#the song was originally only about one guy and there's only one guy (my favorite guy) who has the range so | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

turnstileskyline · 4 months

Text

The Oral History of Take This To Your Grave – transcription under the cut

The pages that are just photographs, I haven't included. This post is already long enough.

Things that happened in 2003: Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor of California. Teen Vogue published its first issue. The world lost Johnny Cash. Johnny Depp appeared as Captain Jack Sparrow for the first time. A third Lord of the Rings movie arrived. Patrick Stump, Pete Wentz, Joe Trohman, and Andy Hurley released Take This To Your Grave.

"About 21 years ago or so, as I was applying to colleges I would ultimately never go to, Fall Out Boy began as a little pop-punk side project of what we assumed was Pete's more serious band, Arma Angelus," Patrick wrote in a May 2023 social media post.

"We were sloppy and couldn't solidify a lineup, but the three of us (Pete, Joe, and I) were having way too much fun to give up on it."

"We were really rough around the edges. As an example of how rough, one of my favorite teachers pulled me aside after hearing the recording that would eventually become Evening Out With Your Girlfriend and tactfully said, 'What do you think your best instrument is, Patrick? Drums. It's drums. Probably not singing, Patrick.'"

"We went into Smart Studios with the Sean O'Keefe... So, there we were, 3/5 of a band with a singer who'd only been singing a year, no drummer, and one out of two guitarists. But we had the opportunity to record with Sean at Butch Vig's legendary studio.

"Eight or so months later, Fueled by Ramen would give us a contract to record the remaining songs. We'd sleep on floors, eat nothing but peanut butter and jelly, live in a van for the next three years, and somehow despite that, eventually play with Elton John and Taylor Swift and Jay-Z and for President Obama and the NFC championship, and all these other wildly unpredictable things. But none of that would ever come close to happening if Andy hadn't made it to the session and Joe hadn't dragged us kicking and screaming into being a band."

Two decades after its release, Take This To Your Grave sits comfortable in the Top 10 of Rolling Stone's 50 Greatest Pop-Punk Albums, edging out landmark records from Buzzcocks, Generation X, Green Day, The Offspring, Blink-182, and The Ramones.

It even ranked higher than Through Being Cool by Saves The Day and Jersey's Best Dancers from Lifetime, two records the guys in Fall Out Boy particularly revere.

Fall Out Boy's proper full-length debut on Fueled by Ramen is a deceptively smart, sugar-sweet, raw, energetic masterpiece owing as much to the bass player's pop culture passions, the singers deep love of R&B and soul, and their shared history in the hardcore scene as any pioneering punk band. Fall Out Boy's creative and commercial heights were still ahead, but Take This To Your Grave kicked it off, a harbinger for the enduring songwriting partnership between Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz, the eclectic contributions from Joe Trohman, and the propulsive powerhouse that is Andy Hurley.

The recordings document a special moment when Fall Out Boy was big in "the scene" but a "secret" from the mainstream. The band (and some of their friends) first sat down for an Oral History (which doubled as an Oral History of their origin story) with their old friend Ryan J. Downey, then Senior Editor for Alternative Press, upon the occasion of the album's 10th anniversary. What follows is an updated, sharper, and expanded version of that story, newly re-edited in 2023. As Patrick eloquently said: "Happy 20th birthday, Take This To Your Grave, you weird brilliant lightning strike accident of a record."

– Ryan J. Downey.

A Weird, Brilliant Lightning Strike Of A Record. The Oral History Of Fall Out Boy's Take This To Your Grave.

As told by:

Patrick Stump

Pete Wentz

Joe Trohman

Andy Hurley

Bob McLynn - Crush Music

Sean O'Keefe - Producer/Mixer

John Janick - Fueled By Ramen

Tim McIlrath - Rise Against

Mani Mostofi - Racetraitor

Chris Gutierrez - Arma Angelus

Mark Rose - Spitalfield

Sean Muttaqi - Uprising Records

Rory Felton - The Militia Group

Richard Reines - Drive-Thru Records

"To Feel No More Bitterness Forever" - From Hardcore to Softcore, 1998-2000

PETE WENTZ: When I got into hardcore, it was about discovering the world beyond yourself. There was a culture of trying to be a better person. That was part of what was so alluring about hardcore and punk for me. But for whatever reason, it shifted. Maybe this was just in Chicago, but it became less about the thought process behind it and more about moshing and breakdowns. There was a close-mindedness that felt very reactive.

TIM MCILRITH: I saw First Born many years ago, which was the first time I saw Pete and met him around then. This was '90s hardcore - p.c., vegan, activist kind of hardcore music. Pete was in many of those bands doing that kind of thing, and I was at many of those shows. The hardcore scene in Chicago was pretty small, so everyone kind of knew each other. I knew Andy Hurley as the drummer in Racetraitor. I was in a band called Baxter, so Pete always called me 'Baxter.' I was just 'Baxter' to a lot of those guys.

JOE TROHMAN: I was a young hardcore kid coming to the shows. The same way we all started doing bands. You're a shitty kid who goes to punk and hardcore shows, and you see the other bands playing, and you want to make friends with those guys because you want to play in bands too. Pete and I had a bit of a connection because we're from the same area. I was the youngest dude at most shows. I would see Extinction, Racetraitor, Burn It Down, and all the bands of that era.

WENTZ: My driver's license was suspended then, so Joe drove me everywhere. We listened to either Metalcore like Shai Hulud or pop-punk stuff like Screeching Weasel.

MCILRITH: I was in a band with Pete called Arma Angelus. I was like their fifth or sixth bass player. I wasn't doing anything musically when they hit me up to play bass, so I said, 'Of course.' I liked everyone in the band. We were rehearsing, playing a few shows here and there, with an ever-revolving cast of characters. We recorded a record together at the time. I even sing on that record, believe it or not, they gave me a vocal part. Around that same time, I began meeting with [bassist] Joe [Principe] about starting what would become Rise Against.

CHRIS GUTIERREZ: Wentz played me the Arma Angelus demo in the car. He said he wanted it to be a mix of Despair, Buried Alive, and Damnation A.D. He told me Tim was leaving to start another band - which ended up being Rise Against - and asked if I wanted to play bass.

TROHMAN: Pete asked me to fill in for a tour when I was 15. Pete had to call my dad to convince him to let me go. He did it, too. It was my first tour, in a shitty cargo van, with those dudes. They hazed the shit out of me. It was the best and worst experience. Best overall, worst at the time.

GUTIERREZ: Enthusiasm was starting to wane in Arma Angelus. Our drummer was really into cock-rock. It wasn't an ironic thing. He loved L.A. Guns, Whitesnake, and Hanoi Rocks. It drove Pete nuts because the scene was about Bleeding Through and Throwdown, not cock rock. He was frustrated that things weren't panning out for the band, and of course, there's a ceiling for how big a metalcore band can get, anyway.

MANI MOSTOFI: Pete had honed this tough guy persona, which I think was a defense mechanism. He had some volatile moments in his childhood. Underneath, he was a pretty sensitive and vulnerable person. After playing in every mosh-metal band in the Midwest and listening exclusively to Earth Crisis, Damnation A.D., Chokehold, and stuff like that for a long time, I think Pete wanted to do something fresh. He had gotten into Lifetime, Saves The Day, The Get Up Kids, and bands like that. Pete was at that moment where the softer side of him needed an outlet, and didn't want to hide behind mosh-machismo. I remember him telling me he wanted to start a band that more girls could listen to.

MCILRATH: Pete was talking about starting a pop-punk band. Bands like New Found Glory and Saves The Day were successful then. The whole pop-punk sound was accessible. Pete was just one of those guys destined for bigger things than screaming for mediocre hardcore bands in Chicago. He's a smart guy, a brilliant guy. All the endeavors he had taken on, even in the microcosm of the 1990s Chicago hardcore world, he put a lot of though into it. You could tell that if he were given a bigger receptacle to put that thought into, it could become something huge. He was always talented: lyrics, imagery, that whole thing. He was ahead of the curve. We were in this hardcore band from Chicago together, but we were both talking about endeavors beyond it.

TROHMAN: The drummer for Arma Angelus was moving. Pete and I talked about doing something different. It was just Pete and me at first. There was this thuggishness happening in the Chicago hardcore scene at that time that wasn't part of our vibe. It was cool, but it wasn't our thing.

MCILRITH: One day at Arma Angelus practice, Pete asked me, 'Are you going to do that thing with Joe?' I was like, 'Yeah, I think so.' He was like, 'You should do that, dude. Don't let this band hold you back. I'll be doing something else, too. We should be doing other things.' He was really ambitious. It was so amazing to me, too, because Pete was a guy who, at the time, was kind of learning how to play the bass. A guy who didn't really play an instrument will do down in history as one of the more brilliant musicians in Chicago. He had everything else in his corner. He knew how to do everything else. He needed to get some guys behind him because he had the rest covered. He had topics, themes, lyrics, artwork, this whole image he wanted to do, and he was uncompromising. He also tapped into something the rest of us were just waking up to: the advent of the internet. I mean, the internet wasn't new, but higher-speed internet was.

MOSTOFI: Joe was excited to be invited by Pete to do a band. Joe was the youngest in our crew by far, and Pete was the 'coolest' in a Fonzie sort of way. Joe deferred to Pete's judgement for years. But eventually, his whole life centered around bossy big-brother Pete. I think doing The Damned Things was for Joe what Fall Out Boy was for Pete, in a way. It was a way to find his own space within the group of friends. Unsurprisingly, Joe now plays a much more significant role in Fall Out Boy's music.

WENTZ: I wanted to do something easy and escapist. When Joe and I started the band, it was the worst band of all time. I feel like people said, 'Oh, yeah, you started Fall Out Boy to get big.' Dude, there was way more of a chance of every other band getting big in my head than Fall Out Boy. It was a side thing that was fun to do. Racetraitor and Extinction were big bands to me. We wanted to do pop-punk because it would be fun and hilarious. It was definitely on a lark. We weren't good. If it was an attempt at selling out, it was a very poor attempt.

MCILRITH: It was such a thing for people to move from hardcore bands to bands called 'emo' or pop-punk, as those bands were starting to get some radio play and signed to major labels. Everyone thought it was easy, but it's not as easy as that. Most guys we knew who tried it never did anything more successful than their hardcore bands. But Pete did it! And if anyone was going to, it was going to be him. He never did anything half-assed. He ended up playing bass in so many bands in Chicago, even though he could barely play the bass then, because simply putting him in your band meant you'd have a better show. He was just more into it. He knew more about dynamics, about getting a crowd to react to what you're doing than most people. Putting Pete in your band put you up a few notches.

"I'm Writing You A Chorus And Here Is Your Verse" - When Pete met Patrick, early 2001.

MARK ROSE: Patrick Stump played drums in this grindcore band called Grinding Process. They had put out a live split cassette tape.

PATRICK STUMP: My ambition always outweighed my ability or actual place in the world. I was a drummer and played in many bands and tried to finagle my way into better ones but never really managed. I was usually outgunned by the same two guys: this guy Rocky Senesce; I'm not sure if he's playing anymore, but he was amazing. And this other guy, De'Mar Hamilton, who is now in Plain White T's. We'd always go out for the same bands. I felt like I was pretty good, but then those guys just mopped the floor with me. I hadn't been playing music for a few months. I think my girlfriend dumped me. I was feeling down. I wasn't really into pop-punk or emo. I think at the time I was into Rhino Records box sets.

TROHMAN: I was at the Borders in Eden's Plaza in Wilmette, Illinois. My friend Arthur was asking me about Neurosis. Patrick just walked up and started talking to me.

STUMP: I was a bit arrogant and cocky, like a lot of young musicians. Joe was talking kind of loudly and I overheard him say something about Neurosis, and I think I came in kind of snotty, kind of correcting whatever they had said.

TROHMAN: We just started talking about music, and my buddy Arthur got shoved out of the conversation. I told him about the band we were starting. Pete was this local hardcore celebrity, which intrigued Patrick.

STUMP: I had similar conversations with any number of kids my age. This conversation didn't feel crazy special. That's one of the things that's real about [Joe and I meeting], and that's honest about it, that's it's not some 'love at first sight' thing where we started talking about music and 'Holy smokes, we're going to have the best band ever!' I had been in a lot of bands up until then. Hardcore was a couple of years away from me at that point. I was over it, but Pete was in real bands; that was interesting. Now I'm curious and I want to do this thing, or at least see what happens. Joe said they needed a drummer, guitar player, or singer, and I kind of bluffed and said I could do any one of those things for a pop-punk band. I'd had a lot of conversations about starting bands where I meet up with somebody and maybe try to figure out some songs and then we'd never see each other again. There were a lot of false starts and I assumed this would be just another one of those, but it would be fun for this one to be with the guy from Racetraitor and Extinction.

TROHMAN: He gave me the link to his MP3.com page. There were a few songs of him just playing acoustic and singing. He was awesome.

WENTZ: Joe told me we were going to this kid's house who would probably be our drummer but could also sing. He sent me a link to Patrick singing some acoustic thing, but the quality was so horrible it was hard to tell what it was. Patrick answered the door in some wild outfit. He looked like an emo kid but from the Endpoint era - dorky and cool. We went into the basement, and he was like, trying to set up his drums.

TROHMAN: Patrick has said many times that he intended to try out on drums. I was pushing for him to sing after hearing his demos. 'Hey! Sing for us!' I asked him to take out his acoustic guitar. He played songs from Saves The Day's Through Being Cool. I think he sang most of the record to us. We were thrilled. We had never been around someone who could sing like that.

WENTZ: I don't think Patrick thought we were cool at all. We were hanging out, and he started playing acoustic guitar. He started singing, and I realized he could sing any Saves The Day song. I was like, 'Wow, that's the way those bands sound! We should just have you sing.' It had to be serendipity because Patrick drumming and Joe singing is not the same band. I never thought about singing. It wasn't the type of thing I could sing. I knew I'd be playing bass. I didn't think it'd even go beyond a few practices. It didn't seem like the thing I was setting myself up to do for the next several years of my life in any way. I was going to college. It was just a fun getaway from the rest of life kind of thing to do.

STUMP: Andy was the first person we asked to play drums. Joe even brought him up in the Borders conversation. But Andy was too busy. He wasn't really interested, either, because we kind of sucked.

WENTZ: I wanted Hurley in the band, I was closest to him at the time, I had known him for a long time. I identified with him in the way that we were the younger dudes in our larger group. I tried to get him, but he was doing another band at the time, or multiple bands. He was Mani's go-to guy to play drums, always. I had asked him a few times. That should clue people into the fact that we weren't that good.

ANDY HURLEY: I knew Joe as 'Number One Fan.' We called him that because he was a huge fan of a band I was in, Kill The Slavemaster. When Fall Out Boy started, I was going to college full-time. I was in the band Project Rocket and I think The Kill Pill then, too.

MOSTOFI: After they got together the first or second time, Pete played me a recording and said, 'This is going to be big.' They had no songs, no name, no drummer. They could barely play their instruments. But Pete knew, and we believed him because we could see his drive and Patrick's potential. Patrick was prodigy. I imagine the first moment Pete heard him sing was probably like when I heard 15-year-old Andy Hurley play drums.

GUTIERREZ: One day at practice, Pete told me he had met some dudes with whom he was starting a pop-punk band. He said it would sound like a cross between New Found Glory and Lifetime. Then the more Fall Out Boy started to practice, the less active Arma Angelus became.

TROHMAN: We got hooked up with a friend named Ben Rose, who became our original drummer. We would practice in his parents' basement. We eventually wrote some pretty bad songs. I don't even have the demo. I have copies of Arma's demo, but I don't have that one.

MOSTOFI: We all knew that hardcore kids write better pop-punk songs than actual pop-punk kids. It had been proven. An experienced hardcore musician could bring a sense of aggression and urgency to the pop hooks in a way that a band like Yellowcard could never achieve. Pete and I had many conversations about this. He jokingly called it 'Softcore,' but that's precisely what it was. It's what he was going for. Take This To Your Grave sounds like Hot Topic, but it feels like CBGBs.

MCILRITH: Many hardcore guys who transitioned into pop-punk bands dumbed it down musically and lyrically. Fall Out Boy found a way to do it that wasn't dumbed down. They wrote music and lyrics that, if you listened closely, you could tell came from people who grew up into hardcore. Pete seemed to approach the song titles and lyrics the same way he attacked hardcore songs. You could see his signature on all of that.

STUMP: We all had very different ideas of what it should sound like. I signed up for Kid Dynamite, Strike Anywhere, or Dillinger Four. Pete was very into Lifetime and Saves The Day. I think both he and Joe were into New Found Glory and Blink-182. I still hadn't heard a lot of stuff. I was arrogant; I was a rock snob. I was over most pop-punk. But then I had this renaissance week where I was like, 'Man, you know what? I really do like The Descendents.' Like, the specific week I met Joe, it just happened to be that I was listening to a lot of Descendents. So, there was a part of me that was tickled by that idea. 'You know what? I'll try a pop-punk band. Why not?'

MOSTOFI: To be clear, they were trying to become a big band. But they did it by elevating radio-friendly pop punk, not debasing themselves for popularity. They were closely studying Drive-Thru Records bands like The Starting Line, who I couldn't stand. But they knew what they were doing. They extracted a few good elements from those bands and combined them with their other influences. Patrick never needed to be auto-tuned. He can sing. Pete never had to contrive this emotional depth. He always had it.

STUMP: The ideas for band names were obnoxious. At some point, Pete and I were arguing over it, and I think our first drummer, Ben Rose, who was in the hardcore band Strength In Numbers, suggested Fall Out Boy. Pete and I were like, 'Well, we don't hate that one. We'll keep it on the list.' But we never voted on a name.

"Fake It Like You Matter" - The Early Shows, 2001

The name Fall Out Boy made their shortlist, but their friends ultimately chose it for them. The line-up at the band's first show was Patrick Stump (sans guitar), Pete Wentz, Joe Trohman, drummer Ben Rose, and guitarist John Flamandan in his only FOB appearance.

STUMP: We didn't have a name at our two or three shows. We were basically booked as 'Pete's new band' as he was the most known of any of us. Pete and I were the artsy two.

TROHMAN: The rest of us had no idea what we were doing onstage.

STUMP: We took ourselves very seriously and completely different ideas on what was 'cool.' Pete at the time was somewhere between maybe Chuck Palahniuk and Charles Bukowski, and kind of New Romantic and Manchester stuff, so he had that in mind. The band names he suggested were long and verbose, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I was pretty much only into Tom Waits, so I wanted everything to be a reference to Tom Waits. The first show was at DePaul [University] in some cafeteria. The room looked a lot nicer than punk rock shows are supposed to look, like a room where you couldn't jump off the walls. We played with a band called Stillwell. I want to say one of the other bands played Black Sabbath's Black Sabbath in its entirety. We were out of place. We were tossing a few different names around. The singer for Stillwell was in earshot of the conversation so I was like 'Hey, settle this for us,' and told him whatever name it was, which I can't remember. 'What do you think of this name?' He goes, 'It sucks.' And the way he said it, there was this element to it, like, 'You guys probably suck, too, so whatever.' That was our first show. We played first and only had three songs. That was John's only show with us, and I never saw him again. I was just singing without a guitar, and I had never just sung before; that was horrifying. We blazed through those songs.

ROSE: Patrick had this shoulder-length hair. Watching these guys who were known for heavier stuff play pop-punk was strange. Pete was hopping around with the X's on his hands. Spitalfield was similar; we were kids playing another style of music who heard Texas Is The Reason and Get Up Kids and said, 'We have to start a band like this.'

MOSTOFI: The first show was a lot of fun. The musical side wasn't there, but Pete and Patrick's humor and charisma were front and center.

TROHMAN: I remember having a conversation with Mani about stage presence. He was telling me how important it was. Coalesce and The Dillinger Escape Plan would throw mic stands and cabinets. We loved that visual excitement and appeal. Years later, Patrick sang a Fall Out Boy song with Taylor Swift at Giants Stadium. It was such a great show to watch that I was reminded of how wise Mani was to give me that advice back then. Mani was like a mentor for me, honestly. He would always guide me through stuff.

MOSTOFI: Those guys grew up in Chicago, either playing in or seeing Extinction, Racetraitor, Los Crudos, and other bands that liked to talk and talk between songs. Fall Out Boy did that, and it was amazing. Patrick was awkward in a knowing and hilarious way. He'd say something odd, and then Pete would zing him. Or Pete would try to say something too cool, and Patrick would remind him they were nerds. These are very personal memories for me. Millions of people have seen the well-oiled machine, but so few of us saw those guys when they were so carefree.

TROHMAN: We had this goofy, bad first show, but all I can tell you was that I was determined to make this band work, no matter what.

STUMP: I kind of assumed that was the end of that. 'Whatever, on with our lives.' But Joe was very determined. He was going to pick us up for practice and we were going to keep playing shows. He was going to make the band happen whether the rest of us wanted to or not. That's how we got past show number one. John left the band because we only had three songs and he wasn't very interested. In the interim, I filled in on guitar. I didn't consider myself a guitar player. Our second show was a college show in Southern Illinois or something.

MCILRITH: That show was with my other band, The Killing Tree.

STUMP: We showed up late and played before The Killing Tree. There was no one there besides the bands and our friends. I think we had voted on some names. Pete said 'Hey, we're whatever!'; probably something very long. And someone yells out, 'Fuck that, no, you're Fall Out Boy!' Then when The Killing Tree was playing, Tim said, 'I want to thank Fall Out Boy.' Everyone looked up to Tim, so when he forced the name on us, it was fine. I was a diehard Simpsons fan, without question. I go pretty deep on The Simpsons. Joe and I would just rattle off Simpsons quotes. I used to do a lot of Simpsons impressions. Ben was very into Simpsons; he had a whole closet full of Simpsons action figures.

"If Only You Knew I Was Terrified" - The Early Recordings, 2002-2003

Wentz's relationships in the hardcore scene led to Fall Out Boy's first official releases. A convoluted and rarely properly explained chain of events resulted in the Fall Out Boy/Project Rocket split EP and Fall Out Boy's Evening Out with Your Girlfriend. Both were issued by California's Uprising Records, whose discography included Racetraitor's first album and the debut EP by Burn It Down. The band traveled to Wisconsin to record their first proper demo with engineer Jared Logan, drummer for Uprising's 7 Angels 7 Plagues.

TROHMAN: This isn't to be confused with the demo we did in Ben's basement, which was like a tape demo. This was our first real demo.

STUMP: Between booking the demo and recording it, we lost Ben Rose. He was the greatest guy, but it wasn't working out musically. Pete and Joe decided I should play drums on the demo. But Jared is a sick drummer, so he just did it.

TROHMAN: We had gotten this great singer but went through a series of drummers that didn't work out. I had to be the one who kicked Ben out. Not long after, our friend Brett Bunting played with us. I don't think he really wanted to do it, which was a bummer.

STUMP: I showed up to record that demo, feeling pulled into it. I liked hanging out with the guys, but I was a rock snob who didn't really want to be making that type of music. The first few songs were really rough. We were sloppy. We barely practiced. Pete was in Arma Angelus. Joe was the guy determined to make it happen. We couldn't keep a drummer or guitar player, and I could barely play guitar. I didn't really want to be in Fall Out Boy. We had these crappy songs that kind of happened; it didn't feel like anything. Joe did the guitars. I go in to do the vocals, I put on the headphones, and it starts playing and was kind of not bad! It was pretty good, actually. I was shocked. That was the first time I was like, 'Maybe I am supposed to be in this band.' I enjoyed hearing it back.

SEAN MUTTAQI: Wentz and I were pretty tight. He sent me some demos, and while I didn't know it would get as big as it did, I knew it was special. Wentz had a clear vision. Of all the guys from that scene, he was the most singularly focused on taking things to the next level. He was ahead of the game with promotion and the early days of social media.

STUMP: Arma Angelus had been on Eulogy. We talked to them a bit and spoke to Uprising because they had put out Racetraitor. At some point, the demo got to Sean, and he decided to make it half of a split with Andy's band, Project Rocket. We were pretty happy with that.

HURLEY: It was kind of competitive for me at the time. Project Rocket and Fall Out Boy were both doing pop-punk/pop-rock, I met Patrick through the band. I didn't really know him before Fall Out Boy.

TROHMAN: We got this drummer, Mike Pareskuwicz, who had been in a hardcore band from Central Illinois called Subsist.

STUMP: Uprising wanted us to make an album. We thought that was cool, but we only had those three songs that were on the split. We were still figuring ourselves out. One of the times we were recording with Jared in the studio, for the split or the album, this guy T.J. Kunasch was there. He was like, 'Hey, do you guys need a guitarist?' And he joined.

MUTTAQI: I borrowed some money to get them back in the studio. The songwriting was cool on that record, but it was all rushed. The urgency to get something out led to the recording being subpar. Their new drummer looked the part but couldn't really play. They had already tracked the drums before they realized it didn't sound so hot.

STUMP: The recording experience was not fun. We had two days to do an entire album. Mike was an awesome dude, but he lived crazy far away, in Kanakee, Illinois, so the drive to Milwaukee wasn't easy for him. He had to work or something the next day. So, he did everything in one take and left. He played alone, without a click, so it was a ness to figure out. We had to guess where the guitar was supposed to go. None of us liked the songs because we had slapped them together. We thought it all sucked. But I thought, 'Well, at least it'll be cool to have something out.' Then a lot of time went by. Smaller labels were at the mercy of money, and it was crazy expensive to put out a record back then.

MUTTAQI: Our record was being rushed out to help generate some interest, but that interest was building before we could even get the record out. We were beholden to finances while changing distribution partners and dealing with other delays. The buck stops with me, yes, but I didn't have that much control over the scheduling.

WENTZ: It's not what I would consider the first Fall Out Boy record. Hurley isn't on it and he's an integral part of the Fall Out Boy sound. But it is part of the history, the legacy. NASA didn't go right to the moon. They did test flights in the desert. Those are our test flights in the desert. It's not something I'm ashamed of or have weird feelings about.

STUMP: It's kind of embarrassing to me. Evening Out... isn't representative of the band we became. I liked Sean a lot, so it's nothing against him. If anybody wants to check out the band in that era, I think the split EP is a lot cooler. Plus, Andy is on that one.

TROHMAN: T.J. was the guy who showed up to the show without a guitar. He was the guy that could never get it right, but he was in the band for a while because we wanted a second guitar player. He's a nice dude but wasn't great to be in a band with back then. One day he drove unprompted from Racine to Chicago to pick up some gear. I don't know how he got into my parents' house, but the next thing I knew, he was in my bedroom. I didn't like being woken up and kicked him out of the band from bed.

STUMP: Our friend Brian Bennance asked us to do a split 7" with 504 Plan, which was a big band to us. Brian offered to pay for us to record with Sean O'Keefe, which was also a big deal. Mike couldn't get the time off work to record with us. We asked Andy to play on the songs. He agreed to do it, but only if he could make it in time after recording an entire EP with his band, The Kill Pill, in Chicago, on the same day.

MOSTOFI: Andy and I started The Kill Pill shortly after Racetraitor split up, not long after Fall Out Boy had formed. We played a bunch of local shows together. The minute Andy finished tracking drums for our EP in Chicago, he raced to the other studio in Madison.

STUMP: I'm getting ready to record the drums myself, getting levels and checking the drums, pretty much ready to go. And then in walks Andy Hurley. I was a little bummed because I really wanted to play drums that day. But then Andy goes through it all in like two takes and fucking nailed the entire thing. He just knocked it out of the park. All of us were like, 'That's crazy!'

WENTZ: When Andy came in, It just felt different. It was one of those 'a-ha' moments.

STUMP: Sean leaned over to us and said, 'You need to get this guy in the band.'

SEAN O'KEEFE: We had a blast. We pumped It out. We did it fast and to analog tape. People believe it was very Pro Tools oriented, but it really was done to 24-track tape. Patrick sang his ass off.

STUMP: The songs we had were 'Dead On Arrival,' 'Saturday,' and 'Homesick at Space Camp. There are quite a few songs that ended up on Take This To You Grave where I wrote most of the lyrics but Pete titled them.

WENTZ: 'Space Camp' was a reference to the 1986 movie, SpaceCamp, and the idea of space camp. Space camp wasn't something anyone in my area went to. Maybe they did, but it was never an option for me. It seems like the little kid version of meeting Jay-Z. The idea was also: what if you, like Joaquin Phoenix in the movie, took off to outer space and wanted to get home? 'I made it to space and now I'm just homesick and want to hang out with my friends.' In the greater sense, it's about having it all, but it's still not enough. There's a pop culture reference in 'Saturday' that a lot of people miss. 'Pete and I attack the lost Astoria' was a reference to The Goonies, which was filmed in Astoria, Oregon.

HURLEY: I remember hearing those recordings, especially 'Dead on Arrival,' and Patrick's voice and how well written those songs were, especially relative to anything else I had done - I had a feeling that this could do something.

WENTZ: It seemed like it would stall out if we didn't get a solid drummer in the band soon. That was the link that we couldn't nail down. Patrick was always a big musical presence. He thinks and writes rhythmi-cally, and we couldn't get a drummer to do what he wanted or speak his language. Hurley was the first one that could. It's like hearing two drummers talk together when they really get it. It sounds like a foreign language because it's not something I'm keyed into. Patrick needed someone on a similar musical plane. I wasn't there. Joe was younger and was probably headed there.

HURLEY: When Patrick was doing harmonies, it was like Queen. He's such a brilliant dude. I was always in bands that did a record and then broke up. I felt like this was a band that could tour a lot like the hardcore bands we loved, even if we had to have day jobs, too.

"(Four) Tired Boys And A Broken Down Van" - The Early Tours, 2002-2003

STUMP: We booked a tour with Spitalfield, another Chicago band, who had records out, so they were a big deal to us. We replaced T.J. with a guy named Brandon Hamm. He was never officially in the band. He quit when we were practicing 'Saturday.' He goes, 'I don't like that. I don't want to do this anymore.' Pete talked with guitarist Chris Envy from Showoff, who had just broken up. Chris said, 'Yeah, I'll play in your band.' He came to two practices, then quit like two days before the tour. It was only a two-week tour, but Mike couldn't get the time off work from Best Buy, or maybe it was Blockbuster. We had to lose Mike, which was the hardest member change for me. It was unpleasant.

TROHMAN: We had been trying to get Andy to join the band for a while. Even back at that first Borders conversation, we talked about him, but he was too busy at the time.

STUMP: I borrowed one of Joe's guitars and jumped in the fire. We were in this legendarily shitty used van Pete had gotten. It belonged to some flower shop, so it had this ominously worn-out flower decal outside and no windows [except in the front]. Crappy brakes, no A/C, missing the rearview mirror, no seats in the back, only the driver's seat. About 10 minutes into the tour, we hit something. A tire exploded and slingshot into the passenger side mirror, sending glass flying into the van. We pulled over into some weird animal petting zoo. I remember thinking, 'This is a bad omen for this tour.' Spitalfield was awesome, and we became tight with them. Drew Brown, who was later in Weekend Nachos, was out with them, too. But most of the shows were canceled.

WENTZ: We'd end up in a town, and our show was canceled, or we'd have three days off. 'Let's just get on whatever show we can. Whatever, you can pay us in pizza.'

STUMP: We played in a pizza place. We basically blocked the line of people trying to order pizza, maybe a foot away from the shitty tables. Nobody is trying to watch a band. They're just there to eat pizza. And that was perhaps the biggest show we played on that tour. One of the best moments on the Spitalfied tour was in Lincoln, Nebraska. The local opener wasn't even there - they were at the bar across the street and showed up later with two people. Fall Out Boy played for Spitalfield, and Spitalfield played for Fall Out Boy. Even the sound guy had left. It was basically an empty room. It was miserable.

HURLEY: Even though we played a ton of shows in front of just the other bands, it was awesome. I've known Pete forever and always loved being in bands with him. After that tour, it was pretty much agreed that I would be in the band. I wanted to be in the band.

WENTZ: We would play literally any show in those days for free. We played Chain Reaction in Orange County with a bunch of metalcore bands. I want to say Underoath was one of them. I remember a lot of black shirts and crossed arms at those kinds of shows. STUMP: One thing that gets lost in the annals of history is Fall Out Boy, the discarded hardcore band. We played so many hardcore shows! The audiences were cool, but they were just like, 'This is OK, but we'd really rather be moshing right now.' Which was better than many of the receptions we got from pop-punk kids.

MOSTOFI: Pete made sure there was little division between the band and the audience. In hardcore, kids are encouraged to grab the mic. Pete was very conscious about making the crowd feel like friends. I saw them in Austin, Texas, in front of maybe ten kids. But it was very clear all ten of those kids felt like Pete's best friends. And they were, in a way.

MCILRITH: People started to get into social networking. That kind of thing was all new to us, and they were way ahead. They networked with their fans before any of us.

MOSTOFI: Pete shared a lot about his life online and was intimate as hell. It was a new type of scene. Pete extended the band's community as far as fiber optics let him.

ROSE: Pete was extremely driven. Looking back, I wish I had that killer instinct. During that tour; we played a show in Colorado. On the day of the show, we went to Kinko's to make flyers to hand out to college kids. Pete put ‘members of Saves The Day and Screeching Weasel’ on the flyer. He was just like, 'This will get people in.'

WENTZ: We booked a lot of our early shows through hardcore connections, and to some extent, that carries through to what Fall Out Boy shows are like today. If you come to see us play live, we're basically Slayer compared to everyone else when we play these pop radio shows. Some of that carries back to what you must do to avoid being heckled at hardcore shows. You may not like our music, but you will leave here respecting us. Not everyone is going to love you. Not everyone is going to give a shit. But you need to earn a crowd's respect. That was an important way for us to learn that.

MOSTOFI: All those dudes, except Andy, lived in this great apartment with our friend Brett Bunting, who was almost their drummer at one point. The proximity helped them gel.

STUMP: There were a lot of renegade last-minute shows where we'd just call and get added. We somehow ended up on a show with Head Automatica that way.

MCILRITH: At some point early on, they opened for Rise Against in a church basement in Downers Grove. We were doing well then; headlining that place was a big deal. Then Pete's band was coming up right behind us, and you could tell there was a lot of chatter about Fall Out Boy. I remember getting to the show, and there were many people there, many of whom I had never seen in the scene before. A lot of unfamiliar faces. A lot of people that wouldn't have normally found their way to the seedy Fireside Bowl in Chicago. These were young kids, and I was 21 then, so when I say young, I mean really young. Clearly, Fall Out Boy had tapped into something the rest of us had not. People were super excited to see them play and freaked out; there was a lot of enthusiasm at that show. After they finished, their fans bailed. They were dedicated. They wanted to see Fall Out Boy. They didn't necessarily want to see Rise Against play. That was my first clue that, 'Whoa, what Pete told me that day at Arma Angelus rehearsal is coming true. He was right.' Whatever he was doing was working.

"My Insides Are Copper, And I'd Like To Make Them Gold" - The Record Labels Come Calling, 2002

STUMP: The split EP was going to be a three-way split with 504 Plan, August Premier, and us at one point. But then the record just never happened. Brian backed out of putting it out. We asked him if we could do something else with the three songs and he didn't really seem to care. So, we started shopping the three songs as a demo. Pete ended up framing the rejection letters we got from a lot of pop-punk labels. But some were interested.

HURLEY: We wanted to be on Drive-Thru Records so bad. That was the label.

RICHARD REINES: After we started talking to them, I found the demo they had sent us in the office. I played it for my sister. We decided everything together. She liked them but wasn't as crazy about them as I was. We arranged with Pete to see them practice. We had started a new label called Rushmore. Fall Out Boy wasn't the best live band. We weren't thrilled [by the showcase]. But the songs were great. We both had to love a band to sign them, so my sister said, 'If you love them so much, let's sign them to Rushmore, not Drive Thru.'

HURLEY: We did a showcase for Richard and Stephanie Reines. They were just kind of like, 'Yeah, we have this side label thing. We'd be interested in having you on that.' I remember them saying they passed on Saves The Day and wished they would have put out Through Being Cool. But then they [basically] passed on us by offering to put us on Rushmore. We realized we could settle for that, but we knew it wasn't the right thing.

RORY FELTON: Kevin Knight had a website, TheScout, which always featured great new bands. I believe he shared the demo with us. I flew out to Chicago. Joe and Patrick picked me up at the airport. I saw them play at a VFW hall, Patrick drank an entire bottle of hot sauce on a dare at dinner, and then we all went to see the movie The Ring. I slept on the couch in their apartment, the one featured on the cover of Take This To Your Grave. Chad [Pearson], my partner, also flew out to meet with the band.

STUMP: It was a weird time to be a band because it was feast or famine. At first, no one wanted us. Then as soon as one label said, 'Maybe we'll give 'em a shot,' suddenly there's a frenzy of phone calls from record labels. We were getting our shirts printed by Victory Records. One day, we went to pick up shirts, and someone came downstairs and said, 'Um, guys? [Owner] Tony [Brummel] wants to see you.' We were like, 'Did we forget to pay an invoice?' He made us an offer on the spot. We said, 'That's awesome, but we need to think about it.' It was one of those 'now or never' kinds of things. I think we had even left the van running. It was that kind of sudden; we were overwhelmed by it.

HURLEY: They told me Tony said something like, 'You can be with the Nike of the record industry or the Keds of the record industry.'

STUMP: We'd get random calls at the apartment. 'Hey, I'm a manager with so-and-so.' I talked to some boy band manager who said, 'We think you'll be a good fit.'

TROHMAN: The idea of a manager was a ‘big-time' thing. I answered a call one day, and this guy is like, 'I'm the manager for the Butthole Surfers, and I'd really like to work with you guys.' I just said, Yeah, I really like the Butthole Surfers, but I'll have to call you back.' And I do love that band. But I just knew that wasn't the right thing.

STUMP: Not all the archetypes you always read about are true. The label guys aren't all out to get you. Some are total douchebags. But then there are a lot who are sweet and genuine. It's the same thing with managers. I really liked the Militia Group. They told us it was poor form to talk to us without a manager. They recommended Bob McLynn.

FELTON: We knew the guys at Crush from working with Acceptance and The Beautiful Mistake. We thought they'd be great for Fall Out Boy, so we sent the music to their team.

STUMP: They said Crush was their favorite management company and gave us their number. Crush's biggest band at the time was American Hi-Fi. Jonathan Daniels, the guy who started the company, sent a manager to see us. The guy was like, "This band sucks!' But Jonathan liked us and thought someone should do something with us. Bob was his youngest rookie manager. He had never managed anyone, and we had never been managed.

BOB MCLYNN: Someone else from my office who isn't with us anymore had seen them, but I hadn't seen them yet. At the time, we'd tried to manage Brand New; they went elsewhere, and I was bummed. Then we got the Fall Out Boy demo, and I was like, Wow. This sounds even better. This guy can really sing, and these songs are great.' I remember going at it hard after that whole thing. Fall Out Boy was my consolation prize. I don't know if they were talking to other managers or not, but Pete and I clicked.

TROHMAN: In addition to being really creative, Pete is really business savvy. We all have a bullshit detector these days, but Pete already had one back then. We met Bob, and we felt like this dude wouldn't fuck us over.

STUMP: We were the misfit toy that nobody else wanted. Bob really believed in us when nobody else did and when nobody believed in him. What's funny is that all the other managers at Crush were gone within a year. It was just Bob and Jonathan, and now they're partners. Bob was the weird New York Hardcore guy who scared me at the time.

TROHMAN: We felt safe with him. He's a big, hulking dude.

MCLYNN: We tried to make a deal with The Militia Group, but they wouldn't back off on a few things in the agreement. I told them those were deal breakers, opening the door to everyone else. I knew this band needed a shot to do bigger and better things.

TROHMAN: He told us not to sign with the label that recommended him to us. We thought there was something very honest about that.

MCLYNN: They paid all their dues. Those guys worked harder than any band I'd ever seen, and I was all about it. I had been in bands before and had just gotten out. I was getting out of the van just as these guys got into one. They busted their asses.

STUMP: A few labels basically said the same thing: they wanted to hear more. They weren't convinced we could write another song as good as 'Dead On Arrival.' I took that as a challenge. We returned to Sean a few months after those initial three songs, this time at Gravity Studios in Chicago. We recorded ‘Grenade Jumper' and 'Grand Theft Autumn/Where is Your Boy' in a night or two. 'Where is Your Boy' was my, 'Fine, you don't think I can write a fucking song? Here's your hit song, jerks!' But I must have pushed Pete pretty hard [arguing about the songs]. One night, as he and I drove with Joe, Pete said, 'Guys, I don't think I want to do this band anymore.' We talked about it for the rest of the ride home. I didn't want to be in the band in the first place! I was like, 'No! That's not fair! Don't leave me with this band! Don't make me kind of like this band, and then leave it! That's bullshit!' Pete didn't stay at the apartment that night. I called him at his parent's house. I told him I wasn't going to do the band without him. He was like, 'Don't break up your band over it.' I said, 'It's not my band. It's a band that you, Joe, and I started.' He was like, 'OK, I'll stick around.' And he came back with a vengeance.

WENTZ: It was maybe the first time we realized we could do these songs titles that didn't have much do with the song from the outside. Grand Theft Auto was such a big pop culture franchise. If you said the phrase back then, everyone recognized it. The play on words was about someone stealing your time in the fall. It was the earliest experimentation with that so it was a little simplistic compared to the stuff we did later. At the time, we'd tell someone the song title, and they'd say, 'You mean "Auto"'?

JOHN JANICK: I saw their name on fliers and thought it was strange. But I remembered it. Then I saw them on a flyer with one of our bands from Chicago, August Premier. I called them and asked about this band whose name I had seen on a few flyers now. They told me they were good and I should check it out. I heard an early version of a song online and instantly fell in love with it. Drive-Thru, The Militia Group, and a few majors tried to sign them. I was the odd man out. But I knew I wanted them right away.

HURLEY: Fueled By Ramen was co-owned by Vinnie [Fiorello] from Less Than Jake. It wasn't necessarily a band I grew up loving, but I had so much respect for them and what they had done and were doing.

JANICK: I randomly cold-called them at the apartment and spoke to Patrick. He told me I had to talk to Pete. I spoke to Pete later that day. We ended up talking on the phone for an hour. It was crazy. I never flew out there. I just got to know them over the phone.

MCLYNN: There were majors [interested], but I didn't want the band on a major right away. I knew they wouldn't understand the band. Rob Stevenson from Island Records knew all the indie labels were trying to sign Fall Out Boy. We did this first-ever incubator sort of deal. I also didn't want to stay on an indie forever; I felt we needed to develop and have a chance to do bigger and better things, but these indies didn't necessarily have radio staff. It was sort of the perfect scenario. Island gave us money to go on Fueled By Ramen, with whom we did a one-off. No one else would offer a one-off on an indie.

STUMP: They were the smallest of the labels involved, with the least 'gloss.' I said, 'I don't know about this, Pete.' Pete was the one who thought it was the smartest move. He pointed out that we could be a big fish in a small pond. So, we rolled the dice.

HURLEY: It was a one-record deal with Fueled By Ramen. We didn't necessarily get signed to Island, but they had the 'right of first refusal' [for the album following Take This To Your Grave]. It was an awesome deal. It was kind of unheard of, maybe, but there was a bunch of money coming from Island that we didn't have to recoup for promo type of things.

JANICK: The company was so focused on making sure we broke Fall Out Boy; any other label probably wouldn't have had that dedication. Pete and I talked for at least an hour every day. Pete and I became so close, so much so that we started Decaydance. It was his thing, but we ended up signing Panic! At The Disco, Gym Class Heroes, Cobra Starship.

GUTIERREZ: Who could predict Pete would A&R all those bands? There's no Panic! At The Disco or Gym Class Heroes without Wentz. He made them into celebrities.

"Turn This Up And I'll Tune You Out" - The Making of Take This To You Grave, 2003

The versions of "Dead on Arrival," "Saturday," and "Homesick at Space Camp" from the first sessions with Andy on drums are what appear on the album. "Grand Theft Autumn/Where is Your Boy" and "Grenade Jumper" are the demo versions recorded later in Chicago. O'Keefe recorded the music for the rest of the songs at Smart Studios once again. They knocked out the remaining songs in just nine days. Sean and Patrick snuck into Gravity Studios in the middle of the night to track vocals in the dead of winter. Patrick sang those seven songs from two to five in the morning in those sessions.

STUMP: John Janick basically said, ‘I'll buy those five songs and we'll make them part of the album, and here's some money to go record seven more.'

MCLYNN: It was a true indie deal with Fueled by Ramen. I think we got between $15,000 and $18,000 all-in to make the album. The band slept on the studio floor some nights.

STUMP: From a recording standpoint, it was amazing. It was very pro, we had Sean, all this gear, the fun studio accoutrements were there. It was competitive with anything we did afterward. But meanwhile, we're still four broke idiots.

WENTZ: We fibbed to our parents about what we were doing. I was supposed to be in school. I didn't have access to money or a credit card. I don't think any of us did.

STUMP: I don't think we slept anywhere we could shower, which was horrifying. There was a girl that Andy's girlfriend at the time went to school with who let us sleep on her floor, but we'd be there for maybe four hours at a time. It was crazy.

HURLEY: Once, Patrick thought it would be a good idea to spray this citrus bathroom spray under his arms like deodorant. It just destroyed him because it's not made for that. But it was all an awesome adventure.

WENTZ: We were so green we didn't really know how studios worked. Every day there was soda for the band. We asked, 'Could you take that soda money and buy us peanut butter, jelly, and bread?' which they did. I hear that stuff in some ways when I listen to that album.

HURLEY: Sean pushed us. He was such a perfectionist, which was awesome. I felt like, ‘This is what a real professional band does.' It was our first real studio experience.

WENTZ: Seeing the Nirvana Nevermind plaque on the wall was mind-blowing. They showed us the mic that had been used on that album.

HURLEY: The mic that Kurt Cobain used, that was pretty awesome, crazy, legendary, and cool. But we didn't get to use it.

WENTZ: They said only Shirley Manson] from Garbage could use it.

O'KEEFE: Those dudes were all straight edge at the time. It came up in conversation that I had smoked weed once a few months before. That started this joke that I was this huge stoner, which obviously I wasn't. They'd call me 'Scoobie Snacks O'Keefe' and all these things. When they turned in the art for the record, they thanked me with like ten different stoner nicknames - 'Dimebag O'Keefe' and stuff like that. The record company made Pete take like seven of them out because they said it was excessively ridiculous.

WENTZ: Sean was very helpful. He worked within the budget and took us more seriously than anyone else other than Patrick. There were no cameras around. There was no documentation. There was nothing to indicate this would be some ‘legendary' session. There are 12 songs on the album because those were all the songs we had. There was no pomp or circumstance or anything to suggest it would be an 'important’ record.

STUMP: Pete and I were starting to carve out our niches. When Pete [re-committed himself to the band], it felt like he had a list of things in his head he wanted to do right. Lyrics were on that list. He wasn't playing around anymore. I wrote the majority of the lyrics up to that point - ‘Saturday,' 'Dead on Arrival,' ‘Where's Your Boy?,’ ‘Grenade Jumper,' and ‘Homesick at Space Camp.' I was an artsy-fartsy dude who didn't want to be in a pop-punk band, so I was going really easy on the lyrics. I wasn't taking them seriously. When I look back on it, I did write some alright stuff. But I wasn't trying. Pete doesn't fuck around like that, and he does not take that kindly. When we returned to the studio, he started picking apart every word, every syllable. He started giving me [notes]. I got so exasperated at one point I was like, ‘You just write the fucking lyrics, dude. Just give me your lyrics, and I'll write around them.' Kind of angrily. So, he did. We hadn't quite figured out how to do it, though. I would write a song, scrap my lyrics, and try to fit his into where mine had been. It was exhausting. It was a rough process. It made both of us unhappy.

MCLYNN: I came from the post-hardcore scene in New York and wasn't a big fan of the pop-punk stuff happening. What struck me with these guys was the phenomenal lyrics and Patrick's insane voice. Many guys in these kinds of bands can sing alright, but Patrick was like a real singer. This guy had soul. He'd take these great lyrics Pete wrote and combine it with that soul, and that's what made their unique sound. They both put their hearts on their sleeves when they wrote together.

STUMP: We had a massive fight over 'Chicago is So Two Years Ago.' I didn't even want to record that song. I was being precious with things that were mine. Part of me thought the band wouldn't work out, and I'd go to college and do some music alone. I had a skeletal version of 'Chicago...'. I was playing it to myself in the lobby of the studio. I didn't know anyone was listening. Sean was walking by and wanted to [introduce it to the others]. I kind of lost my song. I was very precious about it. Pete didn't like some of the lyrics, so we fought. We argued over each word, one at a time. 'Tell That Mick...' was also a pretty big fight. Pete ended up throwing out all my words on that one. That was the first song where he wrote the entire set of lyrics. My only change was light that smoke' instead of ‘cigarette' because I didn't have enough syllables to say 'cigarette.' Everything else was verbatim what he handed to me. I realized I must really want to be in this band at this point if I'm willing to put up with this much fuss. The sound was always more important to me - the rhythm of the words, alliteration, syncopation - was all very exciting. Pete didn't care about any of that. He was all meaning. He didn't care how good the words sounded if they weren't amazing when you read them. Man, did we fight about that. We fought for nine days straight while not sleeping and smelling like shit. It was one long argument, but I think some of the best moments resulted from that.

WENTZ: In 'Calm Before the Storm,' Patrick wrote the line, 'There's a song on the radio that says, 'Let's Get This Party Started' which is a direct reference to Pink's 2001 song 'Get the Party Started.' 'Tell That Mick He Just Made My List of Things to Do Today' is a line from the movie Rushmore. I thought we'd catch a little more flack for that, but even when we played it in Ireland, there was none of that. It's embraced, more like a shoutout.

STUMP: Pete and I met up on a lot of the same pop culture. He was more into '80s stuff than I was. One of the first things we talked about were Wes Anderson movies.

WENTZ: Another thing driving that song title was the knowledge that our fanbase wouldn't necessarily be familiar with Wes Anderson. It could be something that not only inspired us but something fans could also go check out. People don't ask us about that song so much now, but in that era, we'd answer and tell them to go watch Rushmore. You gotta see this movie. This line is a hilarious part of it.' Hopefully some people did. I encountered Jason Schwartzman at a party once. We didn't get to talk about the movie, but he was the sweetest human, and I was just geeking out. He told me he was writing a film with Wes Anderson about a train trip in India. I wanted to know about the writing process. He was like, 'Well, he's in New York City, I'm in LA. It's crazy because I'm on the phone all the time and my ear gets really hot.' That's the anecdote I got, and I loved it.

O'KEEFE: They're totally different people who approach making music from entirely different angles. It's cool to see them work. Pete would want a certain lyric. Patrick was focused on the phrasing. Pete would say the words were stupid and hand Patrick a revision, and Patrick would say I can't sing those the way I need to sing this. They would go through ten revisions for one song. I thought I would lose my mind with both of them, but then they would find it, and it would be fantastic. When they work together, it lights up. It takes on a life of its own. It's not always happy. There's a lot of push and pull, and each is trying to get their thing. With Take This To Your Grave, we never let anything go until all three of us were happy. Those guys were made to do this together.

WENTZ: A lot of the little things weren't a big deal, but those were things that [felt like] major decisions. I didn't want 'Where Is Your Boy' on Take This To Your Grave.

JANICK: I freaked out. I called Bob and said, 'We must put this song on the album! It's one of the biggest songs.' He agreed. We called Pete and talked about it; he was cool about it and heard us out.

WENTZ: I thought many things were humongous, and they just weren't. They didn't matter one way or another.

"Our Lawyer Made Us Change The (Album Cover)" - That Photo On Take This To Your Grave, 2003

STUMP: The band was rooted in nostalgia from early on. The '80s references were very much Pete's aesthetic. He had an idea for the cover. It ended up being his girlfriend at the time, face down on the bed, exhausted, in his bedroom. That was his bedroom in our apartment. His room was full of toys, '80s cereals. If we ended up with the Abbey Road cover of pop-punk, that original one was Sgt. Pepper's. But we couldn't legally clear any of the stuff in the photo. Darth Vader, Count Chocula…

WENTZ: There's a bunch of junk in there: a Morrissey poster, I think a Cher poster, Edward Scissorhands. We submitted it to Fueled by Ramen, and they were like, 'We can't clear any of this stuff.’ The original album cover did eventually come out on the vinyl version.

STUMP: The photo that ended up being the cover was simply a promo photo for that album cycle. We had to scramble. I was pushing the Blue Note jazz records feel. That's why the CD looks a bit like vinyl and why our names are listed on the front. I wanted a live photo on the cover. Pete liked the Blue Note idea but didn't like the live photo idea. I also made the fateful decision to have my name listed as 'Stump' rather than Stumph.

WENTZ: What we used was initially supposed to be the back cover. I remember someone in the band being pissed about it forever. Not everyone was into having our names on the cover. It was a strange thing to do at the time. But had the original cover been used, it wouldn't have been as iconic as what we ended up with. It wouldn't have been a conversation piece. That stupid futon in our house was busted in the middle. We're sitting close to each other because the futon was broken. The exposed brick wall was because it was the worst apartment ever. It makes me wonder: How many of these are accidental moments? At the time, there was nothing iconic about it. If we had a bigger budget, we probably would have ended up with a goofier cover that no one would have cared about.

STUMP: One of the things I liked about the cover was that it went along with something Pete had always said. I'm sure people will find this ironic, but Pete had always wanted to create a culture with the band where it was about all four guys and not just one guy. He had the foresight to even think about things like that. I didn't think anyone would give a fuck about our band! At the time, it was The Pete Wentz Band to most people. With that album cover, he was trying to reject that and [demonstrate] that all four of us mattered. A lot of people still don't get that, but whatever. I liked that element of the cover. It felt like a team. It felt like Voltron. It wasn't what I like to call 'the flying V photo' where the singer is squarely in the center, the most important, and everyone else is nearest the camera in order of 'importance.' The drummer would be in the very back. Maybe the DJ guy who scratches records was behind the drummer.

"You Need Him. I Could Be Him. Where Is Your Boy Tonight?" - The Dynamics of Punk Pop's Fab 4, 2003

Patrick seemed like something of the anti-frontman, never hogging the spotlight and often shrinking underneath his baseball hat. Wentz was more talkative, more out front on stage and in interviews, in a way that felt unprecedented for a bass player who wasn't also singing. In some ways, Fall Out Boy operated as a two-headed dictatorship. Wentz and Stump are in the car's front seat while Joe and Andy ride in the back.

STUMP: There is a lot of truth to that. Somebody must be in the front seat, no question. But the analogy doesn't really work for us; were more like a Swiss Army knife. You've got all these different attachments, but they are all part of the same thing. When you need one specific tool, the rest go back into the handle. That was how the band functioned and still does in many ways. Pete didn't want anyone to get screwed. Some things we've done might not have been the best business decision but were the right human decision. That was very much Pete's thing. I was 19 and very reactionary. If someone pissed me off, I'd be like, 'Screw them forever!' But Pete was very tactful. He was the business guy. Joe was active on the internet. He wouldn't stop believing in this band. He was the promotions guy. Andy was an honest instrumentalist: ‘I'm a drummer, and I'm going to be the best fucking drummer I can be.' He is very disciplined. None of us were that way aside from him. I was the dictator in the studio. I didn't know what producing was at the time or how it worked, but in retrospect, I've produced a lot of records because I'm an asshole in the studio. I'm a nice guy, but I'm not the nicest guy in the studio. It's a lot easier to know what you don't want. We carved out those roles early. We were very dependent on each other.

MCLYNN: I remember sitting in Japan with those guys. None of them were drinking then, but I was drinking plenty. It was happening there, their first time over, and all the shows were sold out. I remember looking at Pete and Patrick and telling Pete, ‘You're the luckiest guy in the world because you found this guy.' Patrick laughed. Then I turned to Patrick and said the same thing to him. Because really, they're yin and yang. They fit together so perfectly. The fact that Patrick found this guy with this vision, Pete had everything for the band laid out in his mind. Patrick, how he can sing, and what he did with Pete's lyrics - no one else could have done that. We tried it, even with the Black Cards project in 2010. We'd find these vocalists. Pete would write lyrics, and they'd try to form them into songs, but they just couldn't do it the way Patrick could. Pete has notebooks full of stuff that Patrick turns into songs. Not only can he sing like that, but how he turns those into songs is an art unto itself. It's really the combination of those two guys that make Fall Out Boy what it is. They're fortunate they found each other.

"I Could Walk This Fine Line Between Elation And Success. We All Know Which Way I'm Going To Strike The Stake Between My Chest" - Fall Out Boy Hits the Mainstream, 2003

Released on May 6, 2003, Take This To Your Grave massively connected with fans. (Fall Out Boy's Evening Out with Your Girlfriend arrived in stores less than two months earlier.) While Take This To Your Grave didn't crack the Billboard 200 upon its release, it eventually spent 30 weeks on the charts. From Under the Cork Tree debuted in the Top 10 just two years later, largely on Grave's momentum. 2007's Infinity on High bowed at #1.

WENTZ: I remember noticing it was getting insane when we would do in-stores. We'd still play anywhere. That was our deal. We liked being able to sell our stuff in the stores, too. It would turn into a riot. We played a Hollister at the mall in Schaumburg, Illinois. A lot of these stores were pretty corporate with a lot of rules, but Hollister would let us rip. Our merch guy was wearing board shorts, took this surfboard off the wall, and started crowd-surfing with it during the last song. I remember thinking things had gotten insane right at that moment.

HURLEY: When we toured with Less Than Jake, there were these samplers with two of their songs and two of ours. Giving those out was a surreal moment. To have real promotion for a record... It wasn't just an ad in a 'zine or something. It was awesome.

MCLYNN: They toured with The Reunion Show, Knockout, and Punch-line. One of their first big tours as an opening act was with MEST. There would be sold-out shows with 1,000 kids, and they would be singing along to Fall Out Boy much louder than to MEST. It was like, 'What's going on here?' It was the same deal with Less Than Jake. It really started catching fire months into the album being out. You just knew something was happening. As a headliner, they went from 500-capacity clubs to 1500 - 2000 capacity venues.

WENTZ: We always wanted to play The Metro in Chicago. It got awkward when they started asking us to play after this band or that band. There were bands we grew up with that were now smaller than us. Headlining The Metro was just wild. My parents came.

MCLYNN: There was a week on Warped Tour, and there was some beel because these guys were up-and-comers, and some of the bands that were a little more established weren't too happy. They were getting a little shit on Warped Tour that week, sort of their initiation. They were on this little, shitty stage. So many kids showed up to watch them in Detroit, and the kids rushed the stage, and it collapsed. The PA failed after like three songs. They finished with an acapella, 'Where is Your Boy,’ and the whole crowd sang along.

WENTZ: That's when every show started ending in a riot because it couldn't be contained. We ended up getting banned from a lot of venues because the entire crowd would end up onstage. It was pure energy. We'd be billed on tour as the opening band, and the promoter would tell us we had to close the show or else everyone would leave after we played. We were a good band to have that happen to because there wasn't any ego. We were just like, "Oh, that's weird.' It was just bizarre. When my parents saw it was this wid thing, they said, 'OK, yeah, maybe take a year off from college.' That year is still going on.

MCLYNN: That Warped Tour was when the band's first big magazine cover, by far, hit the stands. I give a lot of credit to Norman Wonderly and Mike Shea at Alternative Press. They saw what was happening with Fall Out Boy and were like, 'We know it's early with you guys, but we want to give you a cover.' It was the biggest thing to happen to any of us. It really helped kick it to another level. It helped stoke the fires that were burning. This is back when bands like Green Day, Blink-182, and No Doubt still sold millions of records left and right. It was a leap of faith for AP to step out on Fall Out Boy the way they did.

STUMP: That was our first big cover. It was crazy. My parents flipped out. That wasn't a small zine. It was a magazine my mom could find in a bookstore and tell her friends. It was a shocking time. It's still like that. Once the surrealism starts, it never ends. I was onstage with Taylor Swift ten years later. That statement just sounds insane. It's fucking crazy. But when I was onstage, I just fell into it. I wasn't thinking about how crazy it was until afterward. It was the same thing with the AP cover. We were so busy that it was just another one of those things we were doing that day. When we left, I was like, 'Holy fuck! We're on the cover of a magazine! One that I read! I have a subscription to that!'

HURLEY: Getting an 'In The Studio' blurb was a big deal. I remember seeing bands 'in the studio' and thinking, Man, I would love to be in that and have people care that we're in the studio.' There were more minor things, but that was our first big cover.

STUMP: One thing I remember about the photo shoot is I was asked to take off my hat. I was forced to take it off and had been wearing that hat for a while. I never wanted to be the lead singer. I always hoped to be a second guitarist with a backup singer role. I lobbied to find someone else to be the proper singer. But here I was, being the lead singer, and I fucking hated it. When I was a drummer, I was always behind something. Somehow the hat thing started. Pete gave me a hat instead of throwing it away - I think it's the one I'm wearing on the cover of Take This To Your Grave. It became like my Linus blanket. I had my hat, and I could permanently hide. You couldn't see my eyes or much of me, and I was very comfortable that way. The AP cover shoot was the first time someone asked me to remove it. My mom has a poster of that cover in her house, and every time I see it, I see the fear on my face - just trying to maintain composure while filled with terror and insecurity. ‘Why is there a camera on me?'

JANICK: We pounded the pavement every week for two years. We believed early on that something great was going to happen. As we moved to 100,000 and 200,000 albums, there were points where everything was tipping. When they were on the cover of Alternative Press. When they did Warped for five days, and the stage collapsed. We went into Christmas with the band selling 2000 to 3000 a week and in the listening stations at Hot Topic. Fueled By Ramen had never had anything like that before.

MOSTOFI: Pete and I used to joke that if he weren't straight edge, he would have likely been sent to prison or worse at some point before Fall Out Boy. Pete has a predisposition to addictive behavior and chemical dependency. This is something we talked about a lot back in the day. Straight Edge helped him avoid some of the traps of adolescence.

WENTZ: I was straight edge at the time. I don't think our band would have been so successful without that. The bands we were touring with were partying like crazy. Straight Edge helped solidify the relationship between the four of us. We were playing for the love of music, not for partying or girls or stuff like that. We liked being little maniacs running around. Hurley and I were kind of the younger brothers of the hardcore kids we were in bands with. This was an attempt to get out of that shadow a little bit. Nobody is going to compare this band to Racetraitor. You know when you don't want to do exactly what your dad or older brother does? There was a little bit of that.

"Take This To Your Grave, And I'll Take It To Mine" - The Legacy of Take This To Your Grave, 2003-2023

Take This To Your Grave represents a time before the paparazzi followed Wentz to Starbucks, before marriages and children, Disney soundtracks, and all the highs and lows of an illustrious career. The album altered the course for everyone involved with its creation. Crush Music added Miley Cyrus, Green Day, and Weezer to their roster. Fueled By Ramen signed Twenty One Pilots, Paramore, A Day To Remember, and All Time Low.

STUMP: I'm so proud of Take This To Your Grave. I had no idea how much people were going to react to it. I didn't know Fall Out Boy was that good of a band. We were this shitty post-hardcore band that decided to do a bunch of pop-punk before I went to college, and Pete went back to opening for Hatebreed. That was the plan. Somehow this record happened. To explain to people now how beautiful and accidental that record was is difficult. It seems like it had to have been planned, but no, we were that shitty band that opened for 25 Ta Life.

HURLEY: We wanted to make a record as perfect as Saves The Day's Through Being Cool. A front-to-back perfect collection of songs. That was our obsession with Take This To Your Grave. We were just trying to make a record that could be compared in any way to that record. There's just something special about when the four of us came together.

WENTZ: It blows my mind when I hear people talking about Take This To Your Grave or see people including it on lists because it was just this tiny personal thing. It was very barebones. That was all we had, and we gave everything we had to it. Maybe that's how these big iconic bands feel about those records, too. Perhaps that's how James Hetfield feels when we talk about Kill 'Em All. That album was probably the last moment many people had of having us as their band that their little brother didn't know about. I have those feelings about certain bands, too. 'This band was mine. That was the last time I could talk about them at school without anyone knowing who the fuck I was talking about.' That was the case with Take This To Your Grave.

TROHMAN: Before Save Rock N' Roll, there was a rumor that we would come back with one new song and then do a Take This To Your Grave tenth-anniversary tour. But we weren't going to do what people thought we would do. We weren't going to [wear out] our old material by just returning from the hiatus with a Take This To Your Grave tour.

WENTZ: We've been asked why we haven't done a Take This To Your Grave tour. In some ways, it's more respectful not to do that. It would feel like we were taking advantage of where that record sits, what it means to people and us.

HURLEY: When Metallica released Death Magnetic, I loved the record, but I feel like Load and Reload were better in a way, because you knew that's what they wanted to do.

TROHMAN: Some people want us to make Grave again, but I'm not 17. It would be hard to do something like that without it being contrived. Were proud of those songs. We know that’s where we came from. We know the album is an important part of our history.

STUMP: There's always going to be a Take This To Your Grave purist fan who wants that forever: But no matter what we do, we cannot give you 2003. It'll never happen again. I know the feeling, because I've lived it with my favorite bands, too. But there's a whole other chunk of our fans who have grown with us and followed this journey we're on. We were this happy accident that somehow came together. It’s tempting to plagarize yourself. But it’s way more satisfying and exciting to surprise yourself.

MCILRITH: Fall Out Boy is an important band for so many reasons. I know people don't expect the singer of Rise Against to say that, but they really are. If nothing else, they created so much dialog and conversation within not just a scene but an international scene. They were smart. They got accused of being this kiddie pop punk band, but they did smart things with their success. I say that, especially as a guy who grew up playing in the same Chicago hardcore bands that would go on and confront be-ing a part of mainstream music. Mainstream music and the mainstream world are machines that can chew your band up if you don't have your head on straight when you get into it. It's a fast-moving river, and you need to know what direction you're going in before you get into it. If you don't and you hesitate, it'll take you for a ride. Knowing those guys, they went into it with a really good idea. That's something that the hardcore instilled in all of us. Knowing where you stand on those things, we cut our teeth on the hardcore scene, and it made us ready for anything that the world could throw at us, including the giant music industry.

#long post #lke. VERY long post #fall out boy #fob #take this to your grave #tttyg #patrick stump #pete wentz #joe trohman #andy hurley #if theres any typos lmk and i'll fix em this. hust took fucking forever to transcribe.

758 notes · View notes

torialefay · 2 months

Text

You Know Whose You Are 👀

hyunjin x gn!reader smut

✨ friends to lovers trope 🔞

✨ request: "Hi!! For your smut prompts can I pls request Hyunjin & 24 (Hyunjin being the jealous one)? Maybe enemies to lovers or friends to lovers scenario? And for the actual p-in-v part can he fck reader holding her up against the wall (like her back against the wall and legs around his waist position)? Sorry if this is a lot, I’m on my period and I’m having many specific thoughts lmao. Thank you!! 🥰🤍" -anon

✨ word count: ~3.5k

✨ warnings: porn with a plot; minors dni!

• you and hyunjin had become close friends quite a while ago.

• he quickly became one of your closest friends after you'd met him in a bookstore after first arriving to korea.

• while keeping your eyes fixated on the rows of books next to you, you accidentally ran straight into his chest.

• after quickly apologizing to him, you both struck up a conversation about your favorite books & authors. you had no clue who he was, and he liked that about you.

• a real friend.

• since that day, you'd messaged back and forth a lot, hung out almost on a routine basis, and made lots of fun memories.

• after a while, you eventually found out he was an idol (it was bound to happen with his weird "work schedule" he always had), but it didn't matter. he was the same hyunjinnie that you'd built a solid friendship with over the past few weeks.

• but that was the problem- you didn't want it to be just a friendship.

• and who could blame you? hyunjin was the most amazing, kind, intelligent person you'd ever met. you had more in common with him than even your very best friend. it was only natural to develop those feelings for him.

• but you knew the feelings weren't reciprocated.

• he'd never made so much as a subtle hint that he was interested in you as more than a friend... and let's be honest, he was basically the most wanted guy in all of korea. how could you compete with all these other beautiful people?

• so you didn't even let your mind wander to that extreme. you accepted the fact that he'd be nothing more than a friend to you, no matter how much you knew it could have worked out.

• "my best friend", you'd learned to teasingly call him. and soon, even you started to believe it. only that.

• one day, you'd gone over to hyunjin's apartment. he mentioned that he wanted to repaint the walls in the living room, so you offered up some of your free time to help him out.

• it wasn't super often that you came to his apartment. only a couple of times. you'd usually only gone out to do things together like go to a new art gallery or to grab coffee and talk about life. cutesy little things.

• you weren't the most familiar with his apartment, but that didn't matter much as you quickly settled in. you placed your phone in the kitchen to blare music, then headed to the living room to help coat the walls with a fresh set of paint.

• it did take a bit longer than you thought, but you didn't mind. when you and hyunjin were together, you always had fun, taking little jabs at each other and laughing to funny stories you had. the time always seemed to melt away.

• after a couple of hours, your playlist turned off. you guessed it had run out of songs.

• "jinnie, could you get a new playlist going on my phone?" you held your hands up, covered in paint. "i think it'd take me a while to do it."

• he laughed, realizing how messy you were compared to him.

• he didn't need to say anything, just got up and walked over to the kitchen, which was only a few steps away.

• as he went to tap the screen, a notification popped up... from one of hyunjin's life-long friends.

• the two of you had met a week or so ago when hyunjin invited him to go to a poetry reading with the two of you. his friend, ha-joon, wasn't necessarily as into the activity as the two of you were, but hyunjin felt bad canceling his original plans with him when he'd found out the event was happening and really wanted to go.

• and now... he was texting you?

• he read the message as it splayed across the screen:

Ha-Joon: Excited to see you tomorrow :) What are you doing?

• it's not that you were very enamored by ha-joon when you first met, but he seemed like a nice enough guy. plus he was friends with jinnie, so you figured he couldn't be too bad. when he messaged to ask if you'd be interested in going out with him, you thought you'd give it a shot. it's not like you had any other romantic prospects.

• "what's your password? i'll flip to a different playlist," hyunjin raised his voice, trying to act non-chalant. he silently thanked the fact that he was just out of sight.

• "2-7-4-4-1-2" you said back to him.

• he quickly scrolled through the playlists and chose one, letting the music blast through the speaker once again.

• "i'm gonna get a drink, do you want one?" hyunjin lied, going to open up the messages on your phone.

• "yeah, i'll take a water if that's okay?"

• "sure, i'll get it in just a sec." he started to sound nervous as he clicked to ha-joon's name on your phone. dang, texts going back to the beginning of the week. he quickly scrolled through to find quite a few message exchanged between the two of you. he scrolled back to the conversation that started last night.

Ha-joon: This might be a little bold, but I'd really like to get to know you more. Not just through texting. Would you want to grab a coffee sometime? Just you and me?

Sure! That'd be really fun :)

Ha-joon: Are you free sometime tomorrow?

I'm not really sure yet. I'm going to help Hyunjin paint. How about we just plan for the next day?

Ha-joon: Sounds good to me!

Ha-joon: Hyunjin will be okay with this, right? With us meeting up?

I don't see why not. He'd probably be happy about introducing us!

Ha-joon: Okay, I just didn't know if I should let him know or not is all.

Ahh that's okay. I don't think we need to rope him into any of this unless things go well between us ☺️

Good plan. I'm excited to see you!

Same here :) Text me tomorrow and let me know where you want to meet up.

Will do! Sleep well 😊

• hyunjin felt his heart break. he knew he had no right to. but he couldn't help it.

• of course he harbored feelings for you. how could he not fall for the one girl he ever felt like truly "got" him?

• but he hadn't wanted to tell you. not yet. he didn't want you to think that was the only reason he kept hanging out with you. he genuinely LOVED being around you. he was himself when he was with you. and he was so scared he'd lose that if he told you.

• but he hadn't said anything. so he couldn't be upset.

• he mentally kicked himself for introducing you to ha-joon.

• he thought on it for a bit as he reached into the fridge to grab a bottle of water for you. he quickly exited out of the app as he rested your phone back on the table to play the music.

• the upbeat tunes coming out completely mismatched what he was feeling in the moment.

• he stood for a moment, then walked back to the living room, where he saw you sitting cutely on the floor, knees bent criss-crossed as you painted the bottom of the wall carefully.

• suddenly, he started to think about how lucky he felt with this sight in front of him. and how he didn't want another man to be able to see you like this: hair tied up, sitting contently on the floor, completely covered in paint, looking so happy just to be there while bopping your head to the beat without a worry in the world.

• he wanted that. he wanted you. and suddenly, he saw red.

• he leaned against the door frame, now subconsciously squeezing the bottle of water in his hand.

• "y/n, can you come over here for a minute?" he said, voice now full of authority. his face looked annoyed, as he looked off, not able to focus his eyes on you.

• you looked at him confused for a moment, then carefully stood up, walking over to him wondering what was wrong all of a sudden.

• "what is it?" you asked, looking up at him innocently. you could tell something had him deeply bothered.

• his jaw clicked for a moment before he finally looked at you.

• "why didn't you tell me you were going out with my best friend?"

• the question caught you off guard.

• "were you going through my phone?" you asked. you didn't mean to sound accusatory, but that's how it came out.

• "i didn't mean to, but there it was." he looked down at you, not backing down.

• "i mean, yeah, he invited me to get coffee... is it a big deal? i thought you'd be happy if maybe we started seeing each other."

• "well, i'm not."

• "look jinnie, i'm sorry. maybe i should have told you, but i didn't think you'd care. surely he's a good person if he's your friend. and i'd like to think i'm a good person, so it just-" suddenly, he cut you off.

• "it's not about being a good person, y/n!" he began to raise his voice. "what about me?!"

• "what about you?" you asked, voice full of confusion.

• "i like you, goddamn it! give me a chance, not him!" he was full on yelling now, pressing himself up against you. suddenly, you felt small, but so fucking smitten at the same time. hyunjin actually liked you? this whole time?

• your head started spinning. it was just... it was a lot. you began to slowly move back from him a bit.

• "jinnie... i don't... i don't know what to say."

• he followed your path, pushing his body forward toward yours. you were about to be trapped in against the freshly painted wall behind you. you had no where else to go without ruining the wall.

• "say you'll let me take you out. not him." his eyes were trying to tell you something, but you couldn't quite pinpoint what. you'd never seen him like this.

• "i can't just do that to him... i mean he's your friend and i don't want to make things weird and i didn't know you even thought about me-" you were just rambling at this point before hyunjin cut you off.

• "i don't give a fuck if he's my friend. i wanted you first." he pushed his body right against yours, your front feeling him completely. he aligned his face perfectly in front of yours.

• "for how long?" you asked meekly.

• "since i first saw you." he let his eyes wander down to look at your lips before coming back up to focus on your eyes.

• being so close to you, he lightly closed his eyes, letting his lips linger next to you. "give me a chance first. if you don't like it, you can go to him... but i want you more than he does. i promise you that."

• goose bumps popped up along your skin. you couldn't believe he was actually into you. it was actually such a shock, you almost didn't even let your mind think on it. you'd wanted it so bad and suppressed it for so long. you didn't even know what to think. so you remained quiet, just pondering on what you could say.

• "let me show you," he whispered into your ear, getting too impatient to wait for your response. "let me show you how good i could be to you."

• again, you couldn't muster up words. you were so shell-shocked, you didn't even know where to start.

• he leaned into your ear, his breath hot over top of you.

• seductively, he whispered into you, "just tell me to stop," before planting a slow kiss to the side of your neck, at the sensitive spot right below your ear.

• you let out a slight moan at the unexpected sensation. you felt the hairs on your body start to stand up.

• hyunjin smiled and moved his small kisses along your jaw and cheek, then planting straught onto your lips.

• he wasted no time in deepening the kiss, running his hands through your hair until he was holding the back of your head in one hand and squeezing your jaw with the other. he wanted full control of you.

• he moaned as you slipped your tongue into his mouth, giving him access to enter inside your mouth too.

• as you smiled into him, he walked you back until you were pressed up against the wet wall. to hell with it.

• you continued grappling at each other, shoving tongues down throats like horny teenagers. you couldn't help it. this was all you'r ever wanted.

• until you started feeling hyunjin slightly buck his hips into yours. you felt his bulge grind the tiniest bit against you, turning you on with the gentlest touch.

• he let out a small chuckle as you moaned at the sensation.

• he kept sucking on your tongue, harder and harder as he more fervently grinded himself into you. you could feel him getting rock hard against you. and fuck did it feel so good. you couldn't help but pant, and run your hands along his body, desperate to grapple onto whatever you could.

• you pulled on his collar, pushed your hand up his shirt to run along his abdomen, tugged on his waist band- anything and everything you could cling to in order to feel closer to him.

• and he reciprocated fully. he moved his hand around your jaw to secure your face down against the wall, pinning you back hard. his mouth never disconnected from yours as he used his other hand to run along your body. down your neck, around your boobs, down your stomach, down to wear he ground against you, hoping to make brief contact with you before taking his hand around your waist to grab your ass.

• you moaned loudly as he shoved his tongue deep into your mouth and grabbed a handful of your ass with a harsh squeeze. the slight pain felt too fucking good to not yell out about.

• your noises only agged him on more.

• he pulled his mouth off of yours for a split moment.

• "let me take these off?" he asked hungrily, pulling at the top of your leggings.

• you didn't have to respond, you quickly yanked the fabric down, along with your underwear and ripped them from your feet and to the side.

• he smiled down at the sight, loving how willing you were to give into him.

• he connected his mouth back to yours as he followed suit and hastily unbuttoned and slid down his pants and boxers.

• when he was done, he grunted as he felt himself now unclothed, finally getting some friction against you.

• you couldn't contain yourself as you heard him grunt for you. you quickly pulled your hand up to your mouth, spitting into it quickly before bringing it back down to stroke hyunjin's cock.

• "ah fuck," he let out, letting himself grow harder and harder. this was the hardest he'd ever been.

• a wave of aggression came over him as he started to feel territorial. he brought a hand around your neck to give it a tight squeeze.

• "faster," he instructed. he reached his hand down to toy with you too, slowly working up pace.

• you felt yourself becoming more deprived of oxygen as you pumped your hand along him, going down to his tip. when he wasn't satisfied, he rested his forehead on yours and began thrusting his cock into your hand, throwing out grunts as he went. he kept working at your hole until you were lightheaded and writhing underneath him.

• he smiled and let out a little laugh as he released the pressure from your neck to let you gasp for air. you felt light-headed and needed to come back down. but hyunjin didn't let up.

• "let me fuck you." it was more of a demand than a question, but you didn't fight it. you slowly nodded from underneath him.

• he swiftly rand both hands down to your waist and then around your ass until they were resting behind your thighs.

• "jump," he instructed.

• you weren't sure about this. you'd never done it before. you were scared you'd fall and ruin the moment, but you decided to just put your trust into it. pushing your back against the wall, you threw your legs up as he guided them and secured them in place around his hips. he made sure to support the rest of you by keeping your back pressed tight to the wall.

• he used one hand to guide his dick to your entrance before steadily thrusting himself inside. it took your breath away at the sudden stretch and feeling of him inside of you. he didn't give you very much time to settle into it though as he started to fuck into you. hard and steady.

• his hand came back up to support under your thighs, securing you on top of him and pushing you back so your head was almost slamming into the wall as he pounded into you.

• you felt so good around him. so tight. squeezing onto him for dear life.

• he hungrily brought his mouth to your next as he sent fast, angry strokes into your. he guided his tongue around, planting sloppy kisses and fast, violent bites that made you scream out. he fucking loved it. he wanted to hear you scream. make you forget about any other man.

• "that's right baby, scream for me. you know whose you are," he growled. he was fucking you so hard you thought you'd pass out from the overstimulation of it all.

• you kept moaning for him, not knowing how to do anything else.

• before too long, you felt yourself start to pant harder, feeling hyunjin hit just the right spot. you started to grow warm inside, getting your breath taken away with each pounding.

• "jinnie," you breathed out, finally opening your eyes to see him with his eyes hyper focused on you, like he was ready to attack at any moment.

• you could only breathe heavily before repeating his name again. "jinnie, i'm gonna cum." you felt yourself reach a breaking point. it was coming. now.

• "that's fucking right. you're gonna cum for me right now... it's just me from now on. only me." he growled, fucking himself into you faster. "cum on me right fucking now!" he ordered, ramming into just the right spot to send you over the edge.

• you gasped as you threw your head back, beginning to spasm around his cock.

• "ahhh fuckkkkk, just like that," hyunjin mimicked you, throwing his head back now too. "fuck, fuck, fuck," he breathed out, slamming into you faster than ever.

• "ughhhhhhhhh," he yelled as you felt him release inside of you. you could feel yourself still shaking around him, not being given any sort of break.

• as he finished out his high, you wiped at the few tears that had built up in your eyes from the overstimulation.

• once hyunjin was done, he slowly lowered your legs off of his hips and set them back down on the floor, keeping his cock resting inside of you as he put you down.

• with you both now panting and trying to settle down, he just brought both hands up to cradle the sides of your face. he pushed himself a bit deeper inside of you, just enjoying the feeling of resting within you.

• he smiled down as he planted a soft kiss to your forehead.

• you smiled back up at him, placing your hands on his chest over his heart.

• "i think this is how we're meant to be," hyunjin said in a low voice.

• "i think so too," you grinned.

• he kept planting tiny kisses onto the same spot of your forehead. "tell me you aren't still going with him tomorrow."

• "of course not. i know whose i am." you gave him a quick wink.

-------------------------------------

✨ if you enjoyed, please consider liking, commenting, or re-blogging <3

✨ head over to my masterlist for more!

503 notes · View notes

number1jeonginstan · 5 months

Note

Hiyaaa! Hope you’re doing well:) i was wondering if you could be open to writing a virgin!chan oneshot where youre his best friend who he’s crushing on and he wants to lose his virginity to you? Reader could be a dom so he’s turned on by that lol but he’s also a sensitive subby boy. - anon 🦋

A/N: This is actually the first time I’ve written a sub!reader, so I hope it’s good. Thank you so much for sending in a request and I really hope you liked it, I really enjoyed writing it because it was kinda cute in the beginning, also something about the game night Chan agenda is really my favorite for some reason! Also, welcome to the anon list 🦋

WC: 2.1k (oops!)

Minors don't interact, 18+

Pairing: idol!Chan x idol!(afab)Reader

Warnings: loss of virginity (chan), but not, protected sex (for the first time ever!?!?), blow jobs, aftercare is a must!, subby!Chan

You walked into the dorms for your and Chan’s weekly game night. It was a tradition the two of you made when you two became friends after you first debuted. Your friendship was quite spontaneous, you were walking around the music core backrooms, trying to find your manager and you ran into Chan. You both bonded over your love for anime since he saw that you had a Rukia phone case at the time.

He eventually helped you find your manager, offered you his phone number, and told you to text him if you ever had any questions. You happily took it, not thinking much of it. The first time you texted him was three days after they won an award for their new song.

Chan was taken aback when he first got your text. He thought you were so sweet, offering to take you out to get ice cream to celebrate their win, and you happily obliged. From then on, the two of you have been stuck together like glue, or as much as you can be with your jobs.

One thing you guys made a tradition of was doing a game night. Sometimes it would be with the other members, sometimes it would be just the two of you, it all depended. “Hey, you are finally here!” he beamed, running over and giving you a tight hug.

“I’m only a minute late, you miss me that much?” you giggled. You both went to his room, the other members were back home for vacation, and since Chan’s family was back in Australia, and yours was back in America, you guys couldn’t visit them.

“So, what are we playing tonight?” you asked, sitting on the floor of his room. You always loved Chan’s room, the aesthetics were so nice, not to mention his bed was comfortable. Sometimes you would sleep over, or just take a nap while he worked. You never understood why he worked himself to the bone, but you knew he wanted to express his emotions through his music, and you were never one to stop him.

“I was thinking, Felix got me this game thinking it would be fun,” he said, pulling out a box of Jenga from his stack of board games.

“Wow, Jenga, so original” you rolled your eyes. “It’s not your typical Jenga, it has truth or dare questions”

“Wait, that will be fun, I wanna know all of your secrets Channie,” you said pinching his cheeks. Sure he was older than you, but you loved treating him like he was a baby, it was fun seeing him all flustered.

“Do you want to set it up while I bring us some snacks?” He asked, putting the box on the floor and standing up. “Yeah sure, do you guys still have my favorite chips?” you asked, he simply nodded, heading out of the room as you took the pieces out of the box, stacking them up.

He came back in, holding two bottles of water as well as a bowl of chips. He popped one in his mouth, sitting on the floor facing you. “Okay, you start” you grinned, taking the chip that was in his mouth and eating it.

“Yeah yeah, just don’t cry when you lose” he grinned. You just glared at him, there was no way in hell you would lose.

“What is the most embarrassing moment you’ve had in front of others?” you read out loud, it was your turn and you had yet to lose. “Ummm, I think it’s the time I was changing into an outfit for one of our performances, we don’t know what happened, but I guess my boobs were too big or something because the shirt ripped as soon as I put it on, and it wasn’t like I gained weight or anything because it was loose at the stomach.”

You started laughing at yourself, reminiscing the way your stylist and you were both in shock. What you didn’t see was the blush on Chan’s cheeks and how his ears got a bit red, thinking of how you looked without your shirt on.

Before he could imagine it more, he coughed, taking out another block. “Where is the craziest place you’ve had sex?” you said, looking over the stack to read out the block.

Chan’s voice became an octave higher “How can they ask such a question?” he asked, a bit bewildered. “Come on Channie, you have to answer it!”

“I can’t”

“Why not?” you whined, wanting to know

“I’ve never done it”

“What!” you screamed out loud. Chan just covered his face embarrassed, he didn’t need you to think he was a virgin. “I mean there is nothing wrong with it, but that’s so crazy to me. Like you are obviously a really attractive dude, with a great personality, and you have a great body and smile” you kept rambling on, causing him to blush even more.

“You think I’m handsome?” he asked, a bit perplexed. “Yeah, of course, I mean have you looked at yourself in a mirror? Like you are one of the most attractive dudes I’ve ever met.”

“Can I ask why though?”

“I just came here at a young age, as you know, and I just didn’t find anyone to have sex with” he shrugged, calming down from his previous state of embarrassment. He took a swig of his water as you asked him a question.

“Oh, do you want to have sex with me?” you asked nonchalantly. Chan choked on the water unsure of where your ask was going. “WHAT!” he shouted, not trying to hold back his surprise. “I mean, only if you feel comfortable, I just don’t think you want to die a virgin” you shrugged, taking a sip of your own water.

“Okay, yeah” he whispered. It was at that moment, the atmosphere changed. The air around you had become more sultry as you climbed into his lap, knocking down the Jenga tower in the process. “Oops, guess you were right, I did lose”

Before he could even reply, you captured his lips in a kiss. He groaned in your mouth as you began to slowly grind your hips into his. “Why don’t I take you to the bed?” you asked, pulling by his collar.

He just moaned as his back hit the bed, you began to straddle him, your knees around his hips as you rubbed your clothed pussy on top of his covered cock. “Be a good boy and take off your shirt” you said, kissing his lips again.

He groaned again as he removed his shirt showing off his abs. “Fuck” you groaned, running your finger on them. “I should have asked to do this sooner”

He just whimpered underneath you, feeling overstimulated. It had been weeks since he touched himself. He had never felt this way, he couldn’t fathom what was happening. The feeling of your pussy rubbing on his cock was getting to be too much. “Fuck, if you keep doing that, I’m gonna cum in my pants” he moaned out loud.

“Aww baby” you brought your hand to his face, “maybe I want you to.” You grinned, getting off of him and taking off your shirt and the shorts you were wearing. His cheeks blushed red as he saw you in your underwear and bra. The accentuated every single curve and mark on your body and he loved it.

“Be a good boy and lift your hips for me” he simply nodded, allowing you to take off his shorts and boxers. His cock slapped his stomach, the red tip already covered in his pre-cum. He moaned feeling the cool air hitting it. “Wow, you are so big, can’t wait to suck on it”

Chan’s eyes opened in suprise as you took his cock in your hands, slowly sucking at the lip, given it kitten licks “Fuck feels so good” he whined beneath you. You ignored him, going back to sucking cock.

You needed to stimulate yourself as well, so as you kept sucking his cock, you took one of your hands, removing your underwear, and began figering yourself. You continued to suck, adding a finger in at a time, knowing you wouldn’t be able to take his thick cock without stretching yourself out.

He looked down at you, moaning at the sight of you fingering yourself as you continued to take him down your throat. The moans eliciting from his mouth made you wetter, moaning on his cock as your fingers were thrusting faster inside of yourself.

You began to take him deeper, your nose beginning to hit his pubic bone as you bobbed your head up and down. You could feel him twitch in your mouth, and his moans were getting louder. “Fuck feels so good, omg, I think I’m going to cum”

Just before he was going to cum, you took your mouth off his cock with a pop. He whined at the loss of your mouth on his cock. “Please, I was going to cum, why would you do that”

Tears began to form as he felt bottled up, barely being able to take it anymore. “Oh baby boy, don’t cry” you said, wiping the tears off his face. “Just wanna make you cum in my pussy, is that okay?”

He nodded, feeling eager to feel your wet cunt on him. “Baby, do you have a condom” you asked, kissing his lips once again. He nodded, pointing to his dresser, “The second drawer, Han bought me a box as a joke, never thought they would come in use”

“Well tell Han thank you, now go rest your back on the headboard, I want to ride you” He simply nodded, sitting up and pushing his back onto the board, allowing you full access to him.

“You are so beautiful, I’m so excited to have your cock inside of me” you giggled, rolling the condom onto his dick. He moaned at the sight of your small hands wrapping around his throbbing cock. “Fuck” he groaned out loud, causing you to giggle again.

You rested your knees on both sides of his thighs, running his cock in between your slit, allowing your wetness to cover it. Before he could even think, you slammed the entirety of his cock inside of you, moaning at how well he fills you up.

“Oh my god” you moaned out loud, his cock already hitting that one spot inside of you “it’s like your cock was made for my pussy, I don’t think I’m ever going to let you go”

You kissed his lips again, moaning as you began to move up and down on his dick. “Fuck, your pussy feels so good, it’s clenching me, I don’t think I can last long” he moaned again, feeling your walls clenching him. It was all becoming too much.

You knew he was close, but you were too, the thought of corrupting Chan was took much for you. You began to move faster on his dick. “Fuck, I’m going to cum, please let me cum” he moaned.

“Don’t you want to be a good baby and let me cum, or are you selfish?” you asked, not stopping your pace. “Rub my clit baby” you said, gliding his fingers down to it, and showing him what pace you wanted it at. You moaned feeling his thick fingers rubbing it as you continued to move on his long cock.

“No, want to be a good boy, want to be such a good boy for you” he moaned again. That was all you needed to cum, your walls spasaming around his dick, your pace didn’t falter, wanting to ride out your high and cause him to cum too “Please let me cum, please I’ve been such a good boy”

“You have haven’t you? Cum baby, cum in my pussy” that was all he needed, you rode out the both of your highs.

As you came down, you rested your head into his chest, feeling over-exerted. “I hope that was a good first time, sorry if I was too rough” you said, kissing his lips again.

“If you want me to go, I totally can” before you even said anything else, he kissed you this time.

“You aren’t going anywhere, you are mine now. We are going to go take a bath and eat whatever you want” You looked at him puzzled, "Was my crush on you not obvious???" You just giggled, "I don't think it was, maybe I need another kiss to reassure me"

He placed another kiss on your lips, this time it was soft and sensual and not lustful like before. He picked you off the bed, took you to the bathroom, and filled up the bathtub with hot water and bubbles.

After it was filled, you both sat in, your back pressed against his chest as he massaged your shoulders. He kissed your shoulder, whispering in your ear “Thank you for the best first time ever, but for this second time, do you think you can be my good girl?”

511 notes · View notes

midmourn · 6 months

Text

accidentally revealing your relationship

Originally posted by dazzlingkai

reposting from my old blog.

members ot7 nct dream

summary one of you accidentally reveal your relationship.

Mark. the poor boy had a picture of you and him as his homescreen. yeah, not his smartest choice. he was on vlive and was showing fans something on his phone and he completely forgot about his homescreen and clicked off. "so yeah there's the proof that haechan threatened me," he giggled, pressing his home button to get off the messages, screen still facing the camera for a second. it was just long enough that people were able to see what it was. he squinted at the comments, tilting his head, "what do you guys-- oh." he backed up slightly in shock, eyes widening at the camera before hurriedly turning off the vlive. he stared down at the floor silently before looking up at the manager behind the camera, "oops."

Renjun. so technically it wasn't his fault! literally no one told yall they would be going on vlive and so ... the boys were in their dressing room and unluckily yall happened to be right in the corner of the camera frame ... you reached up to give renjun a kiss on the cheek, and the camera managed to catch that and renjun's face but not your face!! yeah no one knew until the comments started exploding about the unknown person giving renjun a kiss and the boys knew it could only be you. and as always, screamed loudly to get your attention before turning off the live. you and renjun about almost killed them for not telling you or being more careful.

Jeno. okay so you were on your way to sm company to give him his lunch bc he was practicing alone. you texted him that you were there and were on your way up but literally before you could even get in the building, he was already opening the doors and meeting you halfway. “i told you—“ he ignored your words, pulling you in by your jacket to press a kiss on your lips. as always, there are literally fans or outsiders outside of sm’s building at all times. and of course they took pictures and videos and uploaded it to sns immediately. it wasn’t until you pulled away that he realized what he did. “oh.” “yeah, oh,” you mocked, pushing him into the building as you glared at him. “congratulations, our relationship is now public.” “sorry,” but he didn’t seem sorry at all, if the grin on his face was saying anything.

Haechan. haechan … is a very obvious person. he would only compliment you when your group was miraculously brought up(probably also by him) and only sing/rap your parts of your songs. it didn’t help the fact that fans were already suspicious because you two were seen at the same place at different times and you frequently stole some of his clothes and wore it out. BUT! it’s only when he reads a comment about you outloud(“y/n from y/g complimented your vocals!!”) and he says, “yeah, y/n is a very nice partn—“ and cuts himself off before he can finish the word, eyes wide as he stares at the camera. “they’re a very nice, nice— um, idol. i’ve got to go practice, bye!” but like i said, he’s very obvious and fans heard him say the romantic word~~ oops.

Jaemin. it’s no secret that jaemin is a huge fan of having matching couple items, like with his members and especially you— since you’re, you know, a couple and all. his personal favorite was your custom made matching necklaces, so you wore it everywhere. unfortunately, seeing as the owner had no idea of anything concerning you two, when fans asked about your necklace to buy it, he said a young man came in and had it custom ordered. fans put two and two together and … boom. rumors were made up and since it really blew up, your companies denied it despite the rumors being true. even if they denied it, fans were very convinced you two were dating. no more privacy for you anymore! sorry jaemin you should’ve said something or not had it custom made. 🥲

Chenle. you like to take pictures of you and daegal and post it on your private twitter account, so what? he had no problem with it, even being in a few of them since he knew only your members and a few friends were on your private twitter. so when you did that exact thing, he didn’t care and merely posed with daegal sitting on your chest. it’s minutes later when his phone starts getting multiple text messages and he checks it only to see messages about you posting a picture on twitter. “babe,” he inhaled, “did you post it on your private account?” you glance up at him in confusion, “the picture? yeah.” he closed his eyes, leaning his head back, “are you sure it wasn’t on your main account?” it dawns on you right then and there. “oh my god.” in one minute, the tweet is deleted but thousands of people have already seen it and screenshotted. the koreaboo article is up within twenty minutes. . I am so sorry 😀

Jisung. ah, sweet sweet jisung. he was on vlive while you were at the corner store to get snacks for your movie night. he didn’t originally plan to go in vlive but decided to have a voice only vlive because he was bored. he thought you’d be gone for a while and would be done before you got back, so he didn’t text you about it. he was reading comments when you walked in, already talking as soon as you opened the door, “hey babe, i got that ice cream you like, the one—“ when he started coughing loudly in the middle of your sentence, you looked up and saw his eyes widening as he pointed at his phone violently. it didn’t take long for you to understand once you checked your own phone and saw that you had a notification from vlive, signaling someone went live. ‘oh my god’ you mouthed at him and he coughed again to fill the silence, eyes going back to the screen to read the comments to see if anyone heard you clearly. unfortunately … they did, and they heard the petname, too. he made up an excuse to get off quickly and groaned, putting his face in his hands. needless to say, fans reposted the clip of your voice everywhere.

501 notes · View notes

sonicslushie · 1 year

Text

Slipped My Mind ~ P.P.

Summary: You’re the person who designs Spiderman’s suits, but you never actually met the man- or boy- behind the mask.

A/N: terrible summary & first fic, originally this was going to be based on the conan gray song “yours” but it took an odd turn in there so it's not lmao. But if you wanna read that let me know i’m dying to write more for petey boy. This is also like a little fluff thing that i threw together in a few hours so it’s not the best (my b)

a playlist for u to listen to as u read<3

Pairing: Peter Parker x Stark Intern!Reader

TW: kinda a clueless reader, mentions of blood and open wounds,

Wordcount: 3.6k

Ice cream was all you wanted. It was your lunch break from Stark Industries, the place you interned at because of your impressive resume, and partly because your dad just so happened to be the owner of Tony Stark’s favorite burger place. You had been a pretty smart kid, finished highschool early and graduated MIT with a degree in engineering and all you wanted was to build supersuits. That was the dream, wasn’t it? Helping the world’s mightiest heroes by being the one who created their high tech suits and accessories, actually making a difference for those who saved billions of lives? Yeah, no.

You started out three years ago as Ms. Potts' personal assistant at the ripe age of 16. You spent 2.5 years of that assisting just doing the basic intern stuff; grabbing coffee and burgers, attending meetings to take notes, scheduling and yatta yatta, the occasional fake laugh at a dad joke that Mr. Stark made. It wasn’t until you joined Ms. Potts in Mr. Stark’s lab to give him his burger, and you corrected his formulas on some project and you thought it was OVER. He looked surprised that you even spoke to him, oh fuck, you messed up. Or so you had thought. He actually told you that you were right?? Then, I swear to god, he asked what you would do to improve the project he was working on. (It was a super suit for the newest hero, Spiderman.) He liked your idea to add what you called the “training wheels” protocol. Mr. Stark decided to give you a chance and he had you help him create the rest of the suit, and now 6 months later, you were in charge of all things Spiderman.

But that’s not the point of the story right now, right now, you wanted ice cream.

And you had just bought two big scoops in a freshly made waffle cone. Honestly the best use of 5 bucks, or so you thought. Just as you were about to take the first lick, a red and blue streak sprinted past- no into you. It was like a movie, all you saw was your delicious creamy dessert flying up in the air in slow motion, then- SLAT! Both you and the ice cream were on the ground, a familiar looking super suit standing above you, stammering about how he was “so sorry” and “chasing a bad guy” in a very peppy voice.

“You’re Spiderman, why weren’t you swinging from building to building?” You asked, furious you were now going to have to buy another one. You just wanted one thing, could you not just have it without dealing with this bozo?

“Forgot to put in new web fluid. I’m sorry about your ice cream but I’ve really gotta- I don’t see him anymore. Shoot.” He says, shaking his head. “You know what, let me make this up to you. I’ll buy you another one.”

Well that seemed fair and it slightly cooled off your now bad mood. You agree and wait in line with the dude who you create super suits for. The funny thing is, this was actually the first time you ever met the one and only Spiderman- or Spiderling as Mr. Stark calls him. You don’t even know who the person is under the mask, but at this point you really didn’t care about it, you just wanted your ice cream.

After waiting in line for what felt like forever and making meaningless small talk with the masked hero, you make it to the front of the line.

“Two scoops of strawberry, please. Waffle cone.” You smile at the worker, then turn to Spiderboy. You say at the same time as the employee, “5 bucks.”

The Spiderdude pats his sides as if feeling for a wallet, then looks at you with that expressionless mask- god you had to work on that- and says, “I don't have my wallet.”

You could almost smack him in the back of the head, but you just take your wallet out and give the worker a 5 dollar bill. Taking the new ice cream, you turn to the hero, “Well now you owe me two, Spidey.”

“I-I’ll make it up to you, do you have Venmo?” He asks, panic rising in his voice. He sounded young, maybe around your age. If you were honest, he piqued your interest. So instead of rolling your eyes and walking away, you pulled your phone out.

“Here,” you say, ready to just get back to the lab. He takes a picture of it and gives you a thumbs up.

“I’ll have to make a new venmo so you can’t figure out my identity, but I gotta run.” He says, and literally runs off. You stand there, looking at the hero you basically manage but just met, then your ice cream. What a day, huh? You shrug it off and begin to eat your ice cream as you head back to the office.

The ice cream had been off your mind ever since you finished the yummy dessert, and went back to designing your own web fluid. Sure the dude had his own way of making it (you weren’t really sure if it had been coming out of him or not until today, you never really had the chance to ask anyone), but you knew you could do it better. Everyone at Stark Industries called you ‘Junior’ for a reason, and it wasn’t just because of your crazy intelligence. It might have also been the slight egotistical self assurance and the stubbornness you possessed.

As you worked you listened to music and snacked on the various foods you hid in the lab unbeknownst to Mr. Stark. Here and there you would test the web fluid with some of the new web shooter prototypes you had made, at this point you could swing around New York from how often you used these things. You often thought of it and giggled at the thought; ridiculous, these silly little dreams you possessed.

You had been giggling about it to yourself when the one and only Mr. Stark walked in- with a kid who was talking so fast and in such a familiar peppy tone that you couldn’t help but look up.

“-and then I looked up dodo birds and did you know they’re basically just big pigeons?” He finished, looking up at Mr. Stark with big brown doe eyes that sparkled in the light. Sparkle in the light? Oh come on, y/n. You caught yourself ogling at the new kid, still trying to figure out where you heard that voice before. Little miss genius might be able to create the highest tech super suits in the world, but boy oh boy did you have a hard time connecting dots.

“Right, big pigeons. Anyway, Peter, this is y/n y/l/n. Junior, this is Peter Parker.” Mr. Stark says, looking at you as if you could take the excitable kid off of his hands.

Now, Mr. Stark is a lot of things, and busy is one of them. This just so happens to affect his memory, and in this case, he completely forgot that he never introduced Spiderling- Peter Parker- to his favorite intern. It slipped his mind, I mean when you’re a billionaire CEO and a superhero, the little things tend to slip the mind. It’s not like he meant to never introduce you two, he really did mean to. But every time Peter’s been at the tower, Junior was always gone either for the weekend or for her lunch break. Plus, Mr. Stark had things to do. Like right now; get out of this boring conversation and get burgers from his favorite burger place with Happy.

“Oh it’s nice to meet you, Peter.” You say, not knowing that you met Peter earlier that day as Spiderman. But Peter knew, and he also forgot that he had to venmo you for that ice cream from earlier. Caught off guard, his eyes just go wide and he awkwardly smiles and waves at you like an idiot.

“Um okay. Anyway, Mr. Stark, I was about to head out, but I got the new web fluid made and finished up the new prototypes for web shooters. I also started up blueprints for a new suit. I forgot to mention I saw Spiderboy today and I gotta say, that suit does nothing for his ass.” You say, going back to the blueprints in front of you, making sure everything is perfect for tomorrow morning. Mr. Stark takes a peek over your shoulder, nodding in approval, then says, “Well I’ve got to hit the road, I’ve got… an important meeting to attend. Yeah. See ya tomorrow, Junior, same to you Pete.”

You and Peter tell Mr. Stark bye in various fashions, being left in an awkward silence, neither of you really knowing how to proceed from there. Mr. Stark never told you that you would be meeting with Spiderdude to discuss your progress on the new ideas you had come up with but if he didn't show up before 5 you weren't staying, you'd didn't get paid enough. Peter wasn’t told he would be seeing the girl he literally ran into and owe her ice cream money. Seems like it just slipped Mr. Stark’s mind again.

“So um, whatcha doing here Peter?” You say, begin to clean up your workstation to go home. Peter was just standing awkwardly behind you, trying to figure out what to say. He was also unaware that you didn’t know that he was Spiderman, he had figured Mr. Stark would have told you if you were the one working on his suits all this time.

“Oh I was um- just leaving actually. Looks like you’re ready to go home, so I- Yeah I’m just gonna go.” He says quickly, turning on his heel to leave. At this point you were just ready to go home, so you shrug it off and say, “Nice meeting you, Peter. See ya.”

He doesn’t say anything as he leaves. If he was being honest, he’s never been good at talking to pretty girls. Not to mention super awesome pretty intern girls who have been providing him his super awesome super suit. Probably too many “supers” but he didn’t care, he could barely even function in the same room as you. Not to mention he made a fool of himself earlier, but honestly you didn’t even seem to remember, which threw him off even more. And when you said “nice to meet you” it confused him, you two had met earlier that day. God, he had to get some fresh air.

Peter made it outside and was cooling down from that super awkward and weird encounter, when he saw you pulling out of the car park in your car, singing along loudly to some Miley Cyrus song. He turns away, trying not to make it obvious that he was avoiding you. But you turned your head as you were looking for oncoming traffic, and you saw him.

You don’t know why you did it, but you rolled your window down and yelled above the loud ass music, “Hey Peter! You waiting on a ride?”

He was too caught off guard to lie, and to be fair he didn’t even like lying, so he shook his head and before he knew it, he was getting in your car.

“Where are you heading?” You asked, turning the music down. He tries not to be as awkward as before as he says, “Queens, but it’s a far drive you really don’t have to-”

“Oh I live there too! Don’t even worry about it,” you say, happy you could do something for the odd kid. He was a bit awkward, but in a cute sort of way. It almost made your stomach get butterflies at the thought of you of all people making him nervous.

“Oh okay, thanks so much. I really appreciate it,” he says, then after a beat of intense silence with Miley wailing in the background, he decides to try and make conversation. “So how long have you been working for Mr. Stark?”

“Since I was 16, so like 3 years. Most of it was being Ms. Potts’ assistant though,” you say, tapping your fingers to the beat.

“Woah, wait so did you like graduate early?” He asks, now immensely intrigued. You give him the rundown of the past 6 years of your life, to which he’s very impressed and totally not thinking about how pretty you look in the dying sunlight. Totally would never do that.

“But yeah, that’s me. What about you, how did you get involved with Mr. Stark?” You ask, glancing over at him slightly. You must say for a dork, he had some very nice features.

“Very long story that includes him hitting on my aunt. Ugh,” he shivers at the memory, “And a trip to Germany.”

That rings some bells in your head, but to be fair Mr. Stark is in Germany a lot so you don’t really question it. Like I said, you don’t connect dots very well unless it’s in the form of equations.

You guys talk all the way to Peter’s apartment, you even give him your phone number if he ever needs a ride to the office. As Peter walks off, you both can’t help but wonder how weird the day has been. But as you drive off and turn up the radio, you put it out of your mind. Time to go home and relax.

Only when you got home, you didn’t relax. Almost as soon as you step into your apartment, your phone lets out a little “cha-ching” noise, notifying you that someone just venmoed you. You completely forgot about Spidey owing you for your ice cream until you saw the little notification: Spidey paid you $10 with an ice cream emoji underneath. You smirk, then go back to fully entering your apartment. Only to hear your phone go off a few seconds later, another venmo notification, this time a comment left under the money he just paid you.

I feel really bad about earlier. I figured I’d pay for both.

You raise an eyebrow at your phone, smiling a little to yourself. He seems sweet. Sweeter than most guys you’ve run into in the middle of New York. And trust me, it’s happened more often than you’d like to admit.

You type back.

I really appreciate that Spiderdude. Love the profile pic;)

His profile picture was that one Spiderman meme with the three Spidermans pointing at each other. It made you giggle, at least he had a sense of humor. Most superheroes (*cough* Steve Rogers *cough*) didn’t. A few seconds later he sends another message.

Next time I’ll get you three scoops:)

You smiled and decided that was a pretty good deal, three free ice creams? Sounds like a scam but you weren’t going to question it. You just put your phone down and decided it was time to have a nice warm bath and rock out to Taylor Swift.

It was a while before you heard from both Peter or Spiderman, and you were still clueless to the fact that they were the same person. After a few weeks of that whole situation being off your mind, you were going into work on a late night call from Mr. Stark said that something urgent came up with the Spiderling and he wasn’t in town to take care of it. So, you jumped out of bed and rushed out still in your pajamas to the Stark Tower.

You sped all the way there, the stars oddly bright for the city. You made note to go to the rooftop of your apartment whenever you were able to make it back. You always had a thing for the stars, having not grown up in New York. The city was beautiful, but you could truly say that you hated the nights there. No stars glittering overhead, cars and people being loud at all hours of the night. The only good thing you could say about the night in New York was all the food places that were open 24/7. (You tend to have a craving for Thai food at odd hours of the night.)

Upon arriving at the Stark Tower, you ask F.R.I.D.A.Y what’s going on, and she directs you to your lab. You make your way up there, wondering what in the world this kid could be needing that’s so urgent. If it’s something stupid, dear god, help him. You would molly whop him into the next dimension.

The lab doors upon a very beat up Spiderboy, who’s laid across your desk. Laying in a pile of blood. Okay, good enough reason, you supposed, immediately dropping all idea’s of punching the poor kid in the head.

You rush up to him, taking in his half dead state of being. A giant would- no a hole would be a better way of putting it. Just a big hole in his side, with a lot of blood seeping out of it. You poke him, making sure he’s still breathing. He groans in response, it’s enough to get you moving. You had planned on this a long time ago, you created a device to regrow skin just for this occasion. You found it and within seconds, his wound began healing, though it might take a while for him to create enough blood to be able to even be able to sit up again. At that thought, you ordered F.R.I.D.A.Y. to get the building’s onsite medical team to get the kid.

Once you were finished fixing his gaping hole, you poked him again, praying he was still alive. There was so much blood everywhere, but you tried to keep your Thai food down as you begged for him to wake up.

“Come on kid, you can’t die on me. Mr. Stark would kill us both,” you say, starting to shake him now. You could see his chest moving up and down slightly, but he wasn’t waking up. You pleaded in your head for the med team to get there quickly, you didn’t know why you were so upset by this. Sure, it would be sad if the kid died, but you didn’t know him like that. You didn’t know him well enough to be crying over his dying body, begging him to just open his eyes or say something. Not that you could see them through the mask-

The mask.

Your trembling hand goes to take it off, but the medical team rushes in just as you begin peeling it off, only exposing his neck.

You step back as the med team begins working on him, you let them know that you healed him, but he needed blood. That was all you could say before they moved him onto the gurney and began taking him away, you called after, “Just wake up, Spidey, please!”

That was the first thing that Peter remembers hearing, your voice. Lights were flashing overhead as he heard people saying things above him, though he couldn’t comprehend any of it. God, he was so dizzy. And why wasn’t his side hurting anymore? He started grabbing for his side, but the people around him stopped him from doing so. What was going on?

“You were bleeding out,” one of them says from above him, he’s starting to hear them more clearly now. Maybe his superhealing had finally set in. “No, Ms. y/l/n just saved your life. Now calm down, you’re going to be okay.”

Peter didn’t realize he was just speaking his thoughts as they came to him, he also didn’t realize that you had decided to follow the medical team just to make sure he ended up okay. It’s not that you didn’t trust them, you just wanted to be sure. So much for looking at the stars, huh?

Peter kept babbling as the medical team got him to their facility a few floors down, starting to connect tubes to give him more blood. One of them goes to take his mask off to check for any head wounds, but he stops them. He’s conscious enough to know that he knows none of these people, and none of these people need to know that he’s Peter Parker.

“You’re Peter Parker?” You say, total confusion in your voice. Damn it, did he say that out loud? “Yes, you did, you idiot.”

You get as close as you can without getting in the way of the people trying to help him. Once they were all done and he was getting the blood that he needed, you asked them to leave so you could talk to Peter. How did you not realize? He has a very distinctive voice, and obviously that’s why Mr. Stark brought him into your lab a few weeks ago. Seriously, not your best moment.

“So you’re the infamous Spiderman?” You say, sitting on the edge of his cot. He peels his mask off and takes a breath of fresh air.

“Wait,” it hits him that you didn’t know, what is going on? “You didn’t know?”

“Nope,” you laugh, “I’m not really sure how I didn’t, especially after Mr. Stark brought you in there. I’m also not sure how he never mentioned that you were there person I’ve been making all this superhero stuff for. Must have slipped his mind.” Understatement of the century.

“I thought you knew, that’s why I never really mentioned it. Also,” he smiles a little to himself, “I promised to get you ice cream next time I saw you. How about it?”

You raise your eyebrow at him, “You’re in a cot getting blood poured into you.”

“When I’m better?”

“Sounds like a date.”

#peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker x you #peter parker fluff #peter parker imagine #mcu peter parker #peter parker fanfiction #spiderman x you #spiderman x reader #spiderman fanfiction #spiderman fanfic

989 notes · View notes

vax-merstappen · 3 months

Text

dancing with the F1 boys

no bc imagining dancing with these guys was literally the cutest thing ever! my personal favorite to write was yuki, like i was melting from the fluff. hope you enjoy reading as much as i did writing!

Lando Norris

Lando had been practically begging you to come with him and some friends to his favorite club. You asked a few of your own friends along and told Lando you would meet him there. When you and your girlfriends walked into the club, you instantly noticed your boyfriend standing at the front of the club, headphones on and mixing music for the crowd. You always thought Lando looked super hot when he would dj and you grabbed your friends and pushed your way to the front, where he would be able to see you dancing. Little did you know, nothing turned Lando on quite like watching you enjoy yourself to his music. After his set was over, he pulled you aside to dance with him and do other incredible things in private.

Oscar Piastri

Oscar wasn’t one for dancing in public, as both you and him knew that he had two left feet. But when you asked if he would come with you to your best friend’s wedding, you knew that there would be no better opportunity to coerce him onto the dance floor. You let him have a few drinks and chat with a few of your mutual friends at the table while you danced with your best friend. When you noticed him watching you as you moved, you ran over to the table and pulled him to his feet, dragging him over to the floor. He couldn’t help but smile as you danced so carefree while holding his hands. Eventually he couldn’t help but move along with you and the beat, your mission of getting Oscar to dance finally completed.

Max Verstappen

You had spent one of Max’s days off on a romantic trip together. You had spent the entire afternoon exploring the city and laughing with him about inside jokes only the two of you understood. You had finally sat down in a park where you would be able to watch the sunset. As day turned to night, you heard a busker with a violin start to play somewhere nearby. You looked Max in the eyes before asking him if he would dance with you. “Of course, schatje.” You spent the last minutes of sunlight in each other’s arms moving together, not caring who was watching.

Charles Leclerc

“Ma chérie, would you listen to this and tell me how you like it?” Charles asked. You walked into the room to see him seated at the piano, looking at expectantly. “Of course, amour.” He started to play and you closed your eyes and listened to the notes echo through the space. You loved when he would play for you, especially his original pieces. As the song continued on, you began to dance to the music. Your eyes were still closed, so you couldn’t see Charles watching you or the beaming smile on his face. “How was it?” he asked after he stopped playing. “I think it’s your best one yet,” you responded, and you pulled your boyfriend in for a kiss.

Carlos Sainz

When you admitted to Carlos that you had not listened to many Spanish songs, he immediately turned on Spotify and began playing his favorites for you. He grabbed your waist and pulled you close, beginning to dance along and sing the lyrics. You had to admit that the songs he picked were catchy and you began to dance along with him even though you didn’t know the words or what they meant. You just loved seeing how happy the music made your boyfriend.

Lewis Hamilton

One of your and Lewis’ mutual friends was a pretty famous singer and she wanted the two of you to be in a music video for her latest song. Of course you both had enthusiastically agreed. You were on set for the day, shooting various scenes where you were walking around the city together. Finally to end the video, your friend had told you to just dance to the music together in your own way. Lewis gave you a warm smile as you began to move your hips to the beat. He grabbed your hand and spun you around, just for you to land laughing in his arms. Your bodies continued to move to the music until the song ended and you kissed as the final note played on the set.

Daniel Ricciardo

One thing you and Danny always liked to do was karaoke, even though neither of you were particularly good singers. Daniel was so passionate about music that he was always down to sing to his favorite songs, even if it meant showcasing his not so great voice. This particular night, Scotty and Chloe had egged you both on into doing a duet. Standing on the stage, you both belted the lyrics to your favorite song, dancing around the music without a care in the world. You took a bow when you were finished singing and immediately went to cue up another song, not wanting your musical moment with Danny to end.

Yuki Tsunoda

A week ago, Yuki had told you that he had never played the Just Dance games growing up. You immediately decided that you needed to fix this and planned a date night in where the two of you could play the game together. While you waited for your takeout food to arrive at the house, you took Yuki through your personal favorite dances. At first you beat him easily, as you had some memory of which dance moves would come next. But as the night went on, Yuki began to catch up with you and eventually outscore you at your own game. Your food arrived and you demanded a rematch after the meal, as you weren’t one to simply lose. Yuki laughed and agreed to keep playing and you both ended up laughing and dancing together late into the night.

Alex Albon

It was a depressing rainy afternoon and you had been curled up feeling sad all day. Alex had been on a call with his race engineer for work, but once he finished he immediately noticed something was wrong. He asked you what was wrong and you replied, “Nothing much, it’s just a gloomy day.” Alex told you he had an idea and to follow him. You did and he led you downstairs and out the front door. You stood where it was dry as Alex ran out into the rain. “Come on, baby, let’s dance in the rain!” he shouted and you couldn’t help but smile and run out to join him. Even though you both got soaked, you had an amazing time splashing through the puddles in the arms of your amazing boyfriend. When you went back inside, you both curled up in warm blankets and dry clothes. Only one movie came in mind to watch, Singin’ in the Rain.

Logan Sargeant

Logan had got a bad result in qualifying and was feeling down about his chances during the morning of race day. He had been tense all morning, so he was relieved when he was allowed to go take a quick break in his driver’s room. He walked in the door to see you waiting for him. You could tell Logan had been feeling down. An idea came to mind and when he sat down next to you. You turned your phone’s volume up and hit play on Logan’s favorite hype song. You got up and started dancing and singing to the lyrics. Logan started to smile and even got up to dance alongside you. “Thanks, babe,” he whispered to you as he pulled you close. “That’s just what I needed.”

#f1 imagine #formula 1 fanfic #f1 x reader #f1 x you #f1 preference #formula 1 fluff #formula 1 x reader #lando norris x reader #oscar piastri x reader #max verstappen x reader #charles leclerc x reader #carlos sainz x reader #lewis hamilton x reader #daniel ricciardo x reader #yuki tsunoda x reader #alex albon x reader #logan sargeant x reader

318 notes · View notes

itadores · 4 months

Text

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐈𝐅𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐊𝐄𝐄𝐏𝐒 𝐎𝐍 𝐆𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆

synopsis: you like buying little gifts for your boyfriend. it only makes sense for you to buy him a photo-card of his favorite idol when you come across it in a JPOP store.

note: my silly guy <3 haven’t written in ages so i’m a bit rusty

pairing: tōdō aoi x gn!reader

word count: 2.2k

tags: gender neutral reader, fluff, established relationship, petnames (tōdō calls reader babe, reader calls him baby), reader’s love language is gift giving, tōdō is bit of an overdramatic crybaby (affectionate)

You happen across the store as you’re walking through the shopping center that you typically frequent. It’s a new shop if the banner with the words “Grand Opening!” printed in bold block letters was anything to go by. However, the banner is not what originally caught your eye as you were passing through. It’s the name of the place itself that did: JPOPTOWN. Admittedly, you’re not an avid fan of JPOP, moreso a casual enjoyer, but your partner on the other hand…is a very big fan. Very. Honestly, Tōdō is the main reason why you know what you do about JPOP.

You make the quick decision to enter the store, simply out of curiosity for what it may hold within its walls. Maybe, you can find something to buy for your boyfriend. As soon as the door slides open, a catchy tune croons out from the speakers scattered throughout the store. You recognize it as one of the top trending JPOP songs at the moment, having heard it numerous times over the radio or in other shops. Your eyes rove over the walls and shelves of the store, unsure of where to start your journey now that you’re inside. There’s simply so much merchandise of various JPOP artists lining every space of the store that you’re a bit overwhelmed at first.

However, once your gaze lands on an idol more than familiar to you, you immediately gravitate towards the section, your feet leading you to the area solely dedicated to your boyfriend’s favorite idol: Takada-chan. You idly peruse the numerous shelves full of her merchandise, looking over what sort of items they carry. A lot of what the store offers are items that your boyfriend already owns, which makes you deflate a bit.

You were excited to see what this store held within once you had gotten a glimpse of its name in hopes that you could buy a little something to surprise your boyfriend with. Not for any sort of special occasion, but you enjoy surprising Tōdō with little things when you could. His reaction whenever you present him with some trinket or snack is one of your favorite things in the world, especially since he’s always so animated. You would think he’s playing it up to boost your ego with how overdramatic he can be, but you know that your boyfriend is simply like that.

You feel nearly defeated, ready to leave the store empty handed until you see something in your peripheral vision that makes you instantly perk up. There’s a plain binder propped open in the midst of a sea of Takada-chan merch, displaying an array of photo-cards of her.

Tōdō already has quite a few of her photo-cards, even carrying one in his wallet alongside a picture of you, but his collection of her photo-cards is small in comparison to the rest of her other merchandise that he's amassed throughout the years. You only hope that you can find a photo-card that he doesn't already have and doesn't break the bank for you.

You carefully flip through the plastic sleeves containing the photo-cards. You'd hate to accidentally damage them in any way. Tōdō was too rough once, too excited at the prospect of purchasing a Takada-chan photo-card, that he accidentally damaged a whole sleeve full of them. The amount he had to pay in damages that day makes you shudder just thinking about it.

Your eyes scan over the photo-cards as you try and recall which photo-cards Tōdō already has in his possession.

He already has this one, already has that one, already has this one too…

Your eyes light up when they land on one that you know he doesn't have yet, and if you're remembering correctly, he mentioned wanting this one as well. You're pretty sure he shoved his phone in your face to show you how another photo-card collector had it in their possession, but wasn't willing to trade or sell it to him no matter how much he flooded their DMs with vague threats. He ended up blocked after that.

You’re even more delighted when you read the little white sticker with the price in the corner of the plastic sleeve and realize the photo-card is well-within your budget for a little gift for your boyfriend. With the utmost caution, you gently slip the photo-card out of its slot from within the binder, cradling it carefully in your palm. Once you’re sure the photo-card is safely in your possession, you lift your head up, craning your neck around as you search for the photo-card holder area of the store.

As soon as you spot it, you make your way over. Presented with so many options, you’re now faced with the difficult decision of what photo-card holder you should buy for Tōdō. He’ll be pleased with anything you get him, but you want him to like what you get him, not because it simply came from me, but because he genuinely likes it. That means you need to find something that you (and Tōdō) will find cute but not overwhelmingly so.

You stand there for awhile, mentally comparing and contrasting photo-card holder versus photo-card holder until you finally decide on one that you think will suffice. You pluck your chosen photo-card holder from where it's hanging on the wall, turning it over and over in your hand, inspecting to make sure it's in perfect condition. It's a soft plastic photo-card holder with black stars of varying sizes covering the front's borders and the entirety of the back. It's simplistic enough, but still cute, meaning that Tōdō will (hopefully) like it.

After making sure once more that the photo-card holder and the photo-card itself are in pristine condition, you make your way over to the cashier, paying once it's your turn to check out and then exiting the store, more than satisfied with your unexpected purchase. Giddiness floods your system as the door to the shop closes behind you. You can't wait to surprise Tōdō.

With your free hand, you dig your phone out of your pocket, opening the messaging app to shoot your boyfriend a quick text, asking if you can swing by his place in an hour. You don't even have a chance to exit out of the application before you receive a response from him.

aoi ♡ : Is that even a question? You're free to come over always.

You huff. Of course your boyfriend would say something like that. If it was up to Tōdō, you would probably never leave his place. You quickly reply back, informing him that it’s polite to ask and that you’ll be over soon before closing the app and slipping your phone back into your pocket. You readjust your grip on the bag containing the goodies for your boyfriend. A small smile graces your lips.

Time for you to make your way to Tōdō’s now.

The commute to Tōdō’s place doesn’t take long, and sooner than you know it, you’re at his front door. You raise a fist to knock, startling when the door swings open right before your fist can make contact. You place a hand over your chest, willing your racing heart to slow before tossing a glare at the offender standing in the doorway.

“Aoi, you scared me half to death!”

“Sorry,” he responds, entirely non-apologetic as a grin spreads across his face. He takes a step towards you, bundling you up in his arms in one easy swoop. You make an undignified sound at the sudden action, but you quickly relax in Tōdō’s hold. The familiar and comforting scent of his cologne infiltrates your senses, and you can’t help but squeeze him a little tighter. “I missed you babe.”

You laugh lightly, pulling away so you can look at Tōdō, who still has a wide grin on his face. “We just saw each other earlier this week, Aoi.”

“And? I can’t miss you when you’re not around?” The corner of his lips pull into a frown, prompting you to playfully roll your eyes.

You sympathetically pat him on the bicep. “Of course you can.”

When you’re met with nothing but an expectant look, you squeeze Tōdō’s bicep and huff in slight amusement. “And I obviously missed you as well. How could I not miss my lovely boyfriend after spending so much time apart?” Your hand glides up from Tōdō’s bicep to gently caress his cheek, which he leans into. Your lips curl into a small smile.

You may be teasing Tōdō, but you did truly miss him as well. The two of you stand there for a bit just enjoying the moment.

“Now, are you going to invite me in or are we going to spend all day out on your doorstep?”

Your words quickly spur Tōdō into action. He grabs the hand resting on his face and entwines it with his own, dragging you inside his place. You stumble a bit (Tōdō sometimes forgets his own strength), but you manage to regain your balance as the door closes behind you both.

Much to Tōdō’s dismay, you let go of his hand to take off your shoes, placing them on the shoe rack before sliding on the slippers designated as yours. They’re of a silly pattern, but Tōdō insisted on getting matching pairs, and well. Who are you to deny him?

“What’s in the bag?” Tōdō questions, pointing a finger at the bag in your hand as he follows you into the living room area of his apartment.

You plop down onto the couch, tucking your feet beneath you before patting the cushion right beside you. Tōdō sits down next to you, his thigh pressing against yours and an arm around the back of the couch.

“A surprise,” you simply say.

His eyes light up.

“For me?”

You huff. You consider teasing Tōdō, but you nod, replying “Yes, for you, baby.”

He crowds into your space, nearly squishing you against the arm of the couch. His eyes shine brightly with unbridled excitement. “Can I open it right now?”

You hold the bag up between you. “Go ahead, baby.” Before Tōdō can grab the bag from your hand, you warn him, “It’s nothing too big, so don’t get too excited.”

He rolls his eyes as he takes the bag from you. “I’ll cherish anything you get me no matter how big nor how small it may be.”

“Okay Romeo, go ahead and open your gift then.” You wave your hand, urging him to open the bag. Although you did give Tōdō a warning that you didn’t get him anything too big, you have a strong feeling that he’ll like what you got him.

It doesn’t take Tōdō long to open the bag. As soon as his eyes land on its contents and his brain processes what he’s looking at, he makes a noise that sounds almost like a squeal. His hands are shaking as he carefully takes out the Takada-chan photo-card and the accompanying photo-card holder out of the bag. The plastic bag drifts to the floor, now forgotten.

When Tōdō finally tears his eyes away from the photo-card that he’s cradling oh so gently to look at you, his eyes are shiny with wetness. His lower lip wobbles.

“Babe, have I told you that I love you and that you’re the best partner a man could ever ask for?”

You smile, reaching out to place a hand around the back of Tōdō’s neck. “I’m glad you like your little gift, Aoi.”

His eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets. “Babe, I love it. Are you kidding me? I’ve been trying to trade or buy this photo-card for so long now. I can’t believe you found it.”

Tōdō carefully places the photo-card and the photo-card holder you’ve bought for him on the table in front of the couch before turning back towards you to engulf you in a tight hug. You yelp as you're suddenly pushed back onto the couch. Your hands cling to Tōdō's shoulders as he slides a hand behind your head to make sure you don't bump it against the arm of the couch.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he repeats over and over, littering kisses wherever he can on your bare skin. He presses his lips to your neck in chaste kisses before moving onto your face, kissing your forehead, nose, and cheeks over and over before he finally presses a kiss to your lips.

"Thanks, babe." He says once more, pressing another kiss to your lips. You slide your arms from his shoulders to wrap them around his neck, pulling him closer to you. Tōdō bends to your will, but is careful to not crush you beneath his weight.

You lean up to kiss him this time, and he chases your lips when you pull away, making you giggle lightly.

"Anything for you, Aoi," you softly say. You're sure that you have a terribly lovesick expression on your face, but Tōdō isn't faring much better. A small smile tugs at your lips.

You'll gladly buy Tōdō little gifts for the rest of your lives if it means you'll get a reaction like this from him every time.

#jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #todo x reader #todo aoi x reader #toudou x reader #toudou aoi x reader #jjk fluff #jujutsu kaisen fluff #from.jujutsu kaisen #new.mail #love.todo aoi

262 notes · View notes

ladykailitha · 2 months

Text

Icarus Part 1

Hello! I know there are a few minutes left of the poll, but there is nothing that could happen in the next 15 minutes that is going to change the outcome.

3 to 1 in favor of the main story first. The only reason I asked, was because that story has been finished a long time, but this one is just getting started. But the masses have spoken.

Original prompt here.

Summary: Eddie and the Corroded Coffin boys made it big right out of high school. So big that Metallica could open for them. Outselling the biggest bands and artists. They are huge. Then a small little indy metal band called The Fallen comes on the scene. They wear hoods and masks and go by aliases. Eddie (and most of the rest of the metal scene) are dismissive of them. More splash then talent.

Only fans don't thinks so. So when Dustin takes him to one of their concerts Eddie learns two things.

One that they are super talented.

And two, that he knows at least of one the members' of the band's real identity.

@mira-jadeamethyst @rozzieroos @redfreckledwolf @emly03 @itsall-taken

****

Getting out of Hawkins had always been the dream. Being able to do it with three of the best people he had ever had the pleasure of knowing with their music? That was the cherry on top of the icing.

But Eddie never dreamed that Corroded would outsell one his favorite bands of all time. Never even crossed his mind to dream about.

But there it was in black and white. Corroded Coffin was the highest grossing band of the year. Metallica was seventh. Fuck they had outsold Taylor Swift for Christ’s sake.

Barely.

But it still counted damn it!

What was a surprise was the number nineteenth best selling band of the year. A band he’d never heard of before. The Fallen. It said the genre was metal in that little italic font.

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

Yeah, it was impossible to listen to every up and coming metal band. But if they had already hit this big with only their second album, surely Eddie would have heard them on the radio.

Only on their last tour Chrissy Cunningham, their beautiful and amazing manager had put an embargo on the radio because the riffs were finding their way into Eddie’s song writing. So he guessed it made sense that he hadn’t heard of them.

So he called the one person he knew who would have all the details on these guys.

“Dusty!” he greeted when the man picked up. Man. Shit, when did they all get so old?

“Eddie!” Dustin greeted back. “Finally back in town?”

Eddie grinned. “You know it. Dude, you know my tour schedule better than Chrissy does.”

“Maybe.”

He laughed. “Guess who hit the top of the most successful metal bands of the decade?”

“Oh my god!” Dustin screamed. “That’s so cool! Is the issue out on stands yet or did you get a sneaky peak for having made it to the top of their list?”

Eddie winced. “Sadly the later. But! I can bring it over to show you when I come to hang out.”

“That’s acceptable,” Dustin said. “Steve just got back in town, too. That label he works for sure does like dragging him all over the world.”

Eddie hummed. “Yeah? Where’d they send him this time?”

“Japan if you can believe it,” Dustin huffed. “He basically came home sometime around midnight and just crashed.”

Eddie didn’t know what Steve and Robin did for the studio, no one did. But the general consensus was that they were dogsbodies of some sort. Getting coffees for execs and stars, driving them places. Just stuff they didn’t want to hire out for, they made Robin and Steve do.

“I won’t be waking him up if I come over, will I?” Eddie asked, biting his lip. He had a crush on the other man. A large one. But fame and fortune kept getting in the way of something more.

“Nah,” Dustin assured him. “He woke up about an hour ago. He’s even showered and eaten. He’ll want to see you as much as I do.”

Eddie very much doubted that, but he was going to take it. “Great! This list is insane, man. I can’t wait for you to see it.”

“Come over for dinner,” Dustin suggested. “We’ll pour over the list over pizza and beer.”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe you’re old enough for beer now.”

“Yeah, yeah, old man,” Dustin said. Eddie could feel the eye roll from here.

****

Eddie was watching Steve in interest.

He was walking around like he was used to being in high heels or something, as he would catch himself on his toes and force his feet down on his heels.

He would jump at Dustin throwing open the door. He kept touching his face and rubbing at his throat.

Robin was constantly pushing tea into his hands to get them settle. When they weren’t cradling the tea mugs, they were all over the place. Not just his face. But his back and stomach, too. Rubbing his palms on the front of his jeans.

“Dude!” Dustin hissed. “What is wrong with you? Japan can’t have been that different from America.”

Steve winced from the sound. “Bud, you are seriously being too loud. I told you that I have a migraine.”

Eddie tilted his head. “Hey do you need me to go? Butthead here said you were fine.”

Steve looked up at Eddie and his expression softened. “I’m fine as long as you aren’t yelling like Dusty Buns, here.”

Eddie chuckled. “I hear that. So how was Japan? When me and the boys went a couple years ago it was so beautiful.”

Steve rubbed his forehead between his eyebrows. “I wish I could have seen more of it. It felt like we were running nonstop. At least we aren’t roadies. I don’t think I could do the work they do. They’re the true beating heart of the operation.”

Eddie nodded. “Our last tour we had twelve trucks of roadies and equipment. It was insane.”

Robin grabbed Steve’s cold tea mug and swapped it with a warm one. Steve murmured his thanks. “I’m still not sure if I’m on this time zone yet. And I worry that this fucking migraine may throw me off even further.”

“Is that why Robin is plying you with tea?” Eddie asked. “To keep you awake enough to go bed at the right time?”

Steve nodded, humming contently over the cup of tea. “Nothing caffeinated, not really. Peppermint for the most part, honey lemon, too. She thinks I might be coming down with travelers’ cough.”

Again Steve made an aborted movement toward his face.

“Stop doing that!” Dustin hissed again. “Why do you keep touching your face like that? Did the Tibetan monks curse you or something?”

Robin smacked the back of his head. “That’s China, doofus! And no, no one has been cursed. We had to wear face masks like the surgeons wear for a lot of the trip because there had been a flu outbreak.”

Eddie nodded. “Ooh, yeah. They recommended we wear them too in certain areas, it wouldn’t surprise me if I was that twitchy when we moved to the Australian leg of the tour.”

Dustin eyed Steve warily, like he wasn’t sure if he should believe him or not, but Eddie had backed him up, so Dustin decided to let it go.

For now.

“Where were you touring again?” Steve asked Eddie after taking a long sip from his mug. “South America, wasn’t it?”

“Right in one, big boy,” Eddie enthused. “It was our first time in some of those countries so it was super exciting meeting the people, learning the culture, eating the food. I swear by the end of the tour we had all gained at least ten pounds and that was with us sweating our asses off on stage almost every night.”

Steve winced. “I don’t know how you guys do it, the stage lights we had were merciless.”

“Years and years of practice, Stevie,” Eddie said, “years and years of practice.”

Dustin turned to Eddie. “All right I think I’ve been patient enough, I want to see the top twenty money makers of metal before I vibrate out of my skin.”

Steve laughed and smacked the back of his head. “You know who number one is, why do you care about the other nineteen?”

Eddie shook his head. “Not just metal bands, my weird little friend. But out of all the bands.”

He pulled out the magazine and Dustin snatched it out of his hands, careful not to rip it.

Dustin was furiously reading the list and it was clear that he was looking for someone specific.

“Eureka!” he cried. “I knew it! I knew they were outselling other new metal bands.”

Steve looked over his shoulder. “Yeah? Who’s that, bud?”

“The Fallen!” he cried. “They are so cool man. They have these on stage personas like Daft Punk and they kick ass on stage. I was so bummed when they didn’t come to Pasadena or anywhere near there when they were doing their US leg of their tour.”

Dustin was going to school at Caltech because as much as he wanted to go to MIT his mom was worried about him being by himself, so he moved out to California to move in with Steve.

He was on campus for housing most of the year, but he came home on the weekends and that put Claudia’s mind at rest.

Steve himself had moved out to California a couple of years before. Robin and him had gotten a job at record company and had to move out there to be closer to the headquarters.

Interestingly, or at least to Dustin, Steve’s friends all found jobs out here, too.

“I saw that one,” Eddie was saying. “But I’d never heard of them are they any good?”

Dustin scoffed. “Are they any good? Holy shit are they good.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “They’re a metal band, no offense to Eddie here, but there are only three metal bands on the whole list. Most of them are pop, rap, or country. How good can they be?”

Eddie scoffed and held his hands to his heart. “You wound me!” Then he flopped on the sofa, playing dead.

“That’s what does make them so good, Steve,” Dustin insisted. “Because there are only three metal bands on the list, it means they had to work their asses off twice as hard as the others.”

Eddie popped up. “Yeah, Stevie!” He stuck out his tongue and Steve laughed.

“You got any of the albums?” Steve asked, with a flippant wave of his hand. “If they’re so good, let’s hear them then.”

A shadow crossed over Robin’s face and she looked like she wanted to say something, but couldn’t.

****

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

Permanent Tag List: @spectrum-spectre @estrellami-1 @zerokrox-blog @gregre369 @a-little-unsteddie @chaosgremlinmunson @messrs-weasley @chaoticlovingdreamer @maya-custodios-dionach @danili666 @goodolefashionedloverboi @val-from-lawrence @i-must-potato @carlyv @wonderland-girl143-blog @justforthedead89 @vecnuthy @irregular-child @bookbinderbitch @bookworm0690 @anne-bennett-cosplayer @yikes-a-bee @awkwardgravity1 @littlewildflowerkitten @genderless-spoon @counting-dollars-counting-stars @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @dragonmama76 @scheodingers-muppet @ellietheasexylibrarian @thedragonsaunt @useless-nb-bisexual @disrespectedgoatman

#my writing #stranger things #steddie #ladykailtiha writes #corroded coffin #rockstar steve harrington #rockstar eddie munson #The Fallen

251 notes · View notes

lil-tachyon · 8 months

Text

For the last couple weeks I've been drawing logos / designs for local-ish (mostly NJ, some PA and NY) bands as warmups in the morning. Here's what I've come up with! Massive post below the break explaining each logo + where to find each band and listen to their music.

Teenage Halloween- a staple of New Jersey basements for probably about a decade now and finally getting wider recognition in the last couple years. Pop punk / power pop with a killer horn section. First time I saw them was in New Brunswick playing with Walter Etc. and Blowout. They played a killer cover "Build Me Up Buttercup" and my wife got a black eye in the pit. Recommended tracks: "Brain Song," "666," "Clarity." Their first EP is on a separate bandcamp page btw, check it out here it's great.

Sweet Pill - They will call themselves a Philly band but in my heart they'll always be from Glassboro. Definitely one of the more recognizable names on this list. Emo revival - early stuff is more twinkly, more recent stuff is heavier. All of it's great. Recommended tracks "Nephew," "High Hopes."

Shark Club - Central Jersey's finest. I'm very biased because I actually know these dudes and they did the music for my wedding. Some of the best pop punk you'll hear and the nicest people you'll meet. Recommended tracks: "Game Theory," "Bill Murray," "Heavens to Betsy."

Rest Ashore - My favorite band for the last (oh God I'm old now) eight years. From gut-wrenching emo ballads to virtuoso math-rock instrumentals they do it all. One time I got to sing vocals on "Lucy's Theme" at a house show- thank you Erica! Recommended tracks: "Hjarta," "Chinese Opera," "Devotion," "Soyuz Sweetheart." Too many bangers to name honestly, just deep dive their discography.

Morus Alba - First band I ever went to see at a house show and still one of my absolute favorites. Their music feels like the bridge between the best pitchfork, /mu/ alt rock bands and high energy basement emo. I mean that as a compliment and I hope it comes off as one lol. I should note that since 2019 Morus Alba has morphed from a band into an experimental hip-hop project so later releases sound radically different and basically disconnected from the earlier stuff. Also my favorite release from them, Live at Isabelle's, has been scrubbed from the internet but if you'd like the files just email me. Recommended tracks: "Skyscraper," "Human Resources," "The Goodnight Waltz."

Have a Good Season - another Jersey mainstay that's still going strong. Emo revival in their earlier releases, now with more 70s power pop influences in their newer stuff. See them live, they put on a fantastic show and usually play some great covers in addition to their original music. HaGS guys if you're reading this, please put your version of "Since You've Been Gone" online, I'm begging you. Recommended tracks: "Joseph / Shel Silverstein," (you have to listen to them together for the drop, so good) , "Gum, "Gleaux / Scab." Also, frontman Nic Palermo interviewed me once.

Elephant Jake - If you see any of these bands live make it EJ, they put on such a damn good show. Electrifying indie punk from the Empire State. Recommended tracks: "F.D.C." "Sarah Moyer," "Goodness to Honest," and of course you gotta learn "Sebastien Bauer" for the singalongs.

Blind Lion - Sadly one of the greats that we lost along the way. Defunct since about 2017. I only got to see them once but it was a great performance. Alongside their own stuff they played some killer covers of "Bad Moon Rising" and "Moonage Daydream." I had trouble doing a logo design for them because I actually really like the composition, if not the "Ed Hardy-ness," of their existing logo so what you see here are two separate attempts, neither of which feels entirely satisfying to me. Frontperson Larry Flately currently plays in Nematode and also handled production of Bradley Gardens joke hiphop group The Breakfast Boiz under the moniker "DJ Ova EZ." Recommended tracks: "Brumous," "Dinner."

Fighting Seasons - A band that I sadly found out about too late (via a sticker under the bridge in my town which has since been painted over). 2010s pop punk that packs a helluva punch, especially considering that I'm pretty sure the members were high schoolers for most of the band's existence. I think some members may have gone on to form Sawce (FFO Chon, Polyphia, that type of music) but I can't remember where I read/heard that so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Recommended tracks: "Fighting Seasons," "Oil on Canvas"

Milkmen- Another fallen giant, officially disbanded in 2019. Like Morus Alba, they played the very first house show I attended and their few releases remain on constant rotation in my home. Used to put on a great show and were one of the bands I always thought would make it big until suddenly they weren't around anymore. Frontman Ben Thieberger contributed guitar and vocals to Covid quarantine project Kin if you're looking for a bit of an extra fix but beyond that I don't know what these guys are up to these days, sadly. Recommended tracks: "Ramus," "Johnny Dangerously," "how sieves catch breeze," "K.O.T.H."

Stand and Wave - New York (now Philly) pop punkers delivering instant dopamine hits with every track. Another great live act, see them with EJ if you can! They often play shows together. Recommended tracks: "Convos," "Mrs. Dash," "Splashton Kutcher," "Michael Collins."

My Chemical Romance - You know who they are. While I was drawing all these other logos I ran a poll on Patreon to decide which famous New Jersey band should also be graced with a drawing from me. MCR won the poll by a hefty margin so unfortunately you won't get to see me do an illegible black metal take on Hoboken's Yo La Tengo. I ended up doing two versions: the one with the halo is the first, the one with the bats was the second. I tried to do something kind of thin and elegant with the first one and I don't think it's terrible but I also wasn't quite satisfied with it. For the 2nd attempt I tried to lean into the kind of pulpy, almost horror punk aesthetic of early MCR and I think that one looks better even if it's less original.

Anyway if you took the time to read through all this, thank you very much! And please support these bands! Also If any of the links aren't working please let me know.

-Logan

#emo #pop punk #new jersey #band logo #logo design #punk #my chemical romance #mcr #emo revival

441 notes · View notes

sirenologyyy · 3 months

Text

MODERN ATWOW BAND HEADCANONS !

✹ summary : in which i'm slowly crawling back to my avatar hyperfixation and i decided to make a band au!except I'm right (or not take this with a grain of salt hehe) and I frl can't see them playing any other roles

✹ author's note : let this not flop in eywa we pray �� and yes, Daisy Jones and the Six is my favorite book, how did you guess?

✹ warnings : mentions of bleeding, scabs, swearing obv

It all started one balmy afternoon when Lo'ak and Spider were blowing off their biochemistry homework lying down on the floor staring at the cieling fan undeviatingly oscillate above them. Then, Lo'ak suddenly sits up from his spot causing Spider to look at him.

"What's up?" Asked Spider.

Lo'ak looks at him, a newfound determination in his wide eyes. "Dude, what if we start a band."

Spider frowns. "A band?"

"No, but hear me out for a second." says Lo'ak bristling in his spot as Spider sits up.

Although wary, Spider hums. "Alright."

"Think about it, school's almost over, we barely know anybody in this town, are we seriously gunna hangout in the beach all summer trying to make friends?"

Spider chuckles. "I think I'm missing the point where that's a bad idea."

"Spider, come on bro- look at us, we're losers alright? We're practically throwaway fish to the kids at school- but if we start a band, who knows how many people'll wanna be a part of it, we'll score a couple of life long friends AND it'll be our one solid excuse not to be at home" Lo'ak's riposte was proving to make sense, with a toothy smile to cap it off, but of course Spider- considering he was two years Lo'ak's senior had to pop his bubble with the pragmatic pin of reality.

"I don't know dude, it sounds kinda lame." Spider replies hesitantly, propping himself up by his elbows. "We've been trying to start a band since 7th grade, we always end up calling it quits on the 3rd week."

"This time it'll be different."

Spider scoffs. "Uh-huh? How "

Lo'ak nudges his right shoulder upwards. "We'll ask Neteyam to help."

Spider shoots him yet another look. "If he doesn't want to help?"

"We make do," Lo'ak shrugs. "What's wrong with a two man band?"

"Almost everything." Spider snorts.

★ lo'ak ──────── electric guitar

when they used to live back in high camp, he found an old silvertone in their attic that used to belong to jake during his marine days along with scores of 70's rock bands' songs on yellowing paper fraying at the edges and folds.

He spent 3 months learning a song with 4 chords by ear and performed it at the school talent show

When he got into 6th grade he did not only beg, for an electric guitar he GROVELED. He suddenly wanted to do all the chores in the house, he suddenly got C's instead of D's in tests, it was terrifying because who the hell WAS this and what did they do to the real Lo'ak???

Jake and Neytiri didn't give him one until he was 13. Jake just picked him up from school one day and all of a sudden just asked: you wanna get that electric guitar?

LO'AK WAS OVER THE GODDAMN MOON.

got a classic red stratocaster.

The first song he ever learned to play on the guitar was buddy holly by weezer...

Come on you guys what were you expecting

likes picking at his finger scabs and does it until neteyam or tsireya tells him off.

has multiple guitar picks but always uses this specific one he made into a necklace and wears it everywhere.

THEN PROCEEDS TO LOSE SAID GUITAR PICKS

tuk keeps hiding them around the house waiting for lo'ak to lose his mind.

he can play any song by ear, just watch.

plays around with riffs more often than not.

★ neteyam ──────── back up vocalist / lyricist

never even wanted to join the band but was bullied into joining (kiri joined when he said he wouldn't just to spite him)

has perfect pitch (are we surprised though)

YOU'D SNEEZE AND BITCH ASS CAN FIGURE OUT WHAT NOTE IT'S AT.

uses it to nitpick Lo'ak when he's straying from the original pitch.

lo'ak will then threaten to cave his face in with his capo.

his favorite artists are frank ocean and kendrick lamar.

no one in his entire school woulda guessed he could sing. Nobody.

was made to sing in family events... (iykyk)

loves musicals. his favorite's Hamilton...

Jake and Neytiri took him to see Hamilton once in New York when he was 11, he's never been the same since.

HAS MAJOR FUCKING STAGE FRIGHT I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. HE WILL NOT GO ON STAGE UNTIL YOU SMACK HIM IN THE HEAD SO HARD HIS BRAIN RESETS AND SUDDENLY HAS THE BALLS TO FACE THE AUDIENCE.

Once he's out there though he totally changes, he gets more confident, when he's really feeling it then his braids start flying everywhere... it's becoming an issue really, he might take someone's eye out with how solid his hair beads are...

hurled his guts out one time before they had to perform at the end of year school fair.

★ kiri ──────── pianist

there are always four types of gays. English Teacher Gays, Art Teacher Gays, History Teacher Gays, and Music Teacher Gays.

Kiri was definitely the last one.

lo'ak got her a shirt that says "key master" with her face horribly photoshopped onto the keys of a piano.

she burned it the night she got it.

til this day lo'ak never knew what happened to it.

Suki Waterhouse as Karen Sirko in the DJATS live action? Brain chemistry = altered

Stevie Nick's and Lindsey Buckingham's performance of Silver Spring in Fleetwood Mac's Reunion concern in 1997? = Roman Empire.

was in the school choir and would play the piano in their choir director's stead.

has been playing the piano for 9 years but always gets confused when asked to play a flat or a sharp (it takes her 4 tries to figure out where C minor is)

her favorite piece to play is over the waves by juventino rosas.

when she wants to show jake a new piece she's been working on, by the first minute he's out like a fucking light. SHE'S JUST THAT GOOD.

also when she wants to play a piece with too many chords she never wanted to play it in the first place.

once she messes up she's definitely one of those people who spams the keys.

one time when she was playing a piece her fingers cramped mid-song and she freaked out.

★ spider ──────── drums

his dad's military friends taught him how to play the drums.

lo'ak dared him he couldn't do a drumroll for an hour.

spider did it in two and a half but stopped cuz he got hungry LMAO.

impresses kiri with various drumstick spins, it dosen't impress her.

practically worshipped that one vine of those two kids.

was definitely one of those kids that played with overturned pots and pans and pretended it was a drum set (it annoyed the hell outta norm)

once lost his drum sticks and used chopsticks (ps. they weren't the same)

scribbled their band logo on his bass drum and was very proud of it.

INSISTED they would call themselves "the seven skxawngs"

nobody listened to him.

when they held auditions for their drummer he went "You guys know I can play the drums right?"

has never watched whiplash.

uploads drum covers on his tiktok account with 70 followers.

makes dumb jokes if the others can't figure out a certain chord or note he'd go "guys maybe it's at H!"

the most chillest person in the band though frl.

somehow always manages to pull??? The amount of game this man has solely just because he's the drummer is wild.

they once performed at an event with 50 people and Spider was wearing addidas slides the entire time and nobody noticed.

★ tsireya ──────── main vocals/lyricist

When I tell you this kid can SING SHE CAN SING.

frl the real life ariel I swear evrrytime she opens her mouth everyone's wishing on her downfall because she's such a talented singer, her vibratro is so measured, her runs are so clean, she's just so UGHHHH.

is such a theatre kid oh Lord.

was made to sing at family events too (it's practically a canon event atp guys.)

has a special journal where she writes her song lyrics that she takes with her everywhere (give her 5 minutes and she can write a song with just her hand as paper and eyeliner as a pen.)

joined in singing competitions when she was a kid and when she was 10 joined a televised singing competition and managed to make it to the semi-finals.

it's why she's the lead singer of the band anyway.

she always has pearls threaded into her hair every time they perform and it's been her signature look ever since.

her voice is fucking angelic ya'll istg.

is a soprano. enough said.

is amazing at reading sheet music.

she and neteyam wrote 3 original songs that the band performs everytime they get a gig.

aside from singing she can play piano and violin too.

she's a fucking wordsmith too like she's so eloquent and knows all these big words and she's good at expressing her pent up emotions through songwriting.

the literal it girl. Everyone in their band gained more popularity ever since they opened for a popular band from L.A. but everyone in their high-school knows her name. Everyone.

her vocal control is amazing.

she really knows how to liven up a crowd.

★ aonung ──────── rhythm guitar

has been playing guitar since he was 7.

took up guitaring because his dad introduced him and tsireya to playing instruments at a young age.

collects guitar straps.

neteyam's always on his ass about if what he's playing sounds right or not (50% of the time he's not)

it isn't practice without neteyam and aonung almost throwing hands at least thrice.

almost always smokes while practicing.

oddly enough only has one guitar pick and he hasn't lost it yet unlike lo'ak who buys new guitar picks every other month.

obsessed with black nailpolish, you won't see him go on stage without black nails istg.

he didn't even audition for the band. He was just always there at the Sully residence to pick Tsireya up from practice until one day Tsireya told him to come inside the house, when he did he finds out they needed someone for rhythm guitar and that Tsireya let it slip that Aonung knew how to play.

he's been a part of the band ever since.

he's just incredibly good with his fingers, enough said.

after the first time they performed their first gig at some girl's house party, he, rotxo, and lo'ak got high on the rooftop of Aonung's house (yk until Lo'ak slipped and started dangling from the gutters and fell into the pool)

his outfits always eat every time they perform.

james hetfield the goat.

always experimenting with new riffs and runs and adds them to the songs mid-performance and without any warning (just to piss neteyam off)

★ rotxo ──────── bass guitar

the glue and heart of the band frl.

the sweetest basist you'll ever meet.

his family actually owns a popular guitar shop in Awa'atlu, he first started playing the guitar at the ripe age of 5.

Bro is a prodigy but dosen't want to admit it.

aonung bought his first guitar at rotxo's family's shop, they hit it off ever since.

Always brings his baked goods to practices (then kiri devours the entire tray when you aren't looking)

actually fucked up his audition for the band but then Lo'ak found him sobbing in a janitors closet and gave him a second shot at an audition with just Lo'ak and Spider and he was able to redeem himself.

(really only auditioned cuz he played bass, they were finding a bassist, and not because kiri sully was their pianist)

is an introvert but he's so fucking funny that you wouldn't suspect it.

can perform riffs in his sleep (no he actually does though it freaks aonung out when he spends the night in his place.)

kiri made him a resin guitar pick with fragments of coral from the beach when they had their first date.

has a "maturing is realizing bass is the superior instrument" tshirt.

one time wore finger condoms so his scabs wouldn't re-open and bleed all over his guitar 😔

loves playing deftones on the bass.

has chronic "guitar face"

185 notes · View notes

fadedin2u · 4 months

Text

pick up and roll the dice - ch. 2

read in between the lines, i know you love me…

summary: ellie takes you to a college party, you do her make up. based on the song hold on by the internet

content: college!au, childhood best friends!au, dealer!ellie, fem!reader, modern!au, ellie is a simp (not surprising), ur also a simp, art major!ellie, kinda slow burn??

word count: 2.8k

warnings: mention of reader vomiting, drug usage (alcohol, weed), lots of cursing (what do you expect), men (mentioned), expect nsfw chapters in the future so MDNI 18+

read chapter 1 here

“Hey, just FYI, a guy is gonna come over in about 15 to pick up,” Ellie warns you as she puts on some sweatpants on top of the boxers she was lounging in.

Ellie started dealing in high school, and it started purely by accident. She was always the one with bud, and originally only sold to close friends because they didn’t know where to get weed, but as college got more hectic (and tuition went up), Ellie started selling to people on campus. She sold actual bud mainly, but sometimes she’d sell shrooms if she ended up in possession of them.

You sit on your own twin bed, and look up from your phone, nodding. It wasn’t completely unusual for Ellie to have people pick up at the dorms, but more often she tried to avoid it in fear of getting caught by the R.A. and potentially getting expelled.

“Sounds good,” You say, going back to your phone.

Ellie stares at you for a moment, deliberating, “Hey, uh, there’s a party happening tonight that I’m probably gonna end up going to sell at, would you wanna come?”

Your face scrunches up, cautious, “Who’s throwing it?”

Ellie thinks for a minute, “I think it’s the lacrosse team, but don’t quote me on that.”

You groan, “Ughh… The lacrosse team? Seriously?”

Ellie sits on your bed, her hands clasped together, “Come onnnn, it won’t be fun without you there. Besides, we’ll go for an hour, get wasted and high, and come back here to play Mario Kart! It’ll be fun!”

You glare at Ellie, “You wouldn’t wanna go to this party either if it wasn’t for the business opportunity. The lacrosse guys are dicks.”

Ellie gives you a half-smile, “I know, that’s why I overcharge them.”

You snort, rolling your eyes, and you contemplate your options. You could either go out with Ellie and stay entertained, even if it is around insufferable people, or you could stay at home and play a video game for 7 hours straight.

“Okay, fine. But you owe me,” you say, folding your arms over your chest.

Ellie gives you a cheeky smile, “The pleasure of my company isn’t enough for you?”

You stare blankly back at her.

Ellie laughs, “Fine, Jesus, name your price.”

You think for a moment, not knowing what Ellie could give you besides weed.

Suddenly your face lights up, “You have to let me do your make up for tonight.”

Ellie’s nose scrunches up, “Dude, come on. I’m not a make up girl.”

You roll your eyes again, “I’m not gonna do it like mine, I’ll make it more androgynous, I promise. It’ll look so good.”

Ellie thinks about you thinking that she looks “so good”, and she sighs, “Fine. But none of that mascara shit. It feels weird on my eyes and I don’t like the way it looks.”

You laugh, “You have my word, no mascara.” You look over at the clock, seeing that it’s already about 8:30pm.

“We should probably get ready soon then, right?” You ask, and there’s a knock at the door.

Ellie nods as she walks towards the door, “Yeah, just let me finish this up.”

As Ellie takes care of business, you go over to your closet, thinking hard about what you can wear that looks good, but at the same time, doesn’t look like you put in that much effort to a college party.

You eventually pink a pair of your favorite pair of jeans, a tight, black cropped t-shirt, and some sneakers. You wait to start changing until Ellie’s customer leaves.

Ellie shuts the door, folding the wad of cash and slipping it into her wallet.

You start changing out of your shorts and hoodie into your outfit, and Ellie very pointedly does not look anywhere near you as you change. When you’re in your outfit, you look over it in the mirror.

“What are you gonna wear, Els?” You ask, fixing your hair.

Ellie stares at you in your outfit before looking down at her wife-beater and sweatpants combo. “Uh… This?”

You give Ellie a look, “Dude. This-“ you point to a stain near her neckline, “is from yesterday.”

Ellie scoffs, “Fuck you, I’m saving the environment by not washing my clothes every time I wear them.”

You roll your eyes, “Oh, is that what you’re doing?”

You go over to Ellie’s closet. You pick a black graphic tee, your favorite of her short-sleeve button ups to wear over it, and a pair of her slouchy denim jeans.

“Voila.” You say, shoving the clothes into her chest as you walk over to your shared bathroom to do your own make up. She flushes, but nonetheless changes into the outfit you picked, the idea of you picking what you think looks best on her making her stomach fluttery and warm.

When Ellie is finished changing, she walks into the bathroom, watching you in the mirror as you do your make up. You apply a light layer of lipstick as she does, and you’re hyperaware of her gaze on your face.

You finish up, your make up accentuating your features perfectly. You blot your lips with some toilet paper, and nod.

“Okay, let’s do this-“ You say, hoping up onto the bathroom counter and rifling through your make up bag until you find a brown, pencil liner.

“C’mere,” You say, motioning for Ellie to come closer.

Ellie’s hands are sweating as she walks up to you, standing in between your legs. She’s not sure where to put her hands so she leaves them dangling at her sides.

You lean forward and put your hand on Ellie’s cheek to steady her face. “Your eyes might water, just so you’re prepared.”

Ellie scoffs, “Please. A little eyeliner isn’t gonna kill me.”

You start lining her waterline, and her eye immediately tears up, “Fuck.”

You giggle, continuing to outline her green eyes. When you’re done, you put the pencil away.

“Okay, now the trick for this is to close your eyes and rub them a bit. Can you do that for me?” You ask as you rummage through your bag again to pull out some eyebrow gel.

Ellie chuckles a little, following your instructions, “I thought the point was to not touch your eyes when you have eyeliner on so you don’t fuck it up.”

You nod, “Yeah, usually, but I’m doing more of a diffused, messy look on you. It’ll look best with your whole… Vibe, I guess, if your make up is less structured and more messy.”

Ellie stops rubbing her eyes, and the green in her eyes pops brilliantly against the brown liner. You smile, pleased with yourself.

“Okay, that was the worst of it,” You say, brushing through Ellie’s eyebrows with the gel.

Ellie nods, focused on your face as you do her make up, and it makes you feel excessively vulnerable, but you don’t call attention to it, assuming it’s you who’s being weird for thinking into it.

You take a blush stick and apply a little to her freckled cheeks, and lightly dab the rest on her lips with your finger.

Finally, you apply a top layer of chapstick to her lips.

“Okay, finished,” You say, admiring your work.

Ellie nods, still in-between your legs, looking at you. “Thanks.”

You giggle, and it sounds more nervous than you intended. “Wanna check yourself out in the mirror?”

Ellie is knocked out of her stupor, and moves out from between your legs to look in the mirror. The liner makes her eyes pop, and the rest of the make up is simple and light, accentuating her features while adding a little something extra.

Ellie’s face spreads into a grin, “Dude, this is so much better than I expected.”

You kick her before jumping off the counter.

She yelps, “Hey! I didn’t mean that in a bad way, I just never really saw how I could wear make up in a way that makes me feel comfortable, and this looks great.”

You fix yourself in the mirror one last time, “Damn right it looks great. I did it.”

Ellie laughs, her smile bright. She gives you a once over, “You ready to go?”

—-

The house that’s hosting the party is only a few blocks away from your dorm building, so you and Ellie walk there together as you share a blunt.

By the time you two arrive at the party, you’re both fairly stoned. Ellie opens the door for you, and you two barely get three steps inside before you hear a “Ellie! Y/n!”

You both turn to see a clearly inebriated Jesse rushing towards you, a goofy smile on his face.

He gives you both a bear hug at the same time, and you laugh as Ellie says, “I’m guessing you already found the booze, Jess?”

Jesse laughs boisterously, shrugging, “Hey, you guys need to catch up, get on my level.”

Ellie looks over at you, eyebrow raised, “Wanna take a shot?”

You make a face, “Not really, but I’m gonna take one anyways.”

Ellie laughs at that, and the three of you migrate to the kitchen. Ellie takes a bottle of whiskey out of her backpack that’s carrying everything she has to sell tonight. She pours three shots with some miscellaneous, most likely used, shot glasses on the counter. As she does, you ask Jesse, “Is Dina gonna be here tonight?”

Jesse makes a face, and you think ‘Shit, sore subject right now, huh?’

Jesse says, “Dina and I had a fight last night, so… I don’t know if she’s gonna be here.”

Ellie makes a low whistle, but she knows her friends, and this on and off again thing between Jesse and Dina has been going on since you all were in high school together. They’ll likely be right as rain by the end of the week.

You take a shot from Ellie and pass the other to Jesse, “Then we’ll have a blast with the three of us, right?”

Jesse grins, “Fuck yeah, we will.”

——-

Famous last words.

About 2 hours later, you were sitting alone on a musty couch, your head dizzy from the several drinks you’ve already had. You nurse another one as you watch Ellie dealing to some brunette girl. Jesse left you to hang out with some guy friends, so you’re left to watch this girl flirt with Ellie, clearly putting the moves on her. Your stomach twists a little as you see Ellie laugh at something she said, her eyes crinkling.

When the girl rests her arm on Ellie’s bicep and Ellie doesn’t resist it, you stand up, going to get some fresh air.

You weave through the packed house, stumbling slightly as you turn a corner. ‘Fuck. I must be more drunk than I thought.’

You go outside, walking out onto the front porch. There are a few people smoking outside, and you try to move past them, but a man puts his hand on your shoulder.

“Hey, y/n, right?” He asks, tilting his head. It’s dark out, but you finally recognize his face from a generals math class you took freshman year.

“Hey, Matt, how’ve you been?” You ask, cursing yourself for playing into it. You barely knew the guy, and you were really not in the mood to entertain someone’s conversation.

Matt grins, and he leans in closer to you, pulling you over to the porch railing by him, “I’ve been better without Professor Bynum on my ass about stats. How’ve you been?”

Your nose scrunches up instinctually at him pulling you over.

“I’ve been alright, pretty busy, I actually just came out here to get some air and, well- I guess I got it, so I should probably get back inside.” You say awkwardly, back away.

Matt says, “Wait! Before you leave… You should know that I had a *huge* crush on you during that class.”

‘Great. Jesus Christ,’ you think.

“That’s- Um, that’s sweet.” You say, and you couldn’t sound less enthusiastic if you tried.

Matt’s inebriated brain doesn’t seem to care about that though, “Do you think I could take you out sometime?”

You wince, “Oh, Matt, I’m sorry, I-“

You feel a hand on your shoulder and you jump, turning back just to see Ellie. She looks a little hurt, “I thought you were gonna wait on the couch for me?”

You give Ellie an apologetic, tense smile, starting to feel a little nauseated, “Sorry, I just needed to get some air.”

You turn back to Matt, and maybe if you were less drunk, you would’ve had more tact, but all that comes out of your mouth is, “And I’m sorry, Matt, but no.”

Matt’s eyebrows furrow, “Damn, okay. Do you have a boyfriend or something?”

You pause, wondering if you should lie to get out of the awkward situation, but before you do, Ellie says, “Why, does she need a boyfriend to not want to go out with you?”

‘Jesus, Ellie.’ You think, your stomach churning more and more.

Matt’s jaw drops, “Jesus Christ, what the fuck is your problem?”

Ellie’s eyes narrow, “Nothing, I’m just explaining how to take rejection, dipshit.”

Matt looks like he’s about to say something to retaliate, but before he does, you turn away from them and vomit over the porch railing into the shrubs.

Whatever was about to be said gets lost, and you feel one hand bracing your back as another gathers the hair out of your face, and you hear Ellie’s voice by your ear, “Shit, you alright?”

You try to nod but you end up heaving more, emptying the contents of your stomach. Ellie’s hand smoothes over your back in a way that she hopes is comforting as she holds your hair away from your face.

“Hey, it’s alright, you’re okay. I’m gonna take you home, alright?” Ellie asks as you stand back upright, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand.

“Okay,” you say, too nauseous to resist and too done with this party to want to.

Ellie seems considerably more sober than you as she wraps one arm around your waist, walking you back to the dorms. You’re about to tell Ellie that you’re fine to walk on your own, that you’re not that drunk, but you can’t help but want to take advantage of the situation, leaning into Ellie.

“I’m sorry for making you leave early,” you say, and she squeezes your waist.

“You’re just fine, babe, don’t worry. I wanted to leave that boring ass party anyways.” Ellie responds, shrugging.

The two of you keep walking. “What about that girl you were talking to? She was really pretty:”

Ellie brows furrow, “The brunette? She was nice, I guess.”

You shake your head as you laugh, “Ellie, you are so dense, she was totally into you.”

Ellie shrugs again, “I know.”

Your brows furrow this time, “And… You weren’t interested?”

Ellie shrugs, “She was alright, just… Yeah. Wasn’t interested.”

Ellie leads you up to your dorm room, and when you step inside, you immediately face plant onto your bed.

“Home sweet home,” you say into the duvet, your voice muffled.

Ellie chuckles at that, grabbing a glass of water that was by your bedside and bringing it to you. “Okay, doll. Can you drink this?”

You sit up on the bed, and sip the water as Ellie goes to fetch ibuprofen, a bucket (just in case you still feel sick later), and a warm washcloth because she knows you like to clean your face at the very least before bed.

She sets everything up for you as you wipe off your face, watching her with a lovesick ache in your stomach.

When you’re finished, she takes the washcloth and chucks it into the dirty laundry hamper. She also passes you one of her (clean) cheesy, graphic tees.

“For you to sleep in.” She says casually.

You laugh, “My closet is right there, Els.”

Ellie’s cheeks go a little pink and she tries to take the shirt back, “Well, if you don’t want it-“

You snatch it back from her, “I want it.”

She laughs and puts her hands up in surrender before going to use the bathroom to clean up herself.

You strip off your dirty clothes except for your underwear and slip on Ellie’s t-shirt. You check to make sure the bathroom door is still closed before lifting the fabric up to your nose and sniffing it, smelling the familiar scent of Ellie’s laundry detergent.

You feel that same lovesick ache pang at your stomach again, and you crawl back into bed, your drunk brain too inebriated to handle that kind of intense emotion. You nestle under your covers, and thanks to the weed and alcohol in your bloodstream, you quickly pass out.

When Ellie comes out of the bathroom and finds you asleep in her clothes, she quickly goes to pull out her journal, sitting on her own twin bed across from yours and doing a quick, messy sketch of your sleeping face.

‘This is fucking weird behavior, Ellie, what the fuck?’ She thinks to herself as she finishes up and gets up to put her journal away.

On her way back to the bed, she pauses, looking at you for a moment before kissing your cheek softly.

“Goodnight.” She whispers, before crawling into her own bed, where she would lie awake for several more hours.

———

chapter 3 here!

texts w reader and ellie here

#ellie williams #ellie williams x reader #tlou2 #ellie williams fanfic #tlou #ellie x reader #ellie tlou #rose writes #pick up and roll the dice

230 notes · View notes

strniohoeee · 6 months

Text

Vigilance

Pairing: Matt Sturniolo X Female Reader

Synopsis: Matt is super jealous over Y/N getting male attention. He doesn’t know how to communicate this, causing Y/N to feel hurt🏵️ this is for the request asking for a jealous Matt when Y/N gets hit on

Warnings⚠️: None☺️ just super cute

Song for the chapter: Dead to Me-Kali Uchis

The triplets had orchestrated a vacation for our friends! They had invited Madi, Tril and Nate. The 7 of us were going down to Florida for 7 days! We had all been working on ourselves and our content that we hadn’t really had a chance to hang out and catch up.

Because we all live in different areas we had all decided to meet at the Air bnb that was on the beach. Although I am currently living In LA, I'm originally from NY and have been back home for the past 4 months, so I had to fly out alone.

And of course just my luck my flight was the only one of the 7 of ours that got delayed. So everyone was already at the house for a good two hours before I showed up.

I walked to the front door checking to see if it was locked, and I am not surprised that these fools left the door open. So I let myself in placing my luggage next to the door, and locking the door behind me

“HELLOOOOO” I yelled out, and to no surprise I heard nothing

As I walked to the kitchen I could hear talking, and laughing, so I knew they were outside on the balcony

“Who would’ve thought we’d all be together again” I said as I walked out the door

“Y/NNNNNN OH MY GODDDD SHES HERE” Madi said, jumping up and running to give me a hug.

“Madiiiii I’ve missed you so much” I said hugging her tightly

I walked over to everybody as they were all sitting around the little glass table that was in the center

“Hey Nick….I literally missed you so much” I said, giving him a big hug. Then I went over to Chris and hugged him “my favorite interesting character” I said squeezing him tight

“Yoo so good to see you again” Matt said in the most flirtatious way, giving me a big hug

“So great to see you” I told him after letting go

“Trilllll” I said as I gave him a hug too

“Yoo what’s Nate it’s been so long” I said as I gave him a hug

“It’s been like what a year??” He asked looking at me

“Dude I think it has been that long” I told him as I sat down next to him

“How was your flight?" I know it got delayed” Chris asked me

“It was alright. There was this dude next to me…oh my god wouldn’t stop talking to me” I said rolling my eyes

“Oh my god!!! A guy talking to you how dreadful” Madi said groaning

“Oh shut up” I said rolling my eyes at her

“What yall been up to while I’ve been gone?” I asked them

“The last 4 months have been insane. We’ve been growing by the second, and we just got back from tour” Nick said

“I saw! Congrats to Chris even though I’m a Matt girl” I said looking over at Matt

“The whole time we just kept talking about how much we missed you, and how you would have love coming on tour with us” Matt said

“I would killllll to have been on tour with yall” I said

“Why do you look so different” Nate asked me

I laughed at this and gave a confused look

“Different?” I asked

“Yeah….somethings different” he said eyeing me up and down

“Mmm, I dyed my hair black, and it’s longer now. I’ve might’ve put on some weight too, but uhhh not too much on that or I’ll spiral” I said laughing, they laughed with me

“Maybe it’s that” he said

“What the black hair? Or me gaining weight??? And answer carefully” I said raising an eyebrow

“I think it’s the weight! It looks good on you. Your bodies filling out” he said smuggly

“CREEPER MUCH” I said smacking him playfully

“Nooo not in that way. You just look so much happier and healthier now” he said rolling his eyes

“Yeah she looks healthier now cause her ass is fat” Madi said

“ALRIGHTTTT no more body talk” I said laughing

“It’s still pretty early, and we’re on the beach, so I say beach time???” Chris asked

We all agreed, and I was the first to get up and turn around. As I turned around Nate and Trils eyes followed down to my ass. Something Matt took note of, and he wasn’t happy about that.

Madi and I were sharing a room, and decided to match bathing suits. We both wore vibrant hot pink bikinis that were kind of a thong in the back. They weren’t cheeky but they also weren’t g string. Somewhere in the middle.

This was a matching suit we bought 5 months ago, and my body has changed in the last 5 months. So the top part was a little extra snug

“Madi you look so hot in pink” I told her

“You looks so hot in pink” she said

“I have to find my sun block, but could you go downstairs and find my purse” she asked me

“Of course baby” I said and went downstairs

All the guys were sitting on the couch waiting on Madi and I

“Have yall seen Madi’s purse” I called out from the kitchen

“Yeah it’s over here” Nick called out

“Perfect I’m coming” I said after slipping on my flip flops and walking over

“WOAHHHHH” Nick said causing everyone to look up from their phone

I just rolled my eyes at him, and went to grab Madi’s purse which was next to Matt.

“I like the pink” he said looking at me

“Thank you matt” I said smiling at him

“Oh I need a cover up. I left mine back home, and Madi’s are too small for me” I said

“Want one of my shirts?” Tril asked

“Sure” I said. He got up and came back a few minutes later with a shirt for me

“Thank you” I said slipping it on

Madi finally found her sunblock and came down stairs

“Aii bitches let’s go” she said

We walked out the front door and around the house to get to the entrance of the beach

Once we found a good spot we set up or towels, and I took off my shirt

“Hey could you pass me the sunblock” I asked Madi

“Yeah here” she said handing it to me

It was the spray on kind, so I sprayed myself except my back I couldn’t reach

“Back please” I told Madi handing her the bottle and turning around

Matt watched Tril and Nate, and immediately their eyes fell down to look at my ass. Nick also noticed this

“Y’all have no shame” he said to them shaking their head

They both laughed and put there hands up in defense

We all sat around tanning for a little bit, but I was starting to overheat

“Hey I’m going into the water it’s too hot” I said getting up and walking to the water

I got in the water about just below breast level. When I felt a ball hit me, so I turned around

“Oh I’m so sorry” the guy came walking over.

“Oh no worries it didn’t hit me hard” I said looking up at him blocking the sunlight out of my eyes

“What's your name?” He asked

“I’m Y/N, and yours” I asked him

“I’m Logan” he said sticking his hand out, which I happily grabbed and shook

“Nice to meet you Logan” I said

“Likewise” he said and winked

“Are you from here?” He asked me

“Oh no my friends and I are just on a vacation” I said to him

“Nice! I’m actually from here, but I live in Georgia right now for work” he said

“Oh, that's really cool. How’s Georgia?” I asked him

“I mean it’s nice, but it’s not Florida” he said shining his bright smile

“I mean that’s true. I’m from New York, so I get that” I said laughing a little bit

“You know tonight we’re having a bonfire my friends and I, maybe your friends and yourself would like to join?” He asked

“Uhh yeah maybe, I could ask them” I told him

“Alright well uh cool, I’ll see you around Y/N” he said started to walk back

“Yeah I’ll see you around Logan” I said, and decided to get out the water, and head back to everyone

“Who was that?” Madi asked me

“His names Logan, he was nice” I said to her drying myself off with my spare towel

“Yeah, and he was hot” she said

“Ehh he was okay” I said shrugging my shoulders

“Uhh no he was hot” Nick said chiming in

“So everybody was just watching me” I said laughing

“Well duh! A guy approaches you. We have to watch” Chris said

“Good to know, but anyways he invited us to a bonfire tonight on the beach. I told him I’d let you guys know” I told them

“Oh we have to go” Nate said

Everyone agreed except Matt

“How about you Matt?” I asked him

He just looked up from his phone and shrugged his shoulders

Hmm weird but what’s ever…”uhh okay” I said

We had gotten back from the beach a few hours ago, and decided to get some pizza from a nearby spot.

Eventually we all decided to head to the beach for the bonfire. I immediately saw Logan, so we walked over

“Hey Logan” I said

“Heyyy” he said going in for a hug, which shocked me, but I hugged him back

We all introduced everyone to each other and kind of just broke apart to talk to everyone

We were all sitting around the bonfire just talking

Logan was talking my ear off, and throwing compliments at me here and there. But I didn’t really care for him.

I kept glancing over at Matt who was occasionally talking to some girl.

I started to get a bit jealous. I really liked Matt, but I felt like he didn’t like me back. The girl had gotten up to get a drink, when Matt and I’s eyes locked. I smiled at him, and just kind of rolled his eyes and looked away.

That was weird?? And uncalled for

So I turned back to Logan and chatted with him. At one point he started to get a little too flirty. He went as far as tucking my hair behind my ear. And when I kind of moved my head away I looked at Matt, and he was watching me. But when he saw that he got up and started to walk away

“Uhh I’ll be back” I said to Logan and shot up walking after Matt

“Hey Matt what’s up?” I said walking with him

“Nothing” he said back bluntly

“Doesn’t seem like nothing” I told him

“Well it’s nothing” he said once again bluntly

“Did I do something wrong?” I asked him

“Nope” he said popping the P and looking at the water

“I’m not sure what I did to you, but whatever it is I’m sorry” I said and stormed off heading back to the house.

Got to the house, and went up to my bed. I started to cry. How could someone I adore so much just treat me like that. I didn’t do a single thing to him, and now he’s giving me the cold shoulder and being mean.

I ended up falling asleep before anyone came back, so I knew I’d face some questions when I woke up. Surprisingly, I woke up after everyone. I decided to shower and do my whole routine before heading downstairs

“Morning Y/N” Nick said smiling at me

“Morning guys” I said

“What happened to you last night?” Chris asked me

“Oh i got really tired, so I decided to head in” I told him as I sat down to eat a bagel

I sat next to Matt, and he didn’t even look over at me.

“Morning Matt” I said looking at him, he was drinking his orange juice, and all he did was raise his eyebrows at me.

We were on day 5 of our trip, and Matt was completely ignoring me now. He would go out of his way to not be near me, or interact with me at all. I spent those nights crying over how hurt I felt. I was hurting him, and he wouldn’t even talk to me about it.

Tonight everyone called it a night at about 12, but I was so riddled with anxiety that I stood up. I decided to sit outside on the patio

Once again letting tears fall from my eyes. Not understanding why he was being so mean to me. It was unfair.

I heard the screen door open and someone step out

“Y/N?” I heard someone say. I looked over my shoulder and scoffed

“What do you want Matt?” I said wiping my eyes and sniffling

“Are you crying?” He asked me sitting diagonal from me

“What does it matter” I spat at him

“Why are you crying?” He asked me with worry written all over his face

“Doesn’t matter not like you’d care anyways” I said to him

“I do care” he responded

“You’re not going to do this. You’re not going to sit and ignore me for 5 days, and then want to come out here and be all sweet and play therapist. You can go right back inside and leave me alone” I said shooing him

“Woah” he said taken aback

“Woah nothing matt…woah nothing. You’ve been a dick to me this whole trip, and I was so excited to see you. But for the past 5 nights, guess what I’ve been doing?? CRYING OVER YOU” I said slightly raising my voice

“God this is all my fault” he said rubbing his eyes and sighing

“It sure is” I said rolling my eyes at him

“I’ve been such an idiot. I’ve been bottling up how I feel so so fucking long” he said

“What the fuck are you saying” I said getting annoyed

“Y/N I like you so fucking much. That it actually brings pain to my heart and chest when I see you talking to other guys. And when Tril and Nate were looking at you making comments it just made me so jealous. And when Logan came over to you. I wanted to throw up with anxiety. I hated the fact that you were looking and talking to them, and not me. That I got so angry with you, but truly I was angry at myself, and jealous over someone who isn’t mine” he finally said

It took a second for all that to register in my head

“I..Matt what?” I said confused

“I really really like you. Like a lot” he said looking into my eyes

“Matt, I have liked you for the longest time. I missed you so fucking much while I was back home that I wanted to call you every second of everyday, but I just couldn’t bring myself to” I told him

“You should’ve….I would have picked up. For you I will always pick up” he said

“Y/N will you be my girlfriend?” He asked me getting up and walking to sit next to me

“Yes Matt. Yes I will” I told him looking at him

“God I’m such a fool. I will never ever do anything stupid like that again” he said pulling me in for a hug

“Matt never do that. Know that I am here for you. Always and forever. And however you’re feeling. Just come and speak to me about it. We will work this out together” I said pulling away

“I promise I will” he said giving me his pinky

I laughed and made a pinky promise with him, and with his other hand he pulled me in for a kiss.

The next two days of the trip were amazing. Matt and us had been doing everything as a couple, and truly enjoying the end of our vacation before we all had to head home

“TO US” we all screamed as we cheersed our soda cans

This was a vacation that would remain a core memory for me.

The End

Hope and pray that to the person who requested this likes it🫶🏽🫶🏽 Hope you guys enjoyed😘😘 time to keep pumping these stories out !!

-J💅🏽

#sturniolo triplets #sturniolo x reader #sturniolo #sturniolo fanfic #sturniolo triplets imagines #matt sturniolo #matt sturniolo fanfic #matt sturniolo x reader #Spotify

261 notes · View notes

steddieas-shegoes · 4 months

Text

Putting under a read more because there’s some canon-typical violence and blood mentioned in this one. It’s still soft and cute though!

Eddie does his first tattoo by himself in his bedroom while his mama and Wayne are working night shift. He’s 15 and has no reason for etching a tornado into his thigh.

Except he does.

His mama’s always called him her little tornado. Wayne’s favorite story to tell him is the time he had to take Eddie into the trailer park’s communal underground shelter one week after he moved in because someone swore up and down there was a tornado a mile away. There wasn’t, but they stayed underground for nearly an hour anyway.

No one knows about it for years.

His second one is when he’s 17 and lies about his age in Indy, someone from the queer bar he’d found himself in offered to give him the bats for free and he couldn’t refuse. He probably should have. No one should get tattoos in the back of a truck at one in the morning.

The only one who knows about that is Jeff because he’s the one who had to help him clean it when it got infected.

At least until he’s 18 and his mama offers to take him to get his first one and he’s so bad at lying to her, she figures it out on her own.

She’s not mad. She got her first one done at 16, after all. But she warns him about how dangerous it is and says he needs to be safer.

“It ain’t just unprotected sex that’s causin’ the epidemic, baby.”

So he gets the chest piece done for his birthday, his mama bringing him to a shop with “real artists.”

Days before he plays the song to save the world, and more specifically, the guy he shouldn’t have a crush on, he gets a master of puppets tattoo.

He thinks maybe the fact that half of it gets eaten by bats makes it more badass.

Steve thinks it’s metal.

And then Steve sees all of his tattoos while he’s trying to stop the bleeding from…everywhere. He’s cutting him out of his pants and trying to fashion a tourniquet out of a thick denim that’s so drenched in blood, it’s impossible to see what color it was originally.

He sees the tornado tattoo, somehow still intact, but bloody, as is most of him.

“Hey. Talk to me.” Eddie’s losing consciousness, but he can focus on Steve’s voice. “Tell me about this one.”

“Mama’s tornado.” Eddie smiled to himself. Used up all the energy he had to do it. “Makin’ messes.”

He can hear Steve yelling at someone, something that sounds like “call his mom!” but he can’t be sure. The world turns to black.

When he wakes up, his Mama is sitting next to his hospital bed with a Cosmopolitan magazine in her hands. She’s chewing gum.

He smiles.

“Hey mama.”

“Hey my little tornado. Sure did cause a ruckus this time, didn’t ya?”

He falls asleep to her reading aloud, some article about getting a man to bring you flowers.

The next time he wakes up, there’s a bouquet of flowers by his bed, something that looks like it came from the side of the road, not a shop.

And there’s Steve.

Reading the same magazine.

“You know they suggest guilting your boyfriend or husband into buying you flowers? Was this why you almost died? To make me feel guilty enough to bring flowers?”

Eddie smirked.

“That was my plan all along.”

“It worked. I’ll give you that.”

Steve stayed, even when his mama showed up and gave them both a look that Eddie couldn’t quite distinguish.

He stayed when she left, giving her a hug on her way out the door.

And he stayed when he got to go to their new home, even bringing flowers along to add some color to Eddie’s new room.

#cw: mention of aids epidemic #it’s very brief and not even technically named #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #mama Munson #headcanon

192 notes · View notes

chimcess · 19 days

Text

Waterlog || pjm (3)

Pairing: Jimin x Reader Other tags: Olympic Swimmer!Jimin, Ex Olympic Swimmer! Reader, Swim Coach!Reader Genre: Strangers to Friends to Lovers!AU, Coach!AU, Swimming!AU, HEAVY Angst, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, fluff, eventual smut, I'm so soft for these two it's crazy. Word Count: 12.2k+ Synopsis: After a car accident ends her athletic career, Y/N has slowly started rebuilding her life again as a high school swim coach. That’s until she gets a request from an old friend and finds herself back in the spotlight as the new coach of Olympic swimmer, Park Jimin. Warnings: toxic relationship (not reader and jimin), arguments, cheating (not reader and jimin), talks about previous child abuse, anxiety attack, strong language, crying, emotional abuse (not reader and jimin), talks of bad parental relationships, abandonment issues, some PTSD, prescription medication use, mentions of depression and mental health, lots of angst in this one, finally making some progress though, age insecurity, mutual pining, lots of side character development in this one, they really are so sweet together, jimin just being the nicest boy in the world, so much PDA, physical touch is his love language 👀👀👀, writing this is so comforting even when its angsty lol, i think that's it, let me know if I missed something A/N: Hello hello. Probably my favorite chapter to date. Bad news is that I think this series might be a little longer than originally intended. My inability to just get to the point has things moving a little slow, but I'm trying my best. We'll have to see, though! Hope you enjoy reading :)

prev || masterlist || next || playlist

Time went by quickly. Wednesday and Friday morning, Jimin and I met up to train for a few hours and then got breakfast together. When he asked if I wanted to work out with him in the evenings, I agreed. In the beginning, I had given him pointers, but after the second week came to a close, we had started exercising in silence. We spotted one another, made small talk, and went to dinner on the nights he did not go home to be with his parents. We got along and I was happy my overwhelming attraction to him had slowly calmed down.

I was still aware of his presence, the way he smelled, and how often he smiled and laughed, but I had grown used to seeing him walking around in barely anything at all. Hoseok called me a cougar whenever we had time to chat while Andy kept telling me to talk with Jimin about how I felt, but I had gotten very good at deflecting. Things were better and I was taking my wins whenever I could get them. Even if those wins meant I went home sexually frustrated and aching for someone to make it better.

Jimin was packing up for the night and I was getting ready to head out. He had plans with a large group of his friends, so I would have to figure out dinner by myself this time. He invited me but I politely declined. I could vaguely recall how rude his friends from that restaurant had been, and that one girl's mean glare. I had no interest in repeating that.

Giselle waved at me on her way out which I returned with a smile. She was a very sweet, college girl and getting to know her was fun. Her brother moved out here six years ago and was the only reason she left Memphis. In-State tuition and a rent-free bedroom was all it took to convince her to spend some quality time with her big brother and his dog, Lucky.

She and Sam were the closest, but I would often see her eating lunch with Megan when he was with a client. Everyone was making bets on when they would eventually hook up, but I was convinced that had already happened and they were keeping it a secret from the nosy staff.

"See you tomorrow," Yoongi called out from across the room, seemingly appearing out of thin air.

He was out of eyesight before I could reply.

"Bye Yoon," Giselle sing-songed anyway, shoving her ear buds in and leaving before the door could close behind Yoongi. "Night guys!"

As the young woman said, Yoongi and Megan were the two most important people to befriend. Not just for massages either. The both of them were hilarious and kept the back fridge stocked with our favorite snacks. On the mornings I did not have time to eat breakfast, Megan stopped and got me a muffin and coffee from her favorite cafe. If I needed someone to help me out in the pool, Yoongi was always happy to offer himself for the job. It was challenging for me to focus on my swimming when Jimin was around, and I would often come in early to get a quick work out in before he got here.

“You okay getting home?” Jimin asked.

We had come together tonight, and he had offered to drive us in his truck. I had grown very fond of the green machine, which Jimin affectionately called Fiona, and I jumped at the chance to get in his passenger seat. We were usually riding around in my car since it was better on gas.

“Yeah, I’m riding with Sam.”

Sam and I had grown close as well. He was super funny and always down to hang out with me if I showed up by myself. On the odd Sunday I felt like getting out of the house, I found myself at the gym with Sam. I was currently attempting to teach him how to swim and always filled in for Yoongi on the weekends.

Jimin nodded, “Good. See you this weekend?”

I smiled, “Can’t miss your big party.”

Jimin’s 24th birthday was on the 13th and his family liked to go big. Eloise was clearing out an entire section in their restaurant for all of us, and I had found myself teamed up with Taehyung to help with the planning. Na-Yeon put everything in his hands since she was not feeling up to the task this year. I only agreed to help when I realized just how overboard the snowboarder would go if no one was there to reel him back in. So far, I had placed the responsibility of decorating, music, and organizing the gift table on my shoulders. James had pulled me aside and thanked me when he found out. Apparently, he was also worried about Taehyung’s enthusiasm.

“It should be fun,” He nodded. “I’m going to head out.”

“See you tomorrow,” We had finally started coming 5 days a week. "We're working on your turns. Butterflies, too. Be prepared.”

He groaned, “You’re torturing me, coach.”

I laughed, “Is the baby upset?”

“Very,” He winked. My mouth went dry. Sometimes I felt silly for getting nervous around him, especially when I knew he flirted with everyone. I was not special. “See you Saturday.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled as I stared at his retreating back. “See you.”

Jimin’s birthday passed quietly. We had a great time and ate well. Taehyung got drunk enough to suggest karaoke once we cleared out the place for the night, and he and Na-yeon had all of us cracking up. I finally met Jungkook’s girlfriend, a pretty girl who did not talk very much, and I could feel the tension between the two of them. Jimin said that was just how they were and to ignore it.

After Jungkook successfully shoved Jimin's face into his cake, we opened presents. The boys got him tons of workout clothes and gear, Eloise bought him a new blender, and his parents both chipped in to get the new video game he had been talking about picking up.

I gifted him a bottle of his favorite cologne after Na-Yeon mentioned he was out. Jo Malone was the most distracting thing in my life right now, its scent clinging to the passenger side of my car most days and driving me insane if Jimin stood too close. Still, it was something I did not think I could part with now. Jimin was happy with the present and hugged me after opening it. I was positive I had this stupid grin on my face for the rest of the night.

By Halloween we were in the gym every day, save Sunday and the occasional Saturday when Jimin needed some time to rest. We both kept our word, our conversation at the restaurant we went to with Jungkook and Taehyung sticking better than I thought it would. Overtime he got more confident when asking for a break and I was a professional at picking up on his body language. We were a good team, and I was confident he would be in great shape for the Olympics.

It was mid-November now and Taehyung had finally gotten around to getting us together for the sushi date in Detroit. I had just gotten out of the shower when Jimin messaged he was going to come along. His mom had a rough Sunday and could not go to their usual dance class, so he had stayed with her instead. He looked worn out when he walked inside the pool room Monday morning so instead of training, I just sent him home. We were meeting back up on Wednesday to get back to work, but it seemed Jungkook’s nagging finally convinced him to come out with the rest of us.

My relationships with his friends had also started to improve. Taehyung had added me to their group chat a few weeks back and I had tried to keep up with them as often as I could remember to. It was not difficult. They text so often I had to silence notifications for the chat, but I had to admit they were really funny. Jungkook especially.

I was happy to spend time with everyone and getting out of the house sounded nice. Violet and Calvin were great, and I did enjoy eating dinner with them sometimes, but I would be lying if I said they would be my first choice to spend time with.

I had grown close enough with Taehyung during the partying planning that his bubbly, over the top personality had become more endearing than overwhelming. We had gone to lunch a few times together, his boldness only increasing with each meet up, and he could hold me hostage for hours if I let him. Milo was typically my saving grace, and Taehyung would leave with a wet kiss to my cheek and promises of the same time next week.

Tae: Y/N should pick you up

Jimin: Why???

Kookie: Your truck is ass

I chuckled and sent off a text of my own before going to my dresser to find something warm to wear.

Me: I don’t mind driving

Me: Don’t hate on the truck. I like it.

My phone chimed a few times but I ignored it for now. I knew I wanted to wear a pair of dark, navy jeans. It was freezing outside so a long sleeve was a must, but I could get away with just two layers. My hands found a mustard-yellow turtleneck and I smiled. I could wear my brown boots with it. Happy with my outfit, I checked on the chat.

Jimin: U sure?

Tae: The truck is GREEN

Tae: Already a crime

Kookie: It can’t go over 60

Darcy: omg stop blowing my phone up

Darcy: just ride with her dude

Jimin: Y/N?

I rolled my eyes. I hated when he did that. Jimin had the habit of double and triple checking in with someone. It was sweet but it also drove me insane. There was nothing more I disliked than repeating myself, especially if I already agreed to something.

Me: I’ll pick you up in 30, k?

Jimin: Thanks

Darcy: Was that so hard?

I frowned. So, Darcy was in a bad mood then. Shouldn't take it out on Jimin, I thought. Even if she was having a bad day, something that seemed to be a reoccurring theme with her, it doesn't mean she can just talk to people like that. Fighting the urge to give into my annoyance and call her out, I tossed my phone on my bed and made myself finish getting ready.

Walking into the living room, I went on a hunt for the jacket I wanted to wear. It was the same color as my leather boots with sherpa trim. It would tie everything together and, I hoped, would keep Taehyung from complaining too much about the “offensive” color of my shirt. He had a hard time accepting anything in the yellow or green family. Finding it on the sofa, I nodded and left it be. I would grab it on my way out.

It took me more time to get my hair figured out than anything, but once I gave up and did the same thing that I did every day, it worked itself. After that, I put on a little bit of makeup since I figured it would not take me very long. This was a casual outing with friends and the dim lights of the sushi place would give me some grace if things were not perfect. A nice base, simple eye look, and a layer of mascara already had me looking more awake than I had in months. After applying a layer of lip gloss and a misting of setting spray, I was out of the door, jacket keeping me warm, and purse tucked under my arm.

I drove in silence, like I always did, and pulled onto the curb of Jimin’s house. Sending a text to the chat, I waited for him to come out. I was a few minutes later than I said I would be, but Jimin found a way to be late for everything, so I did not feel that bad about it. Taehyung and Milo were already on leaving Ann Arbor, and Jungkook and Darcy riding with them. They would only beat us there by fifteen minutes or so, but I hoped he would hurry up and come outside. Taehyung worked hard for those reservations.

My phone vibrated and I stared at the little device in my cup holder. It was weird how my anxiety fluctuated on a daily basis. Back home, I could talk on the phone and hold a conversation behind the wheel, but ever since I came to Michigan it felt like I had taken three massive steps back. Taking a few deep breaths, I told myself that I was safe. I was parked, completely stationary, and no one was around. No traffic meant no accidents. Sucking in a harsh breath, I picked it up.

Jimin: Be out in a sec

Jimin: Just making sure mom is okay

He had not left his mother’s house in days. I was worried about Na-Yeon, but I had to believe that Jimin would tell me if something was seriously wrong with her. I had truly started to feel connected with the woman. We joked over dinner and I found myself helping her out more and more each time I came by. It would devastate me if she passed away without me knowing how bad it had gotten.

Me: Take your time

He came out only two minutes later. Wearing a heavy, black puffy jacket and tight pants, Jimin leisurely walked over and got into the car. His cologne hit me as soon as the door opened, and I bit my lip, trying to hide the deep inhale I took. Jo fucking Malone.

He smiled at me but otherwise kept quiet as I drove. He knew I had a difficult time behind the wheel and tried his best to keep conversation light. While I normally appreciated the sentiment, I did not want to make him sit in silence for 45 minutes. Opening and closing my mouth a few times, I struggled to come up with a good conversation topic.

We often bounced from idea to idea, mostly sticking to swimming and music, and I always found our little talks to be very insightful. Movies and tv shows had been fun to bond over, a small generational gap introducing us to shit we had never heard of before. There were so many things I could bring up, things that Jimin would jump at the idea to talk about. Still, I could not find my voice.

“So,” I started, awkwardly, trying to push past the blockade of anxiety. “Is this place as good as Tae says or is he going off on one of his rants again?”

Jimin chuckled softly. “It’s pretty good, but it’s still just sushi. Taehyung finds a way to make everything sound extravagant.”

We shared a quiet laugh.

“It was nice of him to invite me,” My hands gripped the wheel tighter. We were starting to approach more populated areas. “He didn’t have to do that.”

Jimin snorted childishly, the sound relaxing me ever so slightly. If there was one thing I hated was driving at night. I was lucky the snow had stopped falling yesterday afternoon and the roads were clear, but a part of me wished I had asked Jimin to drive.

Traffic in Saline was lighter than any town back in Colorado, and driving around was a breeze in comparison. At home, you were lucky if there was only one accident a day, but more times than not I had been stuck on the interstate for hours because of multiple car crashes. Michigan felt less hectic; safer. Not safe enough to let my guard down, but safe enough to listen to Jimin when he spoke.

“Taehyung is just that kind of guy.”

I nodded; eyes glued to the road. I wanted to say something and keep our conversation flowing, but the more cars around us the more I tuned him out. My eyes flickered between my rearview mirror, side mirrors, and windshield rapidly as I drove. Once we were out of Saline and on I-94, I loosened my grip on the wheel. We would not hit much traffic until we were closer to Detroit.

Jimin stayed quiet and looked out the window. I wanted to thank him for being so understanding, but I knew he would not want me to. I kept my thoughts to myself and focused on the road. Jimin began to hum an unfamiliar tune.

My hands were shaking when we pulled up to the restaurant. Traffic had gotten pretty bad coming into the city, but we had picked a good day to come out. Jimin hummed and sang underneath his breath for most of the car ride, and we had a few small sporadic conversations when I felt the knots in my stomach loosen for a few brief moments.

"It's been forever since I've come here," Jimin said to himself, going to unbuckle his seat belt. "It looks pretty filled up."

Bash was a sushi place across from Wayne State University's football field and was one Taehyung’s favorite restaurants. He bragged about how delicious their food was for weeks before finally wearing me down with the promise of picking up the tab. He made reservations for their omakase, or “chef’s choice,” and promised I would get his obsession.

When I talked to Megan about it, she had said it was an expensive meal, so I was going to try and force myself to enjoy it regardless of my own personal feelings. Jimin seemed to like it here, and we usually enjoyed a lot of the same foods, so it made me feel a bit better about things.

I had to park down the street and spotted Taehyung’s Mazda a few cars away. Instead of getting out, I took a few moments to gather my composure. Jimin sat beside me patiently. He had grown used to my traffic anxiety. We had driven together so many times now, and he had gotten a taste of the worst of it a handful of times.

He had only asked about it the first time we rode to the gym together, completely frazzled and unsure of himself as I hyperventilated in the driver's seat. My hands trembled violently as my palms sweat profusely, and I let myself shed a few tears once we were parked. He reached out, placing a hand on my back, and quietly asked me what was bothering me.

“Red light,” I managed to wheeze out. They were doing some construction on the main road and things started piling up. I had gotten stuck in the intersection for just a few seconds, but it was long enough to send me into a blind panic. “Anxiety. Sorry. Need a minute.”

He helped me calm down, calming down to help me through my panic attack. We played a game of I-Spy, Jimin picking out the most obvious shit and saying the most random things to point out in order to make me laugh. When I felt a little better, he got out of the car to help me get out. After that he kept quiet about my obvious driving discomforts, but stuck close just in case I needed the support, and always offered to drive.

“Ready?” He asked when I grabbed my phone out of the cup holder.

“Yeah.”

We walked inside and the hostess made light conversation while she walked us to the back. Taehyung's laugh could be heard from the other side of the room, and his bright blue hair and vibrant eyeshadow stuck out like a sore thumb in this place. Milo was dressed in all black, his arm draped around his fiancé's shoulder, and a smile on his face. Jungkook was beside him scrolling through his phone, but Darcy was nowhere in sight. Glancing at Jimin, he seemed exasperated.

“Trouble in paradise,” He murmured, leaning down so I could hear him. I had to imagine their relationship was very exhausting and took its toll on their friend group. I knew how much it sucked being caught between Tilly and Hobi back in the day. “Here we fucking go.”

Taehyung jumped out of the booth when he caught sight of us, his fluffy, white cropped top riding up, revealing even more of his tanned skin. The snowboarder wrapped his arms around my waist and snuggled my hairline, showering me in compliments. Gold hoop earrings tapped my forehead, and his belly button ring was cold against my ribcage. He was happy to see me “dolled up” for once and forgave how ugly my shirt was since I looked “so cute.”

Milo gave me a slight wave, eyes never leaving Taehyung's bouncing body as he embraced Jimin, and Jungkook put his phone down to greet us. Darcy had gone to the bathroom and from the look on Milo’s face, Jimin’s was right about trouble in paradise. Whatever was going on, we were all about to fall witness. It made my stomach churn just thinking about it.

Our waitress brought a new pot of tea, asking us if we needed anything, before leaving with the promise of the first course coming out soon. Darcy almost slammed into the poor woman on her way back to our booth, her annoyed huff making the hair on the back of my neck stand up. When she sat down beside her boyfriend her entire body was rigged and face pulled together tightly. She did not spare us a glance as she sulked.

Darcy was a very beautiful girl and it made sense why Jungkook liked her so much. Tanned skin, green eyes, and black hair, the girl had one of those bodies most women would pay thousands of dollars for. Like Taehyung had said, she was a pleasant enough person, and we did not along well enough to hold a conversation, but there was no hiding the fact that Darcy was not a nice girl. In fact, I would venture to say she was very, very mean.

I saw it firsthand at Jimin’s birthday party. I had a moment where I felt myself panicking. Overwhelmed with all of the noise and people, I excused myself and called Andy to get my head back on straight. The women's restroom was tucked away in a small hallway and allowed me the space to shed a few tears. I was just starting to calm down, Andy's words of encouragement getting back to some sort of baseline, while I rubbed cold water on my neck. That was when I heard Jungkook on the other side of the door.

He was angry and when I told Andy I needed to go, I had every intention of going out there to talk to him, but another voice beat me to it. Darcy had been in a bad mood since she walked through the front door, her shitty attitude bringing down the party every time she opened her mouth. At first, I just brushed it off as an off night, something I could feel empathy towards, but then she opened her mouth and stopped those thoughts in their tracks.

The two of them were serial cheaters, and Jimin had alluded to that being their main issue when I asked about her attitude problem earlier that night. Eloise was the person who gave me the whole story and was not afraid to voice her dislike for the older girl. This was different from Milo, a guy who she clashed with due to their night and day personalities. Darcy had actively picked on and made fun of her growing up, and bullied her older sister while they were in school together.

Darcy, according to Eloise, started the back-and-forth cheating when they were in college. Instead of going their separate ways, something I doubt anyone would have blamed Jungkook for doing, he chose to get even. After fucking one of her sorority sisters, Jungkook made his way through the entire house within the span of three months. In retaliation, Darcy slept with a couple of guys from the NHL, something she still did to this day.

On the night of the party, she was still fuming over catching him with another woman a few days prior. Trapped in the bathroom and too afraid to let them know I could hear them; I suffered through five minutes of a couple’s quarrel I had no business being in the middle of. It was an eye opener for sure and made me avoid getting too close to either of them.

Darcy was very mean and spiteful, her words meant to cut him deeply with little care about how it would make him feel in the long run. She even brought up screwing one of his rivals to get back at him, something she had done on numerous occasions, and went as far as to compare the two men in bed. It helped to explain why Jungkook hated Jackson Wang so much.

Jungkook, despite how much I enjoyed him as an individual, was just as awful. He spent most of the argument defending his bad behavior by bringing up her own and took no accountability for his actions. He could have sex with all of Michigan and it would be justified because she cheated on him first. It was all very juvenile, and I tried my best to avoid them for the rest of the night.

“Bet they can’t go ten minutes without fighting,” Jimin mumbled in my ear.

I fought back a smile, leaning into his side. Physical touch was the swimmer’s love language and I had slowly grown accustomed to small touches here and there. So, it did not catch me off guard when his arm came around my shoulders, resting just above my head, hand gently brushing against my neck. The voice in my head often wished he would do it more often.

“She won’t start something before the food gets here,” I reasoned, stealing a look at the couple. Jungkook seemed fine, but from the look on Darcy’s face that might change soon. “I’ll say twenty.”

“What are we bargaining for?”

I laughed awkwardly, “Whatever you want.”

Taking a second to think, Jimin eyed the couple across the table. Taehyung and Milo were obviously extremely aware of the couple's awkward tension and tactfully ignored them, instead giggling about some inside joke. They were a very sweet pair. My weariness about Milo had dissipated over the last few weeks, but I could understand why he and Eloise could not get along.

Lou herself had admitted to being a bit of a stuck-up teenager back in the day, and Milo was the typical small-town stoner. They constantly butt heads when they were in high school, and just drifted apart with age. Taehyung and Jimin's friendship were the only reason they were in the same circle anymore, and the two just never spoke to avoid pressing buttons.

“I want to do something together,” Jimin finally said, I smiled, trying to ignore the snarky comments Darcy was making. The arguing was starting, and I felt my neck growing hot. Did they have to do this in public? “Get dinner or something.”

“We do that all the time,” I countered, half-heartedly paying attention to him.

“Denny’s doesn’t count," He mumbled.

The waitress finally came back with a large tray of sushi in her hand. That seemed to break up the argument momentarily, but Darcy did not seem pleased to be interrupted. Stuffing a large piece of ahi sashimi in my mouth, I sparked up a conversation with Taehyung to keep myself from having another meltdown. Beside him, Milo sent me a grateful look.

The rest of the table was silent, waiting for the fight to resume. Taehyung kept smiling painfully, but I could see the panic bubbling in his eyes, and for once I saw a small crack in his otherwise well-crafted facade.

“I didn’t mean just getting food,” Jimin finally continued when we hit a lull, and it took me a few seconds to remember what he was talking about. “I meant… going out.”

I looked at him, eyebrow raised. His cheeks were puffed with scallops and I wished we were alone. This was not a conversation I wanted to have in front of the others, especially if he was insinuating what I thought he was. I did not want to jump to conclusions, but I was sure he was asking me out on a date. Even if it made me feel jittery thinking about it, I had a difficult time finding the voice to say yes. Saying no felt just as impossible, though, and I wished he would have picked a better time to bring this up. Whatever the hell this was.

“What are you asking me?” I whispered, taking another piece of fish off my plate, sneaking a look at Taehyung and Milo.

They were too wrapped up in one another to being listening in on us. I did not even bother checking in with the other two. I knew for a fact they did not care about anybody else but themselves.

“You know,” He replied.

Dating was not off the table, and I was more than happy to indulge myself, but I was worried about crossing this invisible line I had drawn. What would people say if they found out? A coach and her trainee, and even worse, the older woman and her much younger man. I could see the headlines now and it made my palms sticky. That would not be a good look for either one of us, and I did not want our personal relationship to affect Jimin’s career.

Putting my chopsticks down, I leaned away from him. “Can we talk about this later?”

He nodded, meeting my eyes, and I was relieved to see he was not upset. I had seen him angry a few times now, and he wore it on his sleeve with pride. Jimin was not afraid of his emotions, something I found extremely attractive, and it was nice that all I could see right now was understanding. Whatever happened he would hear me out, and I had to hope he would be understanding. I just had to be sure I did not fuck anything up.

Across the table the bickering had started again. Our waitress brought out the rest of our meal, sans desert, and seemed happy we were enjoying the food. She eyed Darcy wearily and left our table in a hurry. I felt horrible for the wait staff who had come to our table. They were all getting the nastiest looks from the dark haired beauty.

“Do we really have to do this now?” Jungkook sighed, running a hand through his hair roughly. His face was red and expression tight. “In front of my friends, dude? Are you serious?”

I cleared my throat, grabbed my tea and took a long sip before sinking into the booth and praying no one could see me. Jimin’s arm dropped, and he squeezed my shoulder in comfort. I let myself melt under his touch. It always felt nice when his hands were on me, his warmth burning hot like a furnace even in below freezing temperatures. Taehyung’s eyes were bulging out of his head now, his bottom lip trembling as he tried his best to keep the conversation between the four of us light. He had stopped trying to include the other two.

“You two seem close,” He gritted, fakeness coming from him that I had never encountered before. “Glad you were able to sort that out.”

I looked over at Jimin and saw his cheeks had gone pink. So, Taehyung knew something I didn’t. It would make sense for the childhood best friend to get the scoop before the chick he’s known for two months, I had definitely vented to my friends on more than one occasion, and my curiosity was peaked.

“I'm working on it,” Jimin replied, taking a big gulp of water. “Thanks, Tae," He breathed, rolling his eyes.

I stifled a laugh. He was so cute when he was embarrassed. I made a mental note to ask Tae to explain what he meant when we had a chance to get lunch. I had a feeling the snowboarder would be more than happy to divulge that little piece of information.

“Talking about me to your friends?” I teased, trying my best to ignore the ever-growing argument across from me. The butterflies in my stomach were a helpful distraction. “Good things, I hope.”

He cracked a smile, face and neck flushed. “The best things.”

Such a flirt.

I bit my lip and looked away. Eating was a nice way to interrupt the electricity that was enveloping us, and I gorged myself on octopus and tuna. Whatever the hell these dishes were, I had to admit the sushi here was the best I had ever had. I would never doubt a recommendation from Taehyung again.

The conversation started flowing easily after that. Jungkook and Darcy were at a stalemate and were relatively quiet on their side of the booth. With the atmosphere lightening, Milo felt good enough to start telling us his latest work stories. He was a firefighter along with all three of his brothers. His father was promoted to chief about five years ago but was coming up to his retirement. The only one of his siblings to avoid the fireman fate was his baby sister, but had still managed to find a job at the station.

"You guys must be close," I laughed in disbelief.

“It’s the family business,” He joked. "Rosie is our new EMT."

Taehyung spoke excitedly about his upcoming competitions and was really hopeful he would win enough to qualify for the Olympics this year. Milo and Jimin both reassured him multiple times while I tried my best to keep up with everything he was talking about. I had very little knowledge of snowboarding, so I was having to constantly interrupt and ask for clarification. No one seemed to mind, and eventually Jungkook joined in to talk about his upcoming hockey games.

The Red Wings were having a good year, and he was proud of his team for working as hard as they did. As a goalie, he did not do a lot of skating, but his job was one of the hardest on the team. From what I knew after watching a few games on tv with Jimin's family, Jungkook was one of the best goalies in the NHL who was highly sought after. He had been offered millions to transfer to the New York Rangers, but out of loyalty he turned them down.

“I’ll take you to a few matches if you want,” Jimin offered. “Kook can get us tickets whenever.”

I smiled, “That sounds like fun.”

“Milo and I go all of the time so we can sit together,” Taehyung interjected, his shoulders relaxed for the first time since we got here.

Darcy was quiet and stayed on her phone. Jungkook was pretending she was not here, and it helped keep the arguing from starting again. I was not sure how long the truce would last, but I hoped they could hold it together long enough for us to finish eating.

“So Y/N,” Milo mused, taking a piece of fish from Taehyung’s plate. “Have you ever thought about competing again?”

I laughed nervously, “For a time, maybe. My injuries make it hard for me to swim the way I used to so I decided to keep it as a hobby.”

It was not a complete lie, but I knew I might be able to get back into competitions if I put in the time and effort. I hated the thought of being back in the spotlight, cameras shoved in my face, only to lose and give them more to talk about. I was still recovering from the trauma they inflicted on me after the accident. My leg injuries just gave me the perfect excuse to keep my distance.

He nodded, eyebrows knitted, “I didn’t know you had medical leave. What happened?”

Jimin tensed up beside me.

“I was in a car accident,” I replied. Talking about what happened did not bother me as much as it used to, and Milo seemed genuinely interested in the answer. “I had to get a full knee replacement on my left side, and a full hip replacement. I should have lost my leg, but the doctor on staff recognized me and brought up my profession.”

Milo whistled, giving me a sympathetic look. “Leg? You could have died.”

“Well,” I breathed, finishing off my last piece of fish. “I pulled through though, so it wasn’t all bad.” I fiddled with my shirt, pretending to smooth it down as I played it cool. "Anyway, I have nerve damage in my leg that makes me get really horrible cramps and twitching if I overwork my muscles. It sucks but coaching is really fun, so I can't complain."

Blatantly lying wasn't something I did often, but I truly hated reliving the months of physical therapy. Unable to walk or talk, I was stuck in that hospital bed for weeks and then got sent home to watch my closest friends wait on me hand-and-foot. When I wasn’t in physical therapy, I was with my SLP. When I wasn’t with her then I was in bed, crying into my pillow, and wishing I had never woken up. It was an extremely dark time in my life, one filled with chronic pain and overwhelming depression, and talking about it made me emotional.

“Anyway,” Taehyung sent his fiancé a pointed look. “Kookie’s next home game is in two weeks.”

Happy to be out of the spotlight, I began to talk with Jimin about changing our schedule around so we could attend the game. Taehyung was excited to get me some Red Wing merchandise, and Jungkook quickly began to boast about his prowess on the ice. Darcy scoffed beside him and I felt the group tense up.

“You’re so cocky, Ian,” She taunted, eyes glued to her phone. “I heard Avalanche was doing really well this season.”

I knew from the group chat that the Red Wings and the Colorado Avalanche had a long-standing rivalry. It had started all the way back in the mid-90’s and reached its peak in 2002. While the intensity had dissipated over the years, it had recently spiked up again due to Jungkook and Jackson Wang’s ongoing feud. The only reason Darcy would bring that up would be to piss her boyfriend off.

“Hm,” Jungkook smirked, chuckling darkly. “Who told you that?”

I held my breath, already guessing where this was going. The tension from earlier was thicker than ever as we fell silent. Darcy put her phone on the table, flipped her hair over her shoulder, and looked Jungkook in the face as she replied.

“Jackson.”

It was dead silent for a few seconds. Then, without waiting for a response, Darcy kept digging the knife in and twisting. She called him ugly, said he sucked in bed, brought up all of the ways Jackson was better than he was, and went as far as to bring up his father's affair. Jungkook could not get a word in as her silky voice dropped lower and lower, words cutting deeper and deeper, and eyes growing brighter as she watched his expression fall. I learned something tonight. Darcy enjoyed hurting Jungkook.

"Why are you doing this, dude?" Jungkook's voice was thick with emotion. "You're acting like a fucking child. It's embarrassing."

“Holy shit,” Milo groaned as their voices got louder. “Are they being forreal right now?”

“Babe,” Taehyung scolded, the forced smile still plastered on his face. “Language.”

“You weren’t embarrassed when you fucked that girl” Darcy screamed and I felt my stomach twist uncomfortably. “Why should I feel bad about airing out my dirty laundry? Everyone here knows how much of a whore I am anyway, isn’t that right, Ian?”

“Keep your voice down,” Jungkook hissed, eyes glassy. “You’re causing a scene.”

Taehyung and Milo looked as mortified as I felt, both of them staring at Darcy in horror. The entire restaurant had gone silent. Eyes were glued to our table as they argued. She shouted about him getting his dick sucked in their bed, and Jungkook was just angry she was acting like this in public. It was Jimin’s birthday all over again only this time they knew people were watching and did not care. Taehyung’s smile was finally gone and replaced by trembling lips and fidgeting hands.

“Take that shit outside,” Jimin cut in, voice cold and hard. Darcy glared daggers in our direction. “You’re going to get us kicked out.”

Darcy opened her mouth to argue but was interrupted by the waitress coming back and demanding our party leave. Taehyung began to apologize profusely while Darcy stormed out of the restaurant, bumping into numerous people roughly without looking back. Jungkook was hot on her heels, breathing heavily, and eyes glossed over with unshed tears. She shouted that Jackson was outside and for Jungkook to go fuck himself. Jungkook didn’t reply but I knew he was not expecting the other man to be here. I sure the fuck wasn't.

An arm wrapped around my shoulders, “Hey, calm down. Breathe.”

I had not realized I had been holding my breath. Turning my head, I was taken aback by how close Jimin was. Our noses brushed together, his breath hot against my cheek, and I jerked away, heart racing. The butterflies were swarming now, and a shiver went down my spine. His arm dropped and I immediately missed its warmth. Flustered, I scooted out of the booth and kept my head hung low. I was so embarrassed, and I could hear Taehyung’s voice starting to wobble as he handed over some cash to the waitress for the trouble. No one was going home happy tonight.

“I’m so fucking pissed off,” Jimin grunted, keeping in step with me. Milo was attempting to get a now hysterical Taehyung calmed as they followed behind us. “I don’t know why Tae invites the two of them anywhere.”

I shook my head, “It’s not his fault. She needs to get some self-control, though. That was so rude and uncalled for, and for what?"

“They both owe him a fucking apology,” He sighed harshly.

The guests of honor were already in a very heated screaming match when we finally made it outside. Whatever had been brewing inside had clearly reached its peak, and neither one of them was willing to back down. Jimin’s arm was back around my shoulders as he tried his best to shelter me from the strong winds that were kicking up. Looking at Darcy and Jungkook all I could see were my parents and it caused me great discomfort. Maybe I should try to call my dad again and make sure he was alright? He rarely answered but at least it would cut some of the edge off of my anxiety.

“Why are you acting like this?” Jungkook shouted, pulling at his hair. “What the fuck is wrong with you, dude?”

“You!” Darcy shrieked. “You! You! YOU! You’re the problem. This is all your fault!”

Jungkook called her a crazy bitch and Darcy slapped him across the face before stomping off. A sleek red convertible was waiting for her on the curb, a well-groomed man behind the steering wheel. He smiled and waved at Jungkook before speeding off, Darcy already attaching her lips to his neck and not sparing any of us a second glance.

“What the fuck!” Taehyung shouted, sobbing and clinging to Milo.

I was surprised he was able to hold himself back for that long. He seemed hellbent on strangling Jungkook as soon as he was able. I stepped to the side watching a man I had never seen upset shove Jungkook backwards. Any resemblance of a smile was gone now, replaced with a snot-nosed, red eyed man with bared teeth. Jungkook stumbled, barely keeping his footing before shoving the other man back. Milo was quick to defend his fiancé, pushing Jungkook so hard he stumbled, fell on his ass, and cried out in pain.

Jimin’s arm gripped me tighter as he stared at the scene unfold in silence. His clenched jaw, however, told me how angry he was. I briefly wondered what he would be doing if he was not so focused on keeping me warm.

“That was so fucked up,” Taehyung cried, wiping his face roughly. “I told you both to keep that shit at home or don’t come!”

“She started it! It’s not my fault-”

“Dude,” Milo shook his head, wrapping his arms around Taehyung. “It doesn’t fucking matter. That’s your girl.”

As the three of them argued, I tried to decipher the look on Jimin’s face. He was angry, that was very apparent, and I felt my own anger finally start to rise. He had been dealing with so much shit and on his first night out in ages this happens? It was unfair and ridiculous, my frustration over the entire situation making me want to go over and push Jungkook around, too. However, I knew that was not the way to handle this. Truth was, he was not the only person to blame for how badly the night had ended. Darcy was the main instigator.

“Are you okay?” I asked Jimin, stepping away from his tight embrace. His arm was still around my shoulders with no sign of moving. “I’m sorry everything got so shitty.”

He nodded, face softening when he looked at me. “Just worried about Taehyung. He was really excited about tonight.”

The yelling was finally starting to calm down and I was happy that they were talking things out. I did not think I could handle the screaming for any longer. I had been a bundle of nerves since I left my house, and my fingers trembled at my sides. I could hear my mother’s voice echoing in my head, though I was positive it was distorted after so many years. Sometimes when her and dad fought, she would find me hiding in my closet and pull me out, hands leaving my skin tender from the harsh grip she had on my arms, before telling me to clean up the broken dishes from off the floor.

“Come here you little shit!”

She hated me; hated being a mother. I could remember how much I wished she would hold me like the other kids' moms held them but was too afraid to ask. One time I drew a picture of her at school and she never even looked at it. Instead, she smoked her cigarettes at the dinner table and watched Law and Order. If I really thought about it, she threw the drawing away. It was too dirty. Just like I was too dirty.

Mom had germaphobia and considered me one of the dirtiest things she had ever seen. I was not allowed in their bedroom because of it. Dad went along with it like he did everything else. When he wasn’t drinking, he was sleeping or in the garage. I hoped he was doing okay. Danielle seemed to be just as controlling as mom had been.

“Where’d you go?”

I startled, whipping around to find Jimin staring at me. His expression was gentle and calm, and I was suddenly aware of the harsh chill nipping at my wet cheeks. I had not noticed I was starting to cry. Strange. It had been a long time since those memories had been brought up.

“Are you okay?” He asked, rubbing my arm. “You looked lost.”

I nodded, quickly reaching up to pat the tears away. It was a good thing my mascara was smudge proof or else I might look even more pathetic. I am 31 now and it felt stupid to cry over things so far in the past. Things I had not had to deal with in well over 20 years. Dr.Wolfe would disagree with me, but she wasn't here.

“Yeah,” I nodded, voice thick. “Just zoned out for a second. Eyes must have dried out.”

It was a bad lie, but a lie he accepted. Squeezing my arm one last time, he finally moved away to give me a bit of breathing room. That was another thing that I always appreciated about the guy. He never overstayed his welcome, even if he wanted to. Taking a second to compose myself, I mindlessly fixed my hair and adjusted my clothes. Nervous habit.

“I think everyone’s heading home for the night,” Jimin said, nodding his head toward the other three men. “They seem cool. You ready to leave?”

I shrugged, “If you are.”

He nodded and walked over to the ground. I gave myself another moment to gather my thoughts. The worst of it was over and I doubted those memories would make themselves known again. With the screaming over it would not take long for my head to get itself straightened out. I might ask Jimin to drive us back, though. I was exhausted, and frankly, I did not think we would be safe if I was behind the wheel. Nothing worse than an anxious driver.

Jungkook was ashamed of their behavior tonight, and when I joined the others, he was quick to throw a million apologies in my direction. I accepted them all easily but knew it would take me a few days to fully forgive him. Tonight was a lot. Hopefully I could speak with Taehyung privately and ask him not to invite the couple out with us. If I never had to see Darcy again it would make my stay that much easier.

“I think we’re going to go home,” Milo said once Jungkook walked away. He was planning on calling an Uber so Tae could have a bit of space. “My little flower is burned out for the night.”

I smiled sadly, “Are you sure? We can always try something else.”

Taehyung’s head snapped in my direction and I wanted to scoop him up in my arms. His face was puffy from crying and eyes still misty. He was quick to nod his head and reached out to take hold of my hands.

“You still want to hang out with me?” He whimpered.

I had only said it to cheer him up not thinking that he would actually go for the idea. I had never seen him so distraught before and Milo seemed convinced that he was over having fun. Stealing a look at the blonde, he gave me a grateful smile but otherwise kept a watchful eye on Taehyung.

“Of course I do,” I finally replied, squeezing his large hands. “Tonight wasn’t your fault.”

His lower lip started to wobble again and next thing I knew I was in a very tight, warm hug. Taehyung cried into the crook of my neck. He was worried I would not like him anymore because of the fight. I awkwardly hugged him back, hoping my calm reassurances would soothe him. We really needed to get from outside the front of this restaurant before they called the cops.

“It’s alright,” I said, trying to gently remove his arms from my waist. “We’re still friends, I promise.”

After another minute of crying, Taehyung was back in Milo’s arms. His face was red, and his nose was running, but the sobs had stopped. Jimin placed a hand on my lower back and started to bounce a few ideas off of Milo. It was late, but from the sound of things, our get together was not over. I could not say for certain if this was a good thing or not, I did need to have that talk with Jimin. If we were out too late there was no way for me to promise I would not pass out in the car.

“Uh,” Jimin thought for a second. “If we’re still hungry there’s Pie Sci and Woodbridge is right down the street. There's also that park a few blocks away."

I shrugged, “Whatever’s the best?” Looking at Taehyung, I made sure that he was feeling well enough to hang out. “I won’t be upset if you want to go home. It was a rough night for all of us.”

He sniffled and nodded. “I’m just really tired.”

Jimin and I said our goodbyes and I promised the blue haired boy I would call him in the morning to set up another meet up. He called it a group date, something neither Jimin nor I disagreed with, but it did make me feel queasy. Depending on how our conversation goes, we may never spend time together outside of training. I felt like I was going to vomit.

“Let me drive?” Jimin murmured as we parted ways with the couple.

I nodded, digging in my purse to find them. “Mind reader, I swear. Get out of my head, kid.”

He snickered, “Who says you weren’t in mine, granny”

The queasiness dissipated and I felt like I could breathe a little bit easier now. Being alone with Jimin had never felt this nerve wracking before, not even the first time we met, and it was hard to explain all of the thoughts and feelings going through my head. We were finally having the talk, but I had never imagined it going this way. Handing him the keys, I elbowed him in the ribs.

“Whoops,” I mocked. “You know me and my bad eyesight, kiddo.”

“Watch it,” He hissed, rubbing the spot. “Don’t want you breaking anything. You know you have frail bones.”

I laughed, “Don’t make me give you a knuckle sandwich, punk.”

Sliding into the passenger seat felt less daunting after the light hearted exchange. Still, my blood was pumping as Jimin clicked his seatbelt in place. I had no idea when the conversation would shift into murkier waters, but I needed to start thinking about what to say to him.

Denying my feelings would only make things worse, and I did not think the younger man would believe me. In fact, he would be offended that I thought he was dumb enough to get bamboozled in the first place. Lying did not seem like the right call anyway. My feelings were not something to feel ashamed about, but they were very frightening.

“When is later?”

I gasped, startled out of my thoughts. We had been driving for over ten minutes already. Time seemed to slip by when I was lost in my own head. Jimin apologized for scaring me but repeated the question once I reassured him that I was fine.

“Now,” I mumbled. “I guess later is now.”

Turning on the blinker, Jimin switched lanes smoothly. He was probably the best driver that I knew and always made sure to keep my little quirks in mind during our rides. He had even gotten used to leaving the radio off when I was around, something that I appreciated more than words could ever say. Recognizing that I was stalling, I cleared my throat and tried my best to get my jumbled thoughts across.

“As much as I would like to go on that date,” I started, voice weak, “I’m just a bit concerned with how that might affect our ability to work together.”

There we go, I thought to myself mentally patting myself on the back. That was not as hard as I thought it would be. Leaving out a few details would not hurt anybody, and it was the main cause of concern for me. My age was definitely up there, but I doubted Jimin would understand my perspective. To him I was just older, but to the rest of the world I was this cougar on the prowl for young men to help me relive my glory days. Even my own friends thought it was funny to make fun of the age gap.

“Is it only because of that?” Jimin pressed, his voice telling me that he was still reacting positively to whatever was coming out of my mouth. I was refusing to look at him, fearful that he would see through me. “Or is there something else bothering you?”

“W-w-well-” I stammered, “There is the media frenzy to think about. Sejin is already dealing with the press and your ‘out of character’ seclusion this season. Then there’s the age gap. I just-” I struggled to find the right words. Having let my insecurity slip out, I lost my flow and scrambled to get back on track. “Look, I haven’t done this whole dating thing in a really long time, and I don’t want that to get in the way of being a good coach. Ozzie put me in charge of you, and my reputation is on the line.”

I could hear my heart beating in my ears. Mouth dry and palms sweaty, I forced myself to look out of the window as I spoke. Anxiety had been something I dealt with for as long as I could remember, and it only got worse the older I got. My hands and fingers trembled in my lap as I tried to steady my breathing.

In all of the dreams I had about Jimin, and there had been quite a few at this point, this moment had never felt so real and raw. We were always in these picture perfect pieces of heaven, sunshine beaming down on us, and the words I desperately wanted to say fell from my lips with ease. It was simple and sweet, and yet profound and beautiful. I could wax poetics and put myself thoughts together so eloquently he had no choice but to say yes to me.

Reality was different. Here I was stumbling over my sentences and stuttering my way through words. Instead of taking his hand with mine, I was fidgeting with shaking fingers and desperately hoping he could not see just how uncomfortable I was. I knew he did. He always noticed. My heart was racing so fast I was afraid it would burst. Had he turned the heart up? It was boiling.

“I just want to know how you feel about me.”

“Hm?” I squeaked, unable to form any real words. My mouth was too dry.

“I’ve thought about all of the same shit,” Jimin continued, voice as smooth and calming as ever. “I don’t care about any of that. All I want to know is how you feel about me.”

“You know,” I replied, wheezing. Talking felt impossible. “You know.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

Taking in a deep breath, I squeezed my eyes shut and began the mental countdown. My therapist taught me the technique years ago and I always found it to be helpful. I did this a few times until I felt calm enough to open my eyes.

“Are you alright?” Jimin asked.

“Yeah,” I nodded, finally feeling my heart rate slowing. “A little anxious.”

“Don’t be,” He placed a hand on my knee. “It’s just me.”

And he was right. It was just Jimin and I in my car, but that was also the reason I felt so suffocated. There was nowhere to run or hide in here, and if things went south I was stuck with him for half an hour. Trying not to let those pessimistic thoughts send me back into a panic, I began to mentally point out things in my car.

Air freshener. It's green. It smells like pine and lemons. I want a new scent. Jimin likes to buy this coconut and mango one that smells like candy. I will buy one like his. I love the smell.

I let out a heavy breath. Everything was fine. He was not upset. He just wanted to know how I felt about him. Nothing more nothing less. My heart was settling, and my fingers were no longer shaking.

“I like you,” I choked out, placing my hand over his. “But you already knew that.”

He gently laughed, flipping his hand up to intertwine our fingers.

“Yeah, you’re a terrible actress.”

I groaned, leaning my head against the window. As much as I tried kidding myself, there was absolutely no way he did not see the way I looked at him. I always knew when his flirting took on a more serious edge, like when he called me beautiful after seeing the scar on my leg for the first time, so it should not have been surprising that he picked up on a thing or two. Still, it did not make it any less embarrassing.

“How long have you known?” I asked, peeking at him through my lashes.

“I mean, I had a feeling when you first got to town, but I wasn’t completely sure until that first training day.”

He laughed at my embarrassed groan, holding my hand tighter. I knew I wasn't subtle enough. Poker face champion, my ass.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” He cooed. “You’ve been my dream girl since I was, like, 15.”

“That's not helping the age gap thing,” I tittered as I played with his fingers. Then, because I could not help myself. “Dream girl, huh?”

Picking up on the teasing tone in my voice, Jimin chortled.

“Okay, big head. Calm down.”

“Big head?” I guffawed, pulling my hand out of his grasp. “Who are you calling big head, shortstop?”

“You, big head,” Taking back my hand, Jimin pinned it down and kept a tight grip. “No take backs.”

I always loved it when Jimin was in a good mood. He was so playful and full of energy, and all signs of those dark days were in the deepest parts of his mind. It was impossible to keep myself from playing along which only served to egg him on.

“You never said yes or no.”

“Yes or no to what?” I questioned.

Jimin started rubbing the back of my hand with his thumb.

“To that date.”

Saying yes felt wrong, but saying no felt impossible. No matter what I said someone would be upset, and I had to decide who that would be: Jimin or America? I turned my own hand around this time and put my fingers through his. They fit together awkwardly, his hands just a bit too large, but I still found it perfect all the same.

“Do you have any ideas?”

His shiteating grin was contagious and a burst of butterflies began to flutter in my stomach. Hands clasped, Jimin started to list off all of the places we could go, but I was not fully listening. I had a date with this guy. I was going on a date with my trainee.

“What do you think?”

I blinked rapidly, hoping he could not tell that I had zoned out.

“You pick,” I breathed. “Surprise me.”

The rest of the drive back home was spent making small talk and discussing food preferences. Jimin was a dinner and a movie kind of guy, while I would rather do some sort of activity. What type of conversation could we have in a theater? Jimin seemed excited to plan out a fun night and I was just happy he was this into me. The feeling was most definitely mutual.

“Do you mind if I go to my house tonight? Mom needs some space and I know my dad is tired of having me breathing down their necks.”

I had yet to go over to his house. The days that we drove together were when he spent the evening with his parents. When Na-yeon and I talked about it, she was more upfront about her health situation than the men of the house. James spent most of his time taking care of his wife and their son enjoyed giving him a break every now and then. James would go on a fishing trip with his friends while Jimin stayed back to keep an eye on his mother.

“Is it closer to town?” I asked, nibbling on my lower lip.

I had yet to drive through downtown Ann Arbor. The Park house, and by proxy the Anderson’s, was a thirty minute drive from the bustling city. Nestled in the smaller town of Saline going towards Manchester, I had rarely had to leave the small town. This trip to Detroit was the farthest I had gone since arriving in Michigan, but I had a feeling the traffic in downtown Ann Arbor would be a bit much for me to drive through alone.

“Yeah,” I felt even more nervous by his nonchalant tone. “I used to live downtown, but I got tired of the noise. I bought my house in Eberwhite last summer, so there’s a little less foot traffic.”

“How’s the drive back to Saline?” Even I could hear the hesitation in my voice.

“Less than twenty,” Rubbing the back of my hand, his voice took on a sweeter tone. “We don’t have to. My truck’s at my parent’s place anyway.”

“Maybe some other time?” I forced myself to laugh, hoping to make the awkward tension leave. “Preferably when it’s not dark outside.”

I relaxed into my seat once I started seeing familiar landmarks. Saline was a very small town with a little over 2,000 residents, but downtown still had a way of attracting a relatively large crowd. Stoney Creek Brewery was packed and Jimin pointed out Sam’s car as we pass by.

“Looks like he came out with Otis and Skye,” He murmured.

Otis was another personal trainer at the gym, and Skye was responsible for marketing. They had been going out for a while now and made plan to move to Ann Arbor once Otis graduated from school. He was getting his masters in movement science at the University of Michigan. They had planned on moving out there when he graduated last year, but neither of them could find a job that could pay their bills. Otis was hoping the master’s would give him a competitive edge while Skye saved up enough money to start her own advertising firm.

“Think Gigi is with them?” I wondered.

“Probably not. She’s busy studying for an exam. I saw that she requested time off tomorrow and the day after, so I don’t think she has the time to go out for drinks.”

Giselle was getting her bachelor’s in dental hygiene at UM, and everytime I spoke to her she was swamped with work. I had no idea she needed to request time off, though. Must be an intense program.

“Did you ever go to college?” I asked Jimin.

He nodded, “I got my bachelor’s in psychology.”

Well, I had not been expecting that.

“Really?”

“Yeah, but I never went back to get my master’s,” We turned onto the long road that led to his parent’s house. “I might after the Olympics.”

It was interesting to hear about his goals post-swimming. I never had those. My entire life was going to be swimming, and then, once I could no longer compete, I was opening my own swim school. After a couple of years of coaching under my belt, the plan was to start training professional athletes until I could join the Olympic coaching team. The accident was a very traumatic and eye-opening experience for me, so most of those plans ended up getting changed and modified over the years.

“What about you?” Jimin asked, pulling up to the curb.

“I went through an accelerated program at UCCS. Just graduated with my Masters in Athletic Training back in April.”

Neither one of us seemed to be ready to break the bubble we created. Even if we were just talking about school, it felt too intimate to leave. Holding hands in my car was new and I was worried if I opened the car door all of this would turn out to be a dream. The date, the confession; all of it.

“I should get going,” Jimin sighed, still not moving his hand from mine. “It’s late and I have to drive home.”

I was the first one to move away. He was right. It was almost midnight and I had a really difficult time tonight. All of that yelling really took a toll on me. Jimin did not move until he heard the click of my seatbelt unfastening.

“See you tomorrow?” He asked when I rounded the car. Getting out of the car, he held the door open as I slid inside. “I know we were out later than we thought we’d be.”

I nodded, “We can have a late morning. 8:30 instead of 6.”

“Sounds good. See you then.”

He closed my car door and jogged to his truck. It was parked in the driveway today. I pressed the button to roll my window down.

“Drive safe!” I called out.

Looking over his shoulder, Jimin grinned and threw a hand up. I watched him climb into Fiona and tried to keep myself from worrying too much. It was so dark outside and he could be exhausted behind the wheel. Who knows what could happen to him.

He caught me staring and waved at me again. I returned it with a small smile. The truck stopped for a second and his phone was his hand. My cell phone vibrated in the cupholder.

Jimin: I’ll be okay

Jimin: Text you when I get home, k?

Looking back at the truck, I found him already looking at me. I nodded my response. He smiled at me again, waved, before finally backing out of the driveway. I did not move until I could no longer see his truck in my rearview. My phone buzzed one more time.

Jimin: At the stop sign on Woodland and Ann Arbor-Saline

Jimin: Go home. I’m here. I’m fine.

I hesitated texting him back when I knew he was driving, but decided that I would just have to trust he would not open it until it was safe.

Me: Get out of my head, kid

Finally putting my car in drive, I threw my phone back in its spot and made the ten minute drive down the road to the Anderson house. All of the lights were off when I pulled up and I was as quiet as a mouse walking to the backyard.

I was beyond tired but still needed to get my nighttime routine done. Stripping out of my clothes, I turned on the shower and took off my makeup. Tonight wasn’t a wash night, so I was not in the shower for long. I heard my phone vibrating as I put on lotion and I quickly threw on a night shirt and went to my bedroom.

Jimin: Who says you aren’t in mine, meemaw

Jimin: I’m home now so you can get some sleep

Jimin: Night, geezer

I snorted. That was a new one. Crawling into bed, I got comfortable under my blankets and thought about a good comeback.

Me: Thank you

Me: Geezer? That’s such an geriatric thing to say, you whippersnapper

Jimin: LOL night 🫰🏼

Me: Night 🌜

I quick sent Taehyung a text to make sure he and Milo go home safely before putting my phone on the charger. Jungkook sent a text to our group chat an hour ago to let us know he was in his apartment back in Detroit. He was in Ann Arbor so often since Darcy lived out here, but he had bought a multi-million dollar home in Corktown when was first signed to the Red Wings in 2019. Milo was the one to reply to my text, signing his name at the bottom, since Taehyung passed out in the car on their way back home.

I took my medications and started up a game of solitaire while I waited for them to kick in. My psychologist had sent me to Michigan with a three month supply. I was planning my first trip back next week so I could see the boys in time for their first big competition of the season. While I was in town, I would pick up another three month supply. We were making the arrangements work as best as we could, and I was lucky I had a large group of people willing to support me during this transition.

Finally I felt the sleeping pills kicking in and I went to my white noise app. I hated falling asleep in silence and Emery had suggested the app while we were in a session. I paid for a yearly subscription and never regretted the fifty bucks. It had been a huge help in lulling me to bed.

Lights out and blankets wrapped snugly around my body, I closed my eyes and thought about everything that had happened. Jimin liked me back, asked me on a date, and told all of his friends about his infatuation with me before I even realized something else was going on. I was his dream girl. That put a lazy smile on my face. Then, I could no longer think about anything and was plunged into a dreamless sleep.

Taglist: @ownthesunshine @screamertannie @lovelytaes-blog @pernesianparapio @tae-with-some-suga @sumzysworld @chimmisbae @adventures-in-bookland

110 notes · View notes