Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Beep. Beep. Beep. A hand sneaks out from under a pile of blankets and flops down onto the snooze button that was accompanied by a groan. The blankets shift and fall away to reveal you, blue haired woman in your early twenties slowly push yourself up onto your hands before sitting back on your legs. You scrub a hand over your face before rubbing the sleep from your eyes. You let out a yawn before climbing down from your bed, cracking the curtains open to let some light in. Walking over to the sink you flick the lights on and proceed to wash your hands. Once they were dried off you grab your contacts case, putting them in. You make your way over to your desk, pulling your phone down from your bed and glancing at the calendar.

“9 AM theater class,” You read, glancing down at your phone to see that it was 6:58 AM. “Probably should leave the dining hall by 8:30.”

You set your phone down on the desk after queuing up some music to play. This is one of the nicer things about not having a roommate- not having to worry about waking them up or working around them. You make your way over to your closet, pulling out a pair of black skinny jeans with short red zippers along the front of them, pulling them on over your spankies. Moving over to your dresser you pull on a bra before throwing your maroon tank top on under your Legend of Zelda shirt. You sit down in your desk chair to lace up your grey military boots. Grabbing your wallet, you clip to it to one of your belt loops, putting your eye drops and inhaler in your left pocket while you put your chapstick and keys into your right pocket, attacking your key lanyard to another belt loop. You slide your phone into your back pocket and grab your backpack, slinging it over your shoulder as you exit your room and make your way to the closest dining hall.

Once inside, you find a booth, setting your backpack down in it and pull your laptop out. You load up the newest episodes of your favorite shows, letting them load while you make yourself a waffle and grab some bacon and eggs along with a glass of milk. You make your way back to the booth, eyes glancing over the other students that were there. Most of them were sitting by themselves like yourself but there were a few groups there. One that caught your attention was a group of six males, half looking about your age and the other half looking several years older, laughing and joking around. ‘ Morning people are the worst. ’ you think to yourself before sitting down and watching your shows.

As 8:30 rolls around, you shutdown your laptop, stuffing it back into your backpack. You collect your dishes, dropping them off at the dish return and make your way out to the bike racks. As you near your bike, you pull out your keys, unlocking the u-bolt and place it on one of your handlebars, tucking your keys back into your pocket. As you pull your bike out of it’s place you notice the group of guys from the dining hall make their way towards main campus. You mount your bike and ride around them, weaving your way in and out of people. You make it to the building in under ten minutes. You find a good spot near the exit, locking your bike up before walking inside and to the classroom, finding it empty. You make your way to the first row, taking the third seat in from the end and plop down into the chair. After a few minutes of sitting there your phone goes off. You pull it out of your pocket and answers it without looking at the call id.

“This is (y/n).” You answer. “Oh hey Jeanene. What’s up?...What time do I-well my last class ends at 2 so I’ll probably head right over.” You look up as the door opens and the same group of guys enters. ‘Great,’ you think. “I was thinking of taking my bike…” You turn back around to face the front of the room. “No not my bicycle you ding bat. My motorcycle. Why the hell would I bike out there when there isn’t any place to lock up my bike?...Oh yeah sure that’s a good idea…” You shake your head as you turn in your chair, propping your feet up on the chair next to you and notice the guys sit two rows behind your, talking quietly to themselves and you have this suspicion that they are listening to your conversation but that’s probably your paranoia. “Why is it so urgent for me to go out there today anyways?...No fucking way! You’re shitting me right?” You sit up straighter in your chair. “What a fucking asshole. Why the hell didn’t he tell us sooner?” You growl, pinching the bridge of your nose. “Doesn’t he know how hard it will be to find another stable hand?” You let out an exasperated sigh, picking up your pen and absently flicking it between your fingers. “Yeah no...No I can do it…” You let out another sigh, throwing a pen at the wall, making it so that it bounces off and you catch it. “No it’s fine I promise...Ok see you later.” You hang up and set the phone down on the desk. You lean back in your chair, throwing the pen at the ceiling with enough force for it to hit it and you catch the pen again.

The group of guys all stare at your. “How the hell do you do that?” The curly redhead lad, as you has come to classify them- either lad or gent depending on their age- asks you. You turn around and look at them, noticing more people starting to file in.

You flash a smirk. “It’s a secret.” You turn around to face the front as students take their seats and the professor walks in.

At first glance one would almost mistake the professor as a student but upon closer inspection and from watching the way they walk and carry themselves you realize that they aren’t just another student. The professor stands next to the podium, looking at the semi full classroom.

“This is more than I was expecting.” She comments. “But don’t get too comfortable; we won’t be staying here.” The students give her confused looks. “Grab your things and follow me.” the professor makes her way out of the room.

You grab your bag and quickly follows after the professor. The other students follow after, the guys quickly catching up to you.

“But seriously, how did you do that?” The redhead asks you again.

“Like this.” You pull out your pen and throws it at a wall, catching it again while walking.

“How the-Wot?” The brown haired lad says in a British accent.

“It’s a secret.” You pocket the pen.

The students follow their professor across campus to the theater. The professor makes her way onto the stage. “Leave your bag in the audience and circle up.”

You set your stuff down int seat 107, front row and center stage, hopping up onto the stage and stand next to their professor. Once everyone was in a circle the professor addresses them. “Take a seat.” She tells them, sitting down on the ground as well. All the students sit down. “Now my name is Marissa Combs, though most of my students call me ‘teacher’. We shall begin by introducing ourselves.” She looks at you. “Why don’t you start us off, seeing as you are the class TA.”

You nod. “Alright. My name is (y/n), though I have been given the nickname Kat. Either works for me. I’m a Psychology major minoring in Accounting and Theater Production. I have my Associates in Makeup Artist and I’m working on getting my Bachelors in it and everyday I like to ride horses, work on computers, play video games and edit videos.”

The other students introduce themselves, following a similar format that you used and halfway around the circle it’s the guys turn.

The oldest looking gent with a nice handlebar mustache goes first. “My name is Geoff. I’m a Computer Science major concentrating in Video Game Programing and I too like to play video games and edit video.”

The other guys say basically the same thing: Ryan, the handsome and yet creepy gent, is a Computer Science with a minor in Accounting; Jack, the bearded gent, is a C.S. major with a minor in Business Management; Ray, the hispanic lad, is a C.S. major minoring in International Studies; Michael, the red headed lad, is just a C.S. major; Gavin, the British lad, is a C.S. and Film Production double major. They all share a love for video games and seem good at editing videos they make.

They soon finish all of the introductions. Teacher stands up. “Since this is an acting and theater class, I guess you should some of what we do here.” She rounds and faces you. “Why don’t you show them the thing?”

Your brows shoot up. “You sure? There are a few thing we have to work out before the production.”

“You’ll be fine.” Teacher ushers everyone into the audience, most of them just taking the seat in which their backpacks are in.

“If you say so.” You stand and pull the curtains back, revealing a climbing structure that has many levels, some of which were interconnected, and the whole structure stands about 25 feet high. You walk over to it, noting that some changes have been made. “Did Kerry change some things?” You ask as you pull yourself up onto a bar.

“Just some minor changes for the others.” Teacher explains, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Very well.” You jump off the bar, grabbing another one and swing up to grab onto another bar, climbing up to the next level before continuing to move around the structure like you were going to during the performance. As you continue you start to feel your hands become slick from sweat. You jump down, rolling to lessen the bow and make your way over to your backpack, slightly frowning when you see that the guys were in the front row and more specifically that Ryan was sitting in your seat. You kneel down, plucking your bag from the ground and retrieves your chalk bag from it.

“Would anyone be brave enough to try it out themselves?” Teacher turns to look at the class, noticing how no one was looking at her.

“If anyone can keep up with me, I’ll buy them lunch.” You say, clipping the bag to your belt.

Michael stands up in a second. “Oh you’re so on.”

You give him a quick once over, noting his well toned arms.“We’ll see how long you last.” You smirk, back flipping up by kicking back, narrowly missing hitting Michael in the face.

“Hey! Watch what the fuck you’re doing!” He cries.

You move over to the structure, patting some chalk onto your hands before leaping up onto one of the bars. “Sorry,” You smirk down at him. “You don’t like it then do something about it.”

“Oh you’re so fucking dead when I get you.” Michael pulls himself up onto a bar, following after you as you leap from bar to bar with ease, swinging around. Michael keeps up well but his balance was a bit off as he struggles to stay on the bars. You slip down a few levels as Michael leaps up, reaching for one of the top bars but comes up short. “Shit,” He gasps as he begins to plummet towards the ground. Several other people gasp but his body jerks as you grab his hand, holding onto a bar but by doing so it jerks your shoulder painfully and you just grit your teeth in pain. He tightly grips your hand, hurriedly climbing onto the bar. Once he’s safely sitting on he looks at you. “Um, thanks.”

“Your balance is off.” You say, trying to ignore the pain in your shoulder. “You need to have a good sense of where your center of gravity is and where it’s going so you can better keep your balance while leaping from bar to bar.”

“That sounds hard.”

“It really isn’t. Here, stand up.” You watch as Michael stands up next to you, holding onto the bar. “You want to try to keep your weight centered over your feet when your standing. For the most part, your center of gravity will be wherever your chest is so when you go to leap, try to keep it half way between your outstretched arms and your legs. Also utilize any momentum you have and keep it going through your motions; you have good strength so use it to your advantage. Why don’t you try to make it up there?” You motion to a bar that is up one level and directly across from you two, a ten foot distance to leap.

“Ok,” Michael looks at the bar, swinging back and forth a bit before leaping off the bar, extending a hand and grabs the bar. He swings up to it, squatting on the bar. He looks down at you, smiling. “That’s so fucking cool.”

You force a smile, gently holding your shoulder. “Yup.”

“In this class,” Teacher begins, catching everyone’s attention. You and Michael climb down, walking over and sitting down on the edge of the stage. “Whatever productions we put on I expect you to put all your effort into it and that includes any stunts that may be involved. Now we won’t do anything as intricate as that,” She motions to the metal structure. “But you should easily be able to do fight scenes and what not. (Y/n) is here to help you, so feel free to approach her with any questions you may have.” Students move to stand up, thinking that class was over. “One more thing before you all scurry off.” The students stop, looking at Teacher. “Even though it is not outlined in the syllabus, this is actually a student taught class so not only is (y/n) your TA but also your immediate teacher; I’m just here to supervise and offer extra assistance.” All the students turn to look at you and you smile and wave. “You are free to go.”

Half the class immediately leaves while some stay behind to ask Teacher a few questions. You stand up, holding your shoulder. “Motherfucker,” You swear.

Michael glances over at you. “You ok?”

“Just tweaked my shoulder is all.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He says, looking a little guilty.

“It’s nothing you need to apologize for.” You rotate your shoulder around, moving it around to see where it hurt the worst.

The other guys climb up onto the stage and Ryan looks at you. “You sure you’re ok?”

You nod. “Thankfully it’s not dislocated; I’m just not used to catching a 180 pound guy like that.”

“I’m actually quite surprised you didn’t dislocate it.” Geoff hums.

“Years of gymnastics and parkour has taught me how to not severely damage myself doing something.” When your shoulder feels somewhat better you pick up your bag, slinging it over your shoulder to the other one.

Ryan looks at you again, also picking up his bag. “You said you’re taking an Accounting minor?”

“That’s correct.”

“You wouldn’t happen to be taking ACT 230 would you?”

“With Professor Woodridge at 11?” you ask.

“That’s the one.”

“Then the answer is yes.”

“Awesome. I’ve been trying to find someone else who’s taking that class as well.” Ryan says as you all slowly make your way out of the theater. “Have you looked over the first homework assignment?”

“Briefly,” You pull on your sunglasses. “I was going to look it over more tonight.”

“Do you want to meet up and do it together?”

“Sure.”

“Um, I hate to butt in but I still get that lunch yeah?” Michael asks.

You glance back at him. “Well, you did keep up well so I guess you earned it.”

“Fuck yeah.” Michael fist bumps.

You slightly laugh, realizing that your earlier judgment of the guys was way off. “So you’re all Computer Science geeks huh?” You make your way across the plaza, heading into the student center.

“Yeah we’re just a bunch of losers.” Jack jokes as you all find a table and it down.

You take your sunglasses off, setting them on top of your head. “Do you all do anything else than play video games?”

“Sometimes we help this idiot with his videos.” Geoff nudges Gavin.

“That’s only when Dan and I can’t do everything by ourselves.” the British man retorts.

Ray looks at you. “So basically no.”

“I’ve got a question for you.” Jack turns to face you.

“Shoot.” you pull your water bottle out of your bag, taking several sips of the cold liquid.

“Well first, are you a sophomore?”

“Credit wise technically but this is actually my first year at this school so you could say that I’m a freshman.”

“So since you are a freshman how did you get to be a TA for this class, let alone be able to teach it?”

“Ah yes.” You set the bottle down on the table, leaning back in your chair. “Well I’ve known Teacher ever since I was a little girl; she’s a family friend and she’s taught me everything I know about theater as well as help me with my make up artistry. The whole student taught class is a thing she does- even if I wasn’t teaching the class she would still take a back seat and let the class decide almost everything; the only notable difference between that and this is that in that situation Teacher would be directing all the plays and one acts we do whereas in actuality I’ll be directing everything.”

Ryan raises a brow. “That’s a lot for a freshman to do.”

You turn to look at him. “I was student director all four years at my high school as well as I assisted Teacher in some of her actual productions she’s put on, one of them being a Broadway show.”

Ryan’s brows shoot up more. “You help direct a Broadway show?”

You smirk, crossing your arms over your chest. “Yup. And I got to meet some of the biggest names in Broadway.”

“Lucky,” Ryan huffs.

“That’s really cool.” Gavin says.

You nod. “That’s why Teacher is letting me do this; she knows that I can handle it and it’s a good learning experience.” You glance down at your watch. “Hey we should go.” you look at Ryan.

He also glances at the time. “Right.” You two stand up, grabbing your bags. “See you all for lunch.”

“Later theater freaks.” Michael calls as you two leave the student center.

Chapter Text

You and Ryan meet back up the guys for a quick lunch before you have to go to your 1pm Human Physiology class. You hear rumors at how difficult it is but you don’t think you’ll have much of a problem- you’re taking the recitation along with the class and you are fascinated with the human body, though you hope you don’t burn yourself out.When class ends, you make your way outside to find the guys waiting for you.

“You guys following me now?” You ask as you walk over and unlock your bike.

“Maybe,” Geoff shrugs. “But you and Ryan have that hot study date so.” He slightly laughs as Ryan punches him in the arm.

“You’re an ass.” The sandy haired blond says.

“Oh right. How about,” you glance down at your watch, seeing that it was 2. “Fuck,”

Ray raises a brow. “How about fuck?”

“I mean if you’re offering love.” Gavin jokes.

“No.” You let out an irritated huff as you begin speed walking across the plaza. The guys trail after you. “I have to run back to my dorm to change and then I have to go take care of my babies.”

Jack cocks a brow up. “Your babies?”

“The horses for the polo team.” You glance down at your phone when you receive a text and you let out another annoyed huff. “And I have to head to the mechanic to pick up my motorcycle before I can even head over there.”

“We can give you a lift.” Geoff suggests.

You glance over at him. “You sure? I don’t want to impose on you guys.”

“Who ever said that you’re imposing?” Michael slings an arm over your shoulder. “It’s what friends do. And besides, we can see how much shit Gav’s been telling us about taking care of horses and what not.”

You’re a little surprised when Michael says that you all were friends- you didn’t make friends very easily and you only have a few very close friends, all of which have been girls so to have guy friends was a new concept to you. But you promised yourself that you would try new things in college and you guess that this was a step forward. “Ok. If you say so.” You soon arrive at your dorm. You lock your bike up before quickly running into your room to drop off your bag and change into the clothes you’ve set aside specifically for the stables. You throw on a red flannel shirt over one of your older tanktops, slipping into a part of blue jeans before pulling on a pair of boots. You pack a change of clothes in a small bag, also shoving the books you need in there before making sure that you have your phone, wallet and keys and then you make your way back outside. The guys look up as you make your way over to them.

“Looky here fellas.” Michael says with a Texas cowboy accent. “We’ve got one of ‘em country folk.”

“Hardy har har.” You slightly shove the lad. “You clearly never worked in a stable before.”

Michael shakes his head. “None of us have, except Gavin but we think he’s just making up bullshit.”

“Right.” You follow the guys to where they parked their two cars, one the lads came in and the other the gents came in. You look between the two cars, unsure of which car to get in and slide into the backseat of the gents car along with Ryan. You roll the window down when Geoff starts the car.

He pulls out of the parking lot with Michael following after him and you give them directions to the stables. It was a good distance from the school but the stables wasn’t just for the school; it was a privately owned stable where the owner and the school have an agreement between them so there’s that. Geoff pulls into one of the spots and Michael parks next to him. You and the guys climb out of the vehicles and you start to head towards the barn. You notice Stephanie bringing your horse, Flame, back from the pasture. 

“Hey Steph.” You call, waving your hand.

Stephanie and your horse look over at you and she drops the lead as your horse trots over to you, circling around you and the guys, nuzzling you.

You slightly laugh. “Yes hi.” You pet his muzzle before hopping up onto his bare back. You lean forward, laying on his neck. “How’s my boy doing huh?”

“He’s been acting like a spoiled brat.” Stephanie says, making her way over to you guys. She looks at the guys. “Hi. I’m Stephanie.”

“I’m Geoff. That’s Jack, Ryan, Michael, Ray and Gavin.” Geoff introduces everyone.

“Pleasure.” Steph looks over at you, noticing how Flame is slowly making his way towards the corral. “Looks like he’s itching for some exercise. You want me to grab your saddle?”

You shake your head. “Nah. Just open the gate.” Stephanie smiles, walking over and opening the gate, holding it open. “Come on Flame; let’s show them what you’ve got.” Flame rears up slightly before taking off into the corral as you hold onto his mane, the lead resting across your lap.

Stephanie closes the gate, sitting on top as the guy come to stand next to her, all of them watching you and Flame navigate the obstacles, clearing the jumps with practiced ease and nimbly rounding barrels. Geoff lets out a low whistle. “Damn,”

“I’ve never seen a rider and steed move like that.” Gavin comments.

“Neither have I.” Stephanie says. “(Y/n) and Flame have a very special bond that is hard to find between a rider and steed. I mean sure, there is a bond that forms but (y/n)’s is on a whole other level.”

“What do you mean ‘it’s on a whole other level’?” Michael asks, glancing up at her.

Stephanie shakes her head. “It’s hard to explain but you can see it.”

“She’s really good.” Jack comments as they continue to watch you.

“Yeah and that’s why I won’t be surprised is she gets named captain of the polo team.” Stephanie hops down off the gate, opening it as you walk Flame over to them.

“You weren’t gossiping about me were you?” You ask, looking at Stephanie.

“No. I would never.” She smiles at you. “Ok, maybe just a little but it was all good things I swear.”

You roll your eyes. “It better be.” You lead Flame into the barn, dismounting him and walks over to the bench, plucking up a brush. You make your way back over to Flame and begin to brush him down.

Gavin skips over to you, standing in front of Flame and holds out a sugar cube in his hand. “Why hello there.” Flame sniffs his hand before plucking the cube out of his hand. Gavin smiles, petting his head. “Oh yes you are beautiful.”

“If you make him fat from giving him too many sweets I’ll hurt you.” You tell the British lad, glancing up from where you were kneeling, brushing his legs.

“It’s just one sugar cube.” Gavin walks over to the bench and picks up a hoof pick. He makes his way back over to Flame, addressing the horse. “Do you mind if I clean your hooves?” Flame snorts, nodding his head. “Cheers boy.” He moves over, picking up Flame’s left front hoof and begins to clean it.

“Gavin, did you seriously just ask the horse permission to do something?” Ray asks.

“Of course I did.” Gavin glances over at them. “If you don’t respect them then they won’t respect you.”

“That and you really don’t want to be on the receiving end of a kick from them.” You stand up, brushing down Flame’s back. “Horses can kick anywhere between zero and 2000 pounds per square inch and seeing as Flame’s hooves are 21 inches, well you can do the math.” You glance back when you hear one of the polo horses bang into the stall door, neighing up a storm. “Calm your shit Gizmo; I hear you.” You turn back to Gavin. “Do you think you could finish up brushing him, cleaning his hooves and giving him a quick rinse?”

Gavin sets Flame’s hoof down on the ground. “Yeah sure.”

“Thanks.” You turn and head towards Gizmo’s stall. “You put a dent in the door and you won’t get oats for a week.” Gizmo calms down and a few minutes later you’re leading him out to the pasture soon followed by the other polo horses. You set about cleaning out the stalls, mucking out the soiled wood chips into a wheelbarrow to take outback. Geoff and Michael stay with Gavin, helping him clean Flame while Ryan, Jack and Ray follow you around, helping you wheel the soiled chips outside to be disposed of and then help you lay down new wood chips. Ryan seemed the most comfortable in the barn. “So Ryan, when’s the last time you worked in a barn?” you asks as you level the wood chips.

“Hmm,” Ryan thinks. “Probably back in highschool when I would help out my uncle on his farm.”

“Where was that at?”

“Butt fuck nowhere Georgia.” Ray says, pushing another wheelbarrow for Jack.

Ryan shrugs. “Basically. I grew up in a rural area where everyone knew everyone. It was nice but sometimes it sucked to go somewhere and everyone would recognize you.”

“Ah,” You smirk, putting on your best Southern accent. “So you’re a Southern boy?”

Ryan slightly laughs. “Yeah you could say that.”

“What about you two?” You glance over at Ray and Jack.

“I grew up in New York so I’m a city boy.” Ray sets the wheelbarrow down. “Never really did go outside much to like camp and shit.”

“I also lived in the city but my dad would take me out to go dirt biking and we camped a lot.” Jack finishes his last stall. “I like the outdoors; it’s so nice. What about you?” He asks as they all follow you.

“Born and raised here.” You say, hanging up the shovels and rakes while Ryan and Ray put back the good chips. “Well, not here in Fort Collins but here in Colorado. Born in the Springs and raised up in Woodland Park before moving back to the Springs because of my mom’s work. Spent my whole life up in these mountains, camping and hiking and there’s no other place I’d rather be.”

“No wait. I’m not done drying you!” Gavin calls.

You turn around to see what the commotion was about only to be shoved backwards with some force. Luckily you did fall to the ground but you were shoved up against Ryan because of Flame, who was still a bit wet. “Flame, calm down will ya?” You gently shove his head away, realizing that Ryan had wrapped his arms around you to keep you up right. “Did you get bored of your new friend?” Flame snorts, hoofing the ground. “I’ll get ya dinner once I’m done here ok?” Flame shakes his head. “Go get dried off you brat.” Flame neighs, trotting around Gavin.

Ryan releases you as you take a step away. “You ok?”

You nod. “Yeah I’m fine. I’m used to him shoving and nosing me to get my attention, the spoiled brat.” You clean out the wheelbarrows, drying them before moving over to the feed station, preparing Flame’s and the other polo horse’s dinner. Gavin finally finished drying Flame off before the stallion noses you and lightly tugs on your shirt.

Michael slightly laughs. “He’s like a little kid.”

“A little kid that you now get to deal with.” You shove the bucket into his hands.

“What?” Michael stares down at the bucket before looking up as Flame shoves his head into the bucket, nudging it closer to him with some force. “Hey. Slow down.” Michael holds tightly onto the bucket.

You pick up a bucket of oats, heading to the pasture. You shake the bucket, getting the attention of the polo horses and they follow you back into the barn, getting them back into their stalls before feeding them as well. Stephanie comes over to you, draping an arm over your shoulder. “Well I was going to see if you needed any help but seems like you’ve got everything under control you freakin horse whisperer.”

You shake your head, shrugging her arm off. “I’m not a horse whisperer.” You move back to the feed station, rinsing out the buckets and drying them.

“Oh really?” Stephanie raises a brow.

“Yes really.” You lead Flame to his stall, putting his light blanket on before closing the door.

“Whatever you say.” Stephanie waves. “Well I’ll see you later.”

“Later.” You wave as you and the guys leave the barn. You all head towards the cars. “So where to now?”

“Well you and Ryan still have that study date.” Ray points out.

“We can head back to the house and study there, if it’s alright with you.” Ryan says, looking over at you.

“Sounds good to me.” You climb into the back of Geoff’s car.

“Well guys, let’s roll out.” Geoff says, starting the car.

Chapter Text

You stay at the guy’s house until eight, spending the first two hours working with Ryan on your accounting homework before you all crowd the living room, playing video games. Geoff drives you back to your dorm and you do a few things before going to bed, seeing as Tuesdays and Thursdays were your busy days. You get up again at 7:45 to get breakfast before heading over to the makeup studio, which was next to the theater. You've heard and read good things about your professor, Burnie Burns, and you know he’s good from having worked with him on a Broadway play. By the time Burnie shows up there are twenty students there including yourself.

Burnie sets his briefcase down on the desk. “Alright class, let’s get started.” He picks up a piece of chalk, writing on the chalkboard his name and the course name. “I hope you all have paid the class fee because I’ll be handing out your makeup kits that you are required to bring to every class and any projects you do outside of class.” Once he finishes handing out the kits, he pulls out a gold statue, setting it on the desk. “Now some of you may know that Gus Sorola is teaching the other section of this class and we found that even with our extensive way of accepting people there are those people who don’t do anything, so last year we came up with this,” He motions to the statue. “This is a trophy of sorts- whoever holds the Golden Gus can turn it in at any time to get out of a written assignment or a written exam and it’s a way of showing who is at the top of the class. The rest of you, you should make it your mission to destroy the person with the trophy. Now some of you may think that I’m an asshole by not letting you turn it in to get out of any actual projects-and it’s true that I am and can be an asshole, but you will thank me in the long run for forcing you to do them. And continuing on with me being an asshole, I’m already going to hand the trophy out. (Y/n), come claim your prize.” He picks up the statue and holds it out to you.

You blink, standing up and take the trophy from him. “Thank you?”

“Out of all of the portfolios and resumes we looked over, you’re was one of the best. That and I know how you work from when we worked together on Broadway.” Burnie says. The other students mutter to themselves as you take your seat again. “Now, let’s get started. For your first assignment that’s due before the end of the period, I want you to give me a concept design of a natural beauty makeup, a more angelic fairytale kind of makeup and a demonic makeup for this actor.” Burnie puts up a headshot of a woman. ( https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/80/bc/4f/80bc4fe847d7d9b97379e7d09951c296.jpg )

You stand up and take a picture of the headshot with your phone before returning to your seat, pulling out your sketchbook and start drawing your ideas out. You are the first to finish, walking over to Burnie after about an hour and hand him your sketchbook.

“Done already?” He takes it from you, leaning up against his desk.

“It’s an easy task and I sketch quickly.” You say with a shrug.

Burnie hums, scribbling down some notes before handing you back your sketchbook along with a piece of paper. “Here is your next assignment due next class period. Have a good day.”

“Thank you.” You grab your bag and head to the library, plopping down in one of the more comfortable chairs with your ear buds in, reading over your next assignment- it was another concept assignment but this time you had to do a full body design. You start sketching the model you’ve been assigned, quickly deciding to do a zombie makeup. You get wrapped up in your drawing that you don’t see people come over to you, jumping when someone places their hand on your shoulder. You stare up at the person, pulling out your earbuds as you see Michael standing there with Gavin and Ray. “Jesus. Don’t fucking do that.” You look down at your drawing, frowning as you see a line jerked across your drawing.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Michael says as they sit down at your table. He eyes your sketchbook. “What’s that?”

“It’s for my makeup class.” You pick up your eraser, removing the unwanted line. “Though it’s not finished yet.”

Gavin leans across the table looking at it. “That’s so cool. Can you actually make that?”

“Sure. Couple of face and arm prosthetics and a good amount of makeup and you have yourself a zombie.”

“Wicked.”

“So what are you all doing here?” You close your book as to not mess up your sketch.

Michael shrugs. “Just chilling out before our next class.”

Ray leans back in the chair. “Oh, do you have a copy of your schedule?” You give him a confused look. “Geoff wants to have it so he can schedule game nights and shit.”

“Sure,” You quickly scribble down your schedule, handing it to the hispanic lad.

“Jesus,” Ray looks over your schedule. “Could you be any busier?”

“That’s not including when I have polo practice, taking care of the horses, theater practices, and Saturday makeup projects.”

Gavin blinks, staring at the paper in Ray’s hands. “You will have no life.”

“No I will; it’ll just be consumed by school.” You counter.

“You’re bloody mental taking 18 credits and doing all that.”

You shrug. “I can manage.”

“But Gav you forget that she’s got us and we’ll make sure that she takes some time off to play video games.” Michael tells him.

“You’re right.”

You shake your head, looking at the time. “Well I have to go to class.” You pack up your bag. “Later boys.” You give a two-fingered salute as you leave the library.

Chapter Text

By the time Friday rolls around you basically have the entire semester planned out- every exam, assignment, theater rehearsal, play production and every match you have all written down in your planner. You also have written down all the games for the football team, the soccer team, the swim team, and the ultimate frisbee team, both the home and away games. You do this after finding out that Ryan, Geoff and Michael are on the football team, Gavin’s on the soccer team, Ray’s  on the swim team and Jack’s on the ultimate frisbee team. You were a bit surprised when you find out that Ryan is the quarterback; you would have suspected Michael to be the quarterback but after spending time with them, you notice that Ryan thinks things through, calculating different outcomes and choosing the best choice and you can see how that makes him a good quarterback.

You arrive early to the theater Friday morning, sitting down in your seat and you pull out your laptop, looking through the assignments submitted online. The assignment was fairly simple: turn in a list of plays you would be interested in doing. And still some people couldn’t even do that. Still, you make a spreadsheet of all the suggested plays, putting a mark next to the name as they appear. You’re not surprised to see several Shakespearean plays but you’re a little hesitant to do a Shakespeare play- it would be easy and it’s the most typical thing to do. Even though at the end of the day you decide what play is going to be put on, you like to get feedback from the students to see what they’re interested in so you don’t choose a play that they’re all going to hate. Glancing up, you watch the guys make their way over to you. “Morning boys.” You finish the spreadsheet, saving it before closing your laptop.

Geoff grumbles, laying down on the stage. “Fuck the morning.”

You raise a brow. “What’s wrong? Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed?”

“Nah. He’s just sore and annoyed that he got his ass kicked yesterday during practice.” Michael tells you, sipping on his drink.

“I’m not usually one to complain but the coach was a bit harsh on everyone yesterday.” Ryan says, rubbing his shoulder.

“You know who he wasn’t hard with? Fucking Thomas.” Geoff turns to look at them. “Fucking bastard. I was seriously going to fucking knock him the fuck out if he hit me one more time.”

“Well no shit he went easy on Thomas.” Michael rolls his eyes.

“Isn’t he the coach’s son?” Ray asks around a mouth full of food.

“You make a mess and I’ll make you clean the whole theater.” You tell Ray.

“Yeah, the dickhead can get away with just about anything.” Michael finishes his drink.

Jack nods. “Which is why I was surprised that Ryan was announced quarterback; I thought for sure that Thomas would get it.”

“One of the reasons why he wasn’t is because the guy is an idiot and can’t think quickly.” Ryan pulls out his breakfast burrito. “That and if the coach named him quarterback the whole team would have had a fit, saying that Thomas was getting special treatment over them, which he still is but it’s a bit bearable seeing as coach is harder on him during games.” He pulls out a second burrito and offers it to you. “You hungry?”

You go to politely decline but your stomach growls in protest and you take the offered burrito. “Thanks.” The rest of the students filter in and you hop up onto the stage, sitting on it so you were facing them all. Geoff moves so that his head is resting in your lap as you begin eating, watching people give you and Geoff weird looks but you ignore them- you find that you’re oddly very comfortable around all of the guys, letting them use you as a pillow, using them as pillows and generally being in each other's personal space. You’ve never gotten this comfortable with people before, especially guys, and it usually takes you several months before you let someone lightly touch you and use your stuff and several more months after that before you’re this comfortable with them. But hang out with the guys, you find it very easy to be comfortable around them.

You finish the burrito before addressing the class. “Good morning everyone. I looked over your assignments and I’m a little disappointed to see that some of you didn’t even do it but I did get some good input from those of you who did it so thank you. Based on what I’ve seen I’ve decided that for this semester we will be doing the play ‘ A Doll’s House’ by Henrik Ibsen. I know some of you might not like this play and would like to do something else, but tough shit. I can’t make everyone happy and this is a play you all should know, so get over it and do your part. And speaking of parts,” You try to grab your bag from the ground but Geoff’ head on your lap makes it impossible to do so. “Geoff, you’re going to have to move.”

“Not going to happen.”

You sigh, slightly glaring down at the gent. “Really Geoff? I’m trying to run a class.”

“Tough shit.”

Ryan shakes his head, handing you your bag. “He’s always a pain in the ass after a tough practice.”

“That and during a hangover.” Gavin adds.

You thank Ryan, pulling out a large bundle of paper. “Since Geoff is being a lazy ass, can you all pass these out?” You separate the papers into two stacks, hand one to Ryan and Gavin.

“Sure,” Both men stand and quickly distribute the papers.

“This is the character list for the play with your next assignment attached. I need you to fill out the paperwork, indicating if you want to be front of house or backstage, listing what characters you’re interested in if you want to be on stage or what backstage work you would like to do. Keep in mind that there are some other minor characters that need people but most of them are a couple of lines so it’s very likely that you could play a minor character while working backstage. Once you’ve turned that into me,” You pull out another large stack of papers. “I will hand you a script. This will be the only one I’m giving you so if you lose it it’s up to you to get another copy.” Students start to quickly scribble down on the paper, moving to hand it to you. “Oh and one more important thing,” Everyone stills. “We will be having auditions tomorrow for these roles at 8 am sharp. If you don’t show up, then I can’t guarantee you will get a role you want and more than likely I will have you moving set pieces and what not. For those of you who have athletic events tomorrow, everything should be over by noon but you all can go first tomorrow if you want.”

By 9:30 almost everyone has turned in their assignment and most have left while the few that linger are reading over the script, asking you a few questions as to what you’re looking for in auditions and you tell them to act how they think the character would act and sound. You pack the papers away when class is over and you think over all the roles, having some ideas as who would be good at what, but there is one role that you haven’t told people about and it’s probably the most important: the assistant director. True, you could do everything, but with your full schedule, you know you would burn out real fast so it’s almost essential for you to have an AD, but you’re not sure who could fill that position. You constantly think about this the rest of the day and even into the night when you’re hanging out at the guys house, drinking and playing video games. The thought really doesn’t leave, even at 11 pm and you can barely keep your eyes open.

“I think I should be going guys.” You yawn, moving to stand up.

Jack glances over at the time. “It’s kinda late and we’re all tired. Why don’t you just stay the night?”

You glance around. “You sure?”

Geoff nods. “We all have to get up stupid early tomorrow anyways for the auditions so it’s all good.”

“Ok. Thanks.” You lay down on the couch, head propped up by a pillow and you don’t realize you’ve fallen asleep until you feel a blanket being draped over you. You glance up, looking around the dark room and you watch a figure make their way up the stairs and when they disappear into a bedroom, you realize that it was Ryan. You blush, realizing that you must have passed out and he came down to check up on you.

Auditions go really quickly and you get everyone's consent before recording them, wanting to have it to refer back to before making your final decision. You get done a little after 11 and you go with the guys to the football game, cheering with Gavin and Ray for their team. Unfortunately, Jack had practice, but you and Gavin sent him plenty pictures and you all celebrate their victory with a night out on the town.

Sunday and Monday you spend all day going over the auditions again, assigning people the best roles possible and you're thankful that Monday is a holiday so you could just get that and your other homework done. You're a little nervous when you post the role sheet online and send out an email, letting people know that some names aren't on there because some people didn't show up or they dropped the class and you would work with them on getting them a job. One name that wasn't on the sheet was Ryan's and you're not sure how he's going to react. You don't see him until Wednesday and you can tell that he's mad from the way he's ignoring you and you don't have time to talk to him in class, talking with the backstage people about what their jobs exactly entail and helping Teacher assign minor characters. He doesn't show up for your accounting class and you’re sure that he's purposefully avoiding you.

The next opportunity you get to talk to Ryan is Thursday when Stephanie calls you to tell you first, that they hired another stable hand and that you wouldn't have to come in as much to take care of the horses and second, that polo practice was canceled because the horses were getting checked out and being updated with their vaccinations. She calls you at 3 and you know that football practice was about to start, so you make your way over to the gym, making your way into the locker room. Most of the players were already changed but they stare and some make inappropriate comments. You quickly find Geoff.

"Hey Geoff." You call.

The gent turns around. "(Y/n)? The hell are you doing in here?"

"Have you seen Ryan?"

"Oh. Look I'm not sure-"

"Fuck Geoff, I know that he's mad at me, but he doesn't know why I didn't give him the main role and I just need to talk to him." You interrupt him.

"Um," Geoff looks behind you. You turn around to see Ryan there, a towel wrapped around his waist and water droplets decorate his skin. You and Ryan stare at each other, neither saying a word and you could feel the tension in the air. "Let's move it boys." Geoff tells the other players. "We have practice and if you're not outside in the next minute, I'll kick your ass." He shoos the players out of the locker room, leaving you and Ryan alone.

Ryan moves over to his locker, grabbing his underwear and pants before heading back to the bathroom. "Are you going to continue to ignore me?" You asks, irritation slowly turning into anger.

"Don't you have practice?" Ryan asks, coming back out and trades out the towel for his shirt.

“Practice was canceled. You want to talk about what’s on your mind?” You cross your arms over your chest.

“Do I want to…” Ryan scoffs, pulling his shirt on. “Should we talk about how you overlooked me and gave all the parts to people who don’t know shit about theater? Or would you like to talk about the fact that you didn’t give me any role, on stage or backstage? Or should we skip those all together and talk about how you’re a total bitch by not-”

“I didn’t give you a fucking role is because I want you to be my assistant director!” You interrupt him. “And if you fucking talked to me, hell even sent me a text, I could have told you as much but no!” You wave your hands in front of you. “You had to be a bitch baby and throw a silent temper tantrum just because you didn’t get the part you wanted.”

Ryan stare at you, clearly taken back by your words. “You...you want me to be your AD?”

“That is what I said dipshit.”

Ryan opens his mouth, sounds coming out like he was trying to say something but never actually forms any words. Ryan closes his mouth, thinking while frowning at you. “Why?”

You blink, confused by his simple question. “Why what?”

“Why me?”

“Like you said before, you know a shit ton about theater, so you know how things should look and what not. Besides, you’re probably one of the few, if not the only, person I could stand having as my AD without killing them halfway through the semester.”

“I...I don’t know what to say.”

You sigh. “Tell me you’ll take the job otherwise I might as well just shoot myself in the head right now.”

Ryan looks at you. “I’d love to be your AD.”

“Good.” You punch him in the arm.

“Ow,” Ryan rubs the wounded spot. “What was that for?”

“For being a pain in my ass.”

Ryan nods, picking up his gear and moves towards the door, stopping to look back at you. “You uh...you wanna stay for practice? Afterwards we can go get dinner, my treat for being ‘a pain in the ass’.”

You think about it, going through all the things you have to do and decide that they can wait another day. “Fine,” You follow after him. “But we aren’t going some place quick and cheap. I’m in the mood for some sushi.”

“Whatever you say, princess.” Ryan smiles, jogging away before you could hit him again.

You tug on your sunglasses, sitting down on the bleachers and you set your backpack down next to you. You watch the team finish up their drills before moving onto some game play strategies, watching Ryan command the team and everyone moving almost as one. You pull out your sketchbook, doing some quick sketches of Ryan holding the ball before throwing it to Michael who’s quick on his feet and ducks around his teammates, only being sacked at the twenty yard line. You do other sketches of Michael running, Geoff blocking and catching the ball and one of Ryan punting the ball. You look up as the metal of the bleachers creak and you see Ray making his way over to you, his hair still wet from swim practice. “Hey Ray.”

“Sup.” Ray plops down next to you. “So, word on the street is that you and Ryan made up.”

“Yes, we actually talked and he’s gotten over the fact that I didn’t give him any roles.”

Ray raises a brow. “He has?”

“Well, I guess it helped when I told him I want him as my assistant director.” You look at Ray.

Ray slightly laughs. “Oh man. I totally called it.”

You raise a brow. “How so?”

“I told Rye that you weren’t going to give him a role because you’re so overworked and he knows a lot about theater that it’s basically a waste to give him a lead role as opposed to being AD or something like that.” Ray laughs again. “Now Gavin owes me 50 bucks.”

“You made a bet on this?”

“Yeah. Gavin makes stupid bets.” You shake your head, turning your attention back to your sketches. Ray glances over. "Wow. Did you just do this?"

"Yeah. I'm a quick sketcher."

Ray plucks the book off your lap, flipping through it. Most of them are designs for your makeup class but there are some of them. One that catches Ray’s eye is one of Geoff from Friday. He notices the date stamp, putting it at Wednesday. “Did you draw this from memory?” he asks.

You nod. “I have a shit memory aside from being able to remember lines for a play and dates, but I have this...kind of talent for being able to sketch things from memory if I picture the moment how I would sketch it.”

“That’s really cool.” Ray hands you back the book as the football team heads back to the locker room. “Well it looks like practice is over.” You and Ray wait outside of the locker room, talking about the new games that were going to come out and which ones you were interested in playing. Ryan, Geoff and Michael are one of the firsts to leave, Ray going with the other two players to find Gavin while you and Ryan head out to get dinner.

You know of a good sushi place that is almost right next to campus so you and Ryan walk across campus. You forget that you’re holding your sketchbook until Ryan points it out. “Oh this?” You hold up the book. “It’s just my sketchbook.”

“Can I look at it?” Ryan asks.

You shrug, handing it over. “I don’t see why not.”

Ryan flips the book open, first looking at your design sketches before getting to the ones of them, looking at the one you just drew of him. “Is that really what I look like during a game?”

“I’m not sure about during a game but during practice you do. Your brows knit together like that whenever you’re thinking through different plays and choosing the best one. And you tighten your grip more when you go to throw the ball or when you anticipate being sacked. And you get this look in your eyes that makes them shine whenever you make a touchdown and,” You glance up to see Ryan smiling at you. “What?”

“You see the smallest of details.”

“Of course. It’s kinda my job to do that. Just look at Michael,” You flip to the next page. “Whenever he has the ball, he gets this hard look of determination. And when he doesn’t have the ball, he keeps his eyes moving around, watching the opposing players and moves so gracefully.” Ryan laughs and you frown. "What so funny?"

"Just the fact that you say Michael moves gracefully." You open your mouth to protest but Ryan continues. "Sure, he may move that way on the field but it doesn’t transition over. Shame really, because he and Gavin are clumsily destructive."

"Yeah, whatever." You take your sketchbook back. You soon arrive at the restaurant and you two have a nice meal together, talking about your experiences and you make him jealous by talking about your time working with Teacher and Burnie on Broadway. "Needless to say, it was the coolest and most terrifying thing I have ever done."

"The funny thing is I almost went to see that play on opening night." Ryan picks up his drink.

"Why didn’t you?" You pick up a piece of sushi with your chopsticks, putting it in your mouth.

“Geoff needed my help moving into the house.”

“Shame. It was a really good play and I was really happy that my makeups came out so well.”

Ryan nods, picking up a piece of meat. “Speaking of your makeup, word around campus is that you’ll need some models for your work.”

You raise a brow. “You offering to be my model?”

“I just hope you know that the guys and I are more than willing to help you out.”

“Well that’s very considerate of you.”

You two soon finish eating and Ryan pays for the meal. You two make your way back to your dorm, discussing possible stage setup for the play.

Ryan turns to face you as you stop outside your building. “Well I believe this is where we part ways, my lady.” He takes your hand and kisses it. “Until tomorrow.”

You smile, slightly blushing. “Adu, my good sir.” You make your way inside to your room, lying down on the bed. With all things considered, today wasn’t the worst day you’ve had, especially since you now had an AD who was very capable, so it was less likely that you would die halfway through the semester.

Chapter Text

The next week goes by quickly, your work load quickly increasing as your classes get more intense. You spend more and more time at the guy’s house, working with Ryan on your Accounting homework, having them help you with Human Physiology or running through stage cues, lighting effects and prop and set placement. Saturday is the first day your theater class is running through scenes multiple times without having to worry about the time. Though it's only the third week of classes, the first exams of the semester are coming up and you can tell people are stressed. You make it to 11 before you and Ryan have to call everyone to the stage.

"Look guys, I know exams are coming up and papers are due, but you need to focus."

"I'd like to see you try to remember all these lines while studying for three exams and writing two papers." Nick, the lead male, complains, waving his script in the air.

"I'd like to see try to manage 60 other people, making sure the actors remember their fucking lines, checking with the backstage crew to make sure they know where all the sets pieces go, checking with sound and lighting to make sure that they are on the same page as well as study for two exams, write a paper, go to polo practice and make sure I show up to do a major makeup project." You retort, starting to lose your patience. "Don't fucking make excuses as to why you can't sit down for half an hour to memorize some goddamn lines."

"How about we take a small break?" Ryan cuts in, putting a hand on your shoulder to keep you from lunging at anyone. The crew mutters in agreement, scattering as Ryan takes you back to the sound booth where Gavin, Geoff, and Ray sit.

They slide the window that separates them from the audience, Gavin looking at you. "You ok? You looked like you were about to ring that guy's neck."

"A few more minutes and I just might have." You huff, leaning on the windowsill. "It's amazing they think I don't have exams and homework to do just like they do."

"I think they're just a little stressed is all." Ryan says. "It common for big productions like this, especially for people who haven't been in a theater production before."

Michael and Jack make their way over to you all. "Jesus. Everyone is losing their fucking mind." The brunette lad comments. "I had to fight my way out of the angry mob of actors."

"Backstage isn't much better." Jack sighs. "People are anxious about having all the set pieces done by next week."

"It's not so bad for us right now." Geoff says. "But that might change once the set comes into play and we have to program all the lights and what not."

You scrub a hand over your face. "I'm not sure things can get much worse."

"I wouldn’t be so sure about that." You all turn to see Burnie standing there. "Things always go to shit before they get remotely better."

“Who the hell are you?” Michael asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Burnie Burns. I teach most of the upper division makeup classes with Gus Sorola.” Burnie turns to look at you. “So, we have a slight problem.”

You raises a brow. “Oh?”

“We don’t have any models for your project.”

You blink. “What?”

“Yeah. They all backed out the moment they found out they would have to come in on a Saturday so I guess we’ll have to use the people here.” He glances around, looking at your fellow classmates.

“How many people do we have coming in?”

“About thirty between Gus’ and my sections.”

You nod, making you way up onto the stage. “Alright, listen up everyone.” They all turn to look at you. “Since we aren’t going to get much farther in rehearsals today, we are going to help out another class.” You watch the other makeup students enter the theater. You wave them up. “Now, all of us makeup students have a project to do and we need models so actors, get up here.” Reluctantly, all of the actors including Michael make their way onto the stage. You count them, coming up short by ten. “Let’s see...How about we get our own makeup people up here.” Nine more people. “Now we’re just short one.” you mutter.

“Don’t worry about it.” Ryan says, hopping up on the stage to stand next to you. “I’ll be your model.”

You blink at him while other people stare. “Are you sure?”

Ryan shrugs. “I said we’d help you and I meant it.”

Burnie makes his way onto the stage. “Well, now that we got that figured out, artists, set up your stations.”

The other artists grab nearby chairs and tables, placing their kits on them and lays things out. You grab your kit from the seats, setting up stage right in the back, grabbing a stool for Ryan. Once you all finish that, you turn to face Burnie again.

“Now, you all should have your designs from Thursday's class. I want you to take that and make it a full body character, costume included.” Several of the artists groan and complain that it’s unfair that they weren’t told this ahead of time. “Oh stop your whining. Directors do this all the time, either asking you to completely change your concept or to add things. Now for my models, I’m guessing most, if not all, of you haven’t had stage makeup on before. Some of the products we use can cause an allergic reaction and if you start to feel light headed or nauseous, tell your artist, myself or Gus immediately; we will give you medical attention. With that being said,” Burnie glances up as Gus enters the theater with several paramedics. “We’ll have paramedics on standby the whole time so you’ll be in good hands. Any questions?” No one says anything. “Good. You have 90 minutes. Go.”

Gavin hops onto the stage, talking quietly to Burnie before making his way over to you, holding his phone sideways and you know he's recording a video of you but you don't mind. You grab your sketchbook, flipping it to your design and you hand it to Ryan. "So we were given one of five terrains- mountain, swamp, forest, volcano or tundra- and we had to make a demon that lived there. I got the tundra and I didn't want to do a typical demon so I did an ice king incubus."

Ryan looks at you, a brow arched. "An incubus? Really?"

"You won't be naked, just mostly."

“Oh great.” Ryan sets you sketchbook down.

“Come on.” You drag Ryan back to the green room with Gavin following after you. You look through the racks of clothes, flipping through them before you found the garment you’re looking for. “Put this on.” You toss the garment to Ryan.

The gent catches it, looking it over. “This is a kilt.”

“Yup.” You move over to the prop cabinet. “Now hurry up and change.” Ryan grumbles, unbuckling his pants.

Gavin walks over to you, focusing the lens on you. “So, it looks like you had a full character already planned out.”

You pull a box out, shuffling around its contents. “Yeah. I always make a full character, even when it’s not required.” You pull out a crown, shoving the box back into the cabinet. “It’s something I learned from Burnie.” You turn to find that Ryan has the kilt on, pants and shoes in hand. “Good.” You rush back out to the stage, setting the crown down next to your supplies. Ryan and Gavin follow after. Geoff, Jack and Ray come to stand next to you. “Ryan, I’m going to need you to remove your shirt.”

Ryan sighs, setting his clothes next to the stool before pulling his shirt over his head. Michael glances over from where he’s sitting, watching Ryan and whistling. “Yeah Ryan. Take it off.” He calls, smirking at him.

The gent glares at the lad, sitting down on the stool. “Fuck off Jones.”

You grab the elven ear prosthetics, ripping open the packaging and grabs the applicator glue. “You’re not allergic to latex or anything like that?”

Ryan shakes his head. “Nope.”

“Ok.” You put the prosthetics on. “Just let me know if you start to feel sick or anything.” Ryan nods as you get the prosthetics set, looking them over before grabbing you makeup tray. You mix together varying shades of blue, picking up an angle cut brush and dab it into the darker blue. You take the brush and start drawing lines all along his chest, accentuating his ab muscles and some of his back muscles before moving up to his face, doing more of a war paint kind of look than anything else.

Geoff and Jack watch you work, Gavin moving around to get good angles of you working while Ray wanders over to Michael, watching what that artist was doing. Gus comes to stand next to Burnie as they watch you all work, talking quietly to each other. You finish up with the dark blue, setting that brush aside before picking up another bigger and wider brush and begin to spread a lighter blue all over his chest, arms legs and face. Once you make sure that all of his exposed skin is covered, you pick up a sponge and blend the light and dark blue together, adding some more dark blue to make it have a nice gradient. "Burnie, time?" You asks as you clean your brushes.

Burnie glances down at his watch. "About 70 more minutes."

You nod, glancing around at the others; some, like Miles, Ashley and Meg, have really good, solid concepts while others have half-assed concepts. You turn your attention back to Ryan. "How are you feeling?" You ask.

"Fine, but I feel like someone's sketchpad."

"Don't worry buddy, you look good." Geoff says as he lightly pats Ryan's shoulder, making sure not to rub off any of the makeup. "And besides, you pull off the kilt really well."

Ryan slightly glares. "I hate you."

Geoff shrugs. "Remember that you volunteered."

"Yeah yeah."

You glance up as you hear someone make their way over to you, smiling as you recognize Dan. "Hey Dan."

Gavin spins around, leaving the camera focused on you. "B! What are you doing here?"

Dan stands next to the British lad. "Well, seeing as I am a paramedic and I have been working with Burnie and Gus in their classes, I'm here to make sure no one keels over or anything." He turns to look at Ryan. "How are you feeling?"

Ryan slightly smiles. "I'm fine."

"Do you mind if I check you over?"

Ryan shrugs. "Go for it."

You look at Dan. "Try not to smear the makeup as much as possible." You tell him as you head back towards the green room.

"I'll try." Dan replies.

Gavin follows after you as you look through the prop closet, looking for something you could use as a tail and possibly for a pair of wings. "So, you know Dan?" Gavin asks.

"Yeah. Like he said, he and several other paramedics come to class when we have models to make sure they are ok.” You find a pool noodle that’s just the right length so you grab that, deciding to scrap the wings. “How do you know him?”

“Dan and I were school mates back in England. We’ve been best friends since the first day of reception.” Gavin smiles. “Those were the days.”

“I bet.” You make your way back out onto the stage, pulling your pocket knife out and starts to shape the pool noodle how you want it.

Ryan watches you. “Is that going to be my tail?”

“That’s the idea.”

Dan puts the stethoscope around his neck. “His vitals are good but we’ll still keep an eye on you just in case.” He smiles at Ryan before moving over to check out the next model.

“Thanks Dan.” You say, finishing up the tail and set it aside in favor of going in and adding some more details, sharpening the lines on Ryan’s face while making the ones on his body more softer. You’re so focused on what you're doing that you don't notice Burnie standing behind you until he tells you you missed a line. You jump, not really expecting to hear his voice so close to you. “What?”

“I think you missed a spot.” He repeats, motioning to the area you just finished.

You slightly frown. “Ha ha. Very funny.”

Burnie gives you a smile that's a borderline smirk, turning to address Ryan. “How are you holding up?”

“Pretty well, considering I'm covered in paint.”

“You look good.” Burnie glances down at his watch. “45 minutes remaining.” He calls, moving over to inspect the other student's work.

You set the brushes down, picking up a pad of sandpaper and begin sanding the crown, making it course enough to hold paint as well as to remove as much gold paint as possible. You glance around, taking a step to go see what they're up to but stop mid step and look back at Ryan. “Will you be ok if I leave for a few minutes?”

Ryan eaves you off. “Yeah I'll be fine.”

You nod, moving over to where Meg is working on Michael, still sanding the crown as you go. Michael is also shirtless, all of his exposed skin covered in black paint with reds and yellows added in that gives it a molten lava kind of look. Michael also has pointed ear prosthetics and his face makeup make his face look longer, his chin and cheekbones more prominent, giving sharp lines and contours. Meg has fashioned some horns to his head, using his curly hair to her advantage as well as having him wear fake canines. “Amazing work Meg. And here I thought it wasn't possible for him to get any scarier.”

Meg smiles at you, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Thank you. Ryan doesn’t look too bad either.”

You shrugs. “I make do with what I got.”

“Is that part of your makeup?” Meg motions to the crown in your hand.

“Yeah.” You hold it up to inspect it, smiling as most of the gold is gone, leaving behind a nice white base. “I’m going to try and paint it so it looks like it's made from ice.”

“Ooh. That sounds like fun.”

You nod. “Oh it will be. Well I'll let you get back to it.”

“Good luck.” Meg waves.

You spend the next 30 minutes working on the crown, trying to make it look as much like ice as possible. In the last ten minutes you paint the tail and apply it with Ryan's help, draping the back of the kilt over it. Ryan jokes that you should at least buy him a drink before doing anything this intimate. You roll your eyes, smiling as you place the crown on his head.

“That's it. Time's up!” Burnie calls and there's a collective sigh of relief as everyone sets down their brushes.

Burnie and Gus have you artists wait in the green room while they looked your models over. You sit down on the ground, running a hand through your hair as you feel the exhaustion of the day finally catching up to you. Meg sits down next to you and hands you a cup. “You look like you need a pick-me-up.”

You smile at her. “Thanks.” You take a sip, humming in appreciation as the caffeine flows into your system. “How well do you think you did?”

“I personally like how it turned out and Michael was a real champ.”

“He didn't flip his shit and swear left and right?”

Meg shakes her head. “Maybe once or twice, but other than that he was willing to do what I asked.”

You smile, pleased to know that the guys really were willing to help out. Speaking of which, you look around the room and notice that Gavin is nowhere to be seen. “Where's Gavin?”

Meg also looks around. “I'm not sure. I haven't seen him since Professor Burns and Serola ran us off the stage.” Meg looks at you. “Maybe he's out there filming with them.”

“Maybe.”

Ten minutes later when you all are called back out you find out that Meg was right and Gavin had been filming while Burnie and Gus evaluated your work. They told you that they would have the grades up along with their comments by Monday and sent you to wash your models off, five at a time so it wasn't a cluster fuck on the showers. You show Ryan where the showers are, handing him a towel and a body wash that would effectively remove the paint. You wait with Geoff, Jack, and Ray for Ryan and Michael to wash off the paint. Gavin wanders over to you, stuffing his phone back into his pocket. “This is going to make my project a little easier.”

“What do you have to do?” You ask, curious to know because you could think of several things that would make sense with him filming you doing your makeup.

“We sort of have to create a mini documentary about another major or class and I was going to do our acting class but then this happened and you have so much more experience with being a makeup artist. I hope that’s ok.” Gavin gives you a weary look.

You give him a reassuring smile. “It’s fine. I just hope that I can see it once you’re done.”

“Of course.”

You nod and several minutes later Ryan and Michael make their way over to you, both of the men’s hair dripping water. Ryan’s hair glistens from the water and you think that he, as well as Michael, should be on the cover of one of those dumb romance novels that women seem to love. Ryan seems to be able to read your mind because he gives you a stern look. “Don’t even think about it.”

“What? I can’t admire how handsome you are? Shame. And here I thought we were good friends, seeing as I had you mostly naked and was painting you up.” You flash him a playful smirk.

Ryan frowns at you, taking his bag that Jack hands him. “Not like any of these idiots were going to volunteer.”

“Well excuse us.” Geoff says. “You were the one who couldn’t wait to help (y/n).”

“Because I knew none of you were going to.” Ryan says, his voice getting higher as you all exit the building and ideally make your way towards the IHOP a few blocks away.

“I don’t think I could have used any of you anyways.” You say, tucking your drawing book into your backpack.

“Why not?” Ray asks.

“You all don’t have the same build Rye does.”

“Excuse me?” Geoff looks at you.

“You heard me. You’re not as fine a specimen as Rye.”

“I’m not sure if I should be offended by that or not.” Ryan says.

Ray and Gavin both shrug. “Well, I do have more of a swimmer’s build while Gav has more of a runner’s build.” Ray points out.

“Well, if I plan a concept that requires a smaller build, I’ll make sure to hit you up.” You thank Jack as you enter the IHOP, getting a table in the back.

“I think Ryan’s willing to be your model anytime.” Geoff says as you all sit down.

You smile. “Yes. Well, Ryan is a very good model and he’s not bad on the eyes.” You glance over to notice Ryan slightly blush.

“Can we not talk about my body?”

“Why? You’ve got something to hide?” You smile coyly.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.” Ryan says, his blush deepening as you smirk, his words finally sinking in. “I didn’t mean...Not like…”

“That’s right; dig yourself into a bigger hole.” Jack says.

Ryan’s saved by the waitress coming by to take your order and he’s silently thankful the conversation steers away from him and onto the topic of video games and what videos they’re going to put on YouTube. You make a comment here and there, agreeing to take part in some the their videos. You can’t help but notice the way Ryan glances over at you, the way his eyes flick down to watch your lips when you talk and you try to ignore the heat creeping up your cheeks, downing your drink and getting two refills before your food arrives. The conversation slightly stimmers off as you all eat, but picks right back up again, Ryan, Geoff and Michael talking about their upcoming game while Ray offhandedly mentions his upcoming meet. Gavin says he had a game soon as well, hoping that you’ll come. Of course you are because you want to see Gavin play and it’s another excuse to spend more time with the boys.

With the check separated and payed for, you make the long trek across campus back to your dorm. You wave bye to the guys while Ryan follows you to your room. “So, when did you want to meet up?” He asks.

You raise a brow. “Meet up?”

“Yeah. To talk about the play and what not. We could get lunch or something.”

You look at him. “James Ryan Haywood, are you asking me out on a date?”

His cheeks turn a brilliant pink. “I mean...if you want to think of it as that…”

“Well, then I’ll wait for your call.” You unlock your room, stepping inside.

“I won’t make you wait too long.” Ryan calls before heading out.

“I hope not.” You say, setting your backpack down and lay down on your bed, tired because it’s been a long day and you could do with a quick nap.

Chapter Text

“Yeah, I think we can do that.” Geoff tells Jack as they make their way upstairs. “We’ll just have to play-” They stop as they hear grunting and talking coming from Michael’s room. Geoff gives Jack a questioning look as he and Jack step closer to the closed door to hear better.

“Just hold still.” They hear Michael say.

“I am holding still.” Their brows shoot up in surprise when they hear your voice.

“No you’re not!”

“Yes I am!” You grunt. “Just hurry up and put it in already. I can’t stay like this all day.”

“If you would fucking hold still it wouldn’t be so hard.”

“Look, if you’re gonna be a bitch about it, then I’ll put it in myself!”

Geoff knocks on the door before tentatively opening it, poking his head through the crack. “Guys?” He asks cautiously, expecting to find you two naked on Michael’s bed. What he’s not expecting, to his relief, is you two standing in the middle of the room on Michael’s partially broken desk, the wood groaning and creaking under your combined weight. You hold up a new large lighting fixture that looks something akin to a chandelier as Michael works on wiring it up, tools poking out of his pockets.

“What?!” Both of you yell, looking at Geoff.

“Oh good.” Geoff let’s out a sigh of relief. “You two aren’t banging.”

“What? Michael and (Y/N) are banging?” Ray’s voice calls from the hall and a moment later he appears next to Geoff. “That’s not banging.” He says with a frown.

“No we’re not..” You say, your arms shaking. “It’s called Michael doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.”

“Hey, I know what I’m doing!” He snaps, thrusting the small screwdriver at you. “You’re the one who can’t stay still long enough for me to finish the wiring.”

“Do you even know how heavy this is?!” You stare at him. “And did you have to pick the heaviest fucking one you could find?”

“It’s the only one I liked!”

You let out an exasperated sigh. “Next time we’re going to Ikea. They have amazing stuff that doesn’t weigh 50 pounds.” You shift your weight onto your left foot, trying to get rid of the pins and needles feeling you have in your right foot. As you do so, you put more weight on the center where the desk is much weaker and it gives out under you. You let go of the lighting fixture in favor of catching yourself but the desk breaks completely, you and Michael falling to the ground. The fixture snaps all of the wiring as it falls, hitting you before shattering on the ground. You let out a pained cry, grabbing your left arm as well as your leg. Michael groans in pain next to you.

“Michael! (Y/N)!” Geoff, Ray and Jack rush over to you two. “Are you ok?” Geoff asks, kneeling next to you.

“Considering I just fell off a desk and had a chandelier land on me, I think the answer to that is no.” You groan, pressing your hand against your injured arm.

You hear footsteps thud against the stairs and a second later Gavin and Ryan are at the door. “What happened?” Gavin asks, taking in the scene before him. He notices the blood on your arm and hand. “Oh,” He looks away as he gags.

Ryan kneels down next to Geoff as he gently pulls your hand away. “Let’s see.” There is a deep gash that is about 1.5 mm deep and four inches long, moving at a downward angle. You slightly wince as Ryan inspects the gash. “I think you’re gonna need stitches.”

“Great.” You groan. Hospitals have never been your favorite place; too many times have you been there because of family and most of the time you leave even more upset than when you arrived, so you have a very negative association about them.

“Come on.” Ryan and Geoff help you up. You lean against Ryan, since your ankle hurts and you’re pretty sure you’ve sprained it. Geoff glances over at Michael. “You alright?”

“Fucking desk.” Michael grumbles, letting Ray and Jack pull him up.

Geoff frowns as he notices a similar gash on Michael’s forehead. “Looks like we’ll have to take Michael as well.”

You all shuffle downstairs and into two cars, Geoff and Ryan helping you since you can only walk on one leg. Upon arriving at the hospital, the nurse take you and Michael back into one of the larger rooms, allowing the rest of the guys into the room seeing as none of our injuries are life threatening. You hop up onto the bed as the nurse start cleaning your arm and Michael’s forehead. Once she leaves, you glance over at Michael, pressing a cloth bandage to your arm per the nurse’s instructions. “I told you it wouldn’t hold.”

Michael slightly glares at you, also pressing a bandage to his head. “Shut the fuck up. Now you owe me a new desk and light.”

“Fuck you. I was just trying to help.”

“You broke my desk! How is that helping?!”

“Your desk was already broken.” You glare at him.

“Enough!” Geoff snaps, interrupting you two before you got into another yelling match. “Both of you are at fault so stop trying to pass blame.” He looks between the two of you. “Now knock it off because I don’t want to have to deal with the doctor and nurses yelling about you two getting into a fight.”

“But she did break my desk.” Michael grumbles.

You glare at him but don’t say anything, deciding to leave it be for now. You turn your attention back to your arm, lifting up the cloth to see that it’s not bleeding as much now. Ryan leans over to look as well. “The bleeding’s gone down.” He says.

“Yup.” You press the cloth back over it.

A few minutes later, the doctor and a nurse come in. The doctor stitches you up first, leaving the nurse to attend to your ankle while the doctor begins stitching Michael up. When the nurse finishes, she looks up at you. “You’ll need to keep off your ankle for the next two week.”

“The next two week?” You groan, knowing that that’ll make everything that much harder and your already long schedule even longer.

“Yes. The next week. At that point, you’ll need to come back in so we can make sure there is no underlying problems as well as check on your stitches.”

“Ok.”

When the doctor and nurse leave, Ryan helps you up and hands you the crutch the nurse gave you. Once you and Michael get your paperwork and instructions for aftercare and when you need to come back in, you all head back to the house. Right as you all get settled in the living room, your phone goes off once. You heave a sigh as you look at it. It’s a text from Teacher, asking if you have all the set and costume plans done. You let out another, more annoyed sigh. Gavin looks over at you. “Something the matter love?”

“Teacher wants the plans for the stage and costumes and those are all in my room. That and I know Bernie would like my character design, which I still have to start and all my supplies are in my room.”

“Ray and I can go get ‘em for you.” Gavin turns to look at the Puerto Rican, who nods in agreement.

“No it’s fine. I probably should head back anyway.” You grumble as you stand up.

Geoff looks up at you. “You sure about that? Are you going to be fine by yourself?”

“I think I’ll be fine.”

Geoff and Jack share a concerned look. Ryan stands up. “I’ll go with her.”

“Oh no Ryan.” You look at the star quarterback. “I couldn’t possibly ask you to do that.”

“Well then it’s a good thing you didn’t ask.” Ryan smirks as he heads upstairs.

“And, pray tell, how long do you plan on staying?” You holler up to him.

“Until the doctor says you’re good.”

“Aka, for the next two weeks.” Michael says, flashing you a smirk.

You stare as Ryan makes his way down, duffle bag in hand. “You do realize the only bed I have is the one the university provides and it’s only a twin.”

Ryan looks over at you. “Don’t you have a futon?”

“A couch, but you don’t expect to sleep on a couch for the next two weeks, do you?”

“I’ll make do.” Ryan heads out the door and into his car.

“You’re crazy, you know that right?” You slowly follow after him.

“Crazy for you.” Ray mutters. He glances up to catch you staring at him. “What? It’s not like you two are subtle.”

“We’re not together.” Your brows furrow.

“We know.” Ray says.

“Honestly (Y/N),” Gavin makes his way over to you. “We’re all waiting for you two to stop beating around the bush and just get together.”

You notice they all share the same look and decide not to say anything because your attraction to Ryan isn’t really any of their business, and yet it is, you remind yourself. You shake your head, finding Ryan waiting out by his car and he helps you in before climbing in himself. He glances over at you as he heads towards your dorm. “What took you so long?”

“Huh?” Ryan’s voice pulls from your thoughts. “Oh. Gav was just wondering if he could get the lighting plans for Monday.”

“Did you say Vav?”

“No?” You turn to look at Ryan. “I said Gav.” You emphasize the ‘g’ sound.

“Oh.” Ryan pointedly avoids looking at you.

You smile, finding it amusing when Ryan mispronounces things or hears them wrong. You let it go as Ryan parks in the lot closest to your dorm, helping you out and into the building. It’s times like these that you’re grateful that you live on the first floor. As Ryan helps you into your room, you remember that your bed is lofted up. “I think the only difficult part will be that.” You motion to your bed as Ryan turns on the lights.

Ryan takes a moment and looks at your bed for a moment and you can see the wheels turning in his head. “It won’t be a problem.”

You slightly smile, not surprised that Ryan doesn’t think the bed will be a problem. You make your way over to your dresser, grabbing your pj’s that consist of a tank top and short-shorts that are comfortable as fuck. “I’m gonna take a shower.” You tell Ryan before disappearing into the bathroom.

“I’ll be out here.” Ryan replies as he places his duffle bag on top of your dresser.

It takes a little bit of struggling but you strip down out of your clothes and into the shower, standing under the hot spray of water. You find it a little challenging showering with only one good leg while also keeping the stitches of your left arm away from the spray of water, but you manage.

Ryan decides to get changed while you’re in the shower. He tugs his shirt off and pulls off his pants. He grabs his flannel pajama pants from his duffel bag and pulls them on, grabbing his shoes and places them by your closet. He then moves over to the sink and begins to brush his teeth. He looks up when you limp out of the bathroom in your p.j.’s. He tries not to stare at you, seeing as the room was cooler than the bathroom which makes your nipples slightly hard on top of the fact that your shorts barely cover your ass. “It looks like you didn’t have much trouble.” Ryan says, turning to look down at the sink while he washed off his toothbrush.

“Yes, it seems that I’ve survived.” You move over to the dresser and put your clothes away. You sit down at your desk, grabbing your sketchbook and flips open to the stage layout. You take pictures with your phone and send them to Teacher.

Ryan makes his way over to you, glancing over your shoulder. “Is that what the stage is gonna look like?”

“It’s my plan.”

“May I?” You hand your sketch over, grabbing a separate piece of paper that has a general idea of lights and sound and send that off to Gavin. Ryan looks over your sketch.”You should alo send this to Jack.”

“Why?”

“He’s gonna help out with the wood working so he’ll be able to tell you what is and isn’t possible.”

“Ok.” You said a picture to Jack as well.

Ryan continues to flip through your sketchbook, looking over the costume ideas. “Are you going to make all of these?”

“Meg said she’d help me, once we figure out where we’re gonna put them.” You grumble, beginning to complete the quiz for human physiology.

“Can’t you keep them at the theater?”

“I could but that would mean going there any time I want to work on them. I can’t keep them here because there’s no room and Meg lives in a small apartment with one or two roommates, so she doesn’t have the room either.”

“You can keep them at our house.” Ryan sets your sketchbook down.

“Really?” You glance back at him. “You sure?”

“Yeah. We have plenty of room and Geoff is amazingly good at sewing.”

One of your brows raises. “ Really ? Geoff?”

Ryan smiles. “Surprised?”

“A little.”

“We all have our little quirks.”

“No kidding.” You stand up, putting your phone on the bedside tray attached to the bed frame, shuffling towards the other end of the bed.

Ryan moves behind you, grabbing your hips and helps keep you steady and up into your bed. Once he makes sure you’re comfortable, he turns off all the lights before lying down on your couch, grabbing the spare blanket you left out.

“Hey Ryan?” You ask quietly.

“Yes (Y/N)?”

“Thanks for staying and being a good friend.”

Ryan smiles. “Well, I’m glad you let me be your friend.”

You slightly chuckles. “Yeah. I’m glad too.” You struggle and burrow down into your sheets.

“Good night (Y/N).”

Chapter Text

Over the next week as your sprained ankle heals, you and Ryan grow closer; you grow very comfortable with having Ryan stay in your dorm with you. Some of the other guys visit and spend time with you. Geoff and Jack act like a worried mom and dad, making sure that you’ve been eating right, getting enough sleep and that Ryan is taking good care of you. Michael, Gavin, and Ray focus on helping you with some of your homework and distracting you by playing video games. You glance up from the notebook in your hands, smiling and laughing as Michael begins yelling at Gavin and the Brit squeals and squawks in reply. You shake your head at their antics, tucking your feet underneath you as you curl up against Ryan’s side on your couch. “You two are something else.” You say.

“Well, Gavin’s a fucking cunt and he deserves to die.” Michael says in a low growl.

“I didn’t mean it Michoo.” Gavin whines, scooting closer to the brooding lad.

“Yeah yeah.”

You shake your head, turning your attention back to your homework. You let out a sigh as you stare at the worksheet in front of you that’s about the endocrine system. Ryan looks down at your homework as he drapes his arm over the back of the couch. “How’s your physiology class coming along?” He asks.

“Slowly but surely. Better than my make-up class.” You tell him.

“Oh?” He raises a brow.

“Yeah- for our current project we have to work in pairs and my partner is fighting me on everything .” You explain. “We have two separate ideas and he has no sense of compromise.”

“Sounds like a pain.” Ray says for the first time in the two hours they’ve been there.

You look over at where he’s perched on your window sill, playing his DS. “And it’s annoying because I can’t just ask for a new partner or do the project by myself.”

“Why not?” Ray asks.

“One, because the partners were assigned and our grade is dependant on it, and second, that’s not how it works in the real world, so if I ask, Burnie would probably slap me if I asked.”

“You know that’s against school policy.” Ryan says.

“Burnie knows he could get away with it because it’s me.” You close your notebook with the worksheet trapped inside, dropping it on the floor. “Done.” You lean back, resting your head on Ryan’s shoulder as you close your eyes.

Ryan slightly flushes, letting his arm drop to rest on your shoulders. Gavin giggles, cooing about how cute you and Ryan are. You smile when Ryan and Gavin fall into bantering back and forth.

You like it when the weather begins to cool down and October comes around, excitement builds as Halloween draws even closer. You find yourself sitting outside in one of the quads on a sunny afternoon, working on your next character design, thankful that your group project wasn’t a complete disaster but it wasn’t a makeup you’re really proud of. Your head jerks up when you hear Geoff call your name. You see the bearded gent make his way over to you. “Hey Geoff. What’s up?”

“Hey. How busy are you going to be this weekend?” Geoff asks as he comes to stand in front of you.

“Well, I do have a couple assignments and projects to work on. What do you need?”

“Quite a lot of the team us getting together to do a haunted house and most, if not all of them, now that you and Ryan are dating and that you’re a makeup artist- a really good one-they wanted you to come and do our makeup.”

“I don’t remember either of us saying that we’re dating.” You pack up your bag, walking with Geoff across campus towards the house.

“But you two are.”

“Since when?”

“Since Ryan was your nurse and you took him home.”

“What?” You scoff. “Pff. No. I-what?” Geoff raises a questioning brow. “I mean, it’s not like I don’t not like him. We’ve just never talked about it.”

“Whatever you say princess. So, do you think you could help us out?”

“Maybe. I can call up a couple of my fellow artists and see if they could also help out.”

“Awesome. So, from what Gavin’s told me, you and Ryan are getting pretty touchy feely with each other.” Geoff grins as your cheeks heat up.

When you two arrive at the house, you and Geoff work on a few of the costumes before the other guys arrive. They put their stuff away before you all head out, meeting up with the football team as well as Meg, Ashley, and Miles. You know you’ll be too busy to do all the makeup yourself and you know how talented they are. All four of you talk to the team, getting a general idea of what they want to do. You break out your sketchbook and begin to map out the layout of the building they’re using, figuring out where all the groups will be.

“So, here’s what I’m thinking.” You say mostly to Meg, Ashley, and Miles, but with the team clustered around you it’s hard for them not to overhear. “Since it seems like all the groups have their own theme, we’ll stick with that. So, Meg, if you want to take Edmund’s and Albert’s groups, since it’s mostly beauty and zombie makeup?”

“Yeah, sure.” Meg says, grinning.

“Ashley, do you want to take Chris’ and Travis’ groups?”

“I’d love to. I’ve always wanted to do bionic, cyborg makeup.” Ashley says.

“Awesome. Miles,” You turn to look at him. “Wanna take Richard’s and Geoff’s groups and I’ll take Todd’s?”

Miles raises a brow. “You don’t want to take Geoff’s group?”

“I thought you likes a challenge?”

“I do.”

“Good because I already know what they want and I want to see what you come up with.”

“Ok.”

You all break off into your smaller groups. Even though you don’t have two groups, Todd’s is larger than the rest so you still have a decent amount of work to do. By the time 8 PM rolls around, you’ve gotten all the basic concepts down and have finished fully sketching out two of them. You and the guys head back to the house, the gents setting about cooking dinner as you and the lads retire to the living room. Over the next few days you finish all the designs, get all the prosthetics and colours you’ll need and by the time Halloween- which happens to fall on a Saturday- rolls around, you, Meg, Ashley, and Miles have the football team in their haunted house by noon and quickly work on completing all the makeups. You all keep them as simple as possible while still looking amazing. Luckily, none of you decide to do large prosthetics. You finish up a little before 5, moving over to help Ashley with her makeup.

When you all finish, the sky is darkening outside and the team bustles around, getting everything ready. “Well, that does it for me.” You pack up your makeup kit.

“You’re not staying?” Meg asks.

You shake your head. “I have so much to do that I can’t up it off anymore.”

“Ok.” Meg pulls you into a hug. “Just be careful- lots of creeps out tonight.”

“I know.” You quickly bike over to the house, putting it in the garage before entering the house. You find Gavin, Ray, and Jack in the living room all dressed up. “Going out?” You ask, setting your kit by the stairs to take up to Ryan’s room- which you’re sharing, yes- later, trudging into the kitchen.

“Yeah. We’re gonna see how good the haunted house is.” Gavin bounces over to you, the fur of his cat costume bouncing with him and the bell on the collar around his neck jingles with his movements. “You wanna come?”

You hum, playing with the bell. “Considering I’ve seen all the makeups and the set up, I don’t think they would do a good job scaring me. Besides, I have homework to do.”

“But it’s Halloween.”

“Doesn’t mean my homework is magically not due or that it’ll do itself.”

“Oh ok.” Gavin seems to deflate a little.

You lean over and kiss his cheek. “Bring me back some good candy yeah?”

Gavins gives you a small smile. “Sure.”

You and Gavin walk back into the living room, you sitting down on the couch as Gavin joins Ray. Jack looks at you. “I don’t think we’re going to get have any trick-or-treaters, so you might want to lock up once we leave.”

“Yes mom .” You say, pulling off your boots. “You all have your keys?”

“Yes dear .” Jack says, leaning over and presses a kiss to your head. “We shouldn’t be out too late.”

“I’ll be fine. Have fun.” You call as they leave the house. You lock the door, closing all the blinds and change into your pajamas consisting of short shorts and a tank top. You settle yourself down onto the couch as you set about adding the final touches to the remaining costumes.

You don’t realize you’ve drifted off until your head jerks up and your eyes snap open. You set the costume on the coffee table, standing up and head into the kitchen. You glance at the microwave as you look through the fridge. “Damn. Already 11:30?” You close the fridge and move over to the pantry but freeze when the back doorknob jingles and the door slowly opens.

You slowly back towards the stairs, cursing at yourself for leaving your cell phone upstairs as a masked man dressed in a bloodied apron enter the kitchen, wielding a bloodied butcher knife in one hand. The man’s head turns to look at you and he lumbers towards you. “Shit!” You swipe a jar from the counter and throw it at the intruder. You take off running through the living room towards the stairs, once again cursing yourself as you only have the one lamp in the living room and the small light over the sink on providing light.

You run in the direction of the stairs, cursing as you trip over your abandoned makeup kit, tweaking your ankle. You scurry up the stairs, hearing the intruder right behind you. You hobble down the hall to Ryan’s room, throwing the door open and flick the lights on. Your eyes land on your phone sitting on the nightstand, charging. You limp towards it but an arm wraps around your waist. “No!” You yell, thrashing in the strong grip. “Let me go!” You grab a nearby book and smack the intruder upside the head.

The intruder groans, releasing you. You fall to the ground, still clutching the book. You turn to throw the book at the intruder but they grab your hand and crowds over you. “Stopit (Y/N).” They say, their voice muffled and a bit hard to understand but they sound very familiar .

“R-Ryan?” You tentatively ask as they pull the mask off and Ryan looks down at you. He release his grip on your wrist. “Oh my god. Oh my god!” You smack him with the book. “Why the fuck would you do that?!”

Ryan rips the book from your grasp. “To be fair, I didn’t think you’d still be up or that I would scare you.”

“You didn’t think that sneaking in through the back door wearing a fucking mask  and carrying a bloody butcher knife in the middle of the night wouldn’t scare me?!”

“I left my keys here and the others are staying out a little later and the back door was unlocked.” You glower at him. “I didn’t want to wake you up by ringing the doorbell!”

“Well, because of your little stunt I sprained my ankle.”

“You threw a jar full of food at me and hit me with a book! Twice!” Ryan argues.

“To be fair I thought you were an intruder.” You crawl over to the bed and pull yourself up onto it. “And why didn’t you just tell me it was you in the first place?”

“The mask isn’t easy to speak through. It muffles your voice so much that it jumbles up anything you’re trying to say.”

“Uh huh.” You say, not sounding all the entirely convinced.

Ryan huffs but watches you inspect your ankle. “Do you need to go to the hospital?”

“I don’t think so.” You slightly wince as you run your hand over your ankle. “I think some ibuprofen and ice will be fine.” You can see the guilty expression on his face and you figure you’re both at fault. “Though I do have to give Miles props for doing a really good job.”

“Yeah. Most of the people who came through would agree with you.” He sets the mask and knife down on the desk.

You watch Ryan remove the apron, grab his pajama bottoms from the dresser and head for the bathroom. “You can change in here.” You tell him. Ryan stops, turning to look at you. “I don’t mind and I won’t look.”

“Maybe I don’t mind you looking.” Ryan says as he closes the door.

“Oh?” You shift on the bed. You know that you and Ryan have been beating around the idea of dating and what not.

You watch Ryan slide the overall straps from his shoulders, letting them pool on the ground as he pulls his shirt off. You’ve seen Ryan shirtless on several occasions but the sight of his toned upper body always amazes you. You reach out and grab his hand, pulling him on top of you as you kiss him.

Ryan places his hands on either side of your head, returning the kiss. You two break apart when the need for oxygen becomes essential. He looks down at you, shifting his weight to one hand while the other gently caresses your cheek. “Do you want to do this? I mean, we’re not officially dating or anything.”

“Everyone knows we like each other and already assumes we’re dating so we might as well be.” You reply, draping your arms around his neck.

“I do hope that you realize that by dating me you’re, by extension, dating the other guys in a sense right? We’re all kinda a-”

“Package deal? Yeah, I figured that one out. So long as things remain relatively the same and nothing too dramatic happens to change our dynamics, I’m fine with it.” You lean up and kiss Ryan. “And to answer your earlier question, yes, I want to do this.”

Ryan smiles. Leaning down to kiss you before pulling off your shirt and his hands massage your breasts. You let out a low moan, arching up into his touch. You’re soon stripped of your shorts and underwear and Ryan’s joins yours, leaving the two of you completely naked. Your hands roam his body, admiring his toned muscles, one hand sliding down his hip to grip his cock. Ryan is a bit longer and thicker than your previous boyfriends but you don’t think that’ll be a problem. In fact, you think it’ll be better than those other times.

Ryan groans as you slowly stroke his cock, his hands moving down and one of his fingers proad your entrance. You gasp as his finger slides inside, moaning as he quickly adds a second. “God. You’re so fucking wet for me.” He pants, nipping your neck.

You let out a whine that turns into a moan as a third finger penetrates you. “Oh fuck.” You thrust down onto his fingers, moaning as you grip his shoulders. “Fuck. Need you inside me now.”

Ryan grunts in agreement, grabbing a condom from his nightstand and rolls it on. You watch him through half lidded eyes line up and slowly press inside you. You close your eyes, head dropping back to the pillows as Ryan bottoms out. He grabs your legs, pushing them up and almost folds you in half as he begins thrusting in and out of you. You moan loudly, one hand fisting the sheets as the other tangles in his hair. Ryan grunts when you tug his hair, thrusting harder and faster.

“ OH, fucking shit!” You moan. “Oh yes! Right there! Fuck. Harder.”

Ryan complies, releasing one of your legs in favor of circling and playing with your clit. You moan even louder, tightening your grip on Ryan. “That’s it baby.” He says huskily. “Let me see you cum on my dick.”

You throw your head back, back arching up off the bed and you scream Ryan’s name as your orgasm washes over you. Your vision goes white as your walls contract and you cum. Ryan moans loudly as you tighten around him, thrusting once more before filling up the condom with his seed. His hand stills and he collapses down next to you, the both of you panting heavily. You move so your head is resting on his chest and you curl up next to him. Ryan pulls off the condom and throws it away before wrapping his arms around you. “So, I guess this means you’re my girlfriend now right?”

You lightly chuckle. “Yeah, I guess it does.”

Ryan smiles. “I love you (Y/N).”

You turn to look up at him, caught off guard by the confession but you quickly recover. “I love you too Ryan.”

Chapter Text

“Alright. Good work everyone.” You call once the scene has ended. “There were just a few things I noticed that we need to work on. Jack and Sam, love the set, let’s just work on our timing- the second those curtains start moving, I want bodies moving, wheeling the new set on and getting the old one off.” Jack nods. “Lawrence, great improvement on dictation, now I just want you to project more; if, lord forbids, the mics go out, I want the audience way up there and in the back to be able to hear you.”

“Projection, got it.” Lawrence nods.

“Geoff,” You turn around to look at the sound booth. “Lights just need to be toned down a bit; we want to highlight our actors, not blind them.” Geoff sighs but nods. “Nick,” You turn to loom a the male lead. “I would like you to work with Ryan; it still feels like you’re just playing a role as opposed to being the character.”

“I’ve been trying.” Nick says.

“And I can see that, trust me, I do. I just think it couldn’t hurt to get some extra help.”

Nick glances over at Ryan, the AD talking to Gavin and Geoff. “Fine, whatever.”

“Do keep in mind this play counts towards your final grade.” You flash him a smile. “Now, with fall break here, I want you all to keep practicing your lines because the Friday after we get back is opening night so we’re going to have nightly rehearsals.”

Everyone groans. “You never told us that!” Nick complains.

“It was in the syllabus.” You tell him. “That also means class time is going to be spent taking quizzes and doing some writing assignments.” You glance around at the unhappy faces. “Hey, I’m not happy about it either because I have a life as well, but that’s what happens in the theater. Get over it and go enjoy your break while you still can.” You let out a heavy sigh once they leave, plopping down into a chair.

“How are you feeling?” Ryan asks as he sits down next to you, taking your hand in his.

“Like I want to murder someone.”

Ryan hums. “You seem tired. Are you sleeping alright?”

“I’m sleeping just fine.” You say though it’s not really true. Since Halloween, you’ve been staying in your dorm to get work done, but you haven’t been sleeping restfully as you do when you crash at the house.

“I think we all know that’s a bunch of bullshit.” Michael says as he and the others join you two, draping himself over the back of the chair next to you, arms crossing over the front of it.

“It’s true.”

“Uh huh. Whatever.” Michael slings his bag over his shoulder as you all head out and make your way back to campus.

“So, is anyone else excited about fall break?” Gavin asks, trying to change the subject.

“Oh yeah. You’re heading back to England, aren’t you?” Geoff asks.

“Yup. Flight leaves bollocks early Wednesday morning.”

Geoff nods. “Ray, Michael, aren’t you guys flying back east?”

“Yup.” Michael nods.

“Though our flight doesn’t leave till 10 on Wednesday.” Ray adds, earning a glare from Gavin, the Brit muttering about how lucky they are.

“Mine also leaves at 10, but I’m heading down to Texas.” Jack says.

“Yeah. Ryan, Georgia?”

Ryan sighs. “Yeah. Alabama?”

“Unfortunately.”

“What about you (Y/n)?” Gavin looks over at you.

“What about me?” You ask, having purposefully stayed quiet and hoped they wouldn’t ask about your plans.

“Aren’t you going home to spend time with your family?”

“I don’t have a family.” You say solemnly.

They all look at you, surprised. “What about your parents?” Gavin asks, his tone disbelieving and curious.

“Siblings?” Michael adds.

“Only child. Dad died when I was young and my mom...well, let’s just say we’re estranged.”

“Oh.” Gavin gives you a pitiful look, one of the reasons why you never talked about them.

You shrug it off, though Ryan clasps your hand in his and gives it a small squeeze. “It’s fine. It won’t be the first time I’ve spent the holidays alone.”

“Holidays?” Ray arches a brow. “You mean you’ve been alone on Christmas as well?”

“Yup. My mom didn’t care about taking the holidays off to spend time with me and her relatives live out of state and I don’t stay in touch with any of them, I didn’t see the point in going to see them. Plus, none of them likes us, and I don’t know anyone on my dad’s side either, so same thing.” Ryan releases your hand as you pull your keys out and unlock the front door.

“We could stay if you want.” Ryan offers.

“No, don’t do that. You guys should go spend time with your families.” You say, heading upstairs to set your backpack down and change. Slowly, you’ve moved some of your clothes over into Ryan’s room that you partially share.

Ryan exchanges looks with the others. “Should we?” He asks in a hushed tone.

“I don’t see why not.” Gavin shrugs. “We could tell our families we can’t make it.”

“Yeah. They can afford not having us at every Thanksgiving dinner because it’s gonna happen sooner or later.” Michael says.

They all nod in agreement, coming to the unanimous decision to stay. To not make you suspicious, they all pretend to leave and head for the airport, Geoff telling you it would be fine if you wanted to stay in the house while they were gone. After some insistence on his end, you relent, bringing over some more of your things, though Wednesday night you fall asleep in your dorm while working on some projects and homework. You wake up just a little after 10, taking a shower, pulling on your comfortable pair of sweatpants, a tank top, and your favorite zip-up hoodie jacket, deciding it was going to be a lazy day. You grab your bag and head over to the house to have more room to work. As you make your way up the porch steps, you swear you hear voices coming from inside, making your frown. Slowly, you unlock the front door and quietly opening it, the smell of turkey cooking hits you. Confused, you march into the kitchen, freezing at the sight before you. “The fuck?”

The guys pause their coking, all of them wearing an apron would have made you laugh in any other situation, and they turn to look at you. “(Y/n).” Gavin says. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” You stare at them, crossing your arms over your chest. “I thought you all left you to go home?”

“We pretended to.” Michael calls from where he’s peeling the potatoes.

Your brows furrow. “What do you mean you pretended to?”

Ryan sets his utensils down, making his way over to you. “Don’t be mad; we just didn’t want you to be alone during the holidays.”

“So you lied to me.”

“To surprise you.”

You give him an unamused look.

“We didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” Gavin cuts in. “We just wanted to surprise you with a nice dinner is all.”

You turn to look at the Brit before examining the others: Geoff was working on the vegetables, Ray and Michael the potatoes, Jack was preparing some pies, Gavin was making what looked like maple pecan carrots, and Ryan seemed to be tending to the turkey, stuffing, and gravy. “You could have just told me.”

“Then it wouldn’t have been a surprise.” Ray says, glancing up at you. “If you tell the person what you’re doing, it’s not a surprise anymore.”

“So what do you say?” Ryan draws your attention back to him, the quarterback rubbing your upper arms. “You can go rest or whatever while we finish up.”

“Oh no. You’re not getting off that easily.” You gently push his hands away as you point at him. “I’m helping.” You set your backpack down on the ground and grab an apron. “Besides, you’re some missing important dishes.”

“What?” Ryan glances around, pretty sure they had everything.

“Sweet potatoes and green bean casserole, duh.”

“I know we were missing something!” Michael slams his vegetable peeler down onto the table. “Pay up Gavin!”

You shake your head as you all go back to cooking, the Brit whining about having to give Michael twenty bucks. Within the two hours, everything is plated on the table, looking even better than the meal you had planned on eating alone. Ryan pulls out your chair for you. You smile, slightly blushing as you sit before the guys follow suit. You find their cooking to be rather good, surprised because you’ve never seen them cook before. The conversation stays away from school as everyone talks about the Black Friday deals. Not surprisingly, they are all excited about the video game and TV deals. You haven’t paid much attention, not really interested in buying anything or dealing with the crazy mobs. And yet you find yourself trailing after the guys through the local mall the next day, the gents staying back with you while the lads run around like excited children.

“Tell me again why I agreed to this?” You grumble as yet another shopper bumped into you without so much as an apology.

Ryan wraps an arm around your shoulders and pulls you against his side. “Because you didn’t want to stay at home alone.”

You grumble but wrap an arm around Ryan’s waist, enjoying his warmth and protection. People didn’t get too close to him, seeming to unconsciously stir away from him and it was a welcomed relief.

“(Y/n)! Look at this!” Gavin runs over to you, holding up a small crystal rabbit he got.

You look it over, having seen them before. “Oh yeah. That’s Swarovski. They have some quality stuff.”

You watch him hurry over to Michael to show him his rabbit and you smile, glancing over at Swarovski. Ryan follows your gaze. “Do you want to go look?”

You shrug, trying to act nonchalantly. “Eh, it’s all expensive jewelry so the only point in going in is to eye pieces you’ll never have.”

Ryan stirs you two over there, Geoff and Jack following as you all enter. An associate greets you all and you can see just about everything was on sale. You have always liked stopping by to see all their beautiful jewelry and their crystal sculptures, though you’d likely never be able to afford to buy anything without saving up specifically for it for a long time. Still, it was fun to imagine being able to get anything you wanted and picking out your favorites.

You round up the lads about an hour later and head back to the house, the lads clambering out of the car and rushing into the living room, eager to play their new games. You and the gents lay on the couch and armchairs, watching the lads play and occasionally switching out.

The remainder of the break passes rather quickly, the guys all pestering you about the quizzes and assignments you’re going to give.

“I can’t tell you guys that.” You say for the sixth time that day.

“Can’t or won’t?” Michael asks.

“Both.”

“Not even a tinsey, little hint?” Gavin pleads, giving you his puppy dog eyes.

“Oh ok.” You sigh, watching all of them perk up. “It’ll be about things we’ve talked about in class.”

“No shit sherlock.” Michael grumbles. “We already knew that.”

“How about something a little more useful?” Ray glances back down to his DS, though his eyes still linger up to you.

“Some of the questions will be about plays, though nothing too in depth, since we never read any or went into great detail about them.”

“Which plays?” Michael presses.

“Can’t say. Now if you’re done interrogating me,” You stand up. “I’m going to shower.” Ryan follows after you, looking worried. “Don't worry; you'll do fine.” You tell him as you grab a clean towel.

“That's not what I'm worried about.” He mostly closes the door to the bathroom, making you stare at him. “I think Nick might not be able to perform.”

“Why not?”

“We were supposed to meet up today to go over lines and work on his acting, but he never showed and when I called him, he didn't sound too good. It seems like he's in the hospital with a rather severe flu.”

“Fuck. What are we going to do?” You sit down on the toilet, trying to think of a replacement but you can't come up with anyone.

“Well, I thought that would be obvious.” Ryan shifts, watching you.

You look up at him. “You?” You question, but then realized he really was the only person who could. “You.” You mutter.

“I know it'll be tough not having me there to help out, but we don't have anyone else that can do it. Not in this short amount of time.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Ryan kneels down in front of you. “Are you sure?”

You smile at him. “Of course. I've helped direct a Broadway show remember?”

Ryan smiles. “Yes, I remember.”

“If anything, it should be me who's worried about you.”

“Why?”

“You all have a game that Saturday as well as performances Friday and Saturday night.”

“I'll manage.” He reassures you

You raise a brow. “You sure?”

Ryan nods, leaning in to kiss you. “I promise.”

You smile, grabbing his face and kiss him. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” He stands up, pulling you up with him. “Now what do you say we get you cleaned up.”

“Oh am I that dirty?” You tease.

“Very.” He nuzzles his nose against your neck, breathing on your scent.

You giggle, smiling wider as Ryan wraps his arms around you and peppers your neck with kisses. “That might be so, but there's something I've been needing to do for a while.”

“Oh?”

You grin, detaching yourself from him as you pull out your hair dye kit. Ryan watches you pull the lightener out followed by the developers, the colour dye, and finally the mixing bowl, brush, comb, and gloves. “You're gonna dye your hair?” He asks, looking everything over.

“Yup.”

Gavin pokes his head in, eyes widening. “Oh, you're doing your hair? Can I help?”

You turn to look at the lad, a little surprised by his enthusiasm. “Uh...well...do you even know anything about hair?”

Michael's laugh filters in as he stands behind the lad. “Are you kidding? He could be a professional if he wanted to be. All the sorority girls want him to do their hair when they have a big event going on. They pay good money too.”

Gavin blushes, ducking his head and you smile, remembering that they all had their weird quirks. “Very well.” You face your reflection, running a hand through your hair. You've debated cutting it shorter but could never commit.

Gavin let's out a squeal of delight, hurrying over to you. “Oh this is going to be fun!” He sits you down on the toilet so you're facing the bowl and your back is to him.

Ryan sits down on the edge of the tub, watching in amusement with Michael as the Brit grabs your pair of scissors and comb and begins coming up with his plan. You force yourself to breathe normally as Gavin starts cutting and cutting and cutting. You wished the mirror ran the entire length of the wall and wasn't just over the sink so you could watch him. Ryan scoots down the tub to be closer to you and takes your hand in his. You flash him a grateful smile as Gavin declares himself finished with the cut and begins mixing up your lightener while you try to argue.

“I think I can handle that by myself.”

“You don't know how long I've waited to dye someone's hair in a fun way.” Gavin pulls the gloves on, beginning to apply the lightener to all of your hair.

“But Gav,”

“Hush love,” Gavin whispers in your ear, his lips grazing your ear, making you stiffen. “I won't disappoint.” He kisses your cheek before returning to his task.

You glance over at Ryan, your boyfriend shrugging as if to say “We don't argue with him.” Two showers and a mysterious hair colouring session latter Gavin is toweling your hair dye with everyone gathered around (Geoff, Jack, and Ray heard what was going on while you were showering to wash the lightener out and they were interested to see how it turned out). “There we go.” Gavin removes the towel, grinning at his work as the guys stare.

“What?” You ask, spinning around to look and are a little surprised when Gavin doesn't stop you. You stare at your reflection, baffled by what you saw. Gavin had trimmed your hair to give you a really cute pixie cut that reminds you of how they did Alice’s hair in Twilight . Not only that but Gavin managed to move your blue hair some green highlights to make it look like you have mermaid hair. You open and close your mouth several times, word evading you. Instead, you turn and pull the Brit into a hug. Gavin chuckles, hugging you back.

“You look awesome.” Michael says once you two separate, running his hands through your hair. “Damn Gav, you really did go all out.”

Gavin puffs out his chest in triumph. “I know.”

Your eyes land on Ryan, waiting to see what he had to say. “Ry?”

He continues to look you over, brushing some of your hair back. “It looks good on you.”

You smile, capturing his hand and presses a kiss to it. “Thanks.”

“How about we go out and get something to eat?” Geoff suggests, clapping his hands together.

Chapter Text

“Done!” You call as you shuffle into the house after finishing your 7:30am final. Your last final of the semester. You flop down onto the couch, letting out a heavy sigh.

“Congratu-fucking-lations.” Michael grumbles from where he's seated on the ground in front of the coffee table. “Some of us still have rucking finals to study for.”

You lift your head up to get a better view of what class he was studying for and scoffs. “Please. Java Programming isn't what you should be worried about.”

“And what is?”

“Maybe calc.”

Michael grumbles something inaudible but you're pretty sure he's commenting on how he hates that you're right. You glance around the quiet house, finding it strange that there weren't sound of the other guys echoing around. “Where are the others?”

“Ray and Gavin went to go study in the library and Ryan, Geoff, and Jack went off to go to their finals.” Michael tells you.

“Ah.” You watch Michael for a few more minutes before standing up and heading into the kitchen. You pull out the long, electric griddle you all have before pulling out the pancake batter and you begin to make up several batches of pancakes. Some are chocolate chip, some are blueberry, some with vanilla and cinnamon in them. You also cook up a small portion of eggs and bacon for Michael, handing him a plate, which he devours in a few minutes.

Geoff is the next to arrive home, looking just as exhausted as you felt. You hand him his own plate as he makes himself comfortable in his favorite armchair. Jack arrives as Michael leaves and prepares his own plate, insisting that you needed to rest as well. Ray and Gavin return a little after noon with Michael. There was just a handful of pancakes left and you and Geoff were working on some burgers and fries. You put on some music, you all singing and dancing to it as you work. It isn’t until you all are getting ready to eat dinner that Ryan shows up.

“Hey.” You set the lid back on the potatoes that still needed to cook a little longer. “Where’ve you been all day?”

“Finals and talking to the coach.” Ryan drops his backpack down on the now designated table.

“The coach?” Geoff turns to look at him. “What for?”

“It’s nothing bad.” Ryan reassures you all. “He just wanted to make sure everyone knew that the dinner is going to be tomorrow night.”

“Oh, cool.”

“Dinner?” You ask, glancing up as Ryan comes to stand next to you.

“Yeah. It’s a formal dinner the coach hosts every year before break to commemorate us on all of our accomplishments and to help boost morale, or something like that. It’s fun because he goes all out on catering and making it like a five-star experience.”

“But mostly it’s so we all can show off our hot partners.” Michael jokes.

You shoot him a look but you can’t help feel like he’s partially right. “Well then I hope you enjoy yourselves. Guess Gavin, Ray, Jack, and I will just have to find something else to do that night.”

Gavin sucks in a breath. “Actually, we'll all be going.”

You stare at him, confused. “But you’re not on the team.”

“Yeah, but since we are all so close and know everyone on the team they just expect us to be there.”

“I see.” You check back on the potatoes.

Ryan watches you, inching closer. “Even though they expect us all to show up, there’s still room for us to bring a plus one.” You hum as you drain the potatoes into a strainer. “And...well, I was hoping that...you’d be-maybe-my plus one?”

You stop, slowly turning to look at him. “Ryan James Haywood, if you want me to go with you you better ask me properly like the gentleman you are.”

The other snicker at your use of his full name, but Ryan straightens up, invading your space to gently cup your cheek. “(f/n) (m/n) (l/n), would you do me the honor of attending tomorrow night’s dinner with me?”

You smile, slightly blushing as you set the potatoes down. “I gladly accept.”

Ryan grins, leaning down to capture your lips in a chaste kiss. Michael and Gavin coo in the background. You pull back, looking at Ryan. “The only slight problem is I don’t think I have anything to wear to it.”

“Oh, we’ll get that taken care of right away.”

“Tomorrow.” You say, stopping the lads halfway to the door. “Tonight is all about relaxing with my boys.”

Gavin squeals, hurrying over to hug you. You all take dinner into the living room, curling up on the larger couch that seems more like a bed than a couch Geoff ordered on Black Friday. You all decide to have a Pokemon movie marathon because they are good movies and why not? By the time Pokemon Heroes: The Movie starts, you have fallen asleep curled up against Ryan’s side with one of his arms draped around you, Michael, Gavin, and Ray on your side and Geoff and Jack on Ryan’s. By the time you arouse in the morning, Pokemon: Arceus and the Jewel of Life is already halfway over and you turn off the TV, curling back into the pile of warmth for a few more hours.

Chapter Text

“Remind me again why I agreed to this?” You mumble, scowling at the chirping high school girls that are running around the mall.

“Because you love them and you need an awesome gown.” Meg reminds you, flipping through the dresses on the rack.

“Not that I doubt your guys’ fashion abilities, but why are you guys here and not the guys?” You glance around your group, Meg, Ashley, Lindsey, and Miles.

“Because, even though we love them, the guys have a shit taste in clothing.” Lindsey tells you. “That and they wanted to be surprised.”

You grumble, glaring at the girls that push past you. “Fine. But nothing too frilly for anything too girly.”

“Too girly? Pff.” Miles looks at you. “You are going to one of the most revered dinners of the year. You need to look fabulous.”

“If you say so.” You sit down as they pull out dress after dress, arguing over them before putting it back and arguing about another one. You glance around, looking over the racks of dresses, getting up and walking over to look through them. As you do, one dress jumps out at you; a gorgeous black beaded bodice with a sweetheart neckline, a white and black rhinestone belt with a white base skirt with a black, see-through material over top. You grab it, looking it over before turning back to the others. “What about this one?”

They all turn to look at you, Meg's eyes widening as she stares at the dress. “Oh my god. Yes!” She cooes.

“That. Is. PERFECT!” Miles hurries over, snatching the dress from you. “The rhinestone belt; the beaded bodice; the sequin skirt. It’s all perfect!”

“I’ve got to say, I think we found a winner.” Lindsey says, being the calmest out of the three but still grinning.

“Try it on! Try it on!” Miles shoves the garment back into your hands, pushing you towards the dressing room.

“Ok ok!” You stumble into one of the stalls, changing into the dress. You walk out, standing in front of the others.

“You look so beautiful.” Meg says, walking around you. “All that’s left is to get you a good pair of shoes.”

As you look at your reflection in the mirror, you think back to the clothes you still have in your dorm and smile. “I think I have the perfect pair.”

Ryan stands with the guys in the ballroom the coach has reserved, all of them dressed in their tuxes, as he watches the door, waiting for you to arrive.

“She’ll be here.” Geoff says as he hands Ryan a cup of diet Coke.

“I know. I just…”

“Worry?” Geoff smiles, giving his shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. “If she’s not here in the next couple minutes, we’ll go track her down, ok?”

Ryan nods, sipping on his drink. He nods and greets a few people that walk by him, talking to a few but tries to keep an eye on the door.

“Haywood.” Ryan turns his head, sighing as he sees Thomas make his way over.

“What’s up?” He asks, trying to sound friendly.

Thomas examines their group. “Where’s your girlfriend? She ditch you to shack up with someone better?”

“No.” Ryan grits his teeth, seeing the other guys glare at him as well. “She’s coming, just separately from us.”

“Whatever for?”

“She went to buy a dress and wanted it to be a surprise asshole.” Michael snaps, stepping up beside Ryan. “Besides, I don’t see you here with anyone.”

“No. Cloe and I decided to take a break from each other.” Thomas clarifies.

“Meaning she’s shaking up with some other guys.” Michael smirks. “Don’t catch anything when you two do sleep together.”

Thomas glares, opening his mouth to respond but the coach puts his hand on his son’s shoulder. “Alright boys, take it easy. Let’s get started.”

“But sir,” Ryan glances towards the door, hoping you’ll walk through any minute.

“We’re doing things a little different this year.” He says, speaking up to get everyone’s attention. “I have arranged to have a live band this year and have a special treat for you guys if you’ll sit down.” Reluctantly, Ryan follows the guys to their table, eyeing the empty seat reserved for you. “Without further ado,” He motions to the band, sitting down as well as the lights dim and the band begins playing.

You stand behind the curtain of the makeshift stage, your hands smooth over your dress as you shift from foot to foot in your thick heeled four-inch heels. As the piano begins, you drag in a deep breath before walking out onto stage, seeing the guys all stare at you in shock. You flash them a smile. “ The day we met, frozen I held my breath. Right from the start, I knew that I found a home for my heart, beats, fast. Colours and promises. How to be brave? How can I love when I’m afraid, to, fall?” Gavin glances over at Michael, both nodding and Gavin quietly slips away from the table. “Watching you stand alone, all of my doubt suddenly goes away somehow. One step closer. I have died every day waiting for you. Darling don't be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years. I love you for a thousand more. ” Gavin makes his way back to the table, pressing a microphone into Ryan’s hand. The gent gives them a puzzled look and Michael and Geoff make shooing motions with their hands. Ryan shakes his head, but stands up.

“ Time stands still. Beauty in all she is. I will be brave .” Ryan makes up onto the stage, looking at you. “ I will not let anything take away, what’s standing in front of me. Every breath, every hour has come to this .”

“ One step closer. I have died every day waiting for you. Darling don't be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years. I’ll love you for a thousand more. And all along I believed I would find you. Time has brought your heart to me. I have loved you for a thousand years, I love you for a thousand more . I’ll love you for a thousand more . One step closer ,” You turn to look out at the guys. “I have died every day waiting for you. Darling don't be afraid I have loved you for a thousand years, I’ll love you a thousand more. And all along I believed I would find you. Time has brought your heart to me. I have loved you for a thousand years. I love you for a thousand more.” You turn to look up at Ryan, smiling and blushing. Ryan grins, taking your hand as everyone applauds, leaning in to whisper.

“You look absolutely stunning.”

The lads coo and Geoff and Jack share a look before they stand and head over to the sound booth, talking to the operator and convince him to play a song. Geoff picks up a mic as the newer version of Beauty and the Beast begins playing. You two glance over at Geoff, as everyone glances around. Geoff grins, inclining his head. Ryan sighs, smiling as he hands over your two mics before bowing. “My lady,” Your head snaps to him. “Can I have this dance?” He holds out his hand.

Your heart flutters as you place your hand in his, curtsying. “Certainly.”

Ryan straightens as you do and leads you both out onto the dancefloor. You two begin to dance a simple waltz as Geoff begins to sing. “Tale as old as time. True as it can be. Barely even friends, then somebody bends. Unexpectedly. Just a little change. Small, to say the least. Both a little scared, neither one prepared. Beauty and the beast. Ever just the same,” Ryan pulls you to him before you pull away, twirling into him. “Ever a surprise. Ever as before. Ever just as sure as the sun will rise.” Ryan lifts you up with one arm, spinning you around. “ Tale as old as time. Tune as old as song.” He sets you down and you two continue dancing the waltz. “Bittersweet and strange. Finding you can change. Learning you were wrong.” As Ryan spins you out, before he can spin you back in, Michael comes up behind you, lifting you up and spinning you away. Ryan and you both share a moment of confusion before Ray takes up being Ryan’s partner and Gavin joins you as Michael sets you down. You smile, laughing as you continue to dance with Gavin and Michael. Jack takes the mic from Geoff as the other busts out laughing. “Certain as the sun, rising in the east. Tale as old as time. Song as old as rhyme. Beauty and the beast. Tale as old as time. Song as old as rhyme. Beauty and the beast.”

You curtsey when the song ends, laughing. “Leave it to you all to turn a two-person dance into a five-person dance.”

“Hey, we couldn’t let you have all the fun.” Ray grins as the DJ begins playing some more music.

You smile, dancing with each of them throughout the night. The other patrons join you all on the dancefloor, most of the girls swooning over your dress and complimenting you on how lucky you are. You take the compliments in stride, but after a while you excuse yourself to sit down. You notice the door leading outside to the patio area open and you quietly sneak out. The cool night breeze feels good against your flushed skin. You take a seat on the low wall, closing your eyes and breathe in the night air.

“I thought I saw you sneak away.” You open your eyes to see Ryan standing by the door.

“Just needed some air.”

He nods, walking over to sit next to you. “Then why do you look sad?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because sometimes in the middle of dancing you would get this look like...like you wished you were somewhere else. Or….that someone else was here.”

Crap. You let out a heavy sigh, glancing out over at the grassy fields below you. “It’s not that I’m not having a good time, because I’m having a wonderful time. It’s just...for the first time since the beginning of the semester, I’ve started missing my friends back in high school. We used to go to parties like this or throw them ourselves just because we could and…” You smile sadly. “I just wished they were here to enjoy it.”

“All of them?”

“You know for someone who isn’t very observant, you certainly are tonight.” You turn to look at him.

“I...I just want you to be happy and…” Ryan shrugs, glancing away. “It’s a bit noticeable.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t want you to feel like you’re not important to me or that you all don’t make me happy. It’s just, you have to understand he’s been my best friend since we were five and he’s very special to me.”

Ryan looks at you. “You love him.”

You sigh. “I think.” Ryan nods slowly. “But that doesn’t mean I love you any less.” You reach out and take his hand.

Ryan smiles, leaning over to properly kiss you. You hum, closing your eyes and you hand cups the back of his head. You break away to stare into his blue eyes. “I love you, Ryan. Nothing will ever change that.”

“And I love you too-”

“(Y/n)?”

You both turn, your eyes widening and your mouth falling open as you both stare at the person making their way towards you. “Jeremy?!”

Chapter Text

“Jeremy?!” You blink several times because you had to be imaging him there because he was still in high school.

“(Y/n)!” Jeremy hurries over to you two, pushing the sleeves of his jacket up. “It really is you.”

“Oh my god!” You stand up and pull him into a tight hug, having to squat down a bit to do so. “What,” You pull back to look at him. “What are you doing here?”

“I took a tour this morning, meet some interesting guys and we grabed some drinks at a local bar. I was just looking around when I heard,” He motions to the ballroom and the music filtering out. “That and decided to take a look when I spotted you two sitting here.” His eyes drift over to Ryan, who has also stood up. 

“Oh. Ryan, this is Jeremy, my best friend. Jeremy, this is Ryan, my boyfriend.”

Jeremy’s brows raise at that. “Boyfriend huh?” He holds out his hand. “Pleasure.”

Ryan takes it, squeezing a little too hard. “Likewise.”

You can notice the tension between them, deciding to move past it. “So, are you going to start next fall?”

“No, I’m starting next semester.”

Your eyes widen. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.” Jeremy shrugs. “I took a page out of your book and graduated early. Seeing as we got accepted at the same time, figured why not. Besides, I also got a scholarship that let me start early, so it worked out.”

“Scholarship for what?” Ryan asks as he loops an arm around you.

“Music production.” Jeremy looks at the sandy blond. “My friend, Spencer, already have some songs in the works and plan on releasing them soon in an album.”

“Wait, it’s not the same weird kid Spencer?” You ask.

Jeremy nods. “He has his quirks, but he can play the guitar and drums and he has someone who plays the piano.” You slowly nod. You all stand there awkwardly, the music from the ballroom the only thing filling the silence. “Well, I guess I should let you get back to it.”

“Yeah. I guess I’ll see you around.” Jeremy nods, waving as he leaves. When he’s gone, you turn to glare at Ryan. “Really?”

“What?” He looks at you. “I can’t get jealous and protective when the guy you say you think you love, who’s clearly head-over-heels in love with you, shows up?”

“Doesn’t mean you have to be an asshole.” You head back inside and over to your table.

“I asked one question.”

“And you judged him.”

Ryan opens his mouth, closes it again as he searches for better wording. “I think it’s a bold choice is all.”

“Ooh, who ruffled your feathers?” Gavin asks as he joins you, picking up his drink.

“No one.” You say.

“Her best friend from high school that’s madly in love with her.” Ryan tells him.

Gavin gasps, staring at you. “Get out.” He sits down. “What does he look like? Does he go here? What does he do?”

“You know what,” You stand up, pushing away from the table, causing the other guys to glance over. “I’m tired. I’m leaving.” You leave before any of them can say anything, pulling your phone out of your clutch as you go. Meg lets you crash with her and Ashley, slightly grateful they’re letting you store some of your clothes there while you and the guys were rearranging the house and you moving out of your dorm. Both girls ask what’s wrong and you tell them about Jeremy and the meeting you and Ryan had with him. “I just...I don’t want this being a bigger deal than it is.” You sigh from where you’re lying on Meg’s bed, the two of them sitting on either side of you.

Meg nods. “I agree, but have you considered the unique position you’re in?”

“Huh?”

“Well, you and the guys are in a kind of open yet exclusive relationship. You are open to date and love and fuck any of the guys you want, but that’s it. You seven are exclusive to each other and if you wanted to bring in someone else, you’d need to convince all of them and get them all to agree.” Ashley explains.

“But what if Jeremy isn’t into that sort of thing?” You sit up. “What if he doesn’t want to share me? And for that matter, Ryan doesn’t want to share either. He lets the other guys touch and kiss me but there’s this unspoken rule that he’s the only one allowed to sleep with me.”

“Then you’re going to have to lay down the law.” Meg says.

“Maybe talk to Ryan alone first, get his thoughts on everything, then approach the group and then finally Jeremy. First, gage how everyone feels and see if there’s any wiggle room.” Ashley adds.

“Maybe.” You lay down again, staring up at the ceiling.

“So,” Meg lays down next to you. “Would you want to fuck any other guy?”

“Meg!” You hit her with a pillow while you turn red. Sure, you’ve thought about it, the most willing being the lads but you’re sure Geoff and Jack would agree is Ryan did. But it’s felt like something was missing, something was lacking and it didn’t feel exactly right to take it to that level with the rest of the guys. You all fall asleep sometime later, watching some stupid Hallmark movie that was on.

You wake up early the next morning, glancing out the window and see the landscape covered in snow. You shuffle through your boxes and pulling out a pair of jeans, some thermals, a thick, long sleeve shirt and your pair of heavy-duty, water-resistant riding boots. You leave a note for Meg and Ashley, telling them where you were going before quietly exiting their apartment and trudging over to the stable.

You smile as Flame neighs excitedly. “Yes I know it’s snowed.” You gently pet his snout. “How would you feel about going out for a ride?” Flame nods his head excitedly. You pet him once more before moving around to gather up your saddle and reins. As you get Flame all saddled up and covered for the snow, you hear a group of guys approach and you recognize one of the voices.

“And this is the school stable where they keep all their polo horses.” One guy explains, his voice slightly higher pitched than the rest.

“This is the best place to talk to any of the polo players.” Another guy says, his voice a little deeper. “They love their horses.”

“I see.” Jeremy’s voice says as their footsteps enter the barn.

“Well, it really wouldn’t be polo without them.” You say, poking your head out of the stall to look at them. 

The two other guys look surprised to see you there but Jeremy smiles. “Hey (Y/n). What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same.” You move closer to him, Flame following after you. 

“Oh wow. Is that your horse?” Jeremy stares at your stallion.

You nod. “I was just about to take him out for a ride.”

“If you do, take his new girlfriend with you.” Steph says as she shakes some snow from herself. “They’ve been inseparable since we got her in.”

“Oh?” You turn to look at the stall Flame was hovering near, spotting a chestnut mare on the other side.

“Yeah. They brought her in to replace Fitz.”

“I figured his time was getting near.”

“What do you mean, “his time was getting near”?” The higher-pitched guy asks. “You don’t..you know.” He makes a death sound.

“Trevor,” Jeremy groans. “They don’t kill the horses once they get too old to play.”

“No, we retire them and find them a good owner to go to. One that won’t run them very hard and will give them a good life. Sometimes the owners of the stable will buy them and keep them here as aid horses, helping those who have an issue or act as a buddy for ones that need it.” You clarify.

“I wish I could be a horse.” The other guy says. “I could be lazy and just eat all day.”

Jeremy pats his shoulder. “I hate to break it to you but you already do that Matt.”

“Yeah, but as a horse, I wouldn’t have anyone judging me.”

Jeremy and Trevor sigh while you glance back towards Flame and the mare, Rose. “Well, if I’m going to take her out too I’ll need someone else to ride her.” You glance back towards Jeremy, arching a brow in question.

Jeremy looks at you, frowning slightly before glancing at the horses. “Wait, you want me to go with you?”

“If you want.”

“Yeah, well...isn’t that against the rules or something?”

Steph shrugs. “Not really as long as you’re with (Y/n).”

Flame walks over to Jeremy, nudging him towards the stall. You laugh as Jeremy tries to stop him. “I think you have no choice now.”

“Ok fine! I’ll go!” You help steady Jeremy as Flames neighs happily, trotting over to the stall.

“Sorry. He’s very stubborn and spoiled.” 

“It’s alright; he just wants to spend time with his girlfriend.” He glances up at you and you feel your cheeks heat up.

Trevor cooes. “Awe, why didn’t you tell us you had a crush on (Y/n), let alone that you’re friends with her.”

Jeremy’s cheeks flush pink. “I don’t have a crush on her. And why does it matter what I’m friends with her?”

“Because she’s the only one who’s been able to break past the wall of isolation the OT6 have.” Matt says.

You raise a brow. “OT6? You mean the guys?”

“Yeah. Some of the most popular guys on campus.” Trevor adds. “They’ve all been super close since their grad school years and no one has been able to get as close to them as you have.”

“Maybe you didn’t try hard enough.” You tease. “But I didn’t seek them out because they’re popular or anything like that.” You walk over to the rack and grab Rose’s gear. “I really didn’t like them at first because I thought they were annoying and obnoxious. But the Michael tried to keep up with me on the multilevel bars we had for one play and he almost ate shit before I saved him.” You place the saddle on the stand, opening the stall and putting on the winter blanket first. “I had to give him credit, he was fearless and a little reckless, but it was admirable. I started hanging out with them after that and they’ve helped me with several of my projects and I’m not sure how I would have made it through the semester without them.” You put the saddle on, securing it before putting on the reins. “There.” You gently pat her, offering the reins to Jeremy.

He takes them, also petting her. “I guess we’re ready to go.”

“Yup.” You mount Flame, Jeremy following your lead. “Be back in a little while guys.” You wave as you and Jeremy head out, the horses carving a path through the snow. The first little while is quiet as you pick your way through the mountains and into the forest. 

“So,” Jeremy starts after some time. “You really like them, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do.” You glance over, watching him move up to walk beside you as the snow thins out in the forest. “They’re nice and fun. They remind me of you; playing video games, yelling at video games, having fun, chilling out and getting along well with each other.”

Jeremy hums. “So, that guy that was with you last night...”

“That was Ryan. Sorry if he was getting a little hostile.”

“No no. I get it. I mean if you were my girlfriend I would get jealous and protective if some guy from your past randomly showed up.” He chuckles nervously. “Though, to be honest, I never thought I’d see you look that...formal. And beautiful.”

You glance over to see his cheeks flushed and not because it was cold out. “Listen, Jeremy,” You come to a stop, figuring now would be as good as any to talk to Jeremy about this. “I like you. A lot actually. But back in high school, I didn’t want to give people any more reason to give us a hard time than they already were. I..” You sigh, staring down at your hands. “I just didn’t want to ruin a good thing by doing a stupid thing.”

“(Y/n), I don’t think you could do anything that would be able to ruin our friendship. Remember, I was there when your dad died and helped you deal with your mom. Look, yes, maybe I would like to be with you and be your boyfriend and everything, but my biggest thing is making sure you’re happy.” He gives you a pointed look. “And I don’t care if that’s with me, or Ryan, or with those six guys.”

“I would prefer it being seven.” You say, smiling as Jeremy’s brows furrow as he tries to figure out what you mean. 

“I...I don’t understand.”

“Well then, let me make it simple: I want you to join the guys and me.”

Chapter Text

Ryan nervously paces around the living room, Geoff and Jack watching as the lads play a video game, using his pacing in front of the TV as an extra challenge.

“For the love of God Ryan, please sit down.” Geoff pleads. “You’re making me stressed.”

“Why hasn’t she called?” He ignores Geoff’s question, spinning to look at the two other gents. “I know she’s mad, but you’d have thought she would have sent even a text letting me know she’s fine.”

“It’s probably because she’s mad that she hasn’t texted to called.” Jack suggests. “Give her some time; she seemed really mad.”

“That’s because Ryan was an ass.” Michael says, gunning Gavin down. He tilts his head to see the quarterback glaring at him. “What? Are you saying insulting her best friend and high school crush isn’t a dick move?”

“Yeah.” Gavin sets his controller down, having had enough of having his ass kicked. “So what if he’s a music production major? If he’s good at it and enjoys it, then who are we to judge?”

Ryan sighs. “It’s just...it seemed too coincidental that he just happened to show up when we stepped outside for a minute.”

Ray laughs. “Oh yeah. Because him setting up the whole thing, knowing exactly where the dinner would be and where you two would be is way more plausible than him just wondering around and finding you guys.”

Ryan frowns. “Well, I guess when you put it that way…” He slumps down into a chair.

“Finally.” Geoff mutters.

Ryan glances over at him, about to ask him to repeat what he said when the door opens and you lead Jeremy inside, both heavily bundled up. They all turn to look at you two, Jeremy standing awkwardly in the doorway as you make your way over to the closet and pull your makeup kit out. Ryan stands and moves over to you. “Where are you going?”

“To meet up with Meg and Ashley.” You say, closing the closet and head back towards the front door. You look at Jeremy. “I’ll be back soon so we can discuss what we talked about in more depth later. Try to play nicely.”

Jeremy stares after you, his mouth moving but not able to form any words as you close the door behind you, leaving him alone with the guys. All of them stare at the door, unsure of what to say either before they turn their attention to Jeremy.

Gavin leans over the back of the couch to get a better look at Jeremy, the snow clinging to him starting to melt. “Huh. So this is him.”

Jeremy turns back around to face them, his cheeks heating up from the warmth of the house and his own nerves. He tugs his beanie and gloves off. “Uh, hi. I’m Jeremy.” He says awkwardly.

“We know.” Michael stands and makes his way over to him. “Huh. You’re shorter than I expected. What are you? 5’2”?”

Jeremy glares at him. “I’m 5’4”.”

“You don’t seem it.” Michael pats the top of his head.

Jeremy grabs his hand, twisting it back and makes Michael gasp. “Yeah, well I’m a black belt, so I could snap you in half.”

Michael stares at him for a moment before laughing. “Fiery little thing aren’t you?” He winces when Jeremy twists his arm more. “Ok dick. No short jokes.”

Jeremy releases him and Michael takes a step back. Geoff lightly chuckles. “I can see why they’re best friends.”

“We grew up together.” Jeremy tells them.”We’ve always been together.”

“Well, not together together.” Gavin points out. 

Jeremy flinches, turning his head away. “Well, yeah.”

Jack glances over at Ryan, enticing the blond hasn’t moved and wants to say something to Jeremy, but he’s holding back. “Geoff, we should get going; we’re going to be late.”

“Huh?” Geoff looks back at him, Jack giving him a knowing look. “Oh. Yeah, that. I almost forgot.”

Jack huffs. “Yeah, I figured.” They stand, pulling on their jackets and head out.

Ray looks at Ryan before looking at the lads. “Yeah, we should go if we want to make it to the next show.” Gavin opens his mouth to protest but Ray shepards him and Michael to the door, leaving Jeremy and Ryan alone.

Jeremy feels his stomach start to knot up as he turns to finally look at Ryan. Ryan stares at him, trying to figure out the best place to start without just yelling or walking over and punching him. “Look, I don’t know what I did to piss you off,” Jeremy starts when Ryan doesn’t say anything. “But I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” Ryan bites out.

Jeremy frowns, tightening his grip on his gloves and beanie. “Yes, I was genuinely surprised to see (Y/n) that night, to see her with someone as handsome as you, but she’s my best friend and you had no right to be that dickish, even if you are her boyfriend. Or one of them.”

“Being her boyfriend gives me every right to be jealous, especially to someone-” Ryan stops, processing what Jeremy said. “Wait, did you call me handsome?”

Jeremy stutters, not expecting Ryan to pick up on that. “I...uh…”

“You think I’m handsome?” Ryan asks. Jeremy stammers, making more sounds than actual words. “And you said I was one of her boyfriends. How...Did she tell you?” Ryan watches Jeremy’s grip tighten and he nods. “Why? Why would…” It clicks as Jeremy turns away, his cheeks flushed. “She offered for you to join us.” Jeremy nods. “Huh.”

Jeremy glances back at him, his brows furrowed in defiance. “Why? What’s it to you?”

“Nothing. I just…” Ryan shrugs.

“What? You think I’m not as good as the rest of you?” Jeremy takes a step forward. 

Ryan shakes his head. “No, it’s not…”

“Not what?”

“Nothing.”

Jeremy frowns, marching over and shoves Ryan back against a wall, making the quarterback glare down at him. “You think you’re better than me? Well, guess what, I know (Y/n) better than you ever will and if she wants me to be part of..” He waves his hand around. “Whatever this is, then I’m not going to say no and you can’t do anything to stop me.”

Ryan narrows his eyes. “Oh really? You know her better than me? Tell me, do you know what she looks like when she climaxes? What she sounds like?” Jeremy gapes at him, not expecting that. “Do you know how good she feels?”

Jeremy’s cheeks turn bright red and he has to break his gaze with Ryan. “Well…”

“No, you don’t.” Ryan flips them, pinning Jeremy to the wall. “Because you don’t know her better than me; you know her differently .” Jeremy avoids Ryan’s gaze, a little whimper coming out when Ryan presses in closer. “But I bet you’d love to know her the way I do. Would love to have her beneath you, writhing in pleasure and screaming out your name.”

Jeremy lets out another whimper as he presses his eyes closed. “Please stop.”

“Why?” Ryan slips his leg in between Jeremy’s, making the lad gasp and one of his hands finds Ryan’s arm.”You seem to like that idea, of finally being able to fuck (Y/n).”

“Don’t say that.” Jeremy breathes.

“Why? You clearly want to.” Jeremy tightens his grip, making Ryan frown. “What? You can’t tell me that you haven’t thought about it.”

“No, I-” Jeremy stares up at him, snapping his mouth closed.

“Oh, I see. You’ve secretly thought about it but never really told her for fear of ruining your friendship, but when she told you she liked you that way and wanted you, you haven’t really allowed yourself to accept that and be able to accept your feelings for her.”

“I know how I feel about her .” Jeremy says.

“Ah, so it’s the rest of us you’re unsure about.”

Jeremy scowls at him. “Well, the first time I met you, you were biting my head off for even looking at her, so yeah, I’m wary of you fuckers.”

Ryan chuckles, shaking his head. “Well, I could say the same about you, who call me handsome but then act like you hate me.”

“I haven’t acted that way.”

Ryan arches a brow. “Oh really? One, almost breaking Micahel’s arm for touching your head, and two, shoving me up against a wall.”

“Yeah, well, I…” Jeremy stutters. “I wouldn’t-I don’t hate you.”

“Clearly.” Ryan shifts his leg.

Jeremy gasps as he presses against his cock. “I take that back- I do hate you.”

“Oh, isn’t there something I can do to change your mind?” Ryan purrs, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

Jeremy blinks. “Are you seriously trying to seduce me right now?”

“Why not? Best way to see if you’ll fit in is to see how you are in bed.” Jeremy chokes on his breath because not five minutes ago Ryan wanted to beat the crap out of him and now he wants to sleep with him. “That and you did call me handsome.”

Jeremy can’t help but roll his eyes. “You’re not going to let that go are you?”

“Nope.” Ryan smirks. “Besides, you’re not too bad on the eyes either.”

Jeremy has hooked up with guys before, but none of them has ever flirted or complimented him before. “Uh, thanks.” He ducks his head.

“Aww, is someone shy?”

“I’m not shy. Just...don’t get many compliments.”

“Well,” Ryan’s hands drop to Jeremy’s waist as he presses their bodies flushed against one another. Jeremy lets out a breathy moan, his other hand coming to rest on Ryan’s other arm. “You’re just as good looking as the others, if not more so.”

“Y-you don’t mean that.” Jeremy breathily replies.

“Oh no, I do.” Ryan leans down to kiss Jeremy’s neck, grinning when the other tilts his head to the other side to give him better access. “You said you were a black belt, so you must have the body to prove it and I’m rather curious to see what that looks like.”

Jeremy groans, his head tilting back to rest against the wall as Ryan peppers kisses all over his neck. “Oh God.”

“There’s no God here, just me.”

Jeremy scowls, shoving Ryan hard enough to make him stumble back a couple paces. “Asshole.”

Ryan chuckles. “Sorry, I couldn’t help it.”

“Uh-huh. Sure you couldn’t.”

“Gavin likes making snarky little comments, so Michael and I-”

Jeremy lunges forward, grabbing the front of Ryan’s shirt and yanks him down into a rough kiss. Ryan groans, responding by wrapping his arms around the other. “You talk too much.” Jeremy says when he pulls away.

Ryan looks at Jeremy, a bit surprised that he kissed him. “Do I?”

“Yes.”

“So that meant you had to kiss me?”

“I could shove something else in your mouth if you’d prefer.” Jeremy says without thinking.

“Oh, like what? This?” Ryan’s hand cups Jeremy’s cock.

Jeremy groans at the contact, hips canting forward on their own. “I….uh…” He watches Ryan’s eyes widen a bit as he feels Jeremy up, knowing full well that he was bigger than most men and it wasn’t something he flaunted. 

“Well, Jeremy,” Ryan wets his dry lips, realizing that he was bigger than himself and Michael. “I had no idea.”

Jeremy huffs. “What? Didn’t think I’d have a big cock because I’m so short?”

Ryan blinks. “I-well...maybe?”

Jeremy rolls his eyes. “Typical.”

“To be fair, last time we meet, I wasn’t thinking about how big your cock was and earlier, I wasn’t either”

“And now it’s all you can think about.” Jeremy again says without thinking but watches in surprise as Ryan’s cheeks flush and he drops his gaze. “Oh. My. God. You really are.”

“Can you blame me?” Ryan looks at him.

“Well, I don’t know you, so I don’t know what you’re into.”

“I love a good woman like (Y/n), but I also love a good man with a good cock too; Gavin’s really good with his mouth, Michael is best at the rougher sex, Ray can ride you like no body’s business, Jack is very intimate and likes to take it slow and savor everything, and Geoff will worship every inch of your body and make you feel good about yourself. But you,” He eyes the lad. “I haven’t the slightest clue about you except that you have a big cock and I can’t decide if I want to choke on it while you fuck my mouth or if I want to see how strong you are and have you fuck me up against a wall.”

Jeremy groans, grabbing the back of Ryan’s head and pulls him down into another kiss. “Who says you have to choose?” Jeremy takes a step back, unzipping his jacket and lets it fall to the ground before he undoes his buckle. “Get on your knees.”

Ryan drops down in front of Jeremy, watching him unzip his pants. Ryan brings his hands up, gripping Jeremy’s pants and underwear and he peers up at Jeremy. The lad nods and Ryan first pulls Jeremy’s pants down to his knees before returning to do the same to his underwear, watching Jeremy’s cock pop free. Jeremy lightly groans, bringing a hand up to rest on Ryan’s head as the other leans in to press a kiss to his hip. “Yes.” Jeremy groans. “Now, let’s see what that mouth of yours can really do.”

Ryan glances up at him, flashes him a smirk before taking the other’s cock into his mouth. Jeremy’s eyes flutter closed as he lets out a small moan. Ryan lightly hums, making the lad’s hand first his hair. Ryan groans, making Jeremy’s hips cant forward. “Fuck, you like that, don’t you?” He gives another tug on the quarterback’s hair, making Ryan’s hand tightly grip his hips. Jeremy smirks down at him. “Of course you do. Bet you love it when people do whatever they want.” He gives an experimental thrust forward, feeling Ryan’s jaw go slack as he lightly hums. “Yeah.” Jeremy hums, placing his hand on the back of Ryan’s head. “You want my cock so bad, don’t you?” He slowly starts to thrust his hips into Ryan’s mouth and then back out, going a little deeper each time until he hits the back of his throat.

Ryan’s hands gently squeeze Jeremy’s hips and he glances up at Jeremy, giving a little nod. He was ready. The lad smiles, one hand gently running down the side of his face before his other hand gets a good grip and he starts thrusting. Ryan moans, trying to use his tongue to lick up the underside of Jeremy’s cock, but as the lad increases his speed and thrusts a bit harder each time, it makes it hard. So, Ryan just lets Jeremy use his mouth, tears prickling in his eyes when Jeremy’s cock brushes up against the back of his throat a little too hard. Still, he moans and hums, watching how it makes Jeremy’s hips stutter for a moment as the lad moans above him.

“Fucking hell.” He gasps, fingers tightening in Ryan’s hair as he chases his climax. “Who knew….you’d love...to choke on my dick.”

Ryan’s hand finds its way back to grab Jeremy’s ass and forces the lad forward, deep throating him. The sudden action catches the lad off guard and the strong stimulation forces his climax out of him and he’s cumming down Ryan’s throat with a strangled groan. He bends forward over the other as the last waves of his orgasm fade. He draws in a breath, realizing he’s pressing Ryan’s head down around his cock and he lets go. “S-sorry.” He breathes.

Ryan pulls back, drawing in a breath and wipes the traces of sum and saliva from his lips. “Don’t be.” He says, his voice a little hoarse. “Not even Michael can compare to you.”

Jeremy blushes. “I...thank you?” He pulls his pants and underwear up.

Ryan stands up, peering down at the lad. “You are interesting.”

“How so?”

“You’re bashful to comments and yet when you get sexually aroused, you’re not bashful at all. Instead,” Ryan places his hands on Jeremy’s hips, pressing them flushed against one another. “You get rather mouthy.”

Jeremy puffs out a laugh. “Yeah, I guess.”

“That I find interesting.” Ryan purrs, leaning down to kiss the side of Jeremy’s neck. The lad moans, tilting his head to the side. “So, now that we’ve finished the first one, how about we move onto the next one?”

Jeremy chuckles, looking at him. “Eager are we?” His hand cups Ryan’s cock through his pants, the gent moaning. “Bet you’d love for me to fuck that pretty ass of your so you could cum.”

Ryan’s hands tightly grip Jeremy’s hips, lightly biting the lad’s neck. “You know I would.” He growls.

Jeremy groans, grinning. “Oh, I know.” He bends down and throws Ryan over his shoulder. Ryan lets out a surprised yelp as Jeremy heads upstairs, paying at the top of the stairs. “Hmm. So, should I just pick a random room or…?” Ryan motions to his room. The lad pushes the door open with his foot and tosses Ryan onto the bed.

Ryan pushes himself up onto his elbows, watching as Jeremy pulls his shirt off. “Damn.” He licks his lips as his gaze rakes over Jeremy’s muscular build.

Jeremy lightly blushes, ducking his head as he shucks out of his pants and underwear. “Well, what do you have hiding under there?”

Ryan chuckles. “Why don’t you come find out?”

Jeremy slightly scowls, climbing onto the bed and unceremoniously yanks his shirt off. “You love to act like you’re in control all the time but secretly you want someone to take that control from you.” He unbuckles Ryan’s pants, yanking them off. “Tell me, how does that make for a good quarterback?” He asks, hands hovering around the waistband of Ryan’s boxers.

Ryan huffs. “That’s only true in the bedroom, not out on the field.”

“So, you wouldn’t like it if someone came up behind you and started barking orders?” Jeremy leans forward, fingers tracing patterns up Ryan’s torso. Ryan shudders, his cheeks heating up as Jeremy’s head hovers next to his, the lad’s breath tickling his neck. “You wouldn’t like it if someone told you to get down, get into a certain formation,” Jeremy says softly, a hand slowly gliding down to the other’s hips, cupping his crotch again. “To go long?”

Ryan lets out a breathy moan, buckling up into Jeremy’s hand. “Only if it was you barking those orders.” He turns his head a bit to look at the other.

The lad grins, hands peeling the last article of clothing off. “I thought that might be your answer.” He slithers down Ryan’s body, settling himself in between his legs.

Ryan gazes down at him. “What are you-oh fuck!” He lays down, a hand gripping the sheets at his side and the other grips the pillow by his head. Ryan’s never been a fan of rimming or eating someone out, giving or receiving either, but he’ll let Gavin do it to him if he’s in the mood. But feeling Jeremy’s tongue lap and slip inside him, exploring makes Ryan question why he doesn’t do it more. “God, Jeremy.” He pants, canting his hips down onto that sinful mouth.

Jeremy can’t help but smile because he had a feeling Ryan would love him rimming the fuck out of his ass. Everyone does and maybe that’s one of the reasons he was known as the school slut, but he was very good at it that those he actually ‘served’ wouldn’t even think twice if he offered them even just 10 minutes. He pulls back just enough to ask a question. “Got any lube?”

Ryan hasn’t realized he closed his eyes until he opens them to peer down at the other. He nods. “Y-yeah. T-top drawer.”

Jeremy swiftly retrieves the bottle, setting it next to him after coating his fingers and resumes his ministrations. Ryan’s eyes flutter closed, moaning and thrusting back onto Jeremy’s fingers and mouth, even when he’s flipped over and pulled up onto his knees. He keens when Jeremy slaps his ass, muttering for more. His whole body is shaking, the need for more the only thing he can really focus on, besides Jeremy. The lad hums appreciatively as he thrusts three fingers in and out of Ryan. “You’ll take just about whatever I give you, won’t you?” Ryan whines, the sound partially muffled by the pillows. “Bet you’d be satisfied with just my fingers.” 

“No, please.” Ryan turns his head to the side, gazing back at Jeremy with pupil blown eyes. “Please, I need your cock.”

“Need it huh?” Jeremy removes his hand, slowly pumping his cock.

Ryan licks his lips. “Yes. I want it so bad.”

You let out a heavy sigh as you trudge down the sidewalk, the text message sitting on your phone burning a hole in your pocket. You were having a good time with Shaley and Meg, helping them learn how to make molds and properly set them when she texted. You let out another sigh, pausing when you don’t see any cars outside the house. “Huh. That’s weird.” You climb up the steps and unlock the front door.

Nothing immediately jumps out at you, but as you move into the living room, you notice Jeremy’s jacket lying in the middle of the floor. Your brows furrow in confusion, your head turning towards the stairs when you hear Ryan moan. “Don’t fucking tell me.” You mutter, making your way up the stairs and to Ryan’s room, stopping in the doorway. On the bed, Ryan’s kneeling, head buried in the pillows, his hands fisting them and the sheets with Jeremy kneeling behind him, hands resting on Ryan's hips as he thrusts in and out of the quarterback. Sweat glistens both their skin, Jeremy muttering an array of curses and comments about how beautiful Ryan looked begging for his cock and how well he took it. Honestly, this was not the sight you expected to have come home to.

“You know, when I told you to play nice, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.” Your voice makes both of them stutter to a halt, two pairs of eyes turning on you.

“(Y/n),” Ryan gasps.

Jeremy lets out a heavy breath, hips stilled against Ryan’s. “Well….it was better than the alternative.”

You roll your eyes, walking over to the desk, and place your makeup kit on it. “Well, I was expecting to come home to find you two bruised and possibly bleeding.” You shrug out of your winter jacket, pulling your sweatshirt off.

Both Ryan’s and Jeremy’s gaze are fixed on you. “Yeah, well, there’s still a chance of that happening.” Jeremy muses, giving a small thrust, making Ryan whine.

You turn to look at them, feeling your lips twitch in amusement. “I should have expected this might happen though.”

“Oh?” Jeremy raises a brow.

“Why?” Ryan asks softly.

“In high school, Jeremy was known for his sexual prowess.” You tell him.

Ryan glances back at Jeremy. “You were a slut?’ He receives a shit-eating grin and this information shocks him because he expected it of Michael, who loved to push people and have them push back along with his high sex drive, or from Gavin, who was a flirt and got anyone he wanted, but not this shy, bashful lad. Even though he was very good at it.

You scoff. “Please, he’s not a slut; he’s the slut.” Both men turn to look at you. “He’s the Grand Poobah of Sluts.” You smirk.

Jeremy shakes his head. “When are you going to stop calling me that?” He asks as he begins slowly thrusting again.

“Never. It’s a good line and you know it.” You remove your pants, your spanks having ridden up a bit that when you bend over to grab a pair of sweats from the drawer, both Ryan and Jeremy groan.

“Fuck (Y/n).” Jeremy bits his lip. Sure, you two have changed in front of each other and have seen each other in just underwear before, but back then, he didn’t let himself think of you in a sexual way. Now that’s changed.

You straighten up, looking both of them over before draping the sweatpants over the chest at the foot of the bed and move over to the bed. You place your hands on the mattress, leaning in. “You know Rye, not even Michael could make you look this wrecked.”

Ryan opens his mouth to say something, but Jeremy gives a particularly hard thrust forward that makes the blond let out a high-pitched whine. You lean in, hand gently cupping Ryan’s cheek as you kiss him. Ryan moans, closing his eyes and brings a hand up to hold your head. You slowly pull back to look at him, giving one more quick kiss before moving away. You turn your attention to Jeremy, a twinge of jealousy in his eyes. “Don’t be like that.” You tell him, shifting to kneel behind him, your hands resting on his hips and you hear him suck in a breath. Ryan turns his head to watch you two. “You’ll get your share of my attention.” You lean in, pressing a kiss to his neck.

Jeremy moans as Ryan groans, the lad’s hips stuttering forward. “Fuck (Y/n).” He breathes. “Won’t you join us?”

“As lovely as that sounds, I’m not really in the mood.” Your hands trace up Jeremy’s chest, the lad’s hands tightly gripping Ryan’s hips. “But you two can continue and I’ll see you downstairs once you’ve finished.” You remove your hands, making Jeremy whine. “Oh and try not to break him Jer.” You tell him, kissing his cheek as you grab your sweatpants, pulling them on.

“That depends on him.” Jeremy huffs.

Ryan lightly growls. “Asshole.”

You hear their banter fade off as Jeremy doubles his efforts and you can hear Ryan’s moans all the way down in the kitchen. You decide to text the other guys, giving them the all-clear. You get a thumbs up from Geoff and Gavin says they’ll be home in about 20 minutes. Your stomach growls, reminding you of how hungry you are. As you rummage through the cabinets, an idea pops into your head and you gather all the ingredients, pulling out the griddle, mixing up the batter, preparing the eggs, and putting the cast iron skillet on the stove. Your mind wonders as you prepare the food, thinking back to that text. You jump when a pair of arms wrap around you, settling when Ryan sets his head on your shoulder. “Ryan,” You breath.

“Whatcha making?” He asks.

“What does it look like?” You turn your attention back to the griddle, flipping the pancakes.

Jeremy stands next to you, squinting his eyes. “Um, is it a fresh boar you just killed?”

You frown at him, flicking batter on his face. “Obviously not.”

Jeremy laughs as he wipes the batter off. “Oh shoot. How could I have gotten that wrong?” He looks at you, his smile fading as he notices your continued frown. “What’s wrong?”

Ryan lifts his head up. “You’re not mad that I slept with Jeremy, are you?”

“No. It’s not that.” You let out a heavy sigh. “It’s….my mom.”

Jeremy’s face immediately hardens and Ryan gets a sense that that’s a bad thing, even though you never talk about her, only briefly mentioning once or twice. “What about that bitch?” Jeremy growls.

“She texted me.” You say, transferring the don pancakes onto a plate. Jeremy risks while Ryan waits for you to continue. “I guess she’ll be coming out for some seminar thing here soon and she wanted to meet up.”

“You gotta be kidding me.” Jeremy shakes his head.

Ryan looks at you. “What did you say?”

You pour the scrambled eggs into a large bowl. “Just that I’d think about it.”

“You’re not seriously considering going to see her, are you?” Jeremy asks as you move all the food onto the table, sitting down. “After everything she’s done? Or, more accurately, not done?”

“I know” You let out a heavy sigh. “I just….haven’t decided yet.”

“I think you should.” Ryan says, making you and Jeremy look at him.

“You’re kidding right?” Jeremy addresses him. “She’s the shittiest parent there is. She never took care of (Y/n), leaving that up to her dad, but when he died, do you think she would step up and take care of her nine years old? No. She just hired a nanny.” Jeremy grinds his teeth together. “She can crawl under a fucking rock and die for all I care.”

“Maybe, but that’s not up to you to decide.” Ryan says. “Maybe she wasn’t the best parent back then, but people can change, and maybe now she wants to make amends; to have a relationship with her daughter.”

You open your mouth to say something, but Jeremy scoffs. “Oh please. There’s only one thing that old hag cares about and it’s herself and her job.”

“That’s technically two things.”

“Oh shut the fuck up.”

“Still, she might have a change of heart and wants to see (Y/n).” Ryan frowns.

“She’s probably only doing it to get something out of her. She only ever uses (Y/n) for her own gain.” Jeremy glares.

“But you don’t know that’s the case this time.” Ryan glares back.

“Enough!” Geoff snaps, making the pair jump and turn to see him and the other standing there. “It doesn't matter how much you two fucks argue over who’s right, it’s (Y/n)’s choice, so stop bitching and let her mull everything over.”

You smile weakly at him. “Thanks Geoff.” 

He walks over and leans down to give you a hug. “We’ll support you no matter what you choose, but just say the word and I’ll punch the shit out of that old broad.”

You chuckle, hugging him back. “Yeah, I know.”

“This looks delicious.” Jack says as the others join you at the table.

“You’re telling me.” Michael says, eyeing Jeremy, who’s only in his boxers and a tight-fitting wife-beater.

Jeremy turns bright red and slightly chokes on the mouthful of pancake he has. He takes a gulp of water, making sure all the food was safely in his stomach before turning to look at Michael. “Uh, what?”

Michael shrugs as he keeps eyeing him. “Who knew you looked like that buried under all those clothes.”

“Yeah.” Gavin squirms in his chair, scooting closer to Michael’s side. “Especially his cock.”

Geoff and Jack sigh heavily as you three stop, staring at the pair. “Um, what ?” Jeremy asks.

“How do you know what his cock looks like?” Ryan adds, brows furrowing.

“You’re in trouble now.” Ray lightly chuckles from the end of the table.

Now it was Michael and Gavin’s turn to blush. “Well,” Gavin nervously starts. “Remember how we were playing a game while you were pacing back and forth in the living room?” He addresses Ryan.

“Uh-huh.” Ryan slowly nods.

“Um, well….”

“We were filming ourselves playing for shits and giggles but I guess we forgot to turn it off when someone forced us out when Jeremy showed up.” Michael gives a pointed look at Ray, the lad shrugging.

“Wait,” You slightly shake your head. “So you mean it’s been recording what’s been going on in the living room this whole time?”

“Well, the camcorder died about 20 minutes ago.” Michael says.

“But how does that equate to you seeing Jeremy’s cock?” You ask.

Jeremy shares a look with Ryan, a sense of dread settling in his gut. “You didn’t…” He turns to look at the two lads, Michael flashing him a shit-eating grin. “You watched Ryan suck me off?!”

“From what we saw, you fucked his mouth.” Michael retorts.

Jeremy gasps at them, mouth moving but having no idea what he wanted to say. Ryan’s bright red, hands curled into a first. “You idiots! You can’t just watch something like that without our permission!” The gent hisses.

“But you never opposed to us watching before.” Gavin whines.

“That’s because I knew you were!” Ryan glares at them. “Maybe he’s not into that sort of thing! Did you ever think of that?”

Both lads wince because Geoff and Jack scolded them with the same argument, but they ignored them. “Sorry.” Gavin whispers. “We just couldn’t help it.”

“Couldn’t help it? Why? Was someone forcing you to watch?” Ryan demands.

“No, it was just being streamed to Gavin’s phone and we just couldn’t help it.” Michael argues.

“Just turn it off!”

“Oh, you fucking turn off some top-notch porn and tell me how that goes!”

You turn to look at Jeremy, the lad staring down at the table. “Jer?” You ask. Jeremy may be shy about talking about his dick in a regular conversation, but he’s not ashamed or embarrassed by its size nor by any of his sexual exploits. Of course, you know he’s never run into this before, someone recording him without his permission and watching. You stand up, moving behind him and wrap your arms around him. He slightly jumps, turning his head to look at you. “If they crossed a line, let us know ok?” Jeremy nods. “Good.” You lean in and press your lips to his. He’s momentarily caught off guard before he hums, closing his eyes and kisses you back as one of his hands comes up to grab your head. The others stare, realizing how well he blends in and how hot it was to watch. You pull back to look at Jeremy. “I love you and I don’t want you to ever feel uncomfortable, do you hear me?” He nods. “Good. And if they ever do something that makes you feel that way, let me know and I’ll kick their ass.”

Jeremy lightly chuckles. “I think I can do that by myself.”

“I know, but that’s not the point.”

“Yeah, ok.”

You nod, straightening and give Michael and Gavin a pointed look. “Never do anything like that again, do you understand?” They nod. “Good.” You sit down in your seat once more.

Ryan turns to look at you. “I forgot how scary you can be.”

You turn to look at him. “Oh?”

Jeremy chuckles. “Oh, that was nothing. You should have seen the fights she got into.”

“What?” Geoff blinks.

“No way.” Ray scoots to the edge of his seat. “(Y/n) getting into fights?”

“Yeah, she was pretty ruthless.” Jeremy turns to look at you. “Remember that fight you had with Toya?”

You nod. “Yeah. She was all about putting on a show, but she had no idea how to actually fight. But that was nothing compared to what I did to Hailey and her stupid posse of cheerleaders.”

Jeremy blinks. “What did you do to them?”

“Huh, what do you mean?’ You look at him, seeing the confusion on his face. “You mean I never told you?”

“Uh, no.”

“Huh. I could have sworn I did.” You mutter. “Well then, I guess you never knew that they were super jealous of you.”

“Why would a bunch of cheerleaders be jealous of him?” Michael asks.

“Because they prided themselves for having jock boyfriends and sleeping with them on a regular basis. They despised Jeremy because he could make the boyfriends feel more pleasure than they could.”

Everyone except Ryan turns to stare at Jeremy. “Wot?” Gavin gapes.

“You were a slut?” Jack asks.

“No, he wasn’t a slut.” Ryan says, making everyone turn their attention to him. “He was the slut. He was the Grand Poobah of Sluts.”

You smile as Jeremy slightly frowns. “Not you too.”

“It’s really fun to say.”

“Anyway,” You say before they could start arguing. “They wanted to be known as the school sluts and were pissed that he held that title. So I guess they secretly filmed you fucking a couple of different people and blowing several jocks and they planned to show the videos at the pep rally our sophomore year.” Jeremy’s mouth hangs open. “I found out and knew I couldn't let that happen, not only for your sake but for the sake of the other people in those videos. 

“I knew they carried their makeup around with them and they liked the expensive shit, so I volunteered to do their makeup for the rally. Everyone knew I was into doing movie and beauty makeup and I was really good at it, so of course they couldn’t say no. I watched them apply their makeup, mostly foundation, before letting me get to work. So, I used makeup that had chemicals that would react with the chemicals in their foundation.” Everyone gasps. “Don’t worry; it just turned their skin green and black for a few days. But going out in front of the whole school like that horrified them. Of course, Hailey threatened to still release the videos and get something on me. I tightly grabbed her arm, looked her dead in the eyes and said, ‘Do you know how easy it would be for me to slip some real deadly chemical into your smoothies or your little compact? You can go right ahead and mess with me, I don’t care, but don’t you fucking dare go after Jeremy. You’re going to hand over every file of that video you have and you’re going to leave him the fuck alone because if you don’t, you won’t like what happens next’.”

“Holy fuck.” Michael breathes.

“You didn’t?” Geoff asks.

Jeremy stares at you. “That...that was you?” You nod. “I...I thought it was some other girl who was jealous of them.”

“No.” You shake your head.

“And...you did that for me?”

“Of course. You’ve always been there and I couldn’t let them do that.” You place your hand on top of his. “I don’t care if you talk about your sexual exploits, that’s one thing, but for everyone to see it, that’s different.”

Jeremy’s eyes slightly tear up. “I...I don’t know what to say.” He launches out of his seat and hugs you.

You smile softly. “You don’t have to say anything.”

“Man, that’s ruthless.” Jack says.

“She’s a cold-hearted bitch.” Michael adds as he shoves eggs into his mouth.

You all pause for a moment before you stand up. “Oh yeah? How about I show you Jones?” As you march towards him,  he scrambles out of his chair and you chase him around the living room. The other guys laugh as they watch.

Jeremy chuckles as he wipes his eyes, catching Ryan looking at him. He smiles at him, the quarterback smiling back and it makes his heart flutter.

Chapter Text

In light of recent events concerning the worldwide pandemic that is COVID along with some recent tweets and posts by various Rooster Teeth and Achievement Hunter employees, mainly Ryan’s tweet about him leaving RT to focus on his family and having been outed as cheating on his wife with younger fans. This was very startling news for myself as well as many others who have been apart of the AH community for a long time, in most cases people being here from the start, but this and tweet like the one some time ago about Jeremy making a comment he shouldn’t have, it really just illustrates the fact that these are real people. Yes, we love them and love what they have done, but most of the time all the stuff that they do is mostly scripted. Maybe not every single line, but they have a general idea of what they want to do in the video, and when they are pre-recorded any bad stuff can get edited out so we don’t see it. Even now with them working at home they can get into the mindset of being in front of the camera and basically acting for us.
Now, while I’m not condoning Ryan’s behavior regarding using his popularity to sway younger people into sexting with him and even having sex, I feel like that should not degrade everything he has done and put out there. Yes, I think we are all going to have to take some time, the rest of Achievement Hunter included, to work out what each of us is feeling and how to move forward. But I urge you all to set aside any anger or negative feeling you may experience over this and to leave him and his family be. It’s hard enough to find out someone you love and have trusted betray you in a private setting, but with him being a very prominent internet figure, it’s even harder to work through these kinds of things when literally thousands of people are watching and wanting to know more. And same goes for those that Ryan had relations with- they could be just as accountable as he is for their actions and I know some of them were only 18 and you could make the argument that they are still children, that their prefrontal cortex is still developing and thus they really can’t make informed decisions, etc. but I feel like society has condoned this idea that when people are put on pedestals like celebrities are, then people want to please them and be around them. Through movies and tv shows we are taught that if a celebrity takes an interest in you that you should feel honored, that you are something special and mean something to that person when really they could just be using you for their own gain. In my personal opinion, I feel like both sides are somewhat equally held responsible because if they are both consenting adults, then there’s nothing legally wrong, but you do have to factor in that as an internet persona who has influence over these people, then it’s understandable if these people felt like they couldn’t say no or tell anyone.
So that’s where I think we all need to take a couple steps back and let the dust settle first before we all gather our pitchforks to protest what happened. It’s very sad to have this happen, to know that this sort of thing was going on and it’ll be interesting to see how the rest of Achievement Hunter reacts, whether they knew about this and did nothing or if it was hidden from them as well. This is a difficult time for a lot of people, especially those in the US where elections are ramping up, those in college things are piling up that to add this sort of emotionally damaging news could be the straw that breaks the camels back for some people. I know I am very saddened by this news because Ryan was one of my favorites and he still is. That is mostly why I am constructing this response and posting it to all my AH/RT fics because I know that this will affect how some people look at the fandom.
So, from this point forward, I am NOT going to be deleting any of my works nor do I plan on stopping writing them. What Ryan the person did was wrong, but in my mind and in my stories, he is the AH persona Ryan, the man we have seen in front of the camera and have come to love. I am going to continue all my stories, even the ones I have written down in a hundred different notebooks, with him in it because I am choosing to remember the fun, caring persona we all got to see and love and that’s how I’m going to remember him. I know that this will probably upset a lot of people, and to be frank, I really don’t care; I write my stories mostly for myself, but I publish them because as Gavin mentioned once a long time ago about creating videos that he would like to watch, I write stories that I would like to read. That and they are an escape for me, a way to rationalize certain things that I have experienced and help me overcome them and be able to get on with my life. I understand that some of you will stop reading fics because they include Ryan and that’s perfectly fine if that’s what you want to do. And if some of you are having a hard time dealing with this, with anything that’s going on right now, just know that I am more than willing to chat with you about what’s going on in your life because keeping things bottled up is not healthy (I know from experience and struggle with this myself), but I also find that it’s easier to talk about things by typing them up and chatting with friends via texts and even through some RPs. Reaching out is probably one of the hardest things to do, so if any of you want to talk, feel free to DM me either on AO3 (sakurastar0660) or on my Tumblr (sakurastar0660).
This is a hard time for all of us, this news heartbreaking. But if we all come together and help one another, we can get through it.

Chapter Text

Since it seems like the whole RH situation has been said and done, I realize that my original statement the first few days all this happened really doesn't hold up and thus I have decided that I too will be removing him from my stories or using how as the bastard villian he is that will be slain in on fic I have yet to publish. That said, since this story and my other large AH one have him as a main character, I'm trying to decide if I just want to end the story here and start over without him in it, or continue on and just kill him off. In this story, if I were to continue on, maybe have him move away or die due to fatal injuries from a car accident. I'm not entirely sure, but wanted to see what you all thought.

Chapter Text

So, since everything has calmed down and returned to relative normal again, in trying to continue on and get to the part where I am able to write Ryan out, I find it had been hard to continue to write this story and write him and that it would be a while before I can get to the part where he leaves, I have decided to leave the story as it is, unfinished. I don't like the idea of not finishing a story, but I just don't feel it anymore and find it difficult to write Ryan's character as I have in the past, despite my earlier statement that I'll continue to include him. Of course, that was in the first couple of days when everything came out before we learned the whole story. I may come back to this idea, I'm not sure yet, but I am working on another story to make up for this one and another one being left as is and unfinished, so hopefully we all can enjoy that one. Sorry to those who were looking forward to where this was going; I had great ideas about what I wanted to have happen, but I don't want to force myself to write a story with characters that I don't like anymore and make it sound and read the same as before. Hopefully, you all will understand and can look forward to some of the new stories I'm working on. Love you all and thank you for your support.