallway, hair stuck in an unusual nest as he sported a confused look. Another sigh left Debby’s lips, her eyelids closing as she turned around to face him. “What, Matthew?”

“What’s up with you? Did I do something wrong?”

“What do you mean what’s up with me?”

“You’ve been acting weird, today,” he pointed out. “You were okay this morning, and then you gave me the cold shoulder the entire day. Really, what the hell have I done?”

“What the fuck are we doing, Matt?”

His eyebrows furrowed as he received a question, instead of an answer. His mouth opened but closed again, only to leave the woman with silence. She took it upon herself to keep the conversation going. “Because our points of view are clearly not the same,”

“What are you talking about, sweetheart?”

The pet name made Deborah flinch, her heart doing a forbidden cartwheel as she cursed herself for even feeling that way during an argument. “I’m talking about the fact that we kissed on Thanksgiving, you protected me from that fucking asshole of a pilot, asked me to promise to be safe, and I still don’t know whether you want this to happen or not!” The words came out louder than she had expected, but she didn’t care. She was exasperated and she needed to know. “And, for God’s sake, don’t call me sweetheart,”

Deborah was faced with another moment of silence, Matthew’s face taking an expression she couldn’t quite read. She had never heard silence that loud, and his lack of words was enough to answer every single question of hers.

“I don’t have time for your silence, I’m heading out,” Debby spat out, clutching her bag closer before muttering her next words. “I’ll see you tomorrow,”

When she had first thought about confronting Matthew, she thought it wasn’t going to affect her. But by the time she left the tall skyscraper, remembering the conversation the two of them had had on its top at sunset, she couldn’t tell if the wetness on her face was formed by the rain or the tears.

She felt empty, even if the argument was for the best. She had done nothing to deserve to get played by a man like Matthew - rich, with nothing to lose - and she knew her worth. But God, did it hurt.

Deborah’s hopes had been over the roof from the start, but he had just led her on, like men like him do with groupies. He needed to figure out what he felt and where he wanted things to go, because she already knew where she stood about that.

Noah and Aleena were happy, so happy. They looked like they were fitted perfectly for each other. Naively, she had thought she and Matthew could have been the same.

But clearly, a happy ending in her love life still wasn’t planned.

-----

“Okay, so Rolling Stones interview on the fifth?” She asked Jean, eyes stuck on her laptop as she scrolled through Chordback’s schedule. “The day after the album release? Wow,”

“Yeah, they were begging us to be the first ones to get an interview,” Jean sighed, sipping on her coffee before looking down at her own papers. “Then we have a few more interviews,”

“And all the radio interviews during-”

“Flowers for Deborah?”

The words had the assistant frowning in confusion, her eyes turning up to see a delivery man standing on the doorway of the meeting room. He held a large bouquet of flowers, the composition looking lovely even from the distance.

Debby rose from her chair with uncertainty clear in her features, grabbing the bouquet from his larger hands. “You sure it’s for Deborah? I haven’t received flowers ever since graduation,”

The man chuckled, the smile not quite reaching his eyes as he checked his watch, probably in a rush. “100% sure. Have a nice day, ma’am,”

He was out of eyesight before she could even thank him - or ask him to check again -, her eyes focusing on the gift in her hands as the room filled with silence. Who the hell could have sent her flowers? A small whistle brought the woman back to reality, making her turn around to face Jean. “Secret admirer?”

Was it her ex? “I didn’t even know I had one,”

Deborah’s fingers caressed the delicate petals until something sharp came in contact with her skin. The small piece of paper was looking up at her as if it was begging to be read, her heart hammering as she let her fingertips graze over it.

I know this isn’t much, but it is the start. - M

“Oh my God,” she muttered under your breath, sighing loudly. Matthew?

And he didn’t lie in the note: with each and every passing day, gifts were waiting for Debby at her hotel door, at the recording label, even in her bathroom. She had received multiple bouquets of flowers, a cute tote bag she had seen on a specific Etsy store and mumbled about for weeks, skincare products she still was missing, and what the hell?

Every single present was paired with a message written in Matthew’s chicken scratch, his words meaningful even through paper, and what the fuck was happening?!

Jean would strangle out a laugh every time she’d see a new gift waiting for Deborah, muttering about the fact that not even her ex-husband was as passionate about forgiveness after cheating as Matthew was. Though she looked completely fine on the outside, Debby didn’t know how to feel.

In some ways, she felt childish for even arguing with him: he was a busy man, he didn’t have time for relationships. At the same time, though, she felt like she deserved more than to be played like a game, like she was nothing more than a stranger to him.

Certainly, getting spoiled by the man she almost yelled at really didn’t help with making Deborah feel like what she did was right, especially since it looked like he was trying his everything to get one last chance.

“Are you ever going to forgive this poor secret admirer?” Jean asked, eyes not even leaving her paper as Debby sat in front of her, miserably looking at the pins she had just received. The pastel-colored items she had liked on Instagram just a few days prior felt cold in the assistant’s hands, and it wasn’t the first time she’d started questioning her life choices. “He looks like he’s desperately trying to win you back,”

“And he is,” Deborah sighed, burying her face in her hands before looking up at the ceiling. “I feel like it was stupid of me to start a fight, you know?”

“Why don’t you just talk to him, then?” In some ways, the assistant was thankful Jean didn’t know Matthew was the main character of the conversation.

“Because I’m scared he’ll hate me,”

The woman laughed loudly, making Deborah turn as small as an ant right in front of her. “Open your eyes, will you, girl? The man is whipped. A man who doesn’t know a woman’s worth wouldn’t chase or wait for her,”

Her words engraved themselves in Debby’s mind, their truth so candid she couldn’t even question it. She remembered what her grandma had told her after her first big heartbreak: there’s plenty of fish in the sea, but Deborah knew her gran’s advice wouldn’t apply with Matthew’s situation.

“I just- I don’t know what to do,”

“Has he been good to you? Has he treated you well?” Jean asked, her eyes boring into Debby’s when she nodded her head. “Then don’t think and do whatever your heart tells you to do,”

The assistant watched her for a swift second, lifting herself up from her chair and grabbing her purse. “I’m heading off,”

“Use protection!” Jean yelled behind her, a laugh leaving her lips before she mumbled under her breath. “God, when did I start being so poetic?”

With her heart hammering against her rib cage, Debby rushed through the busy streets of New York, meeting Matthew being the only thought on her mind. To her luck, the hotel the band was staying in was not too far away from their studio, and by the time she opened her room door to get rid of her coat, she wasn’t too exhausted.

She was confused, though. Sitting right under her feet was a piece of paper, the writing so familiar. She grabbed it from the floor, skimming through the words before realization struck her like lightning.

It was a song.

Matthew had written her a song.

Tears welled up in Deborah’s eyes as she read, hands shaking as she bit her lip. She couldn’t let him go.

It was a love song, the words so gentle and heart-clenching. Admiration, love, and passion were spilling out of them in waves Deborah wasn’t ready to let go of yet, so she read it another time. And then another, and another, and another.

She walked out of the room with tears streaming down her face - not caring if other guests saw her in the meantime - still holding the notebook page in her hand. As she faced his door, something inside her seemed to turn on: nervousness.

What if he wasn’t at the hotel? What if her silence had made him give up?

All her questions got an answer when Matthew opened the door, a tired look on his face. His hair was a mess, and he didn’t look like his normal self, like Matthew.

“Deborah?”

“You wrote me a song?”

The drummer sighed, opening the door wider to let the woman in. “I uh- I started writing it a few months ago, when everything started, you know-”

His room was dark, but Debby could make out his half-packed suitcase, his clothes sitting messily all over the floor. The thought made its way in her head, but it seemed so out of character for Matthew that she couldn’t even believe it was real. The whole conversation about the song dropped. “You- are you leaving?”

“I have no reason to stay here,” he sighed, running a hand through his tousled hair before slightly cleaning up. “Album is done, and we have a few weeks before our first interview. Also, I kind of grasped the two of us are actually done, so I really didn’t have a purpose here,”

His lonely words had Deborah’s heart clenching, her smaller hand clutching his as she turned around to face him. “I love you,” she breathed out shakily, the three-worded sentence she had been thinking about for months finally slipping out of her parted lips. “I love you so much, and I fucked up,”

Matthew looked shocked as he took in her words, eyes slowly widening. “Deb-”

“I know it’s too soon, you don’t have to say it back, but I felt like you should have known,” she said, breathing out a sigh of relief as a weight she didn’t know she was holding was pushed off her shoulders. “You’re a busy man, relationships probably aren’t what you want at the moment, and it wasn’t my place to get pissed off,”

“I love you, Deborah,” he admitted. “I wasn’t kidding when I said that loving you was easier than I had expected,”

Another set of tears had her eyes burning, her hand intertwining with his as she looked up at him. “I’ve never been good with words, or emotions, and that’s why there was miscommunication between us,”

“Fuck-” Deborah closed her eyes, guilt rushing through her. “I’m fucking awful, this is all my fault,”

“Hey, it was bound to happen, at some point. To be honest, I probably should have made it clear that I loved you a long time ago, I don’t know what was holding me back,” Matthew said, gently cradling her face. “But we’re here now, and we’re fine,”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, emotions spilling from her words as she watched him through her teary gaze. “I’m so sorry,”

“I don’t want you to be,” he murmured back, letting his thumbs brush a few tears away. There was a beat as his warm breath fanned over her features, her eyes focusing on his stormy ones as silence settled between them. She was in his arms, the two of them were okay. “Debby?”

“Hm?”

“I want the world to know how much you mean to me,” he whispered in her ear, his voice sending shivers down her spine. “I want to make you mine,”

“Say the words, Matt,” Deborah murmured, arms wrapping around his neck as her lips ghosted his. “Say the words and I’ll be yours,”

There was a beat, a long one, before Matthew let his lips brush hers in a gentle - but desperate - kiss. The drummer’s hands were everywhere as the two of them kissed, not a worry in the world as her back hit the soft comforter of the room’s bed.

“Be mine, Deborah,” Matthew breathed out when his lips left hers, his orbs maintaining eye contact. “I’ll find a way to give you my world,”

She bit her lip, smiling as she watched the man in front of her - the man she loved - offer her his love with just the power of his words.

“You already do, Matt,” Debby whispered, bringing him closer to press another kiss to his slightly-swollen lips. “I’m yours,”

-----

“Why the fuck am I nervous? I’m not even going on stage,” Deborah mumbled, words coming out rushed as she stood outside the green room with Aleena, her friend’s laughter filling her ears.

“They’ve been doing this for years, hun. They’re probably not even nervous themselves,” Noah’s girlfriend said, voice gentle as her arm wrapped around Debby’s. “And we both know they’re going to kill it,”

“That’s true,” the personal assistant nodded her head, taking a sip of her water just as the door of the room opened, Chordback coming out looking as mesmerizing as ever. They were a mess of tattoos and pearly white smiles, ready to take on the first stage of the tour and make the crowd go wild.

Noah, in his old-school-love fashion, wrapped Aleena in his arms, owning a little squeal as he lifted her off the floor. “Put me down, idiot!”

Elias and Johnny, too busy talking to each other about their improvised solos, didn’t even glance Deborah’s way, heading towards the stage by following the staff. Matthew, on the other hand, took a moment to let his eyes focus on his girl.

“You look beautiful,” he said, voice low as he wrapped his arms around her waist. Debby’s sundress clung to her body the way she knew he loved, and the smile on his face was enough to make the butterflies in her stomach start their never-ending dance.

“You don’t look too bad yourself,” she giggled, taking his hand and leading him towards the side of the stage, where everyone was standing. The other band that was opening the concert was still going strong, the crowd enjoying the background music as they waited for Chordback to start their tour with a bang.

The last few notes of a song she had heard many times before owned claps and screams from the public, a few whistles also shaking the arena. Debby stood next to Aleena as she smiled, the feeling of hearing the public again making the assistant’s legs almost give up on her.

She had started her job when the band was already almost at the end of their second tour, and it had been a chaotic way to start her first job in the music industry. She hadn’t been able to get to know the band members, and she hadn’t been able to enjoy even a bit of traveling.

That time, though, it was different. She was there as Chordback’s personal assistant, but also as Matthew’s girlfriend. The experience itself was going to be new, unexpected.

“Good luck,” she told Matt just as the opening band started to leave the stage. Debby leaned up on the tip of her toes, pressing a kiss to his lips.

“I don’t need that,” he smirked, winking down at her before kissing her again, this time passionately. “I already have my lucky charm with me,”

Deborah shook her head, pushing out a giggle as he backed off, tugging the drumsticks from his back pocket. “Cheesy, Matthew,”

“What do you expect from me?”

As the stage grew dark, the band entered the stage, filling their designed spots just as a few yells and cheers filled the air. The first sound came from Matthew’s drumsticks, and the place lit up as the opening song started, the song that had brought the newest album to the top of the charts: Aleena’s song.

Matthew smiled Deborah’s way gingerly as he started to play, her heart skipping a beat. As she watched him play, she couldn’t exactly tell why all the fondness inside her body seemed to come out just then. It felt strange.

Though after a few moments of wondering, she realized what it really was. Proudness. Deborah was proud of the little kid that snuck out of the house to practice the drums in a house five blocks away, she was proud of the teenager that followed his dreams even when his father was disappointed in him. She was proud of Matthew and the man he had become.

She was proud of him, and she loved him, more than she loved herself.

Matthew was her home, her safe place. He was a part of the life she was hoping to bring along in the future, and he was the person she wanted to wake up next to every morning.

Back at her childhood home during Thanksgiving, he had said that loving her was easier than he had expected.

He hadn’t realized, though, that loving him was the easiest part of Deborah’s life. A part that she was willing to carry with her for the rest of her life.

Taglist: @thirstyybitch​ @bellaguarneri​ @boqvistsbabe​ @trashforbarzal​ @tonguetiedstan​ @keithseabrook27​ @heatherawoowoo​ @tysonsjosty​ ​

[hangovercurse]

Blind Date

After being single for three months, your friends decide to set you and Colson up on a blind date.

Request: Hey!! Could you do one about the reader and Colson meeting by a blind date? Let your creativity go wild ❤️

Colson x Reader

Warnings: Cursing

A/N: This is a little bit different from how I normally write, so let’s see how this goes.

Word Count: 1916

It’s funny how the universe makes things happen. While some people are having their first kiss, others are taking their last breath. Every moment in time is so intricately woven together, it sometimes seems ironic how things happen.

Like tonight, on two sides of California, two very different people were having the same conversation.

“I’m not sure about this.”

“What if she thinks my tattoos are too much?”

“What if he thinks I’m too weird?”

“What if she hates music?”

“What if he hates art?”

“I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

“I don’t think I can do this.”

Your best friend stared at you from your bed as you paced around the room. “Y/N, you’re going to be fine. You said it yourself, you need to get back out there. Baze says he’s a good guy, and I trust Baze.”

Baze was in a similar situation, laying on the couch as Colson paced around the house. “Colson, dude. It’s gonna be good, she’s gonna like you.”

“I don’t know why I’m so nervous. It’s not like I’ve never been on a first fuckin date before. I used to do this shit every night.” He sighed, sitting down.

You let out a frustrated groan, “I know. I just feel like after everything in the past few years I feel like I’ve forgotten how to do first dates.”

“You’re gonna be great, just be yourself. And remember, it’s a blind date, so if you guys don’t hit it off or something goes horribly wrong, you never have to see him again.” She smiled as you threw her a playful glare.

“Colson, I love you man, but you have to do this. I don’t think you’ve even looked at a woman who isn’t Ashleigh in like three months.”

The light-haired man sent his friend a glare, “I’m sorry that I was recovering from the worst heartbreak of my life.”

You finally sat down, pulling on your shoes. “Maybe it’s too soon. Maybe I’m not as ready as I thought I was.”

Your friend sighed, sitting up and placing her arms around your shoulders, “It’s been three months since you and T broke up. You grieved, and now you need to move on. You deserve this.”

“Dude, you said you were over her. You are over her. Now you get to find someone else and try to be happy. You deserve this.”

“Maybe don’t bring up your disastrous ex, Y/N.”

“But please, for the love of god, bro, don’t bring up Megan.”

 You entered the small, classy restaurant, your hands shaking slightly. The entire place was dimly lit, with candles scattered around any surface available. You walked to the hostess stand, “Baker for two.” You told her, a small smile gracing your features.

She nodded, leading you through the floor. “He got here not 30 seconds before you did.” She laughed and you blushed a little bit.

You were grateful he wasn’t late, but you were also grateful he wasn’t extremely early , or else you would have felt awful for making him wait.

You were finally brought to a small table in the back of the restaurant to find one of the prettiest men you have ever laid your eyes on. When his eyes met yours, he stood up immediately, a smile on his face. “Y/N?” He asked.

“Colson.” You responded. He pulled your chair out for you, and you felt heat rushing to your cheeks at the kind gesture. None of the guys you had ever dated pulled your chair out for you, especially not your most recent ex.

“Baze told me you were pretty but this is…” He trailed off, seeming a bit lost for words. “You are absolutely gorgeous.”

He was good at this, good at making you nervous, making you blush like a teenager. “Thank you.” You whispered, “I think you are one of the prettiest people I have ever met.” You returned his compliment with one of your own.

The redness in his cheeks made you smile, a bit of pride rising in your chest. “Baze truthfully didn’t tell me much about you.” He started, “so, what do you do?” He was kicking himself for the lame question, but his mind was half occupied with the color of your eyes and he couldn’t form a coherent thought.

“I’m an artist.” You probably didn’t realize it, but Colson could see the slightest bit of a light in your eyes as you spoke about your passion. “I do graphic designing for websites, making logos and designs and such. That’s my day job, at least. I do some painting and sketching on the side, though. Eventually I’d like to be able to make that my whole job, but it is a hard industry.”

Colson nodded in understanding, his eyes holding the same weight as yours when you spoke of your flailing dreams. You wondered how he knew exactly what you were talking about.

Seemingly reading your mind, he answered. “I get that so much. I’m a musician, so I’ve been there. Luckily, I did make it my full-time job, but I remember before I made it, all the stress and struggles. It gets better.”

You smiled, “easy for you to say, aren’t you like, a big Rockstar?”

He chuckled, looking down, “yeah, sort of. But I wasn’t, you know? Like before all this I was dirt poor and the picture of a starving artist. I mean I’m still not like, winning Grammys or shit now, but I’m not there anymore either.”

You nodded, studying him. “I was lucky, I had support through art school and got a job as soon as I graduated. I’ve never had to struggle in that sense. I don’t think I’d be happy staying where I’m at for the rest of my life, but I am definitely in a stable place right now.”

He seemed so interested in what you were saying. Soon the conversation moved into the type of music he made, and then to your art styles. You flowed together easily, never becoming awkward or uncomfortable. As the night went on, your nerves fell away, as did his.

You were talking about your favorite movies when your food arrived, but even then, your conversation continued. At one point, he paused mid-second. “You’ve got something, “ he pointed to his face. “Fuck it, this is gonna be so cheesy.” He grabbed his napkin and wiped the bit of sauce you had on your cheek off.

You blushed in embarrassment, “thanks.” He was right, the moment was very cheesy. His hand pulled away slowly, lingering near your skin a bit longer than necessary. You didn’t mind though.

As much as you hated to admit it, especially since you had only known him for one night, you could be really into him. And that scared the fuck out of you.

Colson was, too, scared shitless. Why the fuck was his heart fluttering every time you giggled. He’d just met you. But already he could tell you were something special.

 He paid for dinner, like a gentleman, even though you protested. “It’s our first date, I am paying.”

You liked the way that he said, “first date,” implying there may be more. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to pay next time.” You said, smugly.

His eyebrow raised in question, a small smirk on his face. “We’ll see about that. I might just give them my card ahead of time.”

“Then I’ll just have to get there before you.”

You two laughed at your small competition as he led you to the parking lot, his hand in yours. “Did you drive?” He asked and you shook your head no.

“I called an uber. Speaking of…” You reached for your phone before he stopped you.

“Let me drive you home. If that’s okay?”

You let him lead you to his car, hand still tightly in his. He pulled the door open for you, guiding you in. Everything with him seemed like a new experience, his gentleman gestures catching you off guard.

“You should play me some of your music.” You told him when he got in. He smiled at that, pulling his phone out and opening his library.

“I don’t know if you’ll like the type of music I make.” He blushed, scrolling through to find a song he thought you might like.

You rolled your eyes, “well I like you so I think, by proxy, I’ll like your music.”

He bit his lip to hide the way his face lit up at your subtle confession. “Just don’t say that I didn’t warn you.”

You heard a somewhat familiar rhythm, something you had probably heard on the radio. “Wait, this is you? I swear I’ve heard this before.”

He smiled, glancing over at you before turning his attention back to the road. “Yeah, me and my friend Matt dropped this right before my last album release.”

You let the music play, listening to his voice as he sang. “You know, this somehow sounds exactly like you and nothing like you at the same time. Like if you hadn’t told me I don’t think I would’ve known this was you. But I do know so I can hear it.”

He chuckled but didn’t say anything, occasionally looking at you as you nodded your head to the music. A few more of his songs played from Tickets to My Downfall and you seemed to enjoy it. “You’re really good.” You commented. Your voice was truthful, you weren’t trying to flatter him, you were just saying what you thought. Your words were genuine.

He didn’t know why but hearing that from you meant so much more to him than he expected it to. He finally parked in front of your house, getting out and opening your door for you. Like a true gentleman, he walked you to your door, pausing before you unlocked it.

You turned to face him, looking up into his bright eyes. “I had a really good time tonight.” He said softly. “Probably the best night I’ve had in a while, honestly.”

You smiled widely, “I did too, Colson.” You grabbed his hands in yours, swinging them slightly. “I’m really glad we did this.”

He nodded, leaning closer to you, “would you, maybe, wanna do this again?” He asked, his voice falling closer to a whisper.

“I was hoping I had made that obvious when I said I’d pay next time.” You giggled, leaning up closer to him.

He rolled his eyes playfully, “just wanna make sure you didn’t change your mind.”

“Trust me, I didn’t.” You whispered, before leaning up and connecting your lips with his.

The kiss was short and sweet, but it seemed like everything you had ever wanted. When your lips left his, you both stayed very close to each other, hands still clasped. His face was still only inches from yours, eyes studying your every feature.

Eventually he let out a small sigh and leaned back up. “Well, uh, goodnight, Y/N.” He smiled sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck as he took steps backwards towards his car. You smiled at him, waving a small goodbye before turning to unlock your door.

Your hand touched the handle before you turned around, finding Colson in the same situation at his car door, still looking at you. “Do you maybe wanna… come in?” You asked, biting your lip. His face lit up, a smirk highlighting his features.

“I would love that.”

[thesnowinthemountains]

Monsta X as the guy who hits on you in a bookstore

(a/n: I work in a used bookstore and this is entirely self-indulgent, please enjoy.)

Shownu

Your intention for the day was to find a vegan cookbook for your best friend, so you wandered over to the cooking section of the bookshop after having already scoured the stacks of fiction and fantasy, taking your own pick. Knelt near the bottom shelf was a young man. You couldn’t quite see his face but his hair was fluffy and promising. He stood up abruptly to his full six foot of height, towering over you, his eyebrows knit together in full concentration. He was flipping through a book on baking, something seemingly too soft for someone of his stature. He glanced over at you while you searched the shelves on your own quest. “Uh…” You turned to him. “Yes?” He seemed taken aback that you had even heard him, staring at you wide-eyed. “Sorry, um, do you know anything about cooking?” He asked quickly. “Some. What do you want to know?” He proceeded to ask a few questions, explaining he wanted to bake cupcakes for a friend’s birthday, double-goaled to both impress and surprise them with actual baking skills. After a few minutes of conversation and light laughter, he shut the book he’d been holding and turned fully to you. “Do you think I could have your phone number or something? I think I would be better at this with a little help…”

Wonho

“Do you- do you work here?” A tentative voice asked from the end of the bookshelf you were currently rummaging through. “I don’t, but I understand your confusion,” you chuckled, contemplating the stack at your feet and the fact that your hands were between books in the shelf. “Oh, well, do you know about books?” You turned to find an incredibly well-sculpted man. He looked entirely out of place but sounded so shy, and you were immediately taken by the messy black hair and large glasses over his nose. “I do. Why?” You stood up fully, also determining he stood a good few inches over you. “I- This is kind of a thing,” he paced over. “It’s my little niece’s birthday next week, she loves reading, it’s all she ever does. I have no idea what to get her, but I know it needs to be a book. I even, look,” he pulled out his phone, “I took a picture of the books she already has so I don’t buy the same ones.” You looked at the screen, recognizing titles from when you were in your very early teens. “Oh, I can definitely help with that. Um, just... “ You peered down at the books you had previously picked out, still on the floor and waiting to be brought home. “I’ll help you if you carry my books.” “Oh, absolutely,” he bent down as soon as you said it.

Minhyuk

“Why won’t you just let me play Green Day, though?” You whined at your boss for the millionth time that week. You had recently gotten a job at a local used bookstore and had rapidly adapted to your small team of coworkers, mostly by taking over the radio which was overly used to Phil Collins and Bryan Adams. You added life to the boutique. “Listen, I like Green Day as much as the next guy, but half of our customer base is little old ladies, I’m not sure they’re super down with pop punk on a Monday night,” your boss replied. “Which album?” Minhyuk jumped in. He came in every now and then, always a mischievous glimmer in his eye. Today was just the same. “American Idiot,” you replied. “Oh, well, that’s a classic, you have to let her play it.” Minhyuk shrugged, turning to your boss. “She’s clearly got great taste, come on.” “There you go, see? Even he wants Green Day!” You pouted. “Sorry, guys, no can do.” You manager sighed. You scoffed, turning to Minhyuk with a pout. “Party pooper.” Minhyuk pulled his tongue before throwing a smirk your way.

Kihyun

He was a regular at the bookstore you worked at. It was a used bookstore, selling anything and everything literary for dirt cheap and he would come in every few weeks with an empty box ready to fill. He would sit on the floor if he had to, scouring the shelves. Every time you checked him out, you would peak at the titles, feigning checking prices. “Have you read this one?” He asked the last time, pointing to one with a black cover, gold lettering. “I haven’t, but I’ve heard plenty about it. I was actually planning to buy it tonight before leaving, but you beat me to it.” He smiled to himself, seeing an opportunity he’d been waiting for. “Well, you’ll just have to borrow it from me, won’t you?” You looked up. “I guess I might.”

Hyungwon

You were hurrying past the romance section into fantasy which had been moved to the back of the store, according to an employee. You were frowning, disappointed your favorite section didn’t sell enough to be featured front and center, overall just stuck in your own head. In front of a showy display for a new release in romance was an ethereally good-looking young man in a long coat, hair falling into his face. He made you almost stop in your tracks, steps hiccupping. He looked up at you. “Do you know anything about romance novels?” He asked casually. You frowned again. “No.” “Right. My mom sent me to get something for her, but I don’t remember the title, so I’m kind of just hoping I’ll find it.” “Ask an employee?” You hid a smile. The answer seemed simple enough. “I would. I don’t remember the author’s name either, just the cover. Describing it as a ‘woman in a man’s embrace with the sky in the background’ well- I don’t think it’ll get me anywhere looking at this.” “Not particularly,” you laughed despite yourself. “What are you here for?” He looked up at you suddenly, and his eyes were so pretty it took you a second to answer. “The, uh, fantasy… section…” “Take me there.” “What?” You asked, confused. “I don’t know, anywhere’s better than here. I have to call my mom. Where’s the fantasy section?” He looked over the shelves and it occurred to you he was tall enough to actually see the section signs over the shelves. 

Jooheon

You had somehow been following each other through the little boutique. It wasn’t intentional, but clearly you had similar taste. He was cute, tall, and you didn’t mind. He knelt down to look at the section for fiction authors whose last names begin in K, then stood up abruptly, turning to L, then M, clearly looking for something. You continued on skimming the shelves. He cleared his throat. "Can I show you something?” He asked you, finally breaking the silence. “Sure,” you replied, eyes wide. He smiled to himself and pulled out a book. “This book here has a photo of me as a kid on it." “Oh,” you giggled despite yourself. So he was sweet, too. 

Changkyun

This was your absolute favorite little shop in the city, one that mostly contained books but often sold all sorts of knickknacks you couldn’t help but wonder about. Where did they even come from? Some had you staring for too long, wondering what they even did. You could spend well over an hour in there, going through the bookshelves, more often than not going home arms full of books, and tonight was no different to the exception of snow lightly floating down outside, covering everything in a dreamy coat of shimmery white. In the shop with you were the owner, at this point almost a friend to you, and a boy surely around your age. He was staring at an old film reel toy on the top of the cash counter, frowning. “It’s a toy,” you offered, waiting for the shop owner to be finished punching your books’ titles into the register.  “Yeah, I’m just wondering what the reel shows. I had one when I was little.” “Well, look at it,” you shrugged. He glanced up at you, small smile hovering over his features before grabbing the red plastic thing in his hand and holding it up. The owner gave you your total and you pulled out your card. “Dinosaurs.” The guy said. “Oh?” “Yeah. Very cool.” He bit his lip and laid it back on the counter while you piled your books, regretting not bringing a bag and questioning how in the hell you were going to take these home through the metro system without dropping them. “You need help with that?” The boy came over. “Uh, sure, but it’s sort of a ride.” “I don’t mind,” he took some books out of your hands. “I read this one, actually. And this one. That one. You’ll have to tell me how you like- sorry, what am I saying?” He laughed to himself. “Well, maybe I will,” you cocked your head, thinking him cute.

[saladejin]

Broken | Seokjin (M)

Seokjin x Reader | idolverse au, established boyfriend!Seokjin | Pining, rough smut, fluffy undertones 

Summary:  Free time is hard to come by for the two of you, but soon another problem arises in the form of his beloved bandmates.

Warnings: Rough sex, swearing, mature and explicit themes, wet dreams 

Word Count: 4.9k

<< masterlist

* Request from my Ao3 series ‘Movie Night’.

~

Skin tingling with excitement and breaths coming out in short gasps, your hands found purchase buried deep within his thick strands of hair.

His lips melded themselves to your own while his fingers roamed your figure expertly. He knew exactly where to touch to turn you into a whimpering mess, and he would never stop learning. It was like your body was a panel of buttons, and he the curious child wanting nothing more than to find out what each and every one did. 

“Baby…”

The man slowly grinding his hips into your clothed core didn’t respond to your plead. You wondered if his brain was too occupied, because you knew yours was surely gone. Your fingers traced the firm outlines of his abdominal muscles and travelled upwards to use his wide shoulders for leverage. You could hear his hurried and shallow breathing the more you swivelled your hips to create the desired friction.

Another moan tore from you when you felt his hands moving everywhere at once. Their familiar warmth cupping your aching sex attentively. You arched at the memory of his fingers trailing the sensitive outlines and openings. 

“Seokjin, I need you,” You gasped, looking upwards but feeling frustrated that the shadows masked the face of your lover.

You reached forwards for him, eager to have him in any way you possibly could…

~  

Oh to hell with it all!

Reality was fucking harsh. You awoke with groan of disapproval and shifted your sweaty body around in the sheets hesitantly. Just as expected, you felt a certain slickness coating the insides of your thighs again.

This was literally the third sex dream you had conjured up in the past week or so. Each time you snapped open your eyes to find yourself cold and alone in your bed, you felt the wave of disappointment washing over you growing stronger. God, you missed him.

I just want him back in my arms. I just want him.

You sighed as you imagined the smiling face of your long-term boyfriend, the one and only Kim Seokjin of BTS. Life was pretty hectic considering you both worked taxing jobs, with him being a world famous idol and you being a full-time teacher at a private academy a fair drive away. Time had become very difficult for you both to find, but lately Seokjin’s had completely cancelled out when the band began promoting their new album overseas. After that, the bucket-loads of fame brought on caused even more difficulty and restriction on you both.

If it wasn’t for the strong bond and resilience you both upheld, the relationship would have broken to pieces a long time ago.

You grabbed your phone from the nightstand and got up to start the day, trying to ignore the sexual frustration tearing at your insides. A tiny light winked at you from the screen’s surface.

“Good morning my love, I hope you slept well x”

You felt the fluffy warmth spread through you as you reread his text again, but rolled your eyes when you thought about how you actually slept.

Should I let him know? It would probably cause problems.

You shrugged because caution had never been a part of your relationship in the first place. Direct teasing was what created so much of the chemistry between the both of you, and it was almost always much to the disapproval of the other members.

“Good morning! It would have been better if I was getting fucked by the real you and not a dream.”

You watched with an evil cackle as the three little dots appeared and disappeared several times.

“I’ll have to tell my dream-self to do a little better. It’ll only be a few more days until I’m the one breaking the bed again, sweetheart.”

You felt so pathetic for getting turned on by his simple cheesy text, but you were so starved at this point you couldn’t really blame your brain for weakening. He was due to come back to Korea in the next few days, so you really wouldn’t have to long to wait.

“Sounds promising, I’ll order a new one tonight.”

You left the room chuckling quietly to yourself. The weight of his words usually proved fruitful, and the fact that you had both freed up a single weekend was exciting enough. This rarely ever happened so you knew you were both super keen to spend time together for two whole days in a row.

It’s sad to think how even that has become special.

You settled down with your breakfast, already falling into the usual routine of your daily texting with Seokjin. He usually sent you all kinds of funny pictures with the other members, as well as beautiful photos of any places they went. You found yourself having your own private tour each and every day, and you always thought about how caring he was to take all that time out for you.

Not for long. Soon, (Y/n), soon you won’t need to see anything but the bedroom.

You really needed to clear your sex-driven mind.

~

The door swung open and you threw yourself into Seokjin’s arms without hesitation. He had arrived back late in the night and had already slept off most of the jet-lag before texting you to let you know he was on his way to your house. You had almost certainly jumped out of your skin in surprise, because even though you knew you were both longing for each other, you still hadn’t been prepared at all.

“Sorry babe, I tried to stop them but they wouldn’t listen,” Seokjin grunted lowly into your ear, and you tried your best to stifle a shiver at the sound to think about the words.

“Noona! It’s great to see you!” A voice boomed, and you leaned back from the broad chest of your boyfriend to see Taehyung, Jimin and Hoseok filtering in behind him.

“Guys, oh! How have you been?”

You moved to give them all friendly hugs, hoping to mask your utter shock. You glanced behind to see Seokjin gritting his teeth in cleverly hidden annoyance, but you knew him too well for it to be completely invisible. There were slight bags underneath his beautiful brown eyes.

He probably didn’t even tell the boys no, knowing how much they’ve wanted to visit lately.

You invited everyone inside and offered drinks immediately. The fun chatter built up and you left the bustling boys to themselves to go and get some water for them. If you had known they were coming and staying for a while, maybe you wouldn’t have been so quick to throw on the horribly risky lingerie set you’d bought a few weeks ago.

Soft footsteps sounded behind you and suddenly your body was being turned around to press backwards into the kitchen bench. You ran your arms up to loop around Seokjin’s neck, grateful that the kitchen was walled off from the other guys and their watchful eyes.

“I wanted to come here alone,” Seokjin exhaled, seemingly in a daze as he moved one of his hands down to grasp loosely at your waist. You ignored the fire spreading from his subtle touch and craned forward to press a loving kiss to his plump lips.

“I missed you so much, I wouldn’t care if you brought your whole fanbase with you.” You blinked pointedly.

He cracked a smile and pressed another tender kiss to your lips, the wet sound echoing through your mind jarringly. You knew if you focused your attention on his uneven breathing you would lose what little control you had left. It was bad enough that he had started to push his body further into yours as the seconds drew onwards.

“I haven’t had you in so long,” he sighed and sunk his teeth into his bottom lip, eyebrows furrowing as he tried to lean in and close any distance you might have had. You felt the heat pooling in your lower regions like some kind of dam had broken. His needy and darkened gaze called for your touch and attention loudly.

“(Y/n)-noona? We brought you a gift from America, do you want to open it now?” Jimin’s voice called from the living room. You realised with a jolt how filthy the current scene would seem, as Seokjin almost had you sprawled out on the surface of the bench. You probably would’ve let him take you right then and there too.

You looked at your beloved boyfriend knowingly before squeezing his biceps in reassurance and pushing off the edge of the counter. His loud disappointed sigh basically summed up your entire mood, but you knew you still had the whole upcoming weekend to yourselves.

“Coming!” You smiled tightly, preparing to walk out with the glasses of water in hand.

“Well fuck, you could be,” came Seokjin’s irritated mumble.

You tried your best to fight down the sparks of arousal at hearing his angry rasp behind you, but it was all pointless in the end. Your level-headed boyfriend bickered with others quite often, but when he was actually angry, boy that was another story.

Last time you had seen him that worked up, it had been over how he couldn’t get a certain dance move right even after hours upon hours of practice. He had come over with all his muscles tensed up from the building fury, and when you had offered to relieve his tension, he hadn’t hesitated on fucking you hard into the early hours of the next morning.

That’s a memory I should not be thinking of right now. Next thing I’ll be dropping to my knees right in front of the boys!

You shook your head, trying to concentrate on the words Jimin and Taehyung were speaking as they described each perfume they had discovered and brought back. You were so grateful for their thoughtfulness and thanked them so many times for the presents, but your eyes kept wandering to where Seokjin was sitting with his legs crossed conveniently; his eyes averted and fingers tapping to a random rhythm against the arm of the couch.

It had been way too long. It was almost too much for you to stand being in the same proximity as him, and even if he felt the same there was nothing either of you could really do except wait it out.

~

Your panties were soaking as you smashed in the code for Bangtan’s dorm. Seokjin had been constantly riling you up for the past hour over text, and now that you had finally managed to make your way over things were very heated for you. Your fingers trembled with adrenaline and you cursed when you accidentally punched in the wrong number more than once.

He had managed to score the whole dorm to himself for a small amount of time. This was an absolute triumph, because even though you had both freed up the weekend, escaping the members was truly another task in itself.

“Jin I-”

“Baby I’m so glad you’re here!” Seokjin’s noticeably forced shout caused you to stop in your tracks. The shock tightened its grip as you realised you definitely weren’t alone.

Your boyfriend sat on the couch surrounded by his smiling bandmates who were joking amongst themselves, but you knew by his painfully apologetic eyes and conspicuously placed couch cushion that this hadn’t been planned at all.

“Hey noona, we finished practice early so we could have a movie night!” Jungkook greeted as he jumped up to hug you warmly. You just couldn’t let the disappointment hang around for long when this bunny made an appearance.

“Hey Kook-ah.” You smiled sharply, trying to edge away from him so he wouldn’t accidentally feel what you were wearing underneath.

Fuck, Seokjin knows what it looks like too…

You locked eyes with your boyfriend and you both silently conveyed a sorrowful message.

Yes, you would need to do some more waiting apparently. Children were high maintenance, but you knew if this would’ve gone completely your way you would have dragged him into the nearest bedroom and ridden him like your life depended on it.

Sometimes he was just so caring it hurt; quite literally in your case if your weeping pussy had anything to say about it.

“Um, so what are we watching?” you asked through clenched teeth, smoothing down your skirt in hopes of hiding any ‘evidence’. You looked up again to see Yoongi slouched deep in his armchair and felt your heart thump when his piercing eyes flickered from you to Seokjin knowingly.

Shit, I forgot how perceptive this guy was.

You could see the hints of a half-amused smirk tugging at the rapper’s lips, and the fact that Seokjin’s cheeks were reddening gave away that he had noticed too. You had no time to feel the mortification creep up on you since the younger ones were already dragging you towards the couch.

“We picked a great action one, you’ll love it,” Taehyung rushed excitedly and barely even gave you time to comprehend what he was saying.

“Sorry we haven’t got enough room on the couch,” Jimin clicked his tongue, eyes scanning the room intently for a spare spot. You smiled and opened your mouth to say you were fine on the floor, but someone slipped in before you could speak.

“It’s fine, she can just sit on Seokjin’s lap like she always does. They’re together after all,” Yoongi suggested while craftily masking his intentions under a smile. You saw the way the smirk still poked through his guise all the same.

This sneaky bastard.

But you would admit, this had created the perfect opportunity to tease your boyfriend a little. Usually you wouldn’t hesitate at the chance, but this time you knew you would probably suffer just as badly. Seokjin met your eyes and gave the tiniest shake of his head in warning, there was no way he would be able to handle himself if your ass was pressing itself against his rock hard cock.

“Guess there’s nothing wrong with that.” You shrugged and watched as Jin’s expression crumbled into one of darkness and defeat. You knew exactly what was in store for you, and you loved it.

Yoongi covered the bottom of his face with one hand to muffle the chuckle threatening to break past. You smiled towards Hoseok and Namjoon on the other couch before strolling over and glancing down at your boyfriend with lidded eyes. He opened his arms for you, just as usual, but you felt the vital difference as soon as you sat down onto his muscled thighs.

A deep exhale brushed past your ear as he shifted underneath you, and every inch of your skin tingled with heat as you felt the prominent outline twitch suddenly. He was so aroused it was almost too much for even you to bear.

“Please try to stop moving, please (Y/n),” he blew into your ear almost silently. You couldn’t suppress the shiver that racked your form at the sensation of his breath, but this only caused a tiny grunt to fall from his lips. Damn, you were both way too sensitive to each other tonight, and Yoongi knew it too. The sly fox only sat there watching you two with the biggest shit-eating grin you had ever seen.

“Okay it’s getting good, everyone be quiet from now on.” Jungkook brought a finger to his lips, bunny eyes gleaming with enthusiasm as he grabbed Taehyung’s arm and ran to sit back down on the floor. Seokjin had his head bent forward to rest against your back as his whole body tensed up. You knew he was struggling to keep himself together.

“(Y/n) I’m about to lose it, stop fucking moving.” He shuddered as you unintentionally moved to get more comfortable. You just knew he was about to reach the breaking point, but he would regret everything if he exposed you both so quickly, so you reached to squeeze his hand in reassurance.

“Not here. Come over after the movie and we’ll make it real good,” you leaned down to whisper almost silently into his ear so nobody else could overhear. His lip was bitten as he registered the words, the tension from the implied promise hanging thickly in the air. If he had really wanted to calm himself down he would’ve sat on the floor himself not even minutes in.

You almost squeaked when he rolled his hips slowly upwards just once. Just small enough so you could feel what was waiting for you, but not noticeable to anyone else in the room. Even Yoongi had shifted his attention to the movie and had forgotten about the two horny beings sitting on the couch barely two metres away.  

Minutes flew by as you struggled to keep your attention anywhere else, but you kept failing time and time again.

“Hey Jin-hyung?”

Your heart skipped a beat as Seokjin’s minuscule grinding came to a halt, a large breath trying to casually leave his lungs.

“Yeah?” His low voice crackled slightly.

“Now that it’s over can you help me with that hour-long vocal training thing you were talking about?” Jimin asked as he got to his feet and dusted off his shirt from the popcorn pieces.

Wait it’s over?

You were aghast as you looked over to see the credits of the movie scrolling down the screen. You had literally been focusing on the hard outlines pressing into your clothed heat the entire time. Now the cold dread and disappointment lodged itself deeply into your chest as you looked back to gauge Seokjin’s response. Your underwear was nothing but a scrap of wet cloth at this point.

“Argh! Fuck this!”

To your utter surprise, you felt two large hands swooping down to pick you up somewhat roughly. Everyone else gaped as Seokjin yanked you into his chest and marched furiously towards the hallway where his bedroom was. You were left to helplessly cling onto his neck as he abducted you away from everyone else.

“What was that about?” Hoseok was quick to pipe up, wondering why his eldest bandmate had gotten so agitated. Jimin quickly held up his hands to show his innocence, but Yoongi and Namjoon exchanged amused glances.

“If I were you, I'd go plug in your headphones.”

~

You were breathing heavily as Seokjin kicked open his already ajar door, not even caring if he made enough noise to alert the whole building.

“Are you okay babe?” you huffed, watching in amazement as he proceeded to close the door by knocking it with his hip sharply. He didn’t utter a word and only growled before throwing you onto the bed.

Excitement crawled up your body as you were suddenly being pressed into the mattress, his lips were on you in an instant, hungry and desperate. Nothing could be heard but your occasional gasps for air as the primal urges took over.

He needed to have you, and you needed to have him inside you as soon as possible. You positively ached for it.

“Sorry, I just can’t waste time right now,” Seokjin grunted, eyebrows still furrowed from the irritation lingering in his mind. You knew this look. This was the look, the one that had gotten you mercilessly drilled for hours on end. Your heart almost stopped at the strong surge of arousal licking at your abdomen.

“No foreplay needed, I’m flooding myself right now.”

He locked eyes with you for one electrifying moment before licking his lips and pulling you close to his heated body. Without warning, he plunged one hand underneath the edge of your skirt to search for proof of your words, and your lusty whimper mingled with his pleased moan as he ran his fingers along the dripping entrance he found there.

“Fuck, I could slip in so easily.”

You eyed the prominent bulge growing even larger in his pants, but couldn’t act because you were now both too busy undressing yourselves. He was as ravenous as a starved dog, and there was barely a moment where he wasn’t marking your skin or leaving wet kisses in his wake. You couldn’t keep your hands to yourself either, and the sinful noises falling from him only drove you onward.

You let out a breathy moan as he flipped you onto your stomach roughly. You caught sight of his tensed muscles briefly, and you knew he was so worked up it was insane, yet exhilarating at the same time.

“How will you take me?” You moved one arm to sweep your hair over your shoulder, letting him see the entire expanse of your arched back and rounded ass on full view.

“Wow, just like this. I can’t make it slow tonight, I want to fuck your brains out (Y/n),” he almost whispered, voice low and raspy with desire. You didn’t need to see his eyes to know they were filled with a familiar fire, but the thought caused a fresh wave of need to hit you full-force, and suddenly a trail of your own hot wetness slid down your thigh.

“My God, are you trying to kill me?” He groaned and you heard the breath leaving his lungs harshly. The ripping of the condom packet made you jump in anticipation. You arched your back further and sighed, completely ready for this bundling ball of pent up frustration to unleash his wrath onto you and your pussy.

His hand smoothed down your back and you felt the tiny hairs rising at the sensation. This upped sensitivity was going to be the death of you both, and you knew he could also tell by the way your thighs trembled with longing.

“Head down, my love.”

With that he thrust forward and made sure to follow through with a smooth grind of his hips. You cried out in pure pleasure as his length eased past your soaking folds with little resistance. You shifted backwards to meet him, but still winced at the somewhat tight fit. It had been a while, but at least you had plenty of time to get accustomed.

“O-oh, oh that’s good,” He moaned painfully above you, but you knew the serenity wouldn’t last. He was too frenzied to stop at any moment. His hands were already gripping firmly at the tops of your thighs to spread your bent legs further apart.

A plethora of bruises later, but I’m not complaining now…

You sunk your teeth into the nearest pillow as he began setting a punishing pace. Your walls were being battered by his cock, and he was hitting that sweet spot so rapidly you were already coming undone beneath him. You angled your body higher and couldn’t help but moan wantonly at how he hit you in even deeper places.

“This is for all the time we could’ve been fucking,” Seokjin growled through gritted teeth. “A whole weekend, this is a whole weekend in one.”

You widened your eyes at his words, feeling tears prick at the corners from the pure amount of pleasure building up in your core. He twisted you so you rotated on his cock to lay on your back again, and only groaned in approval when your head and shoulders were met by his headboard with a dull ‘thud’.

“Don’t hide anything, I don’t care if they hear everything,” he breathed into your ear as he spread your thighs open once more, the surface of your skin visibly glistening with your fluids. He took in the sight eagerly before looking up with darkened eyes. You knew how completely messed up you were, but he looked pretty fucked too with his flushed complexion and shuddering breaths.

You opened your mouth to reply, but he shoved his thick cock back into your heat unexpectedly, and your words came out in a garbled scream. This new missionary angle felt even more deliciously sensitive and deeper.

“That’s it,” he grunted, brows creasing in concentration as he watched every little contortion of your expression.

He fucked hard and fast, not leaving any room for thinking as you climaxed shockingly. Your thighs shook and your whole abdomen clenched as the orgasm racked your form. Your cry of relief could probably be heard by the whole dorm, but you couldn’t let your mind wander to that when Seokjin picked up the pace again.

The feeling of your walls spasming around his length caused his common sense to fly out the window. He lowered his body onto yours so he could enter you quickly and easily, your beautiful and breathy noises edging him further to the edge he so desperately sought.

Your shoulders and back continuously edged further up the headboard as he pounded into you. You could vaguely hear the banging of the wood against the snowy white wall behind, but your attention was ripped away as another orgasm abruptly bloomed and jerked your entire body into uncontrollability.

Seokjin reached up to still your shoulders, throwing his head back in complete ecstasy as he allowed the slow rhythmic rolling of your muscles to send him over. He groaned loudly as he came, abdominal muscles tensing as he breathed deeply and gently moved his hips to ride out the finish. You were a sight to behold below him, eyes closed and swollen lips hanging open in blissful shock. He watched in admiration as your clammy body continued to jolt occasionally from the aftershocks.

No words were spoken, but you felt his lips against your skin through the haze clouding your mind. He tenderly trailed the outlines of your neck and jawline as if saying ‘thank you, I’m sorry’. You only gasped as another wave of sensitivity coursed through you from head to curled toes. You could still feel the heavy weight of him nestled inside you, but you didn’t want him to leave.

“You’re always so good to me baby. I needed that.” He sighed and almost reluctantly pulled out of your soaking folds slowly. You whined as the sharp feeling almost brought you closer to the edge again, but the stimulation was just too much. He inhaled sharply in stunned disbelief and moved to calm you down with soft words of encouragement.

“I-I think that’s the best sex we’ve had. You were amazing and fuck, if that wasn’t the hottest thing I’ve ever experienced,” You breathed out, eyes still closed and one hand resting over your eyes as you tried to see anything other than stars. His deep chuckle sounded from somewhere beside you as he got up to dispose of the condom. You sighed before also getting up to use the toilet and clean up a little.

“If only we could go at it for two days…We waited for so long,” he murmured as you returned from the bathroom to see him pulling on some loose pants. You looked around and found one of his large shirts to throw on before climbing back into bed with him.

“Well considering how rough you were when you were angry, I wouldn’t mind getting you like that more often.” You smirked as you cuddled into his chest, trying your best to ignore the dull ache flaming from your lower regions.

“What? (Y/n) if you wanted me to be rougher all you had to do was ask.” He snorted, reaching down to smooth away some of your hair and pull you further into his arms. You hummed as he pecked tiny kisses down your bare arm.

“Well, I guess I just found out.”

~

The next morning you woke a little earlier than usual. Seokjin still slept soundly as you smiled at the sight of his slightly parted lips and fluttering eyelashes. He was so adorable when he was like this, but then your mind flashed back to the smouldering heat within his gaze and the rough pumps of his hips last night.

Well everyone has their duality I guess.

You took a deep breath as you swung your legs out of the bed, wanting to prepare your boyfriend an amazing breakfast for making you feel so good the night before. You made it to the door with a little difficulty, but as soon as you tried to walk normally the ache flared from your vagina and you stumbled forwards into the hallway.

Your knees bent at awkward angles as you tried to shuffle down the passageway, wincing while keeping one hand clenched at your pelvis almost as a reassurance. Damn, he had seriously taken away your ability to walk this time.

You grunted in exasperation, yet somehow didn’t completely hate the sore feeling. You looked up in determination to get to the kitchen but felt your breath hitch when you saw Yoongi and Namjoon sitting at the bench eyeing you in shock.  

Shit, they just watched me amble down the hall like a newborn deer.

“Uh, maybe you should get some rest (Y/n),” Namjoon suggested with a kind smile tugging at his lips. He had a half-eaten slice of toast in front of him, and you felt hunger bubble up in your stomach at the combination of smells.

“God knows you didn’t get any last night…” Yoongi mumbled and you stifled a surprised chuckle as Namjoon wacked his fellow rapper’s shoulder, utterly horrified. You leaned against the wall as they looked to you for a response.

“Well,” you began with a smug raise of your eyebrows. “I’d be lying if I said you were wrong.”

                    Copyright © 2020 by salade. All rights reserved.  

[padfootagain]

Girl Crush (XV)

Chapter 15 : A Time for Christmas Roses

 Here we go with a new chapter!! Lots of cuteness!!! London in winter will settle for the next few chapters! Next update in 48 hours, as I've finished the next couple of chapters too!

I hope you like this new part, please, tell me what you think!

Word Count: 5326

Spending New Year's Eve in London ought to be a dream.

If you had imagined only a few months before that you would travel to Europe for the holidays, you would have shaken your head at yourself and your crazy imagination.

And yet there you were, incredibly jetlagged, pulling your suitcase behind you as you walked out of your terminal in Heathrow Airport, looking for your friend across the estranged faces that filled the cold halls.

The little crowd that had gathered in the centre of the building did give you a hint of where Harry was though. You had told him that it wasn't a good idea for him to come and pick you up. But as usual, he didn't listen. It was kind of him to come, of course. Still, it was pretty stupid considering how famous he was.

It seemed to be a rather calm crowd though, and when you spotted Harry in the middle of the group, he seemed relaxed enough, taking pictures with everyone who had gathered around him. You headed for the exit and sent him a text to tell him you were waiting for him outside.

It was terribly cold in London, and you missed the Californian sun already as you stepped outside of the airport and under a grey sky. People were hurrying to and fro in a busy waltz, dragging their luggage behind them, but you settled a few meters away from the door in a quieter corner, leaning against a wall. You watched the cars passing by and strangers rushing in and out, wondering where they were coming from and where they were going. What exotic destination would they go to? Where they coming to London to see a friend, family, a lover, or was London an exotic destination to them as well?

"Sorry about that."

Harry's deep voice tore you away from your thoughts, and you didn't miss a second to lean in his open arms to hug him close.

"Oh, I've missed you so much," he breathed into your hair.

He breathed in the smell of your shampoo, the fragrance making him feel light-headed. It was almost painful to have you back when he had missed you so much. A good kind of pain. The ache that made a heart beat a little faster as one's longing is over. The stinging sensation that settles in to replace what had been wanted.

"I've missed you too," you answered, burying your face a little deeper against his shoulder. "It's so good to see you."

He tightened his hold on you before letting go.

"I'm parked close, let's go."

He took your suitcase and guided you across the parking lot to his car, his warm breath creating strange shapes into the cold air.

"God, it's so cold," you squealed as you climbed on the passenger's seat.

"It's winter, what did you expect?" Harry laughed at you, turning on the engines.

"Thanks again for inviting me over, this is amazing! I couldn't stay long enough to really visit anything when I came for your first show, so I'm glad I have a second chance to discover London."

"I'm sure you have an entire list of places where you want to go…"

"Of course!"

You grinned, reaching in the pocket on the inside of your warm coat for a little piece of paper where you had written the name of all the places you wanted to visit during the week.

Harry couldn't help but laugh, but his eyes and smile were tender, filled with fondness. Because it was just so you… and you were too adorable for his heart to handle.

"I also count on your expertise, obviously," you went on, ignoring his laughter. "Maybe you can show me around a few places?"

He frowned.

"Well, we'll be together for two weeks, I don't think you've really got a choice in terms of who's going to be your guide around London…"

"I… I don't know… don't you have things to do while I'm here?"

"No, I've cleared my schedule because you were coming."

"Oh…"

"Are you… disappointed that I'll be around?"

You rolled your eyes.

"Don't be silly. I've just travelled across the globe just to see you, remember? I just thought that you would be busy. But I'm glad you aren't. I'm gonna drag you to all the tourists' favourite spots!"

"I didn't expect anything less coming from you."

You seemed to think for a moment, which was always a moment to be dreaded, for all your craziest and cutest ideas emerged from these reflective times.

"What's going in there? I can see the smoke coming out of your ears," Harry commented, stopping at a red light.

"Will it be okay for you to come with me to all these places? I mean… people recognized you at the airport."

His hold on the steering wheel tightened, but his voice was calm when he replied.

"It's winter: coats, hats, scarves… I should be alright. But if you're worried it'll be a problem, you can go on your own, it's okay."

But you shook your head.

"If you're okay with taking the risk, then so am I. And you're right, even I could barely recognize you with that gigantic scarf of yours," you added, pointing at Harry's brown knitted scarf.

He exploded with laughter, and relaxed.

"I'm more than ready to take the risk. I've missed spending time with you."

"I've missed you too."

"I'll come back to L.A. for a while after the holidays."

"Really?" you asked, excited.

"Yeah… I have some time off in the tour, much needed time off. So… would like to try to escape the cold of London in winter."

"I'm sure you would!" you playfully laughed at him. "Well, I won't complain. L.A isn't the same without my best friend."

If your words still made him smile, there was also a string being bitterly pulled at his heart.

Best friend… no need to remind him of that.

"How is work, by the way?"

"Everything's fine. I got a raise before Christmas!"

"Wow! Congrats! Mary really can't do anything without you anymore, huh?"

You became a little shy, but wore a proud smile on your lips still.

"Well, I'm good at my job, apparently."

"You are amazing at your job, Y/N."

You wanted to nudge him playfully and tell him to shut up, but his voice sounded too earnest for you to react this way. You lowered your gaze to your shoes instead and let out a shy thank you.

"What about Gareth?" Harry asked in a casual tone, resting his elbow at the base of the window to hold the wheel.

"He's fine. He's spending the holidays with his family, so he couldn't come, but thank you for inviting him too, it means a lot to me."

I know it does. I wouldn't have done so otherwise.

"You'll have him again soon."

You shrugged.

"It's okay. It's just for a couple of weeks. Oh, which reminds me, he asked me to text him after I landed.""

"Everything's fine between you two?" Harry wondered while you texted your boyfriend, letting him know that you were in safe hands and that all had gone well.

"Yeah… it's going fine. Nothing new. He gave me a nice book about plants for Christmas… that I had already, but it was kind," you laughed fondly.

"I'm glad you've found someone nice. Someone who treats you right," Harry earnestly said. "And for his defence… you have almost all possible books that one can find about plants so…"

"I know, it was cute. But what about you?"

"Me and Gareth? We're over the moon together."

"Not you and Gareth, you silly!" you joined his laughter. "I mean, do you have someone these days?"

But Harry shook his head.

"Nope. No one."

"No one serious or no one no one?"

"Uhm… no one… no one… What…?"

"I don't know, I mean… you never talk to me about this stuff."

"Because there is nothing to say?"

"I mean… Sandra tells me about her one-night stands all the time, Jasmine tells me everything about her and her boyfriend. So… I hope you don't avoid telling me things because you feel like you can't. Cause you can. I mean… you get it, right?"

He chuckled.

"I don't have any one-night stands to talk about either."

"No?"

He shook his head.

"Nothing since…"

He frowned hard, going through memories. But then, his expression changed from focused to surprised.

"Since… before my album came out. Wow… perhaps I should work on a one-night stand after all… that… that is a long time without sex…"

"Just a few months," you rolled your eyes.

"Almost a year."

"Almost a year?"

"Almost ten months," he nodded.

"Maybe you should try to find a one-night stand," you admitted with a teasing smile.

"Good resolutions for the new year: getting laid," he joked, making you laugh as well.

It wasn't that late in London, barely the beginning of the evening, and yet by the time you needed to drive from the airport to Harry's house the sun had set, turning the clouds from grey to a deep shade of brown, almost black. The yellowish light of the lampposts helped the moon to light the world. But London was a busy city, and even with the low light and the cold, the streets were filled with strangers walking around. Despite the early time in the evening, your journey had greatly tired you, and you asked Harry to stay in for the first night. He didn't protest, it meant getting some quality time with you after all.

You were surprised though when you entered Harry's home when you found no Christmas decorations whatsoever.

Yes, it was the 27th, and Christmas was theoretically over, but you reckoned that Christmas time ought to last at least until the second week of January, or else it wasn't worth it.

What about the aftermath? Eating all the chocolate you got for Christmas? All the extra cookies? Keeping the lights on for New Year's Eve?

The most surprising fact was that there was a tree in his living room, it was simply…bare.

"You've already put all your decorations away?" you asked, taking in your surroundings, not being surprised to find the place looking exactly like Harry's personality.

A little old and a little new. Soft and warm and full of chairs and couches to gather a lot of people at once. Tasteful and personal, the kind of home that made you feel like it could become yours if he agreed to let you stay for a little longer than a few hours. The plants you had helped him nurture were thriving.

You loved the place already…

"Huh… no, I didn't put them on actually," Harry answered, taking his warm coat off and pushing your suitcase down the hallway and towards the stairs. "I was at my mom's for Christmas, and didn't have time to decorate before leaving."

"But you have a tree!"

"I just had time to pick it up, and then something came up, and I didn't decorate it."

You pouted, seeming a little disappointed.

Harry heaved a sigh as he knew perfectly what that meant…

"Do you want us to decorate it tonight?"

You gave him a grin and nodded enthusiastically.

"Even if Christmas is over?" he asked, but you shrugged his remark away.

"I haven't given you your present, yet."

"You got me a present?"

"Of course!"

"Good, because I got you one too."

Your grin only widened, burning through the room.

"I can't wait to see what it is."

"Alright, what about I get your suitcase upstairs and get the decorations while you make us some hot cocoa, huh? Feel free to open all the drawers in the kitchen, my home is yours. I also bought the cookies you like, they're next to the sink."

You got to work, humming to the Christmas song stuck in your head while Harry fumbled through boxes he had put away upstairs and the warm scent of sugar and chocolate filled the entire house.

When he finally walked back downstairs with a box filled with decorations and he saw you standing there, humming in his kitchen in your warm woollen pullover, your pair of old jeans and your colourful socks, busy making the most comforting drink in the world, he couldn't help but feel like this was right. You, there, in his kitchen, relaxed and happy and making cocoa… that was how things were meant to be. It felt so right. It felt so real.

His throat tightened and jaw clenched, his hold tightening around the box.

He wished that it could be meant to be, at least. A shame you didn't seem to feel this way too.

He shook himself, pushing these thoughts away, because for now you weren't with Gareth, you were with him, in his kitchen and he intended to enjoy every moment he could spend with you.

"Found them!" he told you as he entered the kitchen, right when you were pouring the hot beverage into two large mugs.

"Great! Let's take a look! Here you go, be careful, it's very hot."

You handed him his cocoa and he put the box on the kitchen table so you could inspect what it contained.

And you were far from impressed.

A few lights, but there were barely any garlands and other goodies…

Now, that wouldn't do.

"Okay, no. No, we can't decorate this grandiose tree with only these!" you admonished, shaking your head. "Is there a supermarket close?"

"Huh… yeah, down the street. Why?"

"We're gonna make some decorations."

"Make?"

"If we find a few cute things we can buy them too, but I reckon that as Christmas is technically over we're gonna have to do the hard work ourselves. Come on! Get your coat and your keys, and there we go!"

"But… the cocoa…"

"I'll make more when we come back, come on!"

You did take the time though to grab one of the cookies Harry had bought for you - chocolate chips, your favourite, as usual – and then dragged him out again.

At the store down the street, you filled Harry's arms with glitter, and paint, and glue, and an awful lot of paper and pencils and even more glitter. Your friend didn't really dare to question your actions, he had seen you in this kind of creative mood before, and was well aware that you were an unstoppable force then. You were way too stubborn, all he could do was nod and accept that his evening would be spent creating adorable Christmas decorations with you. And as the thought crossed his mind while you were both waiting to pay for your items, he didn't really want to complain about it after all. There was a dreamy smile on his lips, tender and happy, because when given a little bit of thought, making Christmas decoration with you was a lovely way to spend an evening.

That's how you soon found yourself sitting on Harry's white carpet, before his tall Christmas tree, surrounded with scissors, paper and pencils, your fingers covered in glue and glitter all over your face, laughing with Harry while Ella Fitzgerald sang Christmas Carols in the background.

"I think you're missing some pink glitter on your left cheek," you stated, disregarding the little paper star you were folding in yellow paper, examining Harry.

He had some silver glitter on the bridge of his nose, and a little bit of gold on his forehead, some blue and green on his chin and his cheeks adorned each a line of a bright orange glitter.

"Okay, go ahead," he accepted his fate with an amused smile and leaned forward to allow you to apply some pink glitter over his cheeks.

"Better!"

"You need more red."

"Red?"

"Yes, on your cheeks."

It was your turn to lean forward, presenting your face to him and closing your eyes, waiting for him to paint glittery shapes all over your skin. And as he applied some glitter on his finger and then onto the soft skin of your cheek, Harry couldn't manage to prevent his heart from beating too fast.

God… how he wanted to run his fingers across your cheek for hours…

Instead, it lasted less than a minute, but that was more than enough for him to blush and feel like his heart was ready to explode, and how was that humanly possible to get so many butterflies in one's stomach?

You got back to your tiny star with a smile on your face, singing along to the Christmas songs Harry had put on. It was a mess, the whole room was messy by now, but the tree looked more and more psychedelic, which was all Harry's home deserved.

But you had made a mess of his house already, when you had landed only a few hours before in London. And a comment that Gareth once made about you echoed in your mind once again as your eyes roamed the space around you.

I love that you're passionate about things, but sometimes you get carried away and you don't even realize it, and you kinda make a mess of things. You're… you're a bit childish sometimes.

As you took a look around the room, at all the pieces of paper and the glue, and all the mess, and even Harry's face covered with glitter, and some shiny pieces stuck in his brown curls too… you had to admit that Gareth was right. You did make a mess of things sometimes, even if you had the best of intentions, the result was the same.

Harry was inviting you to his house for the holidays, and you had decided to decorate his home for Christmas, dragged him to a shop to buy some stuff he would never use again, and then moved on to make a mess of his living room to make some childish Christmas decorations.

Gareth was right. Maybe sometimes you forgot that you had to stop behaving like that… you were too old for these things, too old for making your own Christmas decorations, too old for spending your rainy afternoons in pyjamas…

"You're alright, Y/N?"

Harry's deep voice shook you out of your own head.

"Hmm… Yeah, yeah… all good."

"You don't look like you are. What's wrong? You don't like my decoration?"

"I love it, it's very cute."

"What's wrong then?"

You shrugged, but asked the question that tore your heart and burnt your tongue anyway.

"Harry… do you think that… I'm sorry for tonight."

"Sorry? For what?"

"You… Don't you think I'm a bit too much sometimes?"

"Too much? What do you mean?"

"I… I mean… Like right now? You've invited me to stay at your place and now look… it's all a mess."

Harry laughed.

"Yeah, it's kind of a mess. But… that's alright."

"I shouldn't have asked you to decorate the tree, it's not my house. I'm sorry."

You seemed sad now, and really, Harry couldn't have that. For the next two weeks, he would work at making you the happiest woman on Earth. He couldn't start failing in the first evening.

"Don't apologize, I love decorating the tree with you."

"Really?"

"I've been laughing almost non-stop ever since we've started, in case you hadn't noticed. Thought it would give me away…"

"I… I don't… it feels like intruding."

"Intruding? No, you're not. You're… you're just being you."

"What do you mean?"

He shrugged.

"I don't know, you're just… always finding nice things to do. Things that we used to do as children and have kinda forgotten when we shouldn't have, cause they're fun to do. You're… you make simple things more valuable. You give value to simple moments, and I think it's important to do that, to know how to appreciate simple things that money can't buy. And I think that… in our society right now, it's easy to forget about those things, but you don't. And it's nice. But why are you thinking about things like that?"

"Gareth told me that sometimes… I get a bit carried away with things… like tonight, for example. And that I should tune that down."

Harry's jaw clenched, but he struggled to only reveal his emotions through a raise of his eyebrows.

"Well, I think he's wrong, don't listen to him."

"I mean… he is right."

"How did he tell you that? What were the circumstances?"

"I wanted to play to a boardgame with him. But it was more of a… like… long-line-of-similar-things kind of stuff, I guess."

"He… he isn't talking down on you, is he?"

You could see now, despite Harry's best efforts at hiding his emotions, that he was getting angry. You shook your head and gave him a reassuring smile.

"No, he's very nice. He didn't say that to be mean. It was just a remark. Nothing mean intended. Still, it made me think and… he is right… sometimes I get overexcited and have silly ideas."

"Well, I love your silly ideas."

"You do?"

"Yeah… Do you really think that I would be making all of these if I didn't like making them with you?"

"I… I don't know, you're very nice. You could have said yes just to make me happy."

"Well, I didn't. I love that about you. I love that you're earnest and silly in an adorable way. I love that you've made a mess of my living room tonight. It's fun, and sweet, and it's who you are. And I don't think you should change for anybody, especially not a boyfriend."

"I thought that the people we love were supposed to make us be better."

"I think that… we want to change to be better for the people we love. But I don't think that if you truly, unconditionally love someone you would ask them to change. I want to change to be worthy of the people who love me. But I don't want the people I love to change for me, nor for anyone else, for that matter. If you're to change something about yourself, it should be because you want to do it, not because someone else told you to. Besides, what you're talking about changing is you being absolutely adorable all the damn time, that's not the worst trait of character a human can have."

You gave him a warm smile, before he reached for your hand.

"Promise me you won't change that about you," Harry whispered, his thumb dancing over your knuckles, making your heart trip behind your ribcage. "It's a good thing. Don't change… don't change for him. He's not worth you changing for him. No one on this Earth is worth that much."

His hand left yours and despite his house being warm and comfortable, your fingers felt cold without his to cover them.

You gave him a small but earnest smile, the gesture reaching the corners of your eyes.

You had been right, Harry wouldn't want you to change that about yourself… he wouldn't want you to change at all…

"Alright, I won't."

You resumed your activity, but it wasn't long before Harry spoke again, his deep voice covering the tune of White Christmas.

"So… what do you want us to do while you're here?" your friend asked while drawing little flowers over a ball of paper.

"I guess… the usual tourists spots. Kensington Gardens, St James's Park, Buckingham Palace, the National Gallery, Big Ben, the Tower Bridge, St Paul's Cathedral…"

"The clichés then…"

"Yeah, the clichés! And for the cute little places that I don't know about, you're gonna help me!"

"Alright… But tomorrow, I have something planned for you."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it's Sunday and… I know about a place you'll like."

You grinned, making Harry's heart miss a beat or two.

You really were a ray of sunshine every time you smiled…

"What is it?"

"Nope! Not telling! It's a surprise!" he shook his head, and despite your pout, he would not waver. "I'm sure you're going to love it though."

"I trust you."

"It won't take the whole day though. I guess, we could go there in the morning, eat something there, and then move on to another part of town."

"Sure."

"It's about… I'd say it's about a thirty-minutes-walk from the Tower of London, we could spend the rest of the afternoon there."

"Perfect!" you frantically nodded, your grin never leaving your lips.

"Alright, let's do that then."

You got up to place your star on the tree, and Harry handed you his decoration so you could choose a spot for it too. And you reckoned that this tree looked absolutely fabulous.

"I think we're done," you announced proudly. "What do you think?"

"I think this is the weirdest Christmas tree I've ever seen, but I love it."

"It looks amazing."

"It looks unapologetically bizarre, it's great!"

"Should we clean up?" you asked, but Harry shook his head.

"Let's exchange gifts first, then we'll clean up. I can't wait to give you your present any longer."

A moment later, and you were eating a cookie, both of you sitting before the illuminated tree, with a little pile of gifts in front of each of you.

"Alright, you start," Harry nodded towards the two boxes in front of you, one rather large but thin, and the other a tiny squared one.

You didn't need any more encouragement to excitedly grab the little box and tear the paper apart. Your action revealed a dark velvety box, that you slowly opened as well, wondering what could be inside.

Your eyes opened wide at the sight of a beautiful pendant in the shape of a delicate peony, shades of silver and copper making the patterns of petals and leaves.

"Wow…" you let out in a breath.

You took the jewel out of its box and ran your fingers across the delicate shapes. You noticed that something was engraved under the two petals, and when you took a closer look, you realized that it was yours and Harry's initials.

"So… do you like it?" Harry asked anxiously, trying to read through your expression, but your silence confused him. You usually were overjoyed when you received a gift, but you were barely reacting now, only studying the piece of jewellery he had chosen for you. "I know you don't like… diamonds and stuff, so I thought that this was more discreet… do you like it?"

"It's… it's gorgeous, Harry," you whispered. "It's so beautiful."

You finally looked up at him again with withheld tears in your eyes.

"I… I don't think anyone's ever offered me something that looks this precious before," you admitted in a weak voice.

"Well, you only deserve precious things."

You stared at each other for a moment, none of you truly breathing, none of you able to look away, as if there was an invisible string connecting the two of you and pulling to make you lean closer to each other.

But you looked away first, finally able to draw a full breath of air for your shouting lungs, and Harry looked down at his laps, trying to hide how he was blushing.

"I love it, it's gorgeous," you reassured him. "Can you help me put it on?"

"Sure, come here."

You scooted closer to him, turning your back to him so he could close the silver chain around your neck. His fingers struggled a little, shaking because of the scent of your shampoo overloading his senses, and he was grateful for being seated on the floor, because he could feel his legs weakening against the floor. His eyes weren't focused on the chain at all, but instead on the back of your neck, and it took everything in him to not lean down and kiss the soft skin that was revealed to him. Instead, he closed the clasp and let go of the chain.

"Done," he whispered, his voice too out of breath, but there was nothing he could do to hide how shaky his tone had turned.

"Thank you!"

You sat back behind your second gift, running your fingers across the delicate flower falling perfectly around your neck, a smile glued to your lips.

"Okay, open the other one!" Harry urged you, and you happily complied.

Tearing the wrapping paper apart, you revealed a beautiful scarf, a purple velvet embroidered with golden threads.

Once again, you were left speechless. Instead, you traced your fingers across the soft fabric and the embroidered flowers that ran across it.

"Wow… that's beautiful, Harry. But you… you shouldn't have bought me all that…"

"Why not? You love scarves. You have too many of those already, I know, but I thought that this one would suit you. And you don't have so many purple ones, you keep on saying that you need to find new ones in that colour."

"I know but… it's… it's too nice."

"Too nice?"

But you shook your head. You were being silly. Harry really was the best… these gifts were so right for you.

"It's perfect, Harry," you grinned, wrapping the scarf around your neck. It was soft and warm.

Harry shot you a cheeky grin.

"Yeah, I know, I'm good at giving gifts."

You wanted to retaliate with a clever word to wipe that annoying expression off his face, but you reckoned that he deserved to wear it this time. So instead, you leaned forward to hug him and kiss his cheek, unaware of the butterflies that had invaded Harry's stomach at your gesture, or the shot of electricity that ran through his spine as your lips touched his skin.

He was excellent at hiding all his symptoms, indeed.

"Thank you, Harry."

"Merry Christmas, Y/N."

"Alright, your turn!"

"Hang on, hang on… I'm admiring how good my gifts look on you!" he replied, slowly taking the wrapped object you had placed in front of him

"Open it!"

Harry laughed at you, shaking his head at how excited you were, but he tore the paper of his gift anyway.

It was a notebook, bound together by a black leather cover, upon which were written in silver Future hits. Harry couldn't help but laugh at the message. He guessed that you had customized it for him, and he ran his thumb across the words in a tender stroke.

He opened it, and found that you had written a little note on the front page.

So you can keep on making everyone's life better thanks to your music.

With all the love,

Y/N

PS: don't forget to be careful on the road.

He remained silent for a moment, his throat too tight to speak, feeling tears threaten to escape from his eyes.

But when he looked up at you again, he was wearing a touched smile on his features.

"Thank you," he breathed in a voice deeper than his usual tone, and you could hear the emotion in the way he sounded as he wrapped an arm around you to pull you into a tight hug.

"Do you like it?" you shyly asked while you wrapped your arms around his neck.

"I love it. Thank you. Thank you for everything."

"Merry Christmas, Harry."

Harry's smile widened as he let his forehead fall to rest on your shoulder.

"Merry Christmas, Y/N."

There was a mess around you waiting to be cleaned. And you hadn't eaten dinner yet. And you were exhausted and dreamt of a comfortable bed.

Yet, none of you had any intention to move. In fact, you remained for a long time like this, holding on each other, enjoying being together, probably for too long for a mere hug between friends, but none of you were ready to admit that fact. It was so much easier to push the thought away for now and simply be together, even if for just a little while…

***********************************

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[poemprince]

Golden Heart Locket [TaminoxReader ONESHOT]

It’s only been a couple months in your new relationship with Tamino, but you’ve been so happy for these said months and you wouldn’t have it any other way. Not only was he kind in every retrospect, but he was patient with your romance. There was no other way you’d like to have it, too.

It’s not like you were a serial dater, anyway, you liked to get to know your partner and you knew that rushing into a relationship would be the doom of it before it even got started. This one, however, showed that Tamino was someone who did the exact opposite. He took his time and, adorably enough, he was very shy time to time. His idea of romance was perfect, though.

He was insanely classy, first of all. American boys typically wore trashy clothes but Tamino was far from them. He wore silk shirts, high-waisted pants, vests, and jewelry that flattered his soft features. You wanted to non-verbally thank his mother for raising such a beautiful boy, but that wasn’t possible seeing as he was on tour currently.

Second of all, he was a poet. Anyone knew that from the first couple of lyrics from any of his songs, it was just a given at that point. Tamino had a heart of gold made for loving nature and beauty and he expressed that vividly in your relationship. He would often write little poems through text, mail, anything he could get to you in, he would do it, and in such a sweet and endearing manner too. His kindness surpassed anyone’s you ever knew.

Back on topic, your boyfriend was currently on tour in North America. Like, north North America. You didn’t live anywhere near any of the concerts, so you had to stay at home and focus on your schoolwork while he was out having fun. You felt bad but you exchanged cute selfies before you went to bed every night, so it was somewhat worth it. You did feel bad seeing his exhausted expression, though.

You could tell he missed you. Every text he sent was full of adoration.

T: Good night, habibi, please sleep well tonight and dream of me. ME: goodnight!! you look so tired, I wish I was there, I’d give you a million kisses <3

Setting your phone down on the nightstand, you thought about the things you’d do if you were on tour with him. You dreamed about being in his arms that night before coming to an inkling idea.

You’d just pay him a visit.

So, you paid for a ticket to one of the nearest concerts, which was twelve hours away and a couple weeks out. You knew that you could easily get a backstage pass just by texting one of Tamino’s buddies, Colin, about the show. Colin seemed overly excited that you were going to surprise Tamino, glad to be in on it. Colin told you about the procedure about getting backstage and said he’d help, so you thanked him and went to sleep that night pondering what you’d do when you reunited with your boyfriend.

It took you a week to be able to drive out somewhere and look for gifts. Getting a gift for a pretty boy didn’t seem hard, but it was beyond difficult because you knew you had to get something quality. See, with your past boyfriends, they didn’t care much for the gift itself because they didn’t see the quality of it. You could’ve gotten them a pair of socks and they wouldn’t have complained. Tamino was different because you knew that his taste was very selective. Not that he wouldn’t enjoy a good pair of socks, but you had to think out of the box for this one.

And that’s when you saw it; a pretty, dainty, golden locket. It wasn’t any larger than a dime, which made it perfectly quaint for his style. Gaudy heart lockets were so out of date, anyway. As you lifted it to look at it, you noticed small engravings on the heart. That’s when you knew it would be perfect for him. Taking it to the counter, you paid for it excitedly (alongside some clothes for yourself because you couldn’t resist) and made your way to go wrap it.

The day before the concert came and you were all packed. You were going to get a hotel room just for two nights and Colin already had the plans underway. As you drove literally twelve hours to the city the concert was being hosted in, you decided not to play Tamino’s album because you wanted to experience it again in full. The real experience was being able to listen to his music live, that was truly like a gift from heaven. His voice was enough to make angels swoon, you always joked.

Upon arriving in the city, it was already night, so you crashed in your hotel room and made yourself at home. The next morning was the day of the concert and you found yourself just as excited as when you attended your first concert of his. The city was busy, as usual, and the skies were warm and sunny, but you knew you had to get to the venue as fast as possible because it was typically first come first serve and you wanted to be near the front.

You weren’t worried about him spotting you since he kept his eyes closed while performing, but the thought did cross your mind more than once. You just hoped he’d remain cool and think it was a fan that looked similar to his lover. Getting dressed up, you ran to get lunch and a spot in the line outside the venue. You were insanely early but you knew it would be worth it, seeing only a couple of other groups lined outside the door.

And so the waiting game began.

To be honest, you didn’t care if your phone died, you didn’t need to record the concert at all. You could really just ask him any day to perform a song and he’d do it for you. Safe to say that your phone didn’t last long with you standing out there bored as hell.

As the hours pass by slowly, it begins to get dark out. You notice that the line grows and grows until it surpasses the block and, finally, when it’s time to be allowed in, you all start to move indoors. You felt excitement surge in you as you held your ticket up for examination, keeping the boxed gift in your pocket. Walking into the venue, you were greeted with cold air and the whispers of other excited concert-goers. It took about half an hour until everyone was filed into the hall, but that only fueled your energy. It felt like your blood was thundering in your ears, you could hardly handle the adrenaline.

As the band begins to walk on stage, you catch Colin’s gaze. He just smiles at you knowingly, situating himself at the bass guitar. It seems that the other band mates know about your presence because some of them giggle to themselves before focusing on tuning their instruments. Next, Tamino steps out, and the crowd roars with life, screaming his name and cheering for him. You watched him, in his loose collared shirt, smile at the crowd as he took his place center stage. You loved it when he was in the spotlight.

And so began one of the many songs played that night. You listened intently, hushing strangers near you as Tamino broke into gentle melodies, beginning with Persephone which was a personal favorite. Each song, you stared at his face, wishing you could be on stage by his side, kissing him all over. You knew some of the other girls in the crowd might be thinking the same exact thing, but you didn’t let that get to you.

Each song came and went and, before you knew it, it was over. The crowd cried deafeningly for him, wanting more, but unfortunately he had to stop for the night. He personally thanked everyone and shouted out each of his band mates before people began to leave the concert hall. You remained in your spot, fighting the crowd to get behind the stage. Colin met you halfway there, pulling you past security into a dark area behind the stage, dimly lit.

“Come on, this way,” Colin said, eyeing you as you stumbled behind him. “enjoy the show?”

“Loved it as usual, Colin! You guys were breathtaking.”

Colin breathlessly laughs, leading you to a smaller room set away from the stage. He enters, motioning the rest of the band to come out. You heard Tamino’s confused voice ask what they were doing, but it was then you entered, the two of you isolated.

“Y/N..?” He asked curiously before his dark eyes lit up. He approached you in a few strides before opening his arms, pulling you into them tightly. You burst into giggles, returning the hug and cupping his face, pulling him to your height and kissing his lips over and over.

“You were amazing out there.” You whispered but he was too stunned to respond. You reached up, wrapping your arms around his neck and playing with the curly ends of his hair. He felt warm, even sweaty, but you didn’t mind.

“I... didn’t know you’d be here,” he laughed nervously, “I messed up a couple of times...”

“Oh, nonsense, don’t get all flustered now, you sing about love, come on.” You pinched his face, causing his nose to wrinkle cutely. “Oh! Hey, I have something...”

You reached into your pocket, withdrawing the little gift box you wrapped for him. He curiously stared at it before timidly taking it, opening it slowly to reveal the golden heart locket. He admired it with a sudden love-stricken expression, turning to you and simply responding by kissing you on the lips ever so gently.

“It’s beautiful,” he breathes, taking it out of the box and putting it on. “I love it.. I love you. Thank you, habibi.”

It was safe to say he really loved your present and, who knows, this might not be the last time you’ll surprise him at a concert. You loved his reaction, the genuinity behind it, and you know that you’ll never forget this night for years to come.

[simplygojo]

killer queen - chapter four

Series summary : Y/n, a native to London England, gets asked by the legend himself, Freddie Mercury, to help manage the band. Obviously she accepts, and it ends up being the best decision she’s ever made. Quickly she becomes close with each member of band, Roger Taylor specifically…

Chapter Summary : After y/n’s fight with Roger, the band goes to perform on the BBC, and afterwards received some great news.

Word Count : 1.7k

Pairings : Ben!Roger Taylor x Reader

Warnings : Swearing,

a/n - I’m so sorry this part is so short!! It just felt like this would be a good place to end it, or else this chapter would be like 6k words. ALSO- You guys have been sending me so many messages and so many asks about this series and I really hope you all know how much that means got me! I love you all and I love talking to you guys!!!

           You spent the rest of that Saturday unpacking your things into your flat, you left the phone off the hook and locked your door. You could not believe that he would leave you in the pouring rain like that. You trusted him to come get you, but he purposely didn’t. You saw how he expected you to forgive him when he told you that he’d forgot and that just made you angrier. The boys ridiculed Roger about what he did to you for the rest of the day, because they knew the real reason why he had done it. He did it out of anger, out of spite because you were the only girl who had ever made him feel this way. But you both needed to get past this issue because tomorrow was they day Queen goes on television, and the band needed you more than ever right now.

           The next morning you got up and drove to the studio early, so early that no one was there yet. You walked into the booth and began listening to the song that they had created while you were gone. You listened to the lyrics and nodded your head to it. “I’m just a new man. Yes you made me live again.” You found the lyrics written down on a piece of paper, the bottom of it had Roger’s name on it. Roger wrote these lyrics. Just then you heard the front door open and you saw the four boys walk in. Freddie was already in full costume for that afternoon. You smiled sweetly and walked out of the booth to greet them. “Okay, today’s the big day, you all need to get into your clothes, I can do your makeup…” You trailed off as you started to pace around the room. “You should rehearse some more as well…” You heard Brian clear his throat so you turned to look at him. Roger and Freddie were holding up a small cake and Brian was standing beside them along with John. “Welcome back, darling.” Freddie said with a small smile. You laughed and walked over to them. “This is for everything you’ve done for us, and to celebrate getting on the BBC.” Brian explained, your smile widened and you wrapped your arms around his waist to give him a hug. “Thank you.” You said and then turned to look at the rest of them. “You boys are too sweet.” You spoke again before going on your tiptoes to kiss Freddie and John on the cheek. You walked up to Roger and he looked at you, “This is also an ‘I’m sorry’ cake, from me.” He told you as he looked down on you. “I forgive you.” You said finally before going on your tiptoes once more to place a kiss on Roger’s cheek as well, but with him your lips lingered for a moment. Once you pulled away you realized that John had already started cutting the cake onto paper plates. “Deaky wait! Don’t eat any yet, just give everyone a slice.” You said as you handed out the plates to the boys around you. Once they each had a slice of cake and a fork, you stood up on a stool and smiled wide, “Let them eat cake!” You said in a french accent, causing the four of them to laugh. “Alright Marie Antoinette, calm down.” Brian exclaimed as they all began to dig into their cake.

           After hours of rehearsing and doing their makeup the boys were finally ready for the BBC. You all drove there together as the produces said that they would supply the instruments. Once you were finally there you met up with Freddie’s girl, Mary, who you were friends with, and the boys got behind their instruments and got ready. Roger started playing a beat and the stopped. He started smashing the drumstick over the plastic cymbol and then he looked up at you. “This is shit!” He exclaimed and you frowned a bit. Just after that John Reid walked up to the group of you with who you believed was the producer of the show. “Freddie, boys!” Reid said before the producer began to speak. “Look chaps, it is going to be playback. Lip sync is all that’s required.” He said, Roger looked at him frustratedly, “We do know how to play our instruments.” He said as he put his hands up and shook his head. Freddie approached the man, “You want me to lip sync?” He asked, Brian chimed in as well, “I don’t understand why we can’t just simply perform live.” He said and the produced quickly got frustrated, “The audience will never know the difference.” He said as he took a small step back from Freddie. Brian got equally as frustrated and gestured to Roger and John, “We’ll know the bloody difference.” He said which just made the producer roll his eyes and begin to walk away. “This is the BBC that's how things are done around here, alright? Don’t be a nuisance.” He spoke before he completely left. You looked at them and sighed, “Fred, it’ll be great.” Mary said to him before the two of them wandered off a couple meters.  Brian put his left hand on his hip and began to imitate the producer, “This is the BBC.” He said in a funny voice. Roger looked at you and let out a frustrated sigh. “We all sing in this song.” He told you as Brian and John wandered back to the stage. “How are we supposed to lip sync background vocals?” He asked and you just smirked, “You’ll just have to make sure no one’s looking at your lips.” You stated as your eyes flickered from his lips to his eyes. Roger rolled his eyes and took a step closer to you. “Well that seems like a difficult task.” He whispered as he looked down on you, his eyes had just the smallest bit of lust in them. You went on your tiptoes and gave him a kiss on the cheek before whispering, “Too bad we’re just friends.” You gave him a wink and walked away to where Reid, Mary, and the producer were standing at the side of the stage.

           They began to lipsync to the song Now I’m Here, trying their hardest to make it look like they were playing their instruments. Your eyes flickered between the band members, and every so often you would catch Roger looking at you with a smirk on his face. You rolled your eyes at him but smiled wide. You began talking to Mary about Freddie, she was telling you about how much she loves him and your mind was drifting to other places. “How are you and Roger?” She asked and you almost choked. “Sorry?” You asked, shock was on your face. That’s when the boys finished performing and they walked over to you and Mary. “Aren’t you and Roger dating?” She asked again. Freddie walked up to Mary and Roger walked up to you and gave you a hug from behind. “No, no we’re not.” You said quickly dismissing it. “Who’s not what, darling?” Freddie asked and you shook your head quickly. “Nothing. It’s not important.” You told him as you shot Mary a look that told her to drop it. “Alright then, should we go celebrate or-” “I’m actually tired, I think I might just head home.” You said, interrupting Brian. Just before you could leave John Reid walked up to the group of you.

           “Hey guys! I have some good news!” He said clapping his hands together. “I’ve booked you a tour of America! The first two songs you sent me hit the charts! We’re releasing your album tomorrow and then in a week we’re headed off!” He said. All of the boys got excited, Freddie pulled Mary in for a kiss, Brian and John pulled each other in for a hug and Roger smiled at you and picked you up and spun you around. “We’re going to America y/n!” He shouted while laughing. Reid put his and up slightly, signaling Roger to stop. “Oh, no female companions can come.” He said and you scoffed. “I am no one’s companion.” You said as you turned to face Reid. “I am Queen’s assistant, they’ll need me.” You said, Roger put his hand on your shoulder, Brian came up to stand beside you and rested his elbow on your other shoulder. “Y/n comes, or we don’t go.” Roger said to Reid who just rolled his eyes and nodded. “Fine, but no one else.” You heard Mary sigh and Freddie begin to comfort her. You turned around to face the boys who just stood up for you with a sweet smile on her face. “Thanks guys.” You said, blushing a bit. “You’re apart of the band.” Brian said. “Plus I-we’d miss you too much.” Roger said. You rolled your eyes playfully and picked up your bag. “I’m heading home now, can you guys find a way home?” You asked, looking at Brian who nodded. “Yep, we’re set. Goodnight y/n.” Brian said, giving you a small wave. “Bye boys!” You called out as you walked out of the building.

           Once you left Brian and Freddie looked at each other, and then at Roger. “What was that hug about, hm?” Brian asked in a teasing way. Roger looked at them and rolled his eyes. “Oh shove off, I was happy! I’m allowed to give my friend a hug when I’m happy!” He told them as he cracked open a beer. “Oh yeah? Should I give you a hug from behind every time I get happy then?” John added in as he picked up his jacket. Roger glared at him, “Fuck off, Deaky.” He said before looking out at all the other people. There was two girls who were staring Roger down, all giggly and smiley. Roger smirked to himself and chugged the rest of his beer. “Now, I’m going to go celebrate. If I liked y/n like you three idiots think I do, then I wouldn’t be doing this.” He said as he walked over to the two girls. Freddie laughed a bit as he watched Roger put an arm around either girl. Brian glanced over to Roger and then back at his friends. “He’s head over heels.” “Completely in love with y/n.” Deaky added after Brian spoke. “Absolutely and utterly in love, or lust.” Freddie said with a bit of a smirk as he looked down at Mary.

Series Taglist : @triggeredpossum  @june-uk  @toger-raylor @antoouu @ironicsecretfae @harrysniallpolish @s-e-l-e-c-t-i-v-e-listener @creativedogs @wvnhedas @rockyroadthepastryarchy @sweetdayme4427 @pietrorunsforme @coltonthekanima @anna1523 @fandomshit6000 @shutup-sorry @a-crowd-of-newsies @butterfliesflewaway @mydogisthebest @ultrunning @unicorntrooper

[lemonjoonah]

Grim Love: Loss

Masterlist  | NEXT Grim Love: Memory >

Title: Grim Love: Loss Word Count: 3K+ Rating: M Genre: Reaper AU, Drama Warnings: Suicide, Character Death Pairings: Reaper!Namjoon x Reader x Yoongi Inspirations: Spring Day, Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (AKA Goblin), Norwegian Wood

Summary - Two weeks by your side... Two weeks to save you from yourself... His mission and goal conflict when it comes to your fate.

The Grim Love series is a Reaper AU, featuring each of the members as Grim Reapers. Loss is Namjoon’s story... 

AO3 Link - Here

A/N - Please pay attention to the warnings. This story took a lot out of me to write, if you are easily triggered do not read it! This is the first instalment in the series. It will probably be a couple months between each update as Under Fire is my top priority.  I hope you enjoy this sad little story of mine, and if you really want to destroy your soul might I suggest listening to Can You Hold Me (feat. Britt Nicole) by NF as you read...

POV Namjoon

You’re too young... That’s all I can think when I see you after receiving my assignment. I want nothing more than to go back to my elders and have them rewrite fate, but I already know their answer. They would simply reiterate their last words to me.

“This is our kindness, sending you.”

They had the decency to give you company for your last journey. I’ll be the only form of goodwill you will receive in the end.

In my few years I had never been assigned to someone younger than 30. You will be my first. Despite your given time frame you seem so full of life. You sit in the booth of a coffee shop, your foot shaking anxiously as you watch the door. One of the wait staff approaches you.

“He’s really late today isn’t he?” She asks taking your empty cup.

“It’s fine, I don’t mind waiting.”

I sit down across from you on the bench. You can’t see me, but I don’t like the thought of you sitting alone.

When we are given a new soul to guide, we are told nothing other than a name before appearing in front of the ill fated. I have no notion as to what your cause of death might be. You could pass on at any point during these two weeks, preventing me from straying far from your side.

I watch your eyes light up as you look to the door. I remove myself from the seat, to make room for your friend, placing myself behind you in your shadow.

“Yoongi!” You call out waving to the boy in the doorway. His slumped appearance straightens as you call his name. His lips curving into a small smile.   

“Sorry to make you wait. Can I get you a coffee?”

“I’m fine, I just finished my cup.”

He glances at his watch, falling into the seat I had just vacated. “I’m later than I thought. I’m so sorry I got side tracked at the studio.”

“Really it’s okay. Are you working on something new?”

The boy named Yoongi mumbles nervously. “I’m finally piecing the album together. It’s been tough, but I know it’s what he would have wanted.”

“I’m sure he would have loved it. When do I get to listen to it?”

“When it’s perfect, you deserve no less.” His voice is quiet,  but I can tell he truly means it. He likes you, that is beyond doubt. It will be a bitter task to tear the two of you apart.

“How have you been?” He asks tentatively.

“Good.” Your answer is short and forced. Your mouth painted with a fake smile.

“Come on don’t give me that. I know what day it is. It’s been two years, I know it still hurts.”

Your expression falls. “I’ve been getting by... I’ve been writing again. I find that helps.”

The boy reaches across to hold your hand. “I’m only a phone call away, don’t forget that okay?”

You nod with a sad smile.

Yoongi switches the conversation to lighter topics. I observe you relax back in your seat as you laugh at his stories.

An hour later, as you are putting your jacket on, you ask if he would like to join you for dinner.

“Sorry, I have plans.”

“No problem maybe another night.”

“That’s something I wanted to talk to you about actually. My plans tonight are with Seoyun.” The boy’s nervousness has returned. “We’re back together.”

I notice your eyes flash with a sadness, before recovering with a smile and a happy sentiment. “That’s great, you guys always made such a cute couple.”

This makes no sense to me. I can’t remember my own experience with love, but it’s clear that this boy cares deeply for you. Why would he date another?

...

The second you step into your apartment you make your way to a cabinet pulling out a bottle of spirits... an hour later pulling out another. The more you drink the more you weep.

You scribble today’s date off your calendar, and pull the page from your agenda. I watch as you beg for this day to be erased from history.

I wonder if my first night at your side might be your last. I can only remember flashes of my own death. Surrounded by water and struggling to breath. Watching you pass out reminds me of those scenes, only you’re drowning in your own pain.

“He’s not worth it.” The words fall from my mouth. I know you can’t hear me, but it needs to be said.

...

You spend the next several days in a haze barely interacting with the world around you. The more you fade from this life the more tangible I become. A few select objects start to react to my touch, when before my hand would pass right through them. I know this feeling well, your time is drawing closer, the bond between us growing stronger. The bond that would allow me to ferry you across the void.

You sit in bed crying clutching a well loved orange bear. Your eyes every now and then glancing to the pill bottle beside your bed. You reach out to your phone instead, calling the boy named Yoongi.

The ringing is cut short by his voicemail. Did he really just decline your call? Your shaky hand places the phone down in front of you. I know where you’re going to reach next. In a moment of panic I manage to knock the bottle away from you, spilling the pills to the the floor.

Your hand retreats, a mixture of fear and shock written on your face. I seemed to have snapped you out of your dangerous thoughts. Your tears flow again, probably in realization of what you had almost done. I sit beside you. Wanting more than anything to reach out and touch you, to have you hear my words. “It’s not your fault, this pain is not your fault.”

“It wasn’t my fault... please tell me it wasn’t my fault...” You mutter to yourself.

I tilt my head in confusion as I look at you. There was no way you could have heard me.

You pick the pills off the floor, getting on your hands and knees you lift the bed skirt. I can only assume to make sure you had collected them all. But instead finding more pills your hands pull out a journal.

Grabbing a pencil you start to write. I read over your shoulder as you spin the tale of a Prince who wears a mask of perfection. A mask that becomes more and more burdensome each day. A love interest appears by page five, a women who sees his suffering and watches as he escapes the castle. Each day he hides himself beneath a bridge to take his mask off for a few moments. One day she approaches him in his vulnerable state, begging him not to put it back on.

Your body visibly calms after you finish the passage between the two.

You run your hand down the written words as if wishing you could join the characters among the pages. You whisper to yourself again. “I miss you.”

“He’s not worth it.” I answer back.

...

Your writing continues every day although you haven’t gone back and finished the story of the Prince yet.

With each new story I watch your health improve. It gives me hope, but the bond continues to strengthen.

We reach the last night of my two week assignment. In the past there have been people who have had their fates changed. It was a rare occurrence but it happened.

If that’s the case I will be summoned back tomorrow. The thought of not seeing you again causes me pain, I have grown attached to you and your tales.

Your story tonight does nothing to ease that pain of loss.

This story centres around you and an invisible friend. The friend would come out when you were crying or sad. He would try to make you laugh with his lack of coordination, knocking over pill bottles, and wine glasses.

I think about the wine glass I broke yesterday as you continue to write.

Many people would be scared of an invisible friend who causes such mischief, but he makes you feel less alone. Why should you be afraid of him if he isn’t afraid of being around your despair. Your friend that saves you from your poor choices, holding you close and whispering in your ear when you need it most.

The irony doesn’t escape me. What would you think of your invisible friend knew the truth? Here I am the personification of death, giving you comfort. The reaper looming in your shadow, keeping you alive. But if I leave you tomorrow, will I have to return before long?

...

Tomorrow comes and goes but I stay. Another week but still no summons to go back.

One night while you are asleep I return to my elders curious of your situation.

“Her clock has been resting, but each time she is still no more than two weeks from death.”

A feeling of hope enters me. “If it can be reset there must be a way to add more time? She doesn’t need to die so soon, there is no reason for it. Please have mercy on her.”

“This is our mercy. This is our kindness, sending you.”

You need time to heal. It’s clear that my interference is resetting that timer. I will reset it as many times as I need to before this cycle stops.

...

A week later you are walking through the city when you spot a poster for a concert. Your face lights up with a smile that I haven’t seen since the day I met you. The day that you last saw Yoongi.

You take a picture of the banner and text him the photo along with the message:

...We should go! I’ll get the tickets, consider it an early birthday gift...

You wait for his reply but an hour later there’s still nothing. You buy the tickets anyway before heading home.

Two days before the concert and he has still not sent word. You text him again. He answers back quickly this time.

...I can’t make it...

I thought that his words would send you into another spiral, but instead you reach out for your journal. Continuing to write my favourite story of the Prince.

Even with her pleas he continues to wear his mask. It continues to grow heavier, to the point where the strap holding it breaks. He tries to fix it but to no avail, there’s no material strong enough to keep it in place. He hides away in his room pulling away from everyone around him, including the girl. She still goes to the bridge everyday with the hopes of seeing him, but he never appears.

Our bond has grown stronger than any other than I have had before. I sit behind you as you write my chest against your back, I can actually feel the warmth of your skin.

Despite your strength I am still not called back, my task nor my goal complete.

...

To my surprise you go to the concert. Others might think you’re alone, but I still follow in the shadows. The venue is small, allowing me to spot a familiar boy a couple rows over. His arm around another girl. I step directly in the path between you and him, wishing, hoping that I could shield you from the sight. But you see right through me, you watch him smile at her, you watch him embrace her.

You flee the concert before the second song. Your tears not even having the decency to wait until you reached your apartment.

“He’s not worth it.” I repeat over and over.

You fall into your own whispers again holing yourself as you fight back the sobs. “I miss you... Why did you leave... I’ve felt so alone the past two years... seeing that makes me miss you so much more.”

You open your journal finally finishing the story.

The Prince leaves his room in the shadows, telling no one, greeting no one. He makes his way to the bridge, but instead of hiding at the bottom he climbs to the top. Looking to the water beneath him with longing. He doesn’t see her as she waits in their usual spot. She doesn’t get the chance to call out to him before he takes his leap.

This time the story brings you no comfort, you are more distraught than ever. You pull on your coat once again heading to the door. I try to reach out for your hand feeling only the warmth as my fingers passed through yours.

You leave not even bothering to lock the door behind you.

You walk the dark streets with determination. It’s now one in the morning and I can’t think of any good reason you should be out here at this time. A bridge appears in our sights. You keep walking towards it, stopping halfway across to look over the railing.

Something about this place seems so familiar. I mimic you looking down to the rushing water. I’ve been here before. Surrounded by water, struggling to breath.

You take a step up onto the railing.

I had taken the same step on the this very railing. I remember... I remember you ... You were running... calling out my name as I fell. I’m the Prince of the story, this was where I took my leap. It was never about Yoongi. I’m the one who left you. I’m the one causing you pain.

Your other foot steps onto the railing.

“No please!” I shout out pleading with you, hoping you can hear my cry. I reach out expecting to grab only air, but my fingers firmly grasp your arm. I pull back with such force that you fall backwards. As I move in an to catch you, your head hits the opposite railing, pulling your conscious self under.

“I’m not worth it, I’m not worth your pain,” I sob while clutching you. Finally able to hold you properly for the first time in years. “I’m sorry I left you. I promise you, it wasn’t your fault.”

You must have crossed far enough into the void enough for me to push you back, but in doing so you had pulled me fully into this world. I knew it wouldn’t last long, I didn’t belong here. With my limited time I pick you up and carry you home.

POV Yoongi

My phone blares out waking me. I look to the screen hoping to see your name, but this number isn’t listed under my contacts. Who the hell calls at two in the morning? I answer ready to give them a piece of my mind.

“Get over here you idiot. She needs you.”

“Who the hell is this? What are you talking about?”

“(Y/N), she needs you. Stop ignoring her and get your ass over here.”       

“(Y/N)...” I whisper, but she had been the one ignoring me... “Is she okay?”

“You made me a promise that you would look after her. You almost lost her tonight.”

My heart stops. I remember making that promise. I remember him awkwardly asking should anything happen to him that I would look after you. I had scoffed at the idea knowing that no one could be more perfect for you than he is...was. I had never told anyone about that agreement.

“Namjoon?”

“I can’t be there for her anymore. This is my kindness, sending you.”

He hangs up the phone.

I look for her contact and hit dial, finding it odd that the phone next to the sleeping Seoyun starts vibrating at the same time. As I end the call and her phone stops as well.

I reach out and grab it, sending a text from my my own phone.

...(Y/N)...

Seoyun’s phone displays the text a second later.

“Yoongi, why are you wake?”

“Unlock this fucking phone right now.” I seethe throwing her phone back at her.

She hesitates before inputting her password. All of the messages I had sent you in the past month had gone to her. All of the messages I had received back telling me to go away, to stop texting had been from her. She had changed your contact info in my phone, The number that had called just now, the number I had ignored in the past because I didn’t recognize it... that must have been you.

“When I would leave my phone here...when I would head to the studio... did she send me anything. Did you delete any texts from her?” My voice is toeing the line of rage.

Seoyun doesn’t bother to deny it, knowing that I have caught her red handed. She nods, “But I did it for us! You were always texting her and calling her. You care about her more than me.”

“And I always will,” I growl back. “Get the fuck out, take your stuff and go back to the hell you crawled out of.”

POV Namjoon

I have receded back to the void. After taking you home my grasp on you only lasted long enough to lay you down on your bed.

Yoongi barges through the unlocked door only a few minutes later, not even bothering to knock. I watch from the shadows as he goes to you. You wake to the sound of his apologies. Comforting him as he breaks down during his confession.  

It’s at that moment that I feel the tug back to my world, my summons back. As much as I want to, I know I can’t stay, but this time I am parting with you for the right reasons.

This is my kindness, leaving you.

[beanfic]

Bumble Date

Pairing: Josh x reader

Word count: 2014

Warnings: None! (i think..?)

Author’s Note: I’m so sorry I didn’t post this yesterday!! I was so busy, but here it is! This takes place in the trench era, I don’t think I mentioned it in there!

“Swipe left, he’s too tall.” Your best friend swipes before you even had a chance to take a good look at the profile. Your best friend and you had just moved to Ohio a couple weeks ago because you two got a huge promotion. Your best friend has already gone on so many dates, and she finally convinced you to download a dating app so you would stop watching Netflix and eating ice cream every single night.

“Y/F/N, I can’t be so picky, plus it’s who I find attractive not you!” You pull your phone away from her as the next profile popped up on your screen.

“Wait, Isn’t that the drummer for that one band your little sister listens to?” she asks and you nod. You always thought he was cute. He had a full sleeve on one arm, and tattoos have always been a huge turn on. His hair was cut short in the first picture, the second picture had his hair longer and dyed red, and the third picture included him with yellow hair and standing next to the lead singer of the band.

“Yeah, Twenty One Pilots, I’ve been to two of their concerts!” You were glad now that you took your little sister to those concerts so you know who they are. Josh Dun and Tyler Joseph.

“Well, are you going to swipe right?” She raises an eyebrow while you ponder what you should do. After a minute of thinking, you decide to go ahead and swipe right. Immediately his profile picture and yours light up in the middle of the screen with the words “It’s a Match!”.

You both start screaming and jumping up and down on your gguy'scouch. Pounding on the wall from your neighbors made you guys immediately stop. Sometimes living in an apartment got annoying.

“Are you going to message him?” She asks you and you shrug.

“I doubt I will have a chance, he’s like, famous!”

“But he swiped right on you” She reminded you. She was right, and plus, what’s the worst that could happen? He would just not respond, which isn’t that big of a deal.

“I don’t even know what to say!” You and your friend sits back down on the couch and started to brainstorm of the perfect first message. Since you were using the dating app Bumble, it made you be the one to message first. You liked this better so you didn’t get unsolicited dick pics, but the whole “first message” was an anxiety-inducing act.

A couple minutes pass before you finally decided on a sentence.

Hey! I saw that you put Fight Club as your favorite movie, which is crazy because it’s also one of mine.

“Should I send it?” You ask, reading it over one more time and your friend nods. You didn’t want to come off as a fan, and you didn’t want to come off as desperate. Your thumb started shaking as it moved closer to the send button. You closed your eyes, took a deep breath in, and pressed it.

Immediately you shrieked, and threw your phone across the room. You did not want to be constantly checking it for a message, especially because you still had a lot of work to do that night.

An hour passed until your phone vibrated on the ground. You were busy focusing putting numbers into an excel spreadsheet for your job, but that familiar sound made your head snap up immediately.

“Y/F/N.” You look at your friend who also heard the noise.

“It might just be a text from someone else!” She says but you were already picking up your phone and looking at it. On the screen was a notification from Bumble. It was from Josh. He messaged back.

Hey there! Yeah, I do love fight club! What other movies do you enjoy?

It was just a simple message, but it still made you giddy with excitement. You messaged him back right away with a list of your favorite movies. This list included the fifth harry potter movie, spider-man homecoming, and the breakfast club.

He responded back almost as immediately as you did. He explained how spider-man was one of his favorite superheros. For the next couple of hours, you and Josh messaged back and forth, just getting to know each other. He asked if you knew who Twenty One Pilots were, and were scared at first to tell him yes, but you ended up explaining that your little sister was a huge fan.

The next day, you and Josh were still messaging each other, and your friend definitely knew because every time your phone vibrated your face would light up. You usually couldn’t help but smile when reading what Josh had messaged you. He had a way with words that made you eager to meet him in person.

“Has he asked you on a date yet?” Your friend asks and you shook your head no. You were sitting on the couch, working again, but getting distracted every time your phone lit up, even if it wasn’t Josh.

“Should I bring it up maybe? I mean I am the one that had to mention texting instead of messaging on Bumble,” you explained. She pointed her fork at you and nodded, signaling that it was a good idea. You took your phone out and opened it up to the messaged of you and Josh.

Hey Josh, I was wondering if you wanted to grab pizza tonight?

You pressed send, making it a short and simple text. It made you a little nervous being so straight forward but hopefully, it will all work out in the end.

That would be amazing! Where and when?

Excitement rose in you as your eyes scanned the message he just sent. Joshua Dun wanted to get pizza with you. You responded back with your favorite pizza parlor in Columbus, Ohio, and told him around 5:30. He sent you a thumbs up emoji, and a smile emoji.

“I AM GOING ON A DATE WITH JOSHUA DUN!” You scream while running around your apartment. Your friend joins you in the running and screaming until both of you were laughing and panting from being out of breath.

“I’m so excited for you!” She pulls you into a hug. The next hours were spent working, but it was so hard for you to get anything done because you were so excited. You decided to look up Joshua Dun on google. He was way more famous than you thought.

You clicked on a video that was titles “Josh Dun Funny Moments” on youtube. The video was 18 minutes long, and you ended up actually laughing out loud while watching it. He seemed like such a genuine guy, and not to mention that he was extremely attractive and fit.

About an hour before you had to leave, you started to get ready. You curled your hair and put half of it up with a black scrunchie. It took you awhile to choose what outfit to wear but you eventually decided on a black tank top, gray cardigan and ripped skinny jeans. You wanted to look nice, but not too fancy. You slipped on vans and grabbed your purse before heading down to your car.

You arrived a little early so you decided to sit in your car and wait. You listened to Twenty One Pilots newest album on your way there, just incase Josh ended up asking you any questions. You really enjoyed their music, especially the latest album.

Your favorite song started to play so you turned it up loud and started jamming out in your by yourself, which was one of your favorite past times while waiting in a parking lot. Suddenly, a knock on your window startled you. You screamed while you saw Josh standing outside your car. You quickly turned off the music and opened the door.

“How long were you standing there?” You ask, out of breath still from him scaring you.

“Not long, I heard the music so I thought it might of been a fan but I recognized you,” he chuckled. His smile made you smile back.

“Nice to finally meet you in person!” You explain. Josh pulls you into a hug which surprised you, but you returned it. He was more soft than you were expecting, especially since how muscular he was. He was wearing a black fitted t shirt with jeans. You didn’t understand how he could make such a casual outfit look so good.

“Let’s head in! I’m starving!” He claps his hands together and both of you head into the restaurant. It was one of those places where you could make your own pizza, like a subway for pizza. You ordered your usual, and Josh ordered a pepperoni pizza with olives and bacon on it.

“Interesting choice in toppings,” you nod your head in the direction of his pizza and he shrugs.

“Not as interesting as yours!”

“Touché.” You grabbed your pizza was your name was called and walked over to a table in the corner. He joined you and immediately dug in.

“Sorry, I’m hungry,” he says with his mouth full. You laughed, which made him smile. You both get to know each other more. You found out more about his childhood, family, and what it’s like being part of such a famous band.

He also asked questions about you, like what you did for work, why you moved to Ohio, and of course, if you knew the band. You explained to him how you saw the band live twice with your little sister.

“What was your favorite part of the show?” He asked. You wanted to tell him that it was his drumming, but in reality, you spent the whole concert on your phone texting your ex at the time, but obviously, you could not tell him that.

“I really enjoy when the confetti flies out at the end of the show, which song is that?”

“Oh! Trees. Tyler and I have been ending with that song for a while now. It’s like a tradition.” You couldn’t help to stare at his tattooed arm. It looked so soft, like velvet.

“Can I touch your arm?” you asked him giggling and he did it a little smirk.

“Go ahead.” He held his arm out to you, and you ran your hand across his arm.

“Your tattoos are so soft!” You exclaimed. This made Josh blush.

“Thanks, I try to lotion it three times a day.” He took his arm back and started rubbing it himself.

“If you don’t mind could you tell me what they mean?”

The next thirty minutes was spent with Josh giving an in depth analysis of his tattoos and their meaning. You listened to every word, and you also couldn’t help but stare at his eyes, and his lips. He was such a gorgeous human being.

Dinner eventually ended, which signaled that the date was coming to a close. You threw away your trash, and Josh held the door open for you as he walked you to your car.

“We have to do this again! Soon.” Josh exclaims.

You nod your head in agreement, “Yes! Soon.” You smile up at Josh, and returns it with an even bigger smile.

“You have a beautiful smile, Y/N.” Josh says quietly.

“Thank you.” You almost whispered it, but you were filled with excitement and your heart started to flutter. Before you knew it Josh’s lips came falling down to yours, and he gave you a soft kiss.

He pulled away, “So, another date soon?”. You could feel your cheeks were red but you nodded aggressively. You got in your car, and Josh told you to drive safe. As you drove home all you could think of was that kiss, but then you started to think about everything Josh explained about being famous. Did you really want to get involved with a celebrity? But the chemistry, his smile, his arms, and his lips. Should you really go for it?

[rogersdrumkit]

i’m with the drummer - part 7

summary: reader is pregnant! also as a heads up, veronica is john’s wife and their first kid is robert.

I’m going to start linking the previous chapters so you don’t have to dig through my blog but I didn’t have time tonight. I’ll do it tomorrow after school. Hope you enjoy!!

previous parts:

part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6

+++

“No Deacon! I don’t want the lyrics ‘happy at home’ on a rock album!” You heard Roger practically shouting into the phone as you walked inside his flat after a class. He held up a finger as to silence you, since this was a ‘very important phone call’, he had told you later. “Of course I’m happy with y/n at home but there’s more ways to sing about it!” He paused, listening to his friend. “No! ‘I’m in Love With my Car’ is not about her! I told you, it’s a metaphor! I do not fuck my-”

You grabbed the phone out of his hand and said, “Sorry about him, Deaks. You know how sensitive he is about that song,” and Roger’s jaw dropped.

In the background, he could be heard mumbling about how no one appreciated that song enough. “So is it okay if we’re at Rog’s when we babysit today? Brian didn’t handle the sight of us with a kid too well,” you said, and it was true. The first weekend after the tour, you and Roger took Robert to yours and Brian’s apartment, but Brian came home from a date early, while you all were baking cookies, and he had been pissed that you brought Robert over. 

“Yes you’ve done it before, but now you’re bringing Roger?” Brian had asked with a disgusted tone.

“Yeah, sounds good, I wouldn’t want you getting in trouble. So V and I are gonna drop him off in a bit, then we’ll see you at your apartment tonight for that dinner Brian insisted on having? You can just give Robbie back to us then,” John said.

“John, that dinner isn’t until next week, on the 26th.”

“Look at your calendar. Today is the 26th.”

You glanced over at the fridge, where Roger kept his calendar, that had dates of your exams, tests, and assignments written on it so that he could make sure to help you whenever you needed the assistance. You saw red x’s on each of the days, leading up until today, which was really Thursday the 26th. But that meant...

No...your period was a week late.

You paused and John asked if you were still there. “Yes, uh, yeah...we’ll see you in a bit to get Rob.”

You contemplating hiding your suspicions from Roger for a while, but you know that would hurt him, and most likely you as well, so you decided that you should be honest with him.

“Roger?” You called, and he came downstairs from his bedroom, kissing your cheek when he reached you. “We need to talk.”

This sent him into a tizzy. “Love, did I do something? Is it Brian? School?”

You gave him a sad smile and said quietly, “Roger, please just listen. This is my fault, and it’s okay if you yell at me, I won’t be upset. You have every right to be mad-”

He cut you off by scooping you up and sitting you down on the counter. “Hey, hey, you’re scaring me. What's wrong?” You looked down at the counter. “Come on, baby girl,” he said, sticking out his pinkie, “I won’t get mad.”

You shook his pinkie with your own, and then he interlaced your hand with his, trying to calm you down. “I think I’m pregnant,” you whispered.

After a moment of no movement, he tilted your chin up so you would be looking at his eyes. Roger said with a small smile on his face, “That’s what you were worried about?”

You nodded, confused at to why he hadn’t blown up at you yet.

Roger pushed your hair back behind your ear. “Doll, that’s not your fault. You know it takes two to tango,” he said smirking, and you giggled. “I already knew you were going to have my kids, and this is just...speeding up the process a little bit.”

You let out a sigh of relief and wrapped your arms around his neck. “I thought you were going to leave me,” you said, mumbling into his neck.

He rubbed your back and whispered, “Never.”

You pulled away, your hands shaking, so Rog grabbed them and pressed them to his cheeks, like always. You sniffled and asked, “What about Brian?”

“Let’s get a test and figure out for sure, then we can deal with him. Surely he’s going to be excited to be an uncle, right?” Roger said, trying to convince the both of you. Then you heard the doorbell ring, and you hopped off of the counter, rushing to the door. You opened it and Roger immediately heard you laughing as you picked up little Robert.

His heart melted at the thought of you with your own kids. Sure, the two of you had talked about having kids before, but you had planned for it to be a while down the line. Roger was nervous, but seeing your face lit up as Robbie waved his parents goodbye washed all of his thoughts away. He knew he wanted you, and absolutely wanted this baby. But he knew that Brian wouldn’t.

“Bye you two! We’ll see you tonight!” you called as John and his wife walked out the door.

Robbie practically leaped out of your arms when he saw Roger. “Uncle Roggie!” the almost 3 year old called and ran over to your boyfriend, hugging his leg.

Roger picked the boy up by his legs and dangled him upside down, making him giggle like crazy. “Down! Down!” Rob squealed.

You walked over to the pair and started tickling Robert, then grabbed him from Roger, jokingly scolding him, “Roggie!” He hated being called that by anyone except John’s son, and he rolled his eyes at you.

The rest of your time together was spent playing hide-and-go seek and tag, which wore Robbie out, and he fell asleep in Roger’s arms on the couch. “So precious,” you said, sitting down next to them and resting your head on Rog’s shoulder. You peeked at his wrist to see that it was almost 7:30, and you were supposed to be back at your place around 8. “If we’re going to go get that test, we better head out now,” you whispered, trying not to wake the little boy.

He groaned and whined, “But I’m comfortable!”

“You can be comfortable with your own kid one day, but first we have to figure out if I’m actually pregnant...Roggie.” You smiled sweetly.

He shook his head in disapproval of the nickname, but complied, his stomach full of butterflies while he was anticipating the verdict of the test you would be getting soon. You picked Rob up from him and whispered for Roger to get the car seat, which John had left for you, and headed for the car.

+++

You quickly went into the drugstore just down the road from yours and Brian’s apartment, dressed in one of Rog’s hoodies and a pair of his sunglasses, so that no paparazzi had the chance of telling the world you were pregnant before you could. “Is this it?” the cashier asked, scanning the pink box.

“Yes, thank you very much,” you said as your handed her the money and took the change, then the bag with the test. There was a pit in your stomach as you walked outside, and you thought you were going to throw up. You and Roger loved each other very much, but you were unsure of how the fans were going to react, and you knew that Brian would not be happy.

You climbed back in the car to see that Robert was up again, clapping and smiling because Roger was singing his famous car song. “See? At least someone appreciates it,” he said.

“Uh-huh, keep telling yourself that, sweetheart.”

You turned on the radio to hear the song, ‘Keep Yourself Alive’, the song that made you first notice Roger. “I’m so, so lucky,” you said with a grin on your face, lacing your fingers with Rog’s free hand.

“Because of me?” he asked, almost surprised.

“Yes, you goof,” you said, watching a smile grow on his face, even though you told him this all the time. “You’re the best thing I‘ve ever had.”

“I’m the lucky one, baby girl,” he said, kissing the palm of your hand. He was being truly amazing about this whole ordeal. You really expected him to want nothing to do with this baby, but he couldn’t have been happier

You were smiling as you pulled up to the parking lot for your apartment. After grabbing one of the tests from the box and scooping Robbie up from the back seat, you and Roger walked hand-in-hand into the building.

As you opened the door, John said, “There they are! We were getting worried.”

“Sorry, we had to stop at the store really quickly,” you apologized to Ronnie and her husband, handing her Robbie.

The boy was smiling and he giggled, “Bought a test!”

Roger was busy helping you get your coat off, but when he heard that, he stopped dead in his tracks, and your eyes went wide and you gasped.

“A test, huh?” Deaky said, poking his son in the stomach, and thankfully neither him nor his wife realized what kind of test Rob was talking about.

“Okay, I have to go to the bathroom, but I’ll be back soon and then we can eat!” You said.

“I’ll be there soon,” Rog whispered into your ear before you scampered off.

After making a bit of small talk with John about the day, Rog hurried upstairs to go find the bathroom you were in, then locked the door behind him. You were pulling up your skirt, having finished with the test. “Now we wait,” you said as you hopped on the bathroom counter.

Rog was tracing shapes on your thigh, nervous for the outcome, while he was reassuring you that this baby would not be a burden to his career. “Baby, I adore the band, but I love you more. We’ll figure it out.”

Time was finally up and you said, “I can’t look, Rog.”

He took the test from the back of the toilet and slowly turned it over, your hand in his the whole time. He let out a sigh and started tearing up, “I’m going to be a dad,” he whispered.

You gasped and practically leaped into his arms, laughing. “I love you, Taylor.”

He twirled you around as you wiped off the tears from his face.

“And you’re sure that you’re happy about this?” you asked as he set you down.

The big grin on his face gave you your answer. “Yes,” he pressed a kiss to your face in between each word as he said: “I. Love. You. And. Our. Baby. More. Than. You. Could. Know,” then stopped to gaze into your awestruck eyes as he put a hand on your stomach.

Your moment was interrupted by a knock at the bathroom door. You opened it to see, Deaky (thankfully), and when he saw you two smiling, he said, thinking you two had just had snuck up here to have sex, “Gross. Get out and come eat. Wash your hands first, though!”

You did as you were told, then headed downstairs to eat dinner. The food was extraordinary, thanks to your brother (he actually learned his cooking from you). Everyone was complimenting him and you chimed in to tease, “Bri, I wonder where you learned how to cook like this?” And you saw him smile at you for the first time in a while, and you enjoyed the moment, especially since he wouldn’t be looking at you the same way when he found out about the baby.

You and Mary offered to clean up the dishes while Veronica put the rest of the food away, and the boys all joined in the living room with a beer each. “So, Mary...have you and Fred considered having kids yet?” you asked.

She chuckled and said, “No, I want to wait until we’re married. Why?”

“No reason,” you said, hoping she wouldn’t press more into the subject.

After you finished cleaning, you joined the boys on the couches. Freddie offered you a beer, but you politely declined, and he cocked an eyebrow at you. He knew you loved to drink, but you insisted you just were too full from the dinner. He thankfully dropped the topic and started telling everyone about how extravagant his and Mary’s wedding would be.

Right as he was starting to explain the alcohol choices, you heard Brian yell from upstairs, “Y/n May!”

You turned around and stood up to see him storming into the room holding a white plastic stick.

He found the test.

“Brian, what-” you started.

“Save it! You’re pregnant aren’t you?” He yelled at you, and you couldn’t help from taking a step back, afraid of what he would do next, and you bumped right into Roger.

Roger stepped in front of you and said, surprisingly calm, “I’m sorry. We made a mistake, Brian, but we are going to keep the baby.” He was stopped by Brian punching him right in the nose, knocking him flat.

Deaky and Freddie rushed to break the fight up, throwing Brian across the room, and helping Roger up to his feet. Roger completely ignored that fact that his nose was bleeding when he saw that you were tearing up. He rushed over to you and embraced you. “Shhh, it’s okay, I’ll take you home.” he whispered in your ear.

He grabbed your hand and started heading towards the door, but you turned around to face your brother one more time. “I’m just going to stay with Roger for a little bit, okay?”

No response, so you turned back around, where Roger was waiting for you with open arms, like always. You would be fine with Roger. You didn’t need Brian.

“Wait,” you heard a soft voice call. You saw Brian walking over, and you let go of Roger’s hand and gathered yourself, determined not to break down.

“I won’t come back if you don’t want me to, Brian. I really don’t want you to-” you said, staring at the ground, but Brian just wrapped his long arms around you and pulled you in for a hug. After a moment of confusion, you hugged him back, and you could hear your brother mumbling, “I’m so sorry,” over and over.

Everyone watched in surprise at the turn of events, but Roger was the only one smiling. “Took you two long enough,” he said.

Brian turned towards the drummer, and you held your breath, but your brother just stuck his hand out, ready to shake Roger’s.

Roger had other ideas and hugged Brian with such force that he almost fell backwards. “Missed you, mate,” your boyfriend said happily.

After they pulled away, Brian brought you back into the living room, still apologizing, and you still forgiving him, because that’s ‘what family does’, you explained. Brian held a hand close to your torso and asked, “Can I?”

You nodded, smiling along with everyone else, as you watched him hold a hand to your belly. “There’s really a baby in there?” your brother asked.

Roger put an arm around your shoulder and said cockily, “Thanks to me. We have had a lot of practice...” and winked.

Your brother glared at Roger and said with a vile tone, “If you hurt her, Taylor-”

“I’m dead, I know, I know,” Rog finished and gave you a peck on the cheek. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

John laughed, holding his wife around the waist, and said, “Oh, you ever heard of labor? Technically that’s your fault too.”

And much to your amusement, Roger asked, “Labor can’t be that bad, right?”

Oh baby. He had a lot to learn in the next nine months.

+++

tags: @16wiishes @cheyismaxi @ohfxxkitsme @excusememecouldyoupleaseleave​

[loverontheleft]

Symphony

Request: Could you maybe make a one shot and have Brendon be on tour and the reader visits and they sneak off somewhere on the bus to fuck and have to try and be quiet? Then maybe someone from the band catches them?

Brendon x Reader

Warnings: fingering, sex without a condom (not advice; be safe and make good choices), voyeurism.

I’m so sorry it took me longer than expected. Title and last few lines evaded me. Didn’t proofread this, fight me.

Word count: 3.1k

-||-

“Maybe if you shift to your left a little? No, come back a bit. Okay, now,” he instructs you, “lift your left leg up and-okay, yes, higher-“

“Brendon, I will fall over if I have to stand like this for more than 30 seconds. And I know you’re one and done, but your one isn’t that quick.”

You both clap a hand over your mouths to smother your laughter; you’ve been whispering this whole time to avoid getting caught in a what-you-hoped-would-be compromising situation in the bathroom of his band’s tour bus. Instead, you’ve spent the past five minutes each trying to figure out how to position yourself for maximum pleasure but minimum sound. It hasn’t been going well, sexually, but the two of you have been having, admittedly, a blast just trying to have sex. “I need to re-evaluate some of my choices.” He shushes you playfully and you giggle and you recall what got you here in the first place.

He answered the FaceTime request on the first ring. “Hey honey!” Your whole heart melted and you smiled wide. “You look good.” He eyed you on screen and you laughed.

“Shut up, I do not. I look exhausted.” He made a thinking noise, really hamming it up, before grinning.

“Maybe that’s why I think you look good, I only see you exhausted after sex.”

Well. You couldn’t ask for a better opportunity. “Speaking of sex,” and your voice dropped. “I have next Thursday and Friday off. Thought maybe I’d come see you?”

His face lit up. “Hell yes!” You both smiled at his enthusiasm and then it hit him. He groaned. “It’s not a hotel night.” Your face fell a little, but you smiled again cheerfully.

“That’s okay. I just wanna see you in person and not on my screen.” You pressed your lips towards the camera and he did the same. You both laughed at the cheesiness and fell into conversation about the logistics of your arrival and both of your days so far until he had to go for sound check.

When Thursday morning finally rolled around, you showed up at the airport 3 hours early out of pure excitement. You’d been texting back and forth all day and you’re glad you decided to go ahead and take some photos for him early this morning. You did a reverse strip tease of sorts, taking a photo after each piece of clothing was added. Now all you have to do is send them in the reverse order. You’d been sending them at random, no rhyme or reason or pattern to it, and so far he’s gotten you digitally undressed to your bra and underwear; a matching, lacy turquoise set. You knew it wasn’t fair; the poor boy wasn’t sitting around just waiting for photos. He had responsibilities, interviews with radio stations, meetings with the GSAs at the high schools in the area, news stations would be coming by all day to get B-roll for their evening news shows; you shouldn’t have teased him.

And yet. You sent the photo featuring the straps of your bra dangling off your shoulders, the cleavage a little deeper. The reply came through a minute later, an audio message. You slipped your headphones from your purse. It was a soft groan, and god you love that sound in your ear, and his smooth voice. “Jesus honey, you’re just asking for it, aren’t you?”

You didn’t even hesitate; you just fired back with the photos of the bra on the floor and the full body shot sans bra. You’re finally boarding, and you send him lots of love once you’re settled into your seat. “Soon, baby.” You sent him the last four photos in the series; the first with your thumb hooked into the waistband of your panties, the second shows them sliding down your thighs, the third has them pooled by your ankles, and the fourth is another full body shot.

He offered to meet you at the airport but you told him not to change his schedule and throw off Zack’s security plan; as much as you want to see him, you’d rather have him safe and waiting for you. You threw your bag into the rental car once you land and are through baggage.

You were anxious; definitely not nervous - you’ve been together long enough to not be nervous - but anxious, yes. You’d been practically quivering with anticipation; you’d been avoiding Instagram and Twitter and anywhere people might be posting images of him. You want to be overwhelmed when you finally see him.

You let the GPS guide you as you sing along to an older album of his, eyes scanning the road for the giant water tower he told you to use as a landmark.

Finally, finally, finally. You parked next to the bus and fling open your car door. He must have heard the car approach because the moment your door fell shut, he scrambled down the steps and scooped you up into an embrace. You both lingered for a moment, just clinging to each other, breathing it in, your chest pressed to his and your heartbeats palpable. “Finally.” His voice was quiet and he hugged you to him tightly.

At that point, it’s the middle of the afternoon and everyone was sprawled on couches in the middle of the bus, talking casually about the venue, the setlist, and the various twists and turns the conversation takes as it always does with a collection of creative, high-energy people. You were snuggled against him, and his fingers were running up and down your arm lightly. “You okay?” He brushed a hand over your hair and you nodded happily. “You’re just being quiet.”

You shrugged, pressing back against him more. “I just like being here. Listening to all of you, the things you think about, the things you say.”

Nicole laughed. “We don’t all need to hear the things Brendon thinks about, Y/n,” and you groaned, blushing faintly when Kenny and Zack join in on the lighthearted teasing.

Dan and Jake came back from the mini-kitchen in the front, each holding a sandwich. “What’d we miss?” Dan looked around curiously and Nicole giggled, ducking when you tossed a pillow at her playfully.

“Y/n said she liked hearing what we think about and I just made the simple comment that-“

“We don’t all need to hear what Brendon’s thinking?” Dan interrupted her and she nodded. Dan turns toward the two of you. “Brendon, I notice you’ve been quiet during all of this.”

You could hear the smirk in your boyfriend’s voice. “I’m busy thinking.” His fingers were moving slower now, and there’s something sexier, more sensual about his touch - or maybe you’re just thinking dirty thoughts too. The others groaned at his words and Nicole threw the pillow back. He shifted to roll over you and stood. “I’m gonna go take a shower.” He ignored the comments and bent over to kiss you softly. “Don’t let them have too much fun,” he advised loud enough for them to hear and they booed as he walked away.

You heard the shower start and shortly after, your phone lit up. “Come back here.” As naturally as you could, you stood and stretched.

“I think I’m gonna go take a nap before the show,” you told them and headed back to the bunks. You paused by his, where your bag rested, and you loudly scrambled up into it before slipping back out as quietly as you could. You stole into the bathroom and he pulled you in for a heated embrace.

“First, let me apologize for trading the master bedroom in the back for a recording studio; that was fucking stupid of me. I sort of assumed any night you’d be out here would be a hotel night and that was, again, stupid.”

You pressed your lips to his to silence him, and when you pulled back, you were both smiling. “It’s okay. We’ll just have to be creative.” You both looked around the tiny bathroom; it’s hardly more than the square shower stall, a toilet, and a sink with a medicine cabinet mirror. “Really creative.”

You look hesitantly at the sink. “Think it can hold me?” He nods without hesitation and you laugh a little. “Thanks Bren. Think it can hold me when I’m getting fucked by you?” You both consider the force and combined weight and thrusting velocity. “I wasn’t good at physics,” you admit and he laughs quietly.

“Is that physics? Can this sink hold our combined weight while fucking?” You shrug, giggling too. “I mean, it probably can. It is a rockstar’s tour bus after all.”

You laugh and cover your mouth as you roll a leg up to settle onto the edge of the sink. “You didn’t just call yourself a rockstar.”

He looks playfully offended. “Uh, I sold out Madison Square Garden. Girls throw their bras at me. I wear leather pants. I’m a rockstar.” You’re both laughing now and you shake your head, curling your fingers into the waistband of the aforementioned leather pants.

“Speaking of throwing bras, what happens to all of them?” You look curious. “You should wash them in one part bleach and twenty parts water to kill anything and then donate them to a women’s shelter or something.”

He nods, and you can see him visibly filing that away. “Will it sound insensitive if I ask to go back to the sex part of our current interaction?” His whisper sounds guilty and you bite your lip to stifle your laughter.

“No. Not insensitive. Focused.” You jerk him closer so he’s between your legs by the waistband of his pants. “And now you’ve got me refocused. Kiss me, Urie.”

Your mouths meet and you both have to stifle your groans of satisfaction. His fingers grip your thighs as he presses closer and you can feel him against you, hard. His hands inch up until he’s got your leggings in his grasp and you arch your hips so he can pull them down just far enough. You unbutton his shirt but he doesn’t take it off; you’ve got to be efficient in your time. Your shirt gets eliminated though and his hands cover the swell of your breasts roughly before moving down so he can rub his fingers against you.

“In,” you insist and you both laugh at your needy tone. He obliges though and you kiss him hard to smother your moan. “Harder.” He gives you a dubious look and you feel like you can read his mind. “I won’t be loud, I promise.” He raises an eyebrow and you take one of his hands and press it over your mouth, not restricting anything but blocking. “See?” Your voice is muffled against his palm and he shakes his head, eyes sparkling in amusement.

“You’re bad,” he tells you with a grin, but he gives you what you want, fingers going deeper, harder, and slower. You wink at him over his hand and he groans, louder than intended. You bring your own hand up to his mouth and he takes of your two fingers in his mouth, sucking hard. You let your head fall back against the mirror and you tentatively roll your hips into his palm, relishing how his index and middle fingers curl inside you while his thumb plays with your clit. You’re clenching around him, squeezing his fingers tight, and you’re both moaning, both grateful for the other’s hand.

The shower has been going and the small room is steamy, giving everything a dream-like quality, and that’s certainly how you’d describe his fingers stroking you. His tongue teases your fingers and you’re pretty sure your eyes just rolled back in your head. In your examination of the space earlier, you both ruled out oral, and you’re definitely feeling the loss. His tongue, lips, mouth - the man knows how to work your body, especially with his head between your legs.

Just the thought of him lapping at you pushes you over the edge and you bite lightly at his palm before letting your soft cry be smothered. He pulls his fingers out and you remove yours from his mouth so he can replace them with his, moaning and licking with meticulous care. “Tastes so good, darlin. Can I make you feel even better?” He brings your fingers back to his mouth and the wet heat of his mouth over your two fingers has you feeling something as you nod eagerly. His hand moves from your mouth and he shoves his pants down his thighs. Your eyes find his thigh and you whimper, proud of yourself for managing to be quiet. At home, when you’ve got time and space and privacy, you’ll spend up to an hour grinding on his thigh, sometimes clad in his leather pants, other times bare, just really teasing the both of you and getting closer and closer to climax until he tells you to fall apart for him. Even under oath, you don’t think you could give an accurate number as to how many times you’ve brought yourself to a shaking, swear-laden orgasm on his thigh.

You refocus when you feel the head of his cock pressing against you and you nod, his hand back over your mouth. “Please,” you say, and you kiss his palm, your way of begging at this point. He thrusts against you and you both let out soft, broken cries of pleasure when he goes deep, rocking slowly. His fingers dig into your thigh again and you can feel the bruises forming; you fucking love it. Your eyes find his and you stay locked on each other, laser-focused, just feeling. At this angle, you slightly elevated on the sink, his dick is entering from a lower point and is more curved than normal; he’s hitting your G-spot perfectly and you can’t breathe. He knows what he’s doing too; his mouth is a vice grip around your fingers and his palm is pressing against your lips a little more firmly. That’s probably for the best; you’re not able to be as quiet as the moment requires. He presses closer, his torso almost curved over yours, his open shirt hanging on either side of you.

Besides being totally enraptured with each other, the shower spray muffles some sound too, which is probably why neither of you hear the bathroom door slip open or the camera shutter.

It’s all too much, his mouth on your fingers, his hand on your mouth and thigh, his dick rubbing perfectly, right where you need him. “Gonna come,” you tell him, still smothered, eyes slipping shut and he leans forward to kiss you, freeing your fingers and moving his hand. The new angle, from his leaning forward, has you shrieking as you feel the sparks go off and radiate through your entire body. His tongue is in your mouth and he’s coming too and you take your hand to fling it across his back, grabbing at his shirt. Everything is heat and fire and blinding pleasure. You’ve never come like this before, even with him - it surprises you, and your eyes fly open. The glint of the camera lens catches your attention and you scream; not even his hand could muffle that.

“Jesus, Jake, what the fuck?!” He’s pissed, no, furious, you can tell. He jerks his pants up and you tug your leggings back into place; he shifts to stand in front of you protectively. He’s shaking with anger and you place a hand on his back to sooth him. This is bad.

Nicole peers from under Jake’s arm. “We flipped a coin to see who got to barge in. If I won, I was gonna ask to join you,” she says with a flirtatious smile and it’s enough to break the tension - almost. You laugh at least.

Jake looks like he feels terrible - he holds the camera out to Brendon, who snatches it, fingers already working to delete the images, fury blazing in his eyes. You stop him, eyes on the screen. “Look, Brendon, it’s good.” You are in awe of the shot. It’s the two of you, hands muffling each other, and the way his shirt falls, nothing is visible but plenty is implied. Jake took it right when your eyes started to slip shut, pre-orgasm, and the look on both of your faces is pure bliss. It’s in black and white and it’s a really great photo. The next image is almost the same, except he’s kissing you hard, and the way your back arches into him and your hand is clutching him shows you’re definitely mid-climax. His shirt once again plays the role of censor and together with the steam, it keeps the capture from being explicit. It’s gorgeous, it’s sensual, it’s perfect. You want it. You whisper this to Brendon, fingers dancing across his back where he’s kept you, shielding you. He turns to look at you and his eyes soften. He passes the camera back to Jake.

“One, I will fucking kill you if you ever take photos of Y/n again without her permission. Two, I want both of these files sent to me in a protected zip file as high resolution files and I want to watch you delete them from your camera and computer after I have them.” He turns to you, eyebrow raised. “Anything you want, darlin?” His tone is softer.

You meet Jake’s eyes and you grin. “I want you to take the still shots when we film our sex tape. Those are stunning.”

Brendon laughs and all the tension dissolves. Jake looks much more relieved and Nicole elbows him. “Dude,” she tells him, “I think you’re gonna live. Let me know if you need an assistant for lighting and shit.” She grins and he still looks pale. Brendon punches him lightly on the shoulder.

“They are great shots. But I will fucking kill you,” he repeats with a smile, leaving the bathroom with your hand in his. He pulls back the curtain of his bunk and helps you up, climbing in after you.

You settle in next to him and throw a leg up over his waist, snuggling close. “I want those printed on giant canvases in our bedroom.”

He laughs and you think he’s finally relaxing. “Whatever you want, darlin. Your body is a fucking masterpiece, especially in those photos. God, wish you could hear your moans the way I do, like goddamn music.”

You blush, smiling up at him. “Well, you get some credit there too. The masterpiece and music wouldn’t have been half as good without you running the show.”

He kisses the top of your head, hand stroking over your back. “Darlin, I’ll conduct that symphony any time.”

[theydontknowaboutusimagines]

Your Love - Harry Styles AU Series - Part 1

Harry groaned as he woke up to the sound of his phone going off. It sounded as if someone was calling him as much as the alert was dinging, but it was just multiple texts all being sent to his phone. Got to love the group chat function. Harry sighed as he sat up in his bed and ran his hands over his face. It was barely after four am and he was exhausted. 

After waking up a bit, he grabbed his phone off the charger from the bedside table and looked at the messages. They were mostly from Nick, his supervisor/ best friend, who had sent the breakfast and coffee orders for everyone during the Breakfast Show at BBC. See, Harry was twenty-four and finishing up his last semester in University, which happened to be a full-time internship at BBC 1 radio. 

Harry loved music and everything about it. He enjoyed going to concerts and listening to music in the car, while he was in the shower, cleaning, etc, so when it came down to finding out what he wanted to do for the rest of his life, or at least for the time being, he decided on the radio. So, he found a university nearby that offered a majoring program in radio broadcast as well as music production. He had taken all of his core classes and all that was left was the internship. 

As soon as he interviewed with Nick almost a year ago, they both got on really well and quickly became friends after that, which probably wasn’t exactly professional, but with a radio show, it was best for everyone to be friends because you need great chemistry to have a successful show. It wasn’t unheard of for radio DJs and some of their other producers to spend time together outside of work. 

Harry loved working on the radio show. He loved the people. He loved watching the live lounges and sort of meeting a few of the artists who stopped by on occasion, but he was still just an intern, so he mostly got made coffee runs, filed paperwork, and made sure the artists had everything they requested for their visit. There had only been a few times when he was actually on the air as a fill-in when someone was out on holiday or out sick.  

Harry typed out a quick reply saying he’d be there in about an hour before getting out of bed and jumped into the shower. Once he was washed and cleaned, he wrapped a towel around his waist and headed over to his closet. He lived in a decent sized flat. 

It was a one bedroom, one bath with a nice sitting area for a living room outside of his kitchen. Luckily he was getting paid a little something for his internship since he was working full-time, but it wasn’t a huge amount of dollars that’s for sure. He pulled on a pair of black skinny jeans onto his legs and threw on an old Fleetwood Mac concert tee. He ran the towel through his hair again and quickly styled it before grabbing his phone and heading into the other room. 

He laced up his vans and grabbed his jacket from the rack and pushed his arms through. He took his keys and his wallet from the glass bowl on the table near the door and headed out. One good thing about flat living was that he was somehow able to find close enough to most anything, so he didn’t have to have a car. 

Well, he had one, but it just wasn’t working right now and he didn’t have enough money to fix it. So, he kept it at his Mum’s house and either walked or took the tube or caught a ride with his friends. He got to the coffee shop near the BBC Radio studio and walked inside. 

It wasn’t hugely packed with people at 4:45am mostly because everyone didn’t have jobs they had to be at that early in the morning, but there were a few people. Usually, the ones were there were ending their night out with coffee before heading home to sleep or head to their jobs or there were people who worked a late shift and were stopping by for breakfast before heading home. 

There were about three people ahead of him in line so he only had to wait a few minutes before placing in the order. Once he paid for everything, he stood over to the side as he waited for the food and drinks. He was looking through his emails to see if anything excited was going on during the show today when he heard the ringing of the bell as someone entered the shop. 

He wasn’t sure why, but he happened to look up to see who it was. It was someone, a woman, who looked to be around someone his age. She was wearing what looked like yoga pants or leggings with a long jumper over it and boots for her shoes. She was also wearing a baseball cap and black-rimmed eyeglasses. 

Instantly Harry got the feeling that he knew this girl, maybe she was someone who had been in one of his many university classes or someone he’s just seen around the city. He found himself staring at her as he tried to pinpoint why this girl seemed and felt so familiar. Every so often, he would turn his glance away to try and hide the fact that he was staring. 

It wasn’t until he overheard the woman telling the barista her order when he realized who this woman was and why she was familiar. The woman was you. The woman was Y/N, a member of the biggest and most successful girl group since the Spice Girls. 

Harry’s eyes widened at the realization and he couldn’t believe you were standing right there in front of him. He’s been a fan of yours since he was a teenager and you were just starting out. He’s bought every single one of your albums, see you in concert multiple times and has caught himself voting constantly during award season. He was so caught in the moment and starstruck that he didn’t even hear his name being called when his order was ready until he heard the barista practically yelling it. 

“Oh, uh sorry,” he blushed taking it from him. “Thanks.” 

The barista just nodded and Harry took the bag in one hand and the drank carrier in the other. When he turned to leave, he caught eyes with you. He gave you a small smile and a nod before heading out the door before completely made an absolute fool of himself. 

**

When he got to the studio, he set everything up before heading straight over to Nick. 

“Oi, there you are,” Nick said. “What happened to an hour?” 

“I’m only like ten minutes late,” Harry rolled his eyes. “But I need to ask you something.” 

“Shoot,” Nick said biting into his breakfast sandwich. 

“You’re disgusting,” Harry rolled his eyes. 

“That’s not a question,” Nick said wiping his mouth with a napkin. 

“Is Y/Band’s/Name coming into the studio and this week by chance?” Harry asked. 

“Why?” Nick asked. 

“Well... no reason other than I just remembered they’re back in town for a few nights at Wembley for a concert... and I may have just seen Y/N at the coffee shop...” Harry coughed. 

“And your little fanboy feels are going crazy aren’t they?” Nick laughed. 

“What no! I don’t have fanboy feels,” Harry said completely offended mostly because it was true. 

“And denial is a river in Eygpt,” Nick scoffed. “Anyway, if you must know, yes the girls are coming the morning of their first show. They’re promoting the show and their new single which is coming out the same day.” 

“But wait... that’s Friday,” he said. “I don’t work on Fridays.” 

“Well, I guess you’re SOL then, mate,” Nick smirked. 

“Nick, my best mate, buddy ole pal,” Harry said. “Can’t you squeeze me in the schedule on Friday? Or maybe I could grab some breakfast for ya then and bring it in...” 

“I’m not putting you on the schedule so you can drool over Y/N and the rest of the girls,” Nick said. “We’ve got to be professional.” 

“I’m not gonna do that,” Harry defended. 

Nick sighed. “Can you promise me you’re not gonna hit on them? You’re not gonna ask them for autographs or selfies? That you’ll just talk with them if they give you the time of day?” 

“Of course! I wouldn’t make a bloody fool of myself,” Harry said. 

“Then fine, you can get the breakfast order on Friday and come in. I’ll introduce you and whatnot, then you can leave etc,” Nick said. 

“FUCK YES!” Harry shouted. 

“Professional!” Nick sighed. 

“Right, right, sorry, I uh... thanks mate,” Harry said. 

Nick laughed shaking his head before going into the studio and getting ready for the show. Harry walked over to his little cubicle and tried to keep his cool on the outside, but on the inside, he was freaking the fuck out over the fact that he was finally able to meet you. His longtime celebrity crush.

He just hoped he didn’t make a complete ass of himself. 

**

Here it is! The new AU series! Let me know what you think so far. This will be updated every other Sunday just like Behind the Tour, although I’m wondering if I should maybe update it again next Sunday since it’s a new story and I don’t want too long to go in between updates... 

Let me know what your thoughts! :) 

[animeraider]

Of all of the strange stories in my lengthy music career, this is one of them.

In the 1980's I was the lead guitarist and occasional vocalist for a band called ASK. We were pretty good after a while. It was me, Kevin Donville (bass and lead vocals), Ed Lee (Keyboards and vocals) and a series of drummers before we finally settled win with Tim "T.J." Klassen. We started off slow but after some rough gigs, including an horrific one where we were the act that followed the famed songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland run through their biggest hits (we sounded nothing like them and the audience was there) we built up a reputation in West L.A. as a solid band and had earned the trust of the famed Esther Wong herself.

We played 20 gigs at Madame Wong's during our run.

In 1989 Kevin had to leave the band. The rest of us tried to soldier on for a bit, recruiting my brother to play bass and trying a few other guitarists to take over lead duties while I took over vocals. None of it really worked, but we did have fun with one song. Back in the ASK days we had a hard rocker called "Run To Me" that featured a riff I stole from Don Dokken. I re-worked the song as a ballad and we worked up a pretty good arrangement. Tim and my brother worked up a solid rhythm section part and we all agreed that this was pretty awesome.

The band fizzled out and that's mostly my fault. But one night Tim and I got some beers and watched a VHS tape of U2's "Rattle and Hum", and when they got to "Bullet The Blue Sky" Tim's air-drumming that slamming part and I'm pretending to be The Edge when Tim asks me if I can play that slide guitar part. I could and I can. He said, "wouldn't that be awesome in Run to Me?"

We had one more practice, jut him, me and my brother and it WAS awesome.

I then got sidetracked by the events that led me to record a song called "Favorite Partner", a dance track that was completely played on acoustic instruments. That song took off in the beach town clubs and I suddenly needed a full demo to shop around - because people were starting to ask who I was. I had two other songs ready to go in the same vein as "Favorite Partner" and I asked TJ and Alex (my brother) to come to a session and we'd record "Run to Me" like we had last practiced it, "Rattle and Hum" bits and all.

In those days I practiced and recorded at a placed called Pendragon Studios. None of us lived close to it, but their engineer - a man named Bill Krodell - was a genius.This of course means that we all have to drive there. On the day of the session Alex's car breaks down, and he can't make it. So now I have to play bass.

TJ and I record a reference track - my guitar and his drums, and then I record the bass. I had never tried to play bass on the song before, so I just copied with Alex had done. It's a pretty good bass line, and later he would be very happy that I had kept it. I record the guitars and when it comes time to do the solo I pull out the slide and do the "Bullet the Blue Sky" bit. It's only a few seconds but Bill claps his hands together and says, "Wait until you hear how I mix THAT!"

It gets time to do the vocals and it takes me a few takes to get the lead down. The harmonies were easy though (that had been my part when it was an ASK song). We're listening to a take and getting to the last chorus when TJ, who's been just sitting and listening for the past couple of hours as his part was long finished yells out, "Knock Knock Knockin' on Heaven's Door" in time with the drum part he played.

Of course, we just HAD to incorporate that. Understand, There were about a dozen version of the old Bob Dylan song making the rounds right around then, including the Guns 'N' Roses one, so it was once again part of the zeitgeist. In the space of a few minutes I came up and recorded with a blistering 4-part harmony of those six words, and then returned to the song as I had written it. It was a fun off-the-cuff moment and I love those.

We mixed the tracks and I suddenly had a 4-song demo. A friend of mine did a photo session for the cover. I'm terrible at those and to try to get me to loosen up she had me balance a small rubber shark on my shoulder. The photo that resulted led to not only the cover but the title of the demo, "Hand Feeding the Hungry Shark".

God's Teeth I'm young in that photo.

The demo got circulated around and label interest started up, but they wanted to hear more. They wanted live shows and at this point I really didn't have a band. I was getting club play though and I was selling demos, so I decided to record a full album. The result was the first album I released as Jim Christopher, "My World - Welcome To It", named after a television show I barely remembered from my childhood. It's available to this day:

https://open.spotify.com/album/0MZo7Zlk9cis5s0mcv0giy?si=RUce_ECtRH-ndKprKkx2QA&dl_branch=1

Thing is, if you listen to track Seven you will NOT hear the Bob Dylan Lyrics. You need to remember that this is 1989-90. The world wasn't then what it is now. I hadn't sampled Dylan. I had essentially just used his words, and I realized I was going to need his permission. So I asked.

It took a bit of doing, but I found his agent and sent him a letter outlining what I was doing, and sent him a copy of the demo. I figured that their publishers would want a cut and I was prepared to give it. Instead I got a letter back stating that if I were to release this version of the song with Dylan's lyrics included that they would sue me into the ground and crap on the smoldering remains.

Well, I'm this 24 year-old broke dude and this is Bob Dylan's battery of lawyers. I wasn't going to win this one, so I went to a studio and rented one of their editing consoles and spliced out most of the last chorus (I'm a VERY good editor - most people don't even realize the cut).

That was that. My little tribute to Bob Dylan was left on the cutting room floor. 20 seconds of the song just gone. End of story.

Except.

Long after I had left Los Angeles and retaken my own name as a recording artist, Dylan gives an interview about all of the covers of his songs done over the years, and how many musicians quote him. Part of the answer he gives is about how he got overly protective of his catalog at one point and wouldn't let anyone use his music without using the whole song. Guess about when this was? He goes on to say in the interview that he doesn't mind people quoting him - that he does it himself.

In essence, he was giving everyone permission to do the very thing his lawyers had told me not to do. I'm not going to go into the story of how I confirmed this, but I did learn that he actually had never even heard my song (Hugh Hefner did, but that's another story). The ultimate response I got? "We're cool."

But I had edited that chorus out of the master for the album. I went back to the original 2 inch tapes I had recorded on and remixed and remastered the song. I let it hang around bandcamp for a little while, but I never really gave any thought to releasing it.

Well, 2020 and 2021 have been such game-changers in my life. After spending years struggling with a new album the floodgates opened up for me as a writer and a recording artist. As many of you know, I've released a ton of material this year, including some of my older tracks that never saw the light of day. It took a while, but it finally got through myu thick skull that I could finally put out in wide release the original version of "Run to Me", complete with The Edge guitar solo and 6 words by Bob Dylan.

It's the opener of "Demolisten", which is mostly a random collection of songs that never saw wide release for one reason or another. Some of this work is seriously unpolished, but I figure if the big artists can release their back-catalog crap so can I. But I'm really proud of "Run to Me".

I played every instrument and sang all the vocals except for the drums, which are played by Tim "TJ" Klassen (who now lives in New York). If you listen very very carefully you can even hear TJ "singing" (screaming, really) as he plays drums, especially on some of the fills.

Every song on this "new" EP has a story behind it, but this one is the one from the very early days of my life as a solo artist. I can tell the other stories if you want. I promise to be less verbose on the others. Their stories are shorter.

[grimelords]

Hello and god bless, I have finally finished my November playlist a week and a half into december. Disco, Guns N’ Roses, an entire doom metal album and everything in between. Please enjoy.

​Extraball - Yuksek: Aside from the extremely nice electro bass I think what I appreciate most about this song is that the chorus seems like the sort of thing you could sing in a round, or as some kind of children’s clapping game.

Mirror Reaper - Bell Witch: Let me be the first to apologise for putting an 80 minute doom metal album as the second song on this playlist. I’m sorry. It was selfish and it won’t happen again. That said, please listen to this because it is transformative. I’ve listened this a lot this month and it’s really affected my mood I think. Doom metal is one of the only genres that takes itself seriously enough to release an album that’s just one 80 minute track but I really can’t fault them for doing it. This is a piece of music that demands to be listened to in full, and while it does naturally divide into movements like anything else this long would, it would be weaker overall if it were split into individual tracks or listened to individually. A lot of the playing on here, which is very sparse in long sections feels like ritual music of some kind - a feeling that’s compounded by the length when you’re absolutely lost within it. It makes electric bass and drums feel like modern ritual instruments and this album feels like an invocation of the spirit of loss itself.

Sixteen Tons - Merle Travis: For some reason I keep thinking about and listening to different versions of Sixteen Tons. This is Merle Travis, the orginal songwriter, but this is a new recording he did in 1989. Notably I love the very plaintive solo in the middle of this, but I especially love that he changed the lyric at the end to say “I owe my soul to Tennessee Ernie Ford” which feels like an agressive rebuke or a solemn nod but I can’t tell which.

Looking Up - Michael Smith: My girlfriend sent me this song because she heard it on the podcast Good Christian Fun which as I understand it is an exploration of the bizzare world of american evangelical christian media. Anyway this song rocks. It sounds like Todd Terje remixed the theme to some lost 80s sitcom and I really can’t get enough of it.

Wild - Beach House: This is such a beautiful song. I love the tinny drum machine and the live drums that sound programmed constrasting against the huge wall of guitar and synths. I used to listen to this album a lot a few years ago when I worked night shift and it reminds me of standing on top of wine tanks in the cool night air at 2am texting my now girlfriend as she went to bed. Sorry.

Piano Concerto No. 3 In D Minor, Op.30: 1. Allegro ma non tanto - Sergei Rachmaninoff: I had a friend in school who did his licentiate degree in piano in year 12 and was obsessed with this piece. One day he took me through the whole first movement and showed me how the theme is established and comes back in different forms over and over again throughout and basically taught me how to listen to classical music which was very kind of him because it’s something I’m only really appreciating now.

Verklärte Nacht, Op.4: String Sextett for 2 Violins, 2 Violas and 2 Cellos - Arnold Schoenberg: This is an early Schoenberg piece before he got into that good good atonal serialism, but it does still have moments that presage what was to come. I don’t really have much to say about this other than it’s a very good place to start with Schoenberg because it’s like proof that he was a human man at one point.

Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) - Harry Belafonte: I’ve really been thinking about how work songs like this and like Sixteen Tons become international hits. This one especially, in the 50s, was it because it was a really good song (which it is) that a lot of people related to or was it a sort of exoticism about funny banana song (which to be fair, it also is).

Boogie Wonderland (12" Version) - Earth, Wind And Fire: This is the song you hear playing from the other side of the door when you get to heaven.

Apollo’s Mood - The Olympians: This album is basically a collection of Daptone All-Stars under the name The Olympians just doing their thing and it’s really amazing. I especially love the harpsichord in this, an instrument that doesn’t get nearly enough of a workout in soul music. Also, I don’t really know how to describe it but I really love the way the snare roll that starts it off and comes back a few times sounds - buzzy and busy without rushing anyone.

Saturn - The Olympians: This is the song you use for your montage at the end of a James Bond movie that’s just four minutes of him relaxing and drinking different cocktails by himself that the critics called ‘wholly unneccesary’. In the drums and bongo break he does a little dance and falls over.

November Rain - Guns N’ Roses: As far as overblown classic rock epics go, I really wish November Rain had the cultural place of bad song Bohemian Rhapsody or Stairway To Heaven because underneath the 9 minutes of stings and bullshit it’s actually a very beautiful and sad song written by an idiot.

Sisters Of The Moon - Fleetwood Mac: With the current wytchy cult that Stevie Nicks has around her it’s easy to forget that she wrote songs like Sisters Of The Moon, a song explicitly about a witch converting other women to witchery. I love the big extended phrase of guitar chords in the chorus and I’m very mad about how this song fades out just as it’s absolutely going off.

When The Levee Breaks - Led Zeppelin: Rounding out this unexpected classic rock trio is When The Levee Breaks which I was thinking about because I was thinking about The Big Short. This song sounds so good and there’s been so much written about the famous drum sound and the production but what I only learned this month is that it was apparently recorded at a faster tempo and then slowed down afterwards, which explains a lot about a lot of the sounds in here.

Bad Liar - Selena Gomez: This is maybe the pop song of the year honestly. It’s so good in every single aspect, especially the when she says’ oh baby lets make reality, actuality, reality’ which is a very weird lyric. So is 'you’re taking up a fraction of my mind, every time I watch you serpentine(?)’. Great stuff all around.

Hello Miss Lonesome - Marlon Williams: I saw Marlon Williams a year or so ago and it was one of the best gigs I’ve been to because things just kept going wrong. Broken strings and misunderstandings and all that sort of thing, and the highlight for me was in this song the drummer got overconfident and started pushing the tempo near the end and eventually tripped over himself so badly they had to stop and start again.

The Voice Of Q - Q: Here’s how you can tell a song is good: you can only find it on Spotify on a compilation album called 'Cocaine Boogie: 24 Kilos Of Underground 80s Dance’. This song seems like a classic case of 'somebody bought a vocoder’ and it’s very very good, another fantastic entry in the canon of interplanetary disco. I also love the children sadly pleading with Q to come back at the end, because the song hasn’t really given you any understanding of who or what Q is other than a being with a voice who is from space.

Take A Trip - Rev. Utah Smith: If I were, hypothetically, to start, for example, a UFO cult, I would definitely have my congregation sing this song. I love it so much. Outside of the fun premise it does what good gospel music should do and completely uplifts my spirit by promising a better life after this one, and if I get to go there by rocket ship, well that’s all the better.

Normal Person - Arcade Fire: I love the little 'do you like rock and roll music? 'cause I don’t know if I do.’ he sings at the start because it sounds like they’re into their 13th hour of recording or something. I love the lead guitar that sounds like it’s severely undernourished but trying its best and I love how strangely heavy the bass and rhythm guitar is compared to a lot of their other songs. A good song to sing along to while you’re driving.

Top Of The World - Kimbra: I don’t know exactly how or why but Kimbra made a Kanye song. Playing the dual roles of Kanye and Featured Artist she does a great job and once again defies whatever I thought she was going to do next. I can’t wait for the album, I hope it has even more Raps.

Eric’s Trip - Sonic Youth: I’ve never gotten much into Sonic Youth because they seemed way too New York Cool for me, so imagine my heartbreak when I found out the lyrics to my favourite song of theirs are wholesale lifted from an Andy Warhol film. I still have a lot of love for 'my head’s on straight, my girlfriend’s beautiful, it looks pretty good to me’ though.

I Hope I Sleep Tonight - DJ Seinfeld: God I’d be embarrassed if I blew up on soundcloud with the name 'DJ Seinfeld’ and then had to keep it when I put my album out. This album varies pretty wildly in quality but I really love this track, the synth melody that just careens around wildly while the rest of the song happens nearby is what does it for me I think.

Problem With The Sun - Nicolas Jaar: “In an interview with Self-Titled Magazine, Jaar said “I was watching a documentary about bugs. It said that if they looked at the sun, they’d die. I thought ‘Oh, that’s funny; that’s cute’ and I wrote a track about it (…). If you find something really special in a tiny story about bugs, it could have a much bigger meaning than that. I like the idea of turning life into this miniature thing”.” He’s used this particular voice modulation on a couple of song and it really cracks me up because it so thick and textured and just plain silly but somehow it suits the song perfectly.

Long Strong Diamond - Baggsmen: This is a song I remember seeing on Rage late at night years and years ago. The guy was dressed up as a werewolf and kidnapping some girl but he gets so distracted by his song about being a werewolf that she ends up escaping. Extremely mad to find out that the guy in this song from years ago that I love is none other than personal enemy of mine Jake Stone from Bluejuice.

XO/The Host/Initiation - The Weeknd: Trilogy could well be the best album of the decade. Remember when The Weeknd was this mysterious anonymous guy who was firmly a character and not an actual guy who seems to actually believe what he’s singing? I love Trilogy because the progression across the three discs from like 'cool indifferent party guy’ in House Of Balloons to extremely deranged cult leader in Echoes Of Silence is very satisfying. Initiation especially is great because it’s like a cool fun song about a party mixed with some extremely dark shit about the clocks not working so you can’t tell the time and the blinds not working so you can’t see outside in a scary pitch shifting voice. “And all I wanna do is leave 'cause I’ve been zoning for a week and I ain’t left this little room, trying to concentrate to breathe” but you absolutely MUST meet my boys.

This Guy’s In Love With You - Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass: Anyway here’s a change of pace. A very peaceful song about just fucking dying if she won’t be your girl. I love how dramatic this song gets before completely stopping and starting again into a very relaxed trumpet line.

Jasmine (demo) - Jai Paul: I’m obsessed with the cult that develops around guys like Jai Paul and Jay Electronica, who put out two songs that are so good that it drives people insane when they don’t put out any more. There’s apparently a bunch of stuff happening with Jai Paul currently that I haven’t been keeping track of but The Fader had a really good article earlier this year about how the Jai Paul leaks and how insane it made everyone. Aside from all that, the song is pure magic - just listen to it and you can understand why everyone was obsessed as they were.

Freaking Out The Neighbourhood - Mac Demarco: I remember I saw an interview with Mac Demarco talking about this song and he described the riff as just some dumb little thing he made up which is shocking to me because I am totally obsessed with how good it sounds. It’s perfect!

Bob - “Weird Al” Yankovic: Yes baby it’s Weird Al’s all-palindrome Bob Dylan parody! I was telling my girfriend about how this is actually really good songwriting because even though it’s essentially gibberish it has enough good imagery and fun sounds that it works anyway and really how different is 'may a moody baby doom a yam’ to 'transient jet lagged ecto-mimed bison’ from the Mars Volta which also appears on this list? Anyway she hated it, and rightly so.

I Have Good News To Bring - Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Live from the basement church of my UFO cult, a beautiful version of Take A Trip that sounds like it was recorded on the organ of an empty baseball stadium at night.

Julia - Jungle: I have been desperately waiting for three years now for another Jungle album and they finally posted about new songs the other day and I got very very excited. This is an amazing song, every sound in it is so perfectly placed and the vocals are very beautiful and have such a rich bass for such a high tenor. I love the way the drums subtly get very busy in the last few choruses, I could listen to this song for hours.

Ray Gun (feat. DOOM) -BadBadNotGood & Ghostface Killah: I love that this song is maybe 20bmp faster than Ghostface or Doom are expecting. Doom especially sounds far more excited than he has in years and they both do really well with it. Also, I was certain the melody it breaks into in the last third was some Lalo Schifrin bit I’ve heard before but I can’t seem to find any info corroborating that. If it’s familiar to you or you know where it’s from, please reply to this post because it’s been driving me crazy.

Confessions Pt. III - BadBadNotGood & Colin Stetson: Any song where Colin Stetson has to play with others is funny to me. He’s such a self contained ball of power that him joining a traditional group like it just wouldn’t work. Sure, this song does sort of sound like him doing his own thing for seven minutes while the band sort of reacts to him but it is absolutely fantastic anyway.

Everyone Nose (All The Girls Standing In The Line For The Bathroom) - N.E.R.D: Remember when Pharrell was crazy? This song is total chaos. The pitched down sample in the hook, the two note bassline, the sax that just hoots once a bar. And I absolutely love the contrast of the beautiful bridge, especially the 'achooo’ backing vocals.

Parties - Shlohmo: Bad Vibes was such a moment. It is such a beautiful album, and a very easy album to fall asleep to and then wake up 20 minutes later terrified and choked by your headphones because Trapped In A Burning House, the song that sounds exactly like its title and nothing like the rest of the album, came on. I have such a strong emotional reaction I really can’t explain to the cutoff samples of people laughing near the end of this song.

Bering/Human Till Born -Talkdemonic: I have no idea how I came across this album but I’ve been listening to it constantly for ten years now and I still find new things to appreciate in it. The drums especially in Human Till Born are a source of obsession for me.

Don Caballero 3 - Don Caballero: For a long time I never 'got’ Don Caballero or Hella or any of these supposedly legendary math bands, despite loving so many bands obvously influenced by them. But then one day this album, and this song especially just clicked for me. It also happened to coincide with one of the most surreal weeks of my life when I was on a cruise ship and all I listened to was this and a field recording album that seems to have completely deleted itself from my computer since then. The best advice I’ve heard for listening to this is, and bands like it is that it’s backward. The drums are the lead instrument and everything else works around that, if that helps. This song has a twisted sort of morose quality that’s really hard to pin down. Some days it is absolutely heartbreaking, which sounds silly but it’s true.

B.Y.O.B. - System Of A Down: There’s a few reasons I was thinking of this song. First and most importantly it’s because of that dog vine but the other reason is I was thinking about how there hasn’t been a good anti-trump song yet outside of YG’s FDT, and that came out before the election. This and American Idiot came out in 2004/5, and I suppose it’s only been a year since the election so we’ve got a few years yet until the real hits come out I guess. Or I suppose he’d have to actually properly declare war, which, you know.

4D/MTI - Koreless: These songs are so intertwined in my head I feel like you can’t have one without this other. 4D is such a simple, beautiful piece of music. The synth that sounds like glass and the chopped vocals getting more and more contorted as the song goes on contrasted with the propulsion of the drums is so great. Both of these songs have a meticulousness and restraint to their sound, every single piece is perfectly where it should be and nothing else is allowed. Even MTI using so much white noise feels incredibly controlled and when it totally drops out it feels like coming up from underwater.

New Lands - Justice: Remember when Justice took 4 years to write a follow up to their album that lit the world on fire and instead of doing the same thing again they made a classic rock album? Everyone was so mad. Luckily this song is incredible and everyone was wrong once more.

You Discovered The Secret And Juiced It For All Its Majesty - Venetian Snares: This is from an EP called Cubist Reggae which I think a lot about in concept alone. This is probably the song that illustrates the idea worst but I love it a lot. My incredibly unpopular opinion is that Venetian Snares is miles better of Aphex Twin and whoever but everyone’s written him off as the Rossz Csillag guy so he doesn’t get no respect. I love how detailed his music is, how every one of the million sounds seems to be perfectly placed. I think he’s in a similar position to Autechre where he’s been making and listening to only his own music for so long now that he’s forgotten how normal music sounds, which is good.

Blues Run The Game - Jackson C. Frank: I made a playlist a couple of years ago of all the songs I sing to myself when I’m just walking around or whatever and it turned out about 6/10 had 'blues’ or 'hard times’ in the title, which is tough but it’s ok, and this was one of them. If you want to read a wiki article that’ll make you cry, read Jackson C. Frank’s, but mostly you should just listen to this, his only album.

Thermal Treasure - Polvo: I played this song for my girlfriend and during the intro she said 'you have such a wide variety of tense, off kilter music seeminly designed just to put people on edge’. I’m a huge fan of this very defensive sentence in Polvo’s wiki article 'Their sound was so unpredictable and angular that the band’s guitarists were often accused of failing to play with correctly tuned guitars’.

FML - Kanye West: This is such a strangely affecting song and it’s hard to be sympathetic to Kanye as a narrator sometimes (especially when he insists on doubling down on dogshit lines like “'I'mma have the last laugh indian cause I’m from the tribe called chekaho’”) but against all odds you can identify and relate to his struggle to hold onto the woman he loves and not be undone by his own worst instincts. Musically this is the best The Weeknd has ever sounded and I already love him a lot, and the way the drums lead into the sample at the end is just perfect.

Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of) - The Mars Volta: This is the album I’ve probably listened to the most in my life. As a teenager I would listen to this album every night for easily a year and somehow there’s still something new to hear in it. It’s almost hard to listen to it now because I have so much Teenage Feeling attached to it but it’s still an incredible piece of work. Jon Theodore deserves a statue for his drumming on this album, and this song especially, in my humble opinion.

Life’s A Beach! - Studio: God I love Studio. I think if you tried to describe them on paper you could never make it sound like good music. “It’s sort of, balearic , reggae, guitar-led dance music and the songs go for about 15 minutes most of the time.” But it is good music! I absolutely promise it’s incredible music!

The Number Song (Cut Chemist Remix) - DJ Shadow: I love this remix because it feels like theseus’ ship as demonstrated via remix. How many parts can you swap out for similar but not identical parts before it’s a completely different song. The drums are almost the same beat, but a totally different sample.The Jackson 5 horns in the original that signal the transition to the second half are still here with the same function, but it’s an entirely different horn sample, and an entirely different second half save for 'the party’s already started, and it’s about to end’. 

listen here

[chimseoki]

Typing... | 03

Your best friend recommends you to try out a new social app and as you are trying it out you make a new, mysterious friend.

Jungkook x Reader

Idol!au — Online Friends!au

1.5k words

Contains: comedy, drama, and so much more!

.

[100% Battery Fully Charged] Your phone indicated as you ate some leftovers from 2 days ago. Yummy. By that you mean yuck. You’d probably get sick eating the leftovers you’re eating right now, but you didn’t care. You were hungry as fuck. Once you arrived at your apartment an hour ago, you took a long shower, since yesterday you were too tired to do so. The water felt nice and warm against your skin. You even washed your hair since the water felt so good. Feeling relaxed after that, you were now eating in your small round, wooden table with your microwaved 2-day old chicken. At least it’s a bit warm now. Sigh. Taking a bite of it, you finally looked at the mysterious person’s message.

[JJ123456789]: Yeah, my name is JJ123456789!

[JJ123456789]: Haha, just kidding! 😂😂 Sorry about my lame jokes.

[JJ123456789]: My name is actually Jun.

Ah, Jun. A simple name, but still mysterious. One of your many questions about the mysterious person has finally been answered. Now you can call that person by their name and not ‘JJ123456789’. It is only fair that you tell them your real name since they told you theirs. Taking your phone from the table you typed in a message.

[thisusserisnottaken]: You have a really cool name, I like it. My name is Y/n and now I feel like I can properly say nice to meet you, Jun!

[JJ123456789 is typing…]

| Jungkook’s P.O.V |

Going back to when he first saw your message this morning, he had gotten slightly nervous. Once he had seen the question you had asked him a few hours ago, he had frozen in his spot. He could feel his heart about to jump out his chest once he saw what you had texted him. Jungshook. The young boy quickly spits out his mouthful of toothpaste as he placed his toothbrush in its place and ran out of the bathroom. With his phone at hand, he quickly went to Namjoon and Taehyung’s shared room as he panicked, not knowing how to respond to your question. People talked to him through this app often, yeah, but you were the only one brave enough to ask him what his name was. All the people he talked to always referred to him as ‘JJ123456789’. As he saw your question, he panicked. “Namjoon hyung,” Jungkook shook the older boy’s left shoulder as he stood from the side of his bed, wanting to ask for his advice. “I need your help.” Namjoon groaned sleepily at the younger boy. The older boy turned around to face the maknae, slowly opening his eyes to see why the younger boy was waking him up this early. “Jungkook, what do you need help with? What’s wrong?” “You know that app you told me about recently?” “Yes, what about it?” “Well,” Jungkook scratched the back of his head as he looked nervously at Namjoon, “I was talking with a really nice girl and she asked for my name.” Namjoon hears the word girl and a cheeky smile immediately forms on his lips. “A girl?” His eyebrows move up and down as his sleepy eyes look at the maknae with the interest of knowing who this girl was. “Yah hyung, why are you doing that— Please stop.” Jungkook gently pushed Namjoon’s shoulder so he would stop moving his eyebrows that way and just help him with his problem. Namjoon stopped playing and focused on Jungkook, wanting to help him out. “Okay, okay. So, you’re telling me she asked for your name?” Jungkook nods his head, “Yes.” “And what are you going to answer?” “Well I don—” “Jungkook..,” Namjoon interrupts, “We’ve already talked about this. I told you how to act and think if someone did ask you this question. Now, let’s see if you remember what I said when I first showed you the app,” Jungkook gulped as he looked at his hyung slightly nervous. “What were those things?” “Never tell people who I am. Be careful with my words and with what I say. Hide the truth about my life..” “And? What else, Jungkook?” “Be myself.” “Be yourself, that’s right. So why don’t you just be yourself and tell her a name that you feel comfortable with? I’m sure she’s a nice girl so just be true to yourself and don’t be nervous with responding any hard questions. Just relax and think about all the things I’ve told you and you’ll be alright.” Namjoon gave him a reassuring smile and Jungkook smiled back. He felt his hyung has given him the answer to many things. He just has to be himself, but he also has to be careful. Namjoon was just like a brother to Jungkook, all his hyungs were. But he had a special connection with Namjoon and he always appreciates his advice. “Thank you, hyung.” “No problem, Jungkook—” “Guys, please stop talking. I’m trying to sleep.” A sleepy Taehyung sits up and groans loudly as Namjoon and Jungkook have been talking for a good while now. “Sorry, Taehyung. We’ll be quiet.” Namjoon apologizes on behalf of the two of them and the sleepy opened eyed boy just gives them a thumbs up. Taehyung lays back down and goes back to sleep. In just a couple seconds Jungkook and Namjoon hear him snoring in his sleep just like before the younger boy had arrived in the room.

[A couple weeks later]

“Jimin!” Hoseok yells from the car where all of the members are waiting for the last member. “We are going to be late! Hurry up.” Jimin was always the last member to ever arrive. He was always very late. Always taking his time while getting ready, since his hair is the hardest to style on his own. That’s what he always says and complains about. His hair is the frizziest in the morning so he’s always wearing something on his head like a hat, or a beanie. While All the members laughed at the wobbling Jimin that was running with only one shoe on towards the car, Jungkook was smiling like an idiot with his eyes focused on his phone.

[JJ123456789]: Wow, so people there are like that?

[thisusserisnottaken]: Yes, my job can be very frustrating sometimes.

[JJ123456789]: I guess every job can be like that once in a while, Y/n. Hahaha

[thisusserisnottaken]: You’re right on that, Jun 😩👍🏻

[JJ123456789]: [sends a dancing ice cream gif]

[JJ123456789]: Look at how cute!

[thisusserisnottaken]: Oh god, why are you doing this to me Jun? Ice cream is ew. It’s like poop on a cone.

That message got Jungkook to laugh loudly. He knew how you were going to react since you two have been texting each other nonstop the past few weeks. He always stays a bit late so he could talk to you since you make him smile with your messages. Jungkook is starting to feel comfortable talking to you and he enjoys that feeling. All the members stared at Jungkook as he continued laughing at your message. “Still texting that girl?” Yoongi asks with a smirk. “We might as well meet her soon, she’s making our Kookie laugh 24/7,” Taehyung adds. “He doesn’t even laugh that much when I tell him my dad jokes,” Jin said playfully, sad, and annoyed, making all the members laugh. Jungkook was still glued to his phone and he didn’t really listen to what the other members were saying.

[JJ123456789]: Friends can be so lame sometimes.

[thisusserisnottaken]: Ikr! I have a friend called Nicole and she just can’t stop making lame dad jokes all the time.

[JJ123456789]: I have a friend like that too, I get you.

[thisusserisnottaken]: But dad jokes can be funny sometimes.

[JJ123456789]: True

[thisusserisnottaken]: What do you call many babies in a shower?

[JJ123456789]: Bath full of babies?

[thisusserisnottaken]: Nope. A baby shower!

“Hahahahhaha!” Jungkook bursts out laughing, even louder than before and that catches his hyungs attention again. He places one hand on Hoseok’s shoulder as he laughs his ass out, almost falling off his seat. “Jungkook snorted—” Jimin commented as he chuckled, watching the youngest laugh. Namjoon read the message you sent in Jungkook’s phone quickly and chuckled while reading it. “First time I’ve ever heard him snort and it’s all because of a girl.” A special girl, Jungkook thought.

An hour passed and most of the members have fallen asleep. They were all on their way to a photoshoot for the new concept photos of their new album. They are working extra hard for this one and they’re excited for it to release. Jungkook looked around the car and saw all the members asleep, except Taehyung, who was up, playing games, and Yoongi, who was listening to music with his eyes closed. He was still smiling like an idiot texting you as he felt happy doing so.

[thisusserisnottaken]: Hey, Jun?

[JJ123456789]: Yes?

[thisusserisnottaken]: Is it okay if I do something?

JJ123456789: Do wh

Before Jungkook could finish typing his response he saw something pop up on his phone that made his heart stop. His smile faded away as he stared down at his phone and gulped loudly.

[thisusserisnottaken is calling you]

[ANSWERING] 📞

Connecting…