#aaron pace bcb

[evelyn-onfire]

finding someone who appreciates a niche character as much as you is so exciting like- hell yeah we’re both brainrotting over this one side character together

[aaronpaceluvbot]

song lyrics (aaron x reader)

summary: in which you have a slight fight with Drum over your favorite practice room. you need it to practice your music and he needs it to practice whatever it is he does, but Aaron finds out and comes to your rescue. 

before you read: this is probably the most self indulgent fic i’ve ever written, forgive any inaccuracies. i'm assuming aaron can play piano because my school only lets you play percussion if you can play piano, school starts at 6:45 for me so it does in this fic as well, LOWKEY OOC AARON…, voice teachers are scary af , READER IS FEM, written in honor of me having a recital in a week and i am in fact losing my voice, DRUM APPEARS AND LIKE THE THING IS IS THAT I DONT REMEMBER WHO’S WHO SO HE’S JUST REFERRED TO AS DRUM , this flows so weirdly sorry yall i promise i had an outline , this is like the 20th fic that reader cries in (reader is so me.), i didn’t wince as much while writing the affection (PROGRESS!!!), THIS IS  NOT PROOFREADDD  reader is implied to be in choir and not in play an instrument anymore, SOME MUSICAL TERMS?? if you’re confused about them I Will Add Explanations. 

WC: 6.2k words. holy moly. 

songs referenced that are good to listen to:

sebben crudele

ah! tardai troppo

—

You always tried to get to school early to make use of the practice rooms especially since everyone seemed to want to use them at that time. You especially needed to practice considering the fact that you had a rehearsal today with your accompanist and you hadn’t practiced at all for it. You found that arguably the best practice room was open so you placed your stuff in there and tried to quickly get your binder and your anthology book for lessons. You noticed a person standing in front of the room. He notices you as well. “Are you using it?” He asks, looking at you expectantly.

“Yeah? My stuff is already in there,” you tell him, clutching your binder. If he really wanted to fight about a practice room at 6 in the morning, he could if he wanted to. You would gladly give it up if he was going to keep it going, but you’d make practicing absolute hell for him. 

“Well I need to use it to record something for an assignment,” he says, clearly expecting you to give up the practice room. You roll your eyes at him. He really couldn’t have used one of the other open practice rooms? Sure their acoustics were horrible in comparison to this one, but your stuff was already in there! 

“I needed to use it to practice something for voice lessons,” you respond, raising your binder and book up. He looks at it, confused. 

“Can’t you do that somewhere else?” He asks, giving you a look of disdain. You roll your eyes and decide to end the conversation. When you said you’d make practicing hell for him, you weren’t joking. You enter the practice room next to his and you pull out your sheet music. After doing some light hums and lip trills, you pull out a couple arias from your book. Quickly taking a sip of water, you sing a couple scales. Your voice seemed to be in good condition today. Perfect. You decide on the easier of the two arias to avoid straining your voice - Sebben Crudele. You sing through it to see if you had it memorized and thankfully you did! This would help you avoid the wrath of your voice teacher. You were going through the rough patches of the song when you heard a knock on the door. You look through the window and see the guy from earlier.

You open the door and give him a confused look. He clears his throat. “Do you mind keeping it down? Everytime I record my part check, I hear more of you than I hear myself!” He’s cut off by the sound of yelling down the hall.

“DRUM. DRUM. DRUM I SWEAR TO GOD.” You both look to see where the voice is coming from and you see the source coming this way. It was a brunette boy who looked outraged at the guy who knocked on your door. You both look at him confused. Why was he calling out for a drum???

“Aaron what’s wrong???” The guy asked, looking confused. 

“Tell me why I found your crumpled up sheet music on the floor covered in spit,” Aaron says, clearly pissed. He gives you a look and then Drum?? one as well. “Is he bothering you?” He asks. You sigh and nod. 

“She was bothering me! She kept like making all these high pitched noises!” Drum?? says, looking at you as if you committed a war crime. 

“This is what happens when you make the wrong person mad,” you mutter, rolling your eyes at the dude in front of you. Aaron sighs at the exchange. 

“Do you mean singing?” He asks him, giving him a dirty look.

“Yeah! That thing!! Can’t you do that anywhere?? So she doesn’t really need the practice room!” Drum tried arguing. 

“You can also play your little instruments anywhere, but I’m not complaining about that,” you retort.

“Aaron!! Do Something!!” He says. The boy rolls his eyes.

“Just leave her alone. She has a point. What’s your name?” Aaron asks, turning to you. You tell him your name and he nods. “If he keeps bothering you, or if any of the drumline bothers you, come to me and I’ll set things straight.” You nod at his comment, amused that he’d even say something like that. He was probably a section leader, you thought, judging by the way he commanded that guy to leave you alone. He reminded you of one of your old section leaders. You leave it at that and shut the door and continue practicing. 

Aaron sighed as he dragged Drum away from the practice rooms and into the band room. He gave him the dirtiest of looks. “Why would you embarrass us like that?” He asks, rubbing his temples as Drum struggled to come up with an explanation. “You know what Wiley said, to leave the vocalists alone if they’re practicing. They need the practice rooms just as much as we do.”

“Yeah but she was so loud! She was louder than me trying to play the part check!” He whines. Aaron does the thing that you do to dogs to get them to calm down. He pokes his neck with two fingers. 

“If she’s louder than your playing, then that’s your issue. An instrument playing at forte will always be louder than someone singing forte,” he grumbles, obviously fed up with his antics. This wasn’t the first time that a spat between Drum and a vocalist occurred. “Just practice elsewhere. Practice here for god’s sake.” Aaron decides to walk out of the room, but stay nearby to see if he actually practices. He does not. He let out a loud exhale as he tried to come up with a prank to use to get Drum to practice productively. The bell rang and interrupted his thinking. 

You let out a sigh as the bell rang. You didn’t want to go to class and would much rather practice your music. Instead of putting your belongings back into the choir room, you decided to just put them in your backpack. As you exited, he called out your name. You turn to face him and greet him with a smile. “Thanks for earlier,” you say, fidgeting with your hands.

He nods. “It was nothing.” The two of you walk in awkward silence until you exit the music hallway. 

“So what class are you headed to?” You ask him as you both go the same way.

“Poetry.” “Do you like it?” You ask. He didn’t seem like the type to take poetry in the first place, but we all have our interests.

“I think it’s a good outlet for me, even though I wasn’t the biggest fan of it when I took the class. I only took it because my counselor said I couldn’t take a different class.” You nod at his words. You had beef with your counselor so you understand why he felt that way. “What class are you going to?” He asks, looking you straight in the eye. You only realized this now, but he was really attractive. You brush it off and continue the conversation. You can talk about him to your friends later. 

“English,” you say, shuddering. He gives you a confused look.

“Who do you have?”

“Williams.” He makes a face that could only be described as pure loathing.

“Well I’m sorry for your loss. I hated her when I had her.” 

“I always feel horrible for the classes near us whenever she goes on one of her rants,” you murmur, thinking back to the time that she got really pissed about a kid’s essay and threw a heavy metal water bottle. 

“No yeah, my poetry class is right next door and every time she starts going on a tangent, my teacher just tells us to brace ourselves and he plays music,” he says, almost amused. You nod and let out a laugh. The two of you walk in silence to the English wing and separate once you two get to your respective classes. But before the two of you enter your respective classes he stops you. You give him a confused look.

“Is something wrong?” You ask, tilting your head. He shakes his head with a smile. “No, just hand me your phone,” he says, sticking his hand out.

“Didn’t think you’d be the type to ask for my number so soon,” you joke, obviously keeping your phone away from him. He laughs as you try to keep him from getting it.

“Well then, if you don’t want my number, then I guess you’ll have to fall victim to all the band kids who are gonna bother you in the practice rooms,” he says, shrugging and getting ready to leave.

“Wait! Aaron, no!” You say, grabbing his hand and placing your phone in it. He lets out a chuckle at how you caved. He puts his number into your phone and sends himself a text. He pulls out his phone and checks to see if it sent. It did. 

“If any band kids pester you again, just text me and I’ll gladly come to your rescue,” he says, smirking at you. 

“Thanks for the offer Prince Charming, but I don’t think you’ll have to.”

“Oh so you think I’m charming?” He asks, raising his eyebrows at you. You shake your head and try to hide your laughter as you head to class, but he stops you again. “What class do you have after this?”

“Math…”

“With who?” 

“Miller…”

“We’re in the same class.”

“What? How have I not noticed you?” You ask him, trying to recall if he ever was in your class.

“I don’t know, but I knew you looked familiar earlier. Let’s walk to math together afterwards?” You nod and finally get into your classroom just before the bell rang.

—

You wait for Aaron outside of your classroom. The door to his class is still closed, but right as you’re about to leave, the door swings open. He comes out of class, eyes scanning the area, looking for you. He smiles when he sees that you waited for him. “Glad that you didn’t forget about our little plan,” he says, walking next to you. 

“How could I? It’s not everyday that you talk to Mr. Prince Charming himself,” you say, laughing at your own joke. 

“If anything, Peter’s Prince Charming. I think I’m more of a Derek Charming,” he says shrugging. 

“Like from Ever After High?” You ask, looking amused.

“Yeah, that one.” 

“What do you know about Ever After High?” You tease.

“I’ll have you know that I watch it with my little sister,” he says, sticking his hands up in defense. A thought pops into your head.

“Wait, so where do you sit in math? I still don’t know how I didn't notice that you were in my class.”

“I’m like all the way in the back corner by the door.” You nod. 

“That’s a really good seat. I got stuck sitting by her desk. But looking out the windows is really nice, if she actually leaves the blinds open.” You both snicker at your comment. Your teacher was infamous for having an insanely dark classroom that everyone fell asleep in. Her blinds were always closed and her lights would always be off and instead, she would only have fairy lights on. You both entered the class and you both chatted at his spot until the bell rang. You wandered off to your desk and sat there, getting your things out.

“Ok class! I have a bad headache right now, so you guys can just do these practice problems with a partner and just check them with the answer key by the end of class,” she said, handing out sheets of paper. You turn to look for a partner and realize that your friend was absent today. You sigh and figure that you’ll just work alone on it. When you get ready to start the first problem, you notice a figure standing by your desk. You look up and see Aaron.

“Wanna be my partner?” He asks and you nod. You follow him to his seat and pull up a chair. He’s actually pretty good at math which is nice since math is definitely one of your weak spots. The two of you make small talk until he asks an interesting question. “Would you want to hypothetically help me pull a prank?” You raise an eyebrow. 

“On who?” “The guy from earlier. He’s in my section and he’s been causing some trouble lately and I need to keep him in line somehow.” You nod at his reasoning. It makes sense, but you’ve never heard of anyone pulling pranks to keep anyone in line. The worst thing a section leader has done in choir was probably just throw a stand with someone’s binder and music in it but that was different from a prank. 

“I’ll think about it. I just need more details, you know?” He nods. “What would you even do?” He says something regarding his drum. “But how would I be involved?”

“I just need you to do your thing and sing your little heart out. That shouldn’t be too difficult right?” You let out a small laugh at his question.

“It shouldn’t be. Any suggestions on what I should be singing?” You ask jokingly. But he seems to take it seriously.

“Do you have your music on you?” You nod and pull out your anthology book and hand it to him. He reads the title. 

“Coloratura arias for soprano. Neat.” He flips through the book, examining the music. He places the book between the two of you so you both can get a look. You already knew the contents of the book, so you chose to observe him. He grimaced as he looked at a page. 

“What’s wrong?” You ask, trying to see what page he was on. It was a page from the aria “Ah! Tardai Troppo”. All the melismas must’ve been what he was referencing. “Nothing. Your music just looks intimidating. But I think you should sing this one.” He gently shuts the book and hands it to you. Your hands brush for a split second. You’re definitely going to tell your friends about him. You put your book away in your bag and continue on with the math problems. 

— 

Later in the day, you walk to the music hallway with a skip in your step after your interactions with Aaron. He’s really sweet and funny and just… he’s amazing. You go to find your voice teacher in the choir room, but you see her speaking to Garth. Garth was one of your closest friends as you often kept him company when he wasn’t busy accompanying any of the choirs. Both of them looked concerned and only looked even more worried when they both saw you. “Did someone die?” You ask, looking around. No one else was there except for the three of you.

“No, it’s not that. I’m afraid I won’t be able to accompany you during solo/ensemble night. Something personal came up,” Garth says. You nod in understanding. Whatever it was, you hope that he’s ok. “It’s ok Garth! I just need to find someone else to accompany me right?” You ask, looking between the two of them. Your voice teacher nods and Garth clears his throat.

“Yep! And in fact, I think I have the perfect person for you. Do you know Aaron? Aaron Pace?” Garth asks. You nod. “I’m sure he’d be willing to accompany you. In fact, I think he has lunch this hour so you could ask him right now and you could give him my music as well.” He hands you the sheet music. 

“I’ll go hunt him down!” You say, giving a mock salute to the two of them. You exit the choir room and head into the practice rooms. You send Aaron a quick text. 

where are you?

He responds just as fast. 

practice rooms, why?

You sigh

i need to meet with you, it’s important. 

meet me in the big piano practice room. i’m already there. 

You circle around the practice rooms and find the one he was talking about. He was sitting on the piano bench on his phone and looking up. His eyes brightened when he saw you and he let out a chuckle when you tried to pull open the heavy door. “What’s up?” He asks, looking concerned after seeing the look on your face.

“I kind of have a favor to ask you. It’s fine if you don’t want to, but basically I need an accompanist for solo ensemble night and mine kind of bailed and he told me to ask you if you could be my accompanist,” you sputter out. He nods, deep in thought.

“I mean sure, why not? Solo ensemble night is like, a month away right?” You nod. “That should be enough time for me to learn the music. Do you have it with you?” You murmur something that seemed like a response and you handed him the sheet music. “Oh nice. This is the song we were looking at earlier, and most of it looks easy enough to learn in like 30 minutes or so. Tell you what, since we’re both a little occupied with our little prank today, when I get home I’ll learn it and if I can learn it pretty quickly, I’ll send you a text and you can come over. If not, we can just run it tomorrow during lunch.” “Yep! That sounds good. Thank you so much for agreeing to this even though I kinda just sprang it onto you,” you say sheepishly. 

“Well I’ll be off now. Good luck with whatever his name is.” He laughs at your comment and you walk out. Little did you know, he only agreed to it because it was you. 

—

Later in the day, you get a text from Aaron. 

i finished learning it. there were only a couple tricky spots, so you can come over now. here’s my address - xxxx

You read through the text and type out a response

would you mind picking me up? It’s totally fine if you can’t, my car’s just getting an oil change right now

You hear the chime of a notification

what's your address? i’ll be omw

You send him your address. After 15 minutes or so you hear the doorbell ring. You grab your things and then head downstairs to look through the peephole. You see him standing there. You open the door. “Hi,” you say, feeling immediately awkward after saying it.

“Hi,” he says back. It takes 5 seconds of awkward silence before the two of you burst out in laughter. “So are you ready to go?” He asks, fiddling with his hands.

“Mhm!! Let me just lock the door real quick and then we can go.” You exit the house and try to lock the door. You stand there, trying to hold all your things while trying to put the key into the lock and Aaron takes your music from you when he notices you struggling. You thank him and you both get into his car, with him opening the door for you. You two both sit in comfortable silence as he drives to his house. You both get out and he uses his house keys to get inside. He gives you a slight tour and leads you to the room where his piano is. He grabs a stand nearby and hands it to you. You decide to break the silence. 

“How was it?” You ask, and he hums in response as he’s setting up his music. He freezes like a deer in headlights. 

“How was what?” 

“Learning the music,” you say, deciding to copy him and set up your music as well. He nods at your response. You notice that he hasn’t responded and has what seems to be a thinking face. 

“It wasn’t horrible,” Aaron says, shrugging. You laugh at his response. “What? It wasn’t!” 

“I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing at how long it took for you to come up with a response,” you say, covering your mouth before your laughter turned into a fit of giggles. 

“You are the absolute worst,” he says jokingly, making an exaggerated sighing noise and marking something in his music. 

“But you love me for it!” You say, mimicking his actions. He rolls his eyes at you and clears his throat. 

“Is there anything that you do that isn’t written in the music?” He asks, picking his pencil up.

“There’s a few ritardandos and other things, but we could just go through the piece and fix it as we go,” you say, flipping through your music. A question lies on the tip of your tongue, but you decide not to ask. Aaron can tell that you were thinking about something though based off of your facial expression. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I was just curious about why you asked that,” you admit.

“Because I’m accompanying you… It’s not my first time doing this,” he says, laughing at your dumbfounded expression. “You’re the soloist, not me. I’ll always be sure to watch you and follow you.” 

“How? Are you gonna practice or something?” You tease, laughing at your own joke. 

“I wouldn’t mind doing so if it was you,” he retorts. “But if that’s all, then that should be fine. We should be able to get started.” 

You nod and you take a swig of water from your water bottle. He plays the intro to the piece. It goes shockingly well considering that he just learnt the piece and that you hadn’t practiced much, but you eventually get to the end of whatever good luck the two of you had. You got to a very painful melisma with way too many accidentals to count which made it hard to stay in key. 

[a melisma is basically a riff - it’s singing multiple notes on one syllable]. 

Aaron makes a face and stops playing when your voice trails off. “What happened?” He asks, looking genuinely concerned.

“Nothing! I’m fine, I just psyched myself out a little bit with that part. I think I just need to review it really slowly really quickly,” you say, shuddering at the fact. Normally you could sing it in front of literally anyone, but why were you scared to sing it in front of Aaron? He wasn’t going to blow up at you or anything for not being able to sing it.

“No yeah, I get that,” he says, nodding at your comment. 

“It’s just embarrassing that I messed up,” you say sheepishly, choosing to fiddle with a corner of your sheet music.

“Don’t worry about it, you sounded great,” he says, turning to face you and giving you what seems to be a genuine smile. You nod and murmur a quick thank you. “So do you want me to play your part for you, or do you want to play it?”

“I can play it.” With that, he scoots over on the piano bench and gives you space to sit. You play your starting note and hum it. You try to make your way through the melisma, but it’s been a while since you had to play an instrument. Aaron notices you struggling after a few rough attempts. 

“Here, let me,” he says, so quietly that it was almost a whisper. He gently removes your hands from the keys and instead places his on the keys. With his free hand, he places your hands on top of his and slowly breaks it down for you, letting you control the tempo. After doing this a few times, he looks at you expectantly. “Do you feel better?” He asks, turning to face you. 

He looks you straight in the eye. You nod and quickly get up from the bench, trying to hide the flustered look on your face. You think he doesn’t and the rest of the rehearsal goes smoothly. Afterwards, you both make arrangements to meet up again and rehearse before solo ensemble night. 

—

After a few more rehearsals, you became much more comfortable performing with Aaron. In fact, you became so comfortable that instead of having productive rehearsals, you’d spend the time mostly talking. You both leaned towards each other to listen to what the other would say. The two of you would talk about small things, like new music that you got or just about your day. But this rehearsal was different. You had been on the brink of losing your voice due to the fact that you’d been overusing it lately, but you tried not to let that get the best of you. You kept running through the piece with him over and over again, but it kept getting harder and harder to get up there. Eventually it got to a point where nothing would come out. When he couldn’t hear your voice, he turned to look at you, but all he saw was you taking deep breaths with teary eyes.

Aaron didn’t know what possessed him, but he immediately got up and went to you. As he got closer, he realized that you started crying harder and started sniffling as well. He starts trying to calm you down, but you decide to wrap your arms around him. He holds you and tries to soothe you as your tears keep coming and eventually they come to a stop. “Are you alright? What happened?” He asks as you pull away from him and just stare. He’s surprised when your voice comes out hoarse and raspy. 

“Nothing. I just needed to shut up for a little bit, go on vocal rest, you know? And I was stupid and I chose to ignore it and it just-” You say, trailing off. He nods and opens his arms towards you, giving you a silent offer for a hug. You accept it and he rubs your back as you try to keep calm.

“You don’t need to push yourself. Solo ensemble night is going to go well, don’t worry about it,” he murmurs as you choose to bury your head in his shoulder. He pats your head and is eventually able to coax all the negative feelings out of you. That night, you realized one thing. You absolutely and positively have a thing for Mr. Aaron Pace.

—

That night you decided that you needed to tell someone about what happened and what you should do. You were in absolute shambles. You didn’t know what to do. If you told him about your feelings and destroyed the friendship the two of you had, you didn’t know what you’d do. You decided to call Cadence since she’d probably know the most about him in the first place. 

Your phone rang a few times until Cadence answered. You had science with her and the two of you became friends due to the fact that you two both came to class when there were no other seats open, so you both just ended up sitting next to each other. “Hi!! What’s up?” Cadence asks, angling her camera until you could only see her forehead and her eyes. You laugh at her and take a screenshot to annoy her with later. “Why’d you screenshot it?” She asks, zooming out to give you a dirty look.

“No reason,” you say, smirking. “But seriously I wanna ask you about something.” “I’m all ears,” she says, placing her phone on her bed and staring directly into the camera.

“Ew… Don’t do that…” You say, covering your eyes and exaggeratedly shuddering at her actions. “Fine, but what is it that you wanted to talk about?”

“I think I have a crush on someone-” “Who? Is it Aaron?” She asks, wiggling her eyebrows. Your jaw drops. Was it that obvious? “It wasn’t… Actually it kinda was, but if he hasn’t said anything about it yet, then I’d say that he thinks highly of you at least. If he didn’t, he probably would’ve told you to drop it or to stop talking to him.”

“I said that out loud?” You ask, looking confused. She nods.

“Mhm. But seriously, I think you have a chance. Maybe all you need to do is tell him!” “But what if I ruin our friendship by doing that?”

“Well, do the benefits outweigh the risks? Because if you’re really worried about ruining the friendship or something, just ask yourself that before doing so. Other than that, I don’t know what to tell you.” You proceed to tell her about the incident and what happened and she gives the same insight. “He’s blunt. He’s not gonna act like that just because. In fact, I’m surprised he even agreed to being your accompanist in the first place. But there’s a first for everything, so I say you should just go for it.” With that, your conversation with Cadence ends. You let out a loud exhale as you let yourself fall onto your bed. You truly didn’t know what to do. 

—

You decided the best way to deal with this was to distance yourself from him. Cadence was right, you needed to be able to weigh both the pros and cons before confessing. You needed to clear your head, and you knew that you wouldn’t be able to do that if you kept talking to him. Your walk to class felt lonely without him and you felt your heart ache when you passed him in the hallway. He tried to wave to you, but you flat-out ignored him. After English, you made sure to take a different route to your shared math class. This routine continued until solo ensemble night. 

—

When the night came, you paced anxiously backstage. You were ready to get this over with and be free from your thoughts of Aaron. However, he didn’t make it easy. You were busy watching someone’s performance on stage and didn’t notice him walking over and standing next to you. Someone clearing their throat catches your attention. “You know, you shouldn’t be doing that. It messes with your voice,” you say, not realizing who you were speaking to.

“But I’m not singing,” he says. You turn and finally notice who’s next to you. 

“Aaron?” You ask, mouth open in shock. You didn’t think he’d willingly talk to you after you tried distancing yourself from him. 

“Did I do something to you? Did I cross a line during that one rehearsal? If I did something, please tell me. I can’t have you ignoring me like this, especially not when I feel- nevermind,” he murmurs, all of it coming out at once.

“You didn’t do anything. It was just me being stupid,” you mutter, rubbing your temples in embarrassment.

“Whatever it was, it probably wasn’t stupid. I’m sure you had a good reason,” he says, trying to get through to you. You shake your head, but you can’t. He takes your face in his hands and looks you in the eye. 

“It was stupid. It was so so stupid. I thought that distancing myself from you would help me figure out whether or not I should confess to you and it didn’t work at all and now I’m just left with all these feelings for you and I don’t know what to do,” you blurt out, immediately covering your mouth. You’re shocked that all these words exit your mouth, especially since you were so terrified of confessing to him in the first place. Aaron lets out a deep breath and hugs you tightly. 

“You know, you could’ve just told me. I don’t just act this way with anyone. I really do care for you. I have feelings for you as well,” he whispers into your ear. “Can I kiss you?” He asks, pulling away from the hug. You nod and wrap your arms around his neck and he places his hands on your waist. The two of you pull away from each other just before you’re called to the stage. “Good luck out there. Not that you’ll need it,” he says, smirking at you. He pats your head and quickly fixes your hair before the two of you walk out. 

“I could say the same to you,” you whisper to him in the wings. He smiles at you and then takes his seat on the piano bench and you take yours by the microphone. The performance goes well.

—

The two of you have a fit of laughter as you both make your way to the parking lot. “I hate these heels,” you say, giggling as you take them off and go barefoot on the concrete. You let out a shriek when Aaron picks you up.

“What? You said you hate your heels, so I just gave you a solution. I can’t have my pretty little girlfriend walking barefoot in the school parking lot. Who knows what you’ll get from walking here?” He jokes, and you let more giggles escape. 

“So that’s what I am, huh? Your girlfriend? And you think I’m pretty?” You ask, laughing as he pretends to think. 

“Mhm, and I think you’re very pretty,” he says, chuckling at you. He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear, and pecks you on the forehead, causing you to fake swoon. 

“You are the absolute worst, you know that right?” You say, mimicking his words from a while ago.

“You love me for it though,” he says, smiling at you. He puts you down when the two of you reach his car, only to open the door for you and let you in. “Where do you wanna eat?” You shrug and tell him that it didn’t matter and that he could just go through any drive-thru. After getting some fast food, the two of you headed to his house. The drive was shrouded in comfortable silence since both of you guys decided to eat in the parking lot and then drive home. The two of you agreed on having a sleepover after solo ensemble night beforehand so you two could talk about it afterwards and get food together.

Once the two of you got to his house and went through your nighttime routines, the two of you sat on his bed. “So are you sure about the whole having feelings for me too thing or…” You ask, trying to break the silence. He playfully rolls his eyes at you. “No, I just invited you to my house to spend the night because I actually hate you and want to punt you out the window while you sleep,” he says sarcastically. You laugh at his joke and embrace him. “But seriously, I do care for you. In fact, I have something to show for it.” He gets up from his spot on the bed and you follow as well, just now noticing his too short Star Wars pajama pants. He goes to his desk and you stand there awkwardly before he places a box in your hands. He notices you looking between him and the box.

“What is it?” You ask, examining the outside of the box. It was just a plain, small, shipping box - the kind you’d use for jewelry.

“Just open it,” he says, grinning and giving you his hand. You take it and let him lead you back to your spots on the bed. You open the box and find it filled with small strips of paper stapled to a larger piece. 

“What is this?” You ask, smiling as you read the paper. You feel your face heat up and you feel flustered when you read the bottom panel of the box. It read: ‘songs that remind me of you and why”. “Shut up,” you say, covering your mouth with your hand. “You did not.”

“I did,” he says, laughing at your reaction. “Go through the songs.” You do, and you notice that they’re all songs that would play during the time the two of you spent together. From discussions about Laufey to trying to get him to scream Taylor swift to arguing about composers, they were all there. You gently shut the box and wrap him in the tightest hug that you could. You quickly break away to give him a peck on the lips, and he decides to deepen it. You finally pull away from him, slightly out of breath and trying to get air back into your lungs.

“When did you make this?” You ask him. 

“Around when you were keeping your distance. We had this poetry assignment and I was inspired by it,” he says. “I wanted to preserve all our memories together. After all, I know that music means just as much to you as it does to me and I wanted something that would remind me of that.” You nod at his words. 

“I’m glad we’re able to share that then,” you murmur. You wish that you were able to hear the rest of his words, but sleep was catching up to you and you quickly knocked out. He didn’t mind though. The two of you had so much more time to discuss these things in the future.

[aaronpaceluvbot]

the bcb boys as your bus buddy!

before you read: not proofread, reader is not cadence, gender neutral reader, when reading this - the boy in question probably already has a thing for you, i doubt they'd act this way if they didn’t , SOME CAN BE READ PLATONICALLY (i wrote garth as a platonic thing), the boys are listed in alphabetical order!! 

included: aaron + all the boys with routes

wc: 150-300  ish for each boy (except aaron his is 442 to be exact) (you can tell when i start losing steam,  i wrote this in order…) 

summary: your friend decided to sit with her boyfriend! so you’re left to sit with someone else… your options are limited (it’s not like you have like 8 boys who’d gladly kick someone out of their seat to sit with you…) and you decide to sit with…

AARON - 

You gather your things (and your bundle of nerves) as you walk up to Aaron’s seat. No one’s sitting next to him. Perfect. He looks up at you as you stand at the edge of his seat. “Can I sit with you?” You ask sheepishly, waiting to be hit with a cold, hard no. To your surprise, he nods and moves his belongings. You give him a quiet thanks that he reciprocates just as quietly. 

By the time he talks to you, the bus has already started moving. “Were you scared of sitting alone?” He asks, a sly smile on his face. You thought he wouldn’t say anything snarky… You decide to give him a taste of his own medicine.

“Yeah… that sort of thing. You know, I just can’t handle being alone,” you say, looking at him and batting your lashes with a fake pout on your face. You tried your best to conceal the fact that he made you flustered. He rolls his eyes and a small chuckle escapes him as he revels in your antics. 

“Sure you can’t… So you just had to sit with me?” He asks and scoots closer to you. Goddamn you Aaron Pace. You immediately feel your face heat up as he does that. He notices your reaction and his smirk becomes even more prominent. “What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?” He questions, looking you straight in the eye. You shake your head, knowing that you’d embarrassingly sputter out an answer if you were to actually speak. “Words please,” he says, egging you on. 

“Fine. Nothing. I just sat here because there was no one else to sit with. There, happy?” You say, making sure to give him the dirtiest of looks. 

“Very,” he says, chuckling afterwards. “After all, with you around, I guess I can’t handle being alone as well.” You laugh at his comment and let him wrap his arm around you and you rest your head on his shoulder. Shortly after, you fell asleep to the sound of him humming along to the songs he was listening to through his headphones. After not noticing much movement from you other than your breathing, he tries his best to look at you without jolting you. After figuring out that he couldn’t do that, he opens his camera on his phone and takes a look. When he realizes that you’re asleep, he takes a picture of the two of you to tease you with later (and to admire but no one had to know that) and quickly falls asleep himself. There are now multiple blackmail photos of the two of you sleeping circulating the band. 

-

CLARK - 

You internally panic as you realize that one of the only truly viable options left as a bus buddy is Clark. You had nothing against him, in fact you had a huge crush on him. However, you preferred to like him from afar and try to completely eliminate the risk of him hating you. How can someone hate a person they don’t know? 

After realizing that you either had to sit next to Drum or Drummer (you never could tell them apart) or Clark, you picked the obvious option. “Clark, do you mind if I sit with you?” You ask, trying to be as polite as possible so he wouldn’t decline and then subject you to the torture of sitting next to one of Them for a few hours. 

“Not at all,” he says, moving his clarinet case with ease. You never noticed how nice it was despite knowing that he’s had it for a while. You want to comment on it, but you decide against it due to the fact that you thought it would sound weird and bring you to the top of Clark’s hate list. However, he noticed that you were staring at it. “Is there something wrong with my clarinet case?” He asks, raising an eyebrow. You immediately shake your head.

“No, no! I was just shocked at how nice it was, especially since I’ve only really seen the school’s clarinet cases,” you say, embarrassed that you got caught staring. He lets out a laugh. That’s the first time you’ve ever heard him laugh!

“Well, I’m glad that you know how to appreciate true beauty when you see it. If you’d like, I could tell you more about the clarinet inside.” You instantly nod and bask in his presence. His passion shone through his description and knowledge of his clarinet and when he told you the story of how he obtained it, you couldn’t help but want to congratulate him on how far he was able to come. 

-

DOUG - 

You made a beeline to Doug’s seat after hearing the information. He wouldn’t say no to you, right? You stand at the edge of his seat and ask the question - “Can I sit with you?” He nods, but doesn’t move his stuff. You’re confused. Scratch that, you’re both confused. He’s confused as to why you’re not sitting down and you’re confused as to why he hasn’t moved his stuff. To break the awkward silence, you gently and quickly tell him to move his stuff so you could sit. 

He hits you with the age old “Ohhh”. You both laugh as you take the spot next to him. You’ve had a crush on him for the longest time and you knew this was the perfect opportunity to talk to him, but you didn’t know what to talk about. Luckily, Doug had that covered. Well, mostly. He began talking, but you could tell it wasn’t to you. It seemed as though he was talking to himself, but he kept pausing as if he was giving someone else time to respond. You shrug and let him do his thing until he asks you something. “Why’d you want to be bus buddies with me? Everyone else says that I talk too much during the trip which makes it harder for them to sleep,” he says, waiting for your response.

Now’s your moment! You decide to be honest with Doug, after all, he’s not gonna tear you apart if you’re honest. “I wanted to sit with you because you’re fun to be around! You’re hilarious and so kind,” you say, giving him a smile. He beams back at you. 

“Wow, really?” He says in surprise, and you nod. “I didn’t know that fun could be around you! I can’t believe I can make that happen. That has to be some kind of superpower!” You laugh and shake your head.

“No Doug, I mean that you make things fun and that makes people want to hang out with you.” He lets out another “Ohhh” and nods in understanding. He then wraps you in a bone crushing hug and you have a hard time breathing. “Doug… I can’t breathe…” you say. “Oh!” He says, loosening his grip on you. 

-

GARTH - 

After noticing your conundrum, Garth flags you over. You wander over to his seat with a confused look on your face. “Did I do something?” You ask him, tilting your head. He shakes his head and smiles at you.

“No, not at all. I just wanted to invite you to sit with me,” he says, gesturing to the empty seat next to him. He already cleared his stuff from it!

“Oh! Alrighty then!” You say, grinning as you sit next to him. This is the moment that you realize just how skilled Garth is at talking to people. While he did open with some pleasant small talk about the weather and the weekend, the two of you eventually got to the point where you were both discussing some deep secrets and gossip. The bus ride ended sooner than the both of you would’ve liked, but you both agree to text each other more when similar issues arise. 

-

PETER - 

He can’t be that bad, right? You ask yourself as you make the trek to his seat. Surprisingly, the seat next to him isn’t claimed already. He notices you standing by his seat, clearly debating on whether or not you were going to ask. “You can sit with me, you know. I wouldn’t mind,” he says, smirking as he patted the spot next to him. You roll your eyes at him and cross your arms, despite the fact that he immediately knew what you were going to ask. 

“I wasn’t even going to ask that!” You say, sighing at his attempt to be smooth. “But you were!” He says, giving you a look.

“Was not!” You say, still standing in the aisle. The bus driver makes an announcement telling you to sit down so he could start driving. You sigh and finally take the spot next to Peter and he looks at you with a victorious smirk. “You are the absolute worst,” you mutter as you give him the dirtiest look you can muster.

“It’s not my fault that you just wanted to sit with me that badly! I knew my charm would get to you eventually,” he says, smirking. Once again, you roll your eyes at him and this time he notices. “Careful, we don’t want you getting your eyes stuck there!”

“What if I do? Maybe then I wouldn’t be able to see your horrible face,” you say, giving him a look. Sometimes you questioned why you liked him. This was definitely one of those times.

After his horrendous attempt to try and fluster you, he was actually quite pleasant to talk to. The two of you thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the trip as you both talked about both the most mundane things and the most serious things. 

-

POPTART - 

It was as if a lightbulb shone brightly over your head as you got the idea. SItting next to Poptart would be a great idea! You had the biggest crush on the boy and you thought that sitting next to him would be able to help you talk to him. You went to his seat and asked “Can I sit here?’”. He turns his head to look at you, but he doesn’t respond. You stare at him and he stares right back at you. After a painful 2 minute long staring contest, he blinks and then nods. You mumble a quick thanks and take the spot next to him. 

“Normally people would leave once I started staring at them, but you didn’t! That means you really must’ve wanted to sit with me!” He says, grinning. You laugh awkwardly at his comment. “Don’t worry, that was meant to be weird!” He says, bringing a finger to his lips in a shushing motion. This time, you just laugh at his antics.

“How do you come up with this stuff?” You ask, smiling at him. He shrugs.

“I just do.” You leave it at that. The two of you enjoy the bus ride home and you feel glad that you were able to get closer to him. 

-

SAMUEL - 

You decided that Samuel would be the best option considering that one - he’d probably let you sit with him and two - the two of you would most likely be minding your own business. You wander over to his seat and ask him the age old question, but he seemed to have his earbuds in. After noticing your presence, he takes out an earbud and asks you to repeat your question. You do, and he murmurs what seems to be a yes. You take it as a yes due to the sole fact that he nodded while saying so, and you take the spot next to him. 

The ride was peaceful and silent between the two of you for the most part. That was until he offered you an earbud. You graciously took it and listened to his music that mostly consisted of jazz and other relaxing instrumentals. You quickly fell asleep on his shoulder and he didn’t even want to try and move you. Instead, he placed his head on top of yours and decided to fall asleep as well.

-

TOM - 

You make the easy choice of sitting with Tom! After all, he’d be easy to talk to plus he was hilarious. You toddle over to his seat and see that no one was sitting next to him. Perfect! He notices you standing and gives you a smile. “So what brings you here?” He asks you.

“Just wanted to ask if there were any free seats around here…” You say, pausing for dramatic effect. You point out the spot next to his. “Looks like there’s one right here! Mind if I take it?”

“Not at all!” You both laugh as you take a seat. You both excitedly chatted about band and other topics, however it was a later trip back to school and you checked your phone. It was about 11pm. It wasn’t terribly late, however you were extremely tired from earlier in the day and you felt like you were about to crash. However, you just couldn’t fall asleep. You felt your head hit Tom’s shoulder and you felt your lips open and make sounds that you could only assume were words, but you weren’t registering exactly what it was that you were saying.

But Tom was wide awake through this whole thing, especially since he was extremely used to staying up late and binging video games. He let you rest your head on your shoulder and only assumed that it was because the bus took a sharp turn, but then you started mumbling things. He asked you what you were saying, but you kept mumbling. He listened closely to your words and realized what you were saying. You were confessing your feelings for him. He grinned as he realized that you reciprocated them and decided that this could be dealt with tomorrow when you were both wide awake and ready to talk about it. For now, he would just let you be and rest his head atop yours. 

[aaronpaceluvbot]

i was really hoping that he will come through (aaron x reader)

summary: in which girl talk ensues, but a certain someone hears it. 

before you read: NOT PROOFREAD, reader is fem (participates in girl talk and uses she/her pronouns), non realistic head injury, aaron probably already has a thing for reader/cares for reader because i dont think he’d act this way if he didn’t 

warnings: reader slams her head into a table out of embarrassment. ouch. possibly concussed? 

wc: 1k

—

You sat at a table with Felicity, Susie and Cadence participating in one of the most amazing pastimes of all time. Girl talk. Felicity and Susie were mostly talking about their relationships, but you and Cadence didn’t really mind it and just chose to listen. However, Felicity decided to finally ask you a question. “So, are you seeing anyone? Talking to anyone?” She asks, clearly curious. 

“Not really,” you say, shrugging. “I just haven’t really thought about it.” 

“Does anyone here catch your eye? I mean a lot of people do. Like Clark or Samuel or even Doug!” She says, folding her hands. “So who is it? There has to be someone. You’re way too pretty to not have someone in mind!” 

“Well I mean, there is one,” you mumble, hoping she doesn’t hear you. She does and she squeals.

“OH. MY. GOD. WHO?” She practically shrieks. “Is it Aaron? It’s so Aaron isn’t it?” You nod, surprised at her accuracy. “You two would be SO cute together!” You don’t know how to respond, so you just nod again. Felicity goes on and on about a plan to get the two of you together, but Susie and Cadence both have grave expressions on their faces. You just think they’re being dramatic but then you twist in your chair to crack your back and then you’re hit with a horrifying realization. Aaron is sitting at the table right next to you. Felicity is extremely loud. Dear lord. You slam your head into the table feeling nothing but embarrassment. Shockingly, you hit your head hard enough to black out. 

—

You wake up in the infirmary with the bright lights shining in your eyes. “Can you turn that off?” You ask particularly no one. You sit up in your little cot and look around and come face to face with the realization that none of your friends are there with you. Were you out for that long? You decide to go back to sleep.

—

This time, you’re woken up by people talking. Talking isn’t the right word to use. More so, furious discussion. You decide to pretend to sleep and listen in. A voice that you can recognize as Felicity’s is fighting with what seemed like a guy’s voice. You continue to listen, trying to identify who it is. “Just stay with her, please? She likes you and it’d be really nice of you if you did-” You hear her plead. It was nice that she was trying to do this, but this was a  horrible way of executing it.

“I’m not gonna stay with her just because you’re telling me to. I’m gonna stay with her because I care. What are you not getting? Just go,” you hear the guy’s voice say. Maybe you’re that out of it, but it sounds a lot like Aaron’s voice. You want to open your eyes to get a peek, but then decide against it.You hear Felicity huff out a response and storm off, but you can assume that she’s pleased that he’s staying with you. You hear the shuffling of a chair and you hear him let out a sigh. 

You decide that now is the perfect time to open your eyes and sit up. There he is in all his glory - the man of the hour, the number one opp. You both make awkward eye contact. All you can muster out is a small ‘hi’ and he says it back. More awkward silence ensues. 

“How are you feeling?” He asks. You almost want to think that he has a concerned look on his face for you, but maybe you were imagining things. 

“Fine. I just can’t deal with the lights, you know?” He nods and instantly gets up to turn them off but the call of his name stops him in his tracks. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” you tell him, trying to get him to sit back down. 

“Are you sure it’s fine? Because you have a huge bump on your head,” he says, almost looking amused.

“I mean I feel fine,” you mutter, looking away from him.

“Well if you need anything, I’ll be here.”

“Actually, I think I do need something.” He perks up immediately. “I just want to know why you’re staying here? I would’ve thought one of the girls would stay with me,” you murmur, playing dumb. He wouldn’t suspect you, right?

“Is it so wrong to want to help someone who’s injured? If you want me to leave I can leave-” He says, getting up and pushing his chair in. He’s almost by the door when you stop him.

“No! That’s not what I meant at all! I just found it odd since you know what happened during lunch-”

“Where you hit your head? I know all about that-”

“I’m not talking about that! I’m talking about how Felicity said that I liked you and you were nearby so you probably heard since she said that really loudly-”

“Well, do you?”

“Yes! But that’s a topic for another day!” You say, sighing and throwing your hands up in the air. You go red at the realization of what you just said. “I want to lock myself in my room and never come out again.” He merely lets out a chuckle.

“Well good for you then, because I also happen to like you.”

“You’re joking. Oh my god do not mess with me right now,” you say, embarrassed. 

“I’m not. If I was, I would’ve said this way earlier and left you.” Oh. 

“Does that mean that you would kiss my injury better?” You ask, finally regaining confidence. Now he goes red and sighs.

“Why are you so bold now? You’re probably concussed,” he says, sighing and grabbing your hand. He intertwines your fingers and softly thumbs at the skin. 

“I’m great! Probably!” You say, trying to defend yourself. You’d rather die than admit to getting concussed by table. 

“Sure then,” he says, laughing at your antics and squeezing your hand once more. The two of you eventually fall asleep like that, hand in hand. 

[aaronpaceluvbot]

beige flag (aaron x reader)

summary: in which aaron isn’t a fan of a particular food and you are very curious as to why (tldr - aaron’s beige flag is that he has to eat ravioli with his eyes closed/just not look at it at all) ** you feed him the ravioli. awww

before you read: not proofread, references throwing up, lowkey a crack fic? , it isn’t said that you and aaron are together, it’s implied that you guys are dating or situationship (did i use it right) ??, but it could def be interpreted as two very close friends flirting. this started out as a crack fic. I don’t think it ends as one. 

wc: 1.3k 

the dreaded day had come. the cafeteria was only serving ravioli and other horrifying variations of it. a shiver went down his spine as he assessed the other options. gluten free ravioli? hell no, that was probably worse than the normal kind… seafood ravioli? maybe not… his eyes wandered and eventually settled on ravioli with just meat. that should be fine, right? 

he lets out a sigh and puts a few on his plate, being careful not to make it gross. after all, he would have to eat it… he sees you patiently waiting for him at a table, already starting to eat your food as you wave him down with a mouthful of ravioli. as much as he adored you, ew. he’d always wonder how you willingly ate the food with your eyes wide open. 

he toddles over to the table where you sat alone and you could immediately tell that something was wrong. “hey, could we maybe eat outside? i don’t feel like eating in here,” he says, giving you a look that you couldn’t say no to. you nod and grab your things and follow him out to a quieter, secluded spot. 

“what’s up? did you have something you wanted to talk about?” you ask, enjoying your ravioli. aaron refuses to look in your direction, which is suspicious.

“no, i just didn’t want to eat inside, especially with some people acting like pigs with their food.” 

“huh… you’ve never had an issue with that before, have you?” you ask, raising an eyebrow as he tries to come up with a reasonable explanation. he couldn’t just tell you that he could only eat ravioli if he didn’t look at it because it looked weird and gross and scary! 

“no, no. i haven’t. i just think today’s an off day, you know?” you nod in understanding, continuing to enjoy the food. it was actually pretty good, considering that you guys were in the middle of nowhere and the food just seemed to spawn in. aaron continues to stare at everything but you, except his ravioli? 

“are you gonna eat? because your food’s gonna get cold soon,” you say, gesturing to the food on his plate. 

“i mean, i will! i just, i just-“ 

“you just what?” 

“I CAN ONLY EAT RAVIOLI IF I DONT LOOK AT IT BECAUSE IT LOOKS GROSS AND WEIRD.” after announcing that, aaron continues to look away from you and your dinner and then buries his head in his hands. “it’s so stupid but every time i’ve tried to eat it and look at it, i’ve thrown up,” he says, clearly embarrassed.

“oh. my. god. that’s what it is??? you should’ve told me sooner!” you say, trying to get the boy to look at you.

“why? so you could make fun of me for it?” he asks, still wallowing in embarrassment. 

“no!! that’s not it! you could’ve just closed your eyes and i could’ve just fed you it! i mean we’re in the perfect place for it! we’re outdoors, no one’s around and no one’s gonna question it either!” you say, gesturing wildly. this catches his attention.

“so that’s your solution? i don’t see a problem with it,” he says, sliding his plate over to you. the realization about what you just said hits you and you let out a shriek.

"what if someone sees us and then misinterprets this??” you say, suddenly panicking.

“like you said, there’s no one around. they’re all too busy eating dinner. plus it’s completely innocent, we’re not doing anything horrible. just think of it as just helping someone out. there’s no shame in that.” 

“i mean, i guess i get that,” you say, sighing and wondering what you got yourself into. “now close your eyes.” he obliges and you cut up the ravioli into halves. “here comes the airplane!” you say cheerily. you couldn’t tell if that was an attempt to get back at him or just you trying to make him feel better. he turns his head and opens his eyes.

“say that again and i swear to god i will stab you with that fork.”

“oh! ok…” he closes his eyes and turns back around, mouth open and you feed him the bite. you continue doing it until the plate is empty. however that doesn’t come without a few missteps. sometimes, one of you would move and it wouldn’t quite reach him, but in the end you got there. “you’re done! there’s no more left, so all we have to do is take the plates and silverware back to the cafeteria!” you say, gathering the utensils and dishes. aaron is already standing up, doing a quick stretch that has you reeling. 

you don’t think he notices as he walks over to you and extends his arms towards you. “get up,” he says, shaking his hands a little bit. you take his hands and he pulls you up from the position you were sitting in.  he takes the plates and silverware as the two of you walk back in to the cafeteria. there’s a comfortable silence as the two of you continue onwards to the second part of your comfortable routine. 

walking hand in hand, you want to break the silence to ask him something but he beats you to it. “thank you for you know, feeding me. i was serious about the whole ‘if i eat ravioli and i see the insides i’m gonna throw up’ thing. i thought i was gonna have to suffer before evening practice,” he says, absentmindedly caressing the back of your hand with his thumb.

“i mean, it’s no big deal really. i wouldn’t have wanted you to like, starve,” you say, mirroring his actions from earlier and choosing to look at everything but him. he notices this and smirks.

“you know, i really wouldn’t mind you doing that again…” and with that, you stop walking and immediately go red.

“you can’t just say things like that!” you say, taking your hand from his, and turning away to bury your face in your hands. he doesn’t know if he finds this cute or entertaining or maybe even both. 

“but i just did,” he says, mocking your tone and letting out a laugh at your extreme reaction. he turns you around and holds you close. 

“you are the absolute worst. you know that right?” you ask, voice coming out muffled. 

“i’ve been told that,” he says, clearly still amused by your antics. “i just didn’t think it would come from you, now that hurts.” you don’t even bother to grace him with a response. you just sigh and just stay there until he untangles the two of you when you’re both ready. “but seriously, thank you. i don’t know what i’d do without you.” you don’t respond but you both know what you’re thinking. i don’t know what i’d do without you either. 

“did i ever tell you why i dislike ravioli so much?” he asks, grabbing your hand again and softly swinging it. 

“i don’t think you did, but why?” 

“when i was younger, my family and i watched this like, documentary about how frozen foods were made. and when it started talking about ravioli, it was tolerable until it showed how they made the meat and stuff and got it into the pasta and it was just gross. i think you can guess what happened next.”

“you never willingly went near ravioli again, and now throw up whenever you have to see the insides?” 

“exactly, and it’s so embarrassing-”

“stop it, it’s not embarrassing. if it makes you feel any better, it’d just be a beige flag. nothing too horrible,” you say in an attempt to comfort him. it doesn’t work as well as you thought it would because he gives you a confused look.

“what’s a beige flag?”

“a beige flag is a fact about someone that would cause you to do a double take, but isn’t that important - for example, my beige flag is that i have a very irrational fear of escalators.”

“you’re scared of escalators?” he asks, looking amused. 

“and you’re not? what if your foot got caught in one?” you quip back. he nods in understanding. the two of you continue the trek to his room in silence, not caring about what may happen next. all that really mattered to the two of you was enjoying the moment. 

[aaronpaceluvbot]

you belong with me (aaron pace x reader)

summary : aaron is sick and tired of hearing you complain about your relationship problems. he might as well fix them then, right? (i was listening to you belong with me while writing this, hence the title)

before you read: not proofread, reader is gender-neutral, they/them pronouns are used, reader is NOT cadence, reader is sensitive and scared of being alone (me. i am so sensitive). this takes place in a universe where none of the drama happens. just good old happy band camp! is supposed to be a sequel to language exchange but can be read alone, very cheesy? Possibly ooc aaron (i got excited)

wc: 1.1k

part one if you want to read

The two of you developed a routine of meeting up in his room before evening practice and sometimes after - talking about anything that came to mind. Whether that be how infuriating particular people were throughout the day or whether or not the cafeteria food was actually good that day. But today was different, Aaron could tell by the look on your face. It was a look of sadness? But nothing happened to you, at least that’s what he thought. When the two of you finally settle down and start talking, he decides to ask about the elephant in the room. “What’s up with you? You don’t look too well,” he asks, expression contorting into one of concern. You had never seen that expression from him before. You’d seen disdain, happiness, disgust, and other emotions - but never concern. 

“I’m fine,” you say, biting the corner of your cheek to keep from cracking. “I don’t know - I guess I just feel a little bit jealous of my friends or well left out even. They’re all in relationships, or at least getting to that point and they’re all so happy and I just- I want that too, you know?” You try to blink back tears, but fail, so you resort to roughly brushing them away.

“Well you don’t need a relationship to be happy,” he says, taking your hands into his. “We’ve only really talked for a little bit, but I can tell that you’re amazing and-”

“That’s not what I care about though,” you mutter. “I’m just scared of being lonely.” At this, he holds your hands tighter. You look up at him, confused at his actions. 

“You’re not going to be lonely. You have me and well, the rest of the band.”

“But that’s different! I know I’m not lonely platonically, Aaron! That’s not what I’m scared of!” You exclaim, dropping his hands and wrapping your arms around yourself. The tears that finally stopped decided to just keep pouring and become hotter, as you try to take deep breaths to calm yourself down. 

“Hey, hey. Relax, you’re ok. You’re fine,” he murmurs, clearly not wanting to stress you out any longer. 

“No I’m not,” you mumble. “And there’s not even anything I can do about it! I can’t just make someone like me that way!” 

“Well what if I told you I know what you could do about it-”

“What would you even do? Get someone to act like they like me just to appease me? It doesn’t work that way Aaron-” 

“I like you! That’s what I could do about it! That is, if you like me back,” he snaps, instantly regretting it and refusing to look you in the eye. 

“Oh my god. Aaron-” you say, your eyes widening in realization. Your hands immediately go to cover up the fact that your jaw dropped. 

“If you want to leave, leave- I understand,” he says, finally looking you in the eye again. 

“No, no. I’m staying, we need to talk through this-” you say, frazzled and gesturing with your hands wildly. 

“Why? So you can just tell me that you hate me for ruining our friendship now instead of doing it later?” He asks bitterly. 

“No! Aaron, that’s not it at all. If you’re actually serious about this, then you should know something-” You say, struggling to get the words out. 

“What is it?” He asks, eyes shining. You couldn’t tell if it was from hope or if they were going to become teary. You’d feel forever guilty if you were the cause of his tears. 

“I like you too. I was scared of you rejecting me and being lonely forever, no matter how stupid that sounds,” you say, looking away from him. What would he think? Would he shun you for how you felt? Would he kick you out of his room? Would you two never talk again and only treat these moments as fleeting memories? He wouldn’t do that, right?

“We are both so stupid,” he says, breaking the awkward silence and wrapping his arms around you in a tight hug. The two of you stayed like that for what felt like hours, but was truly only minutes. “So what do we do now?” He asks, pulling away with a confused expression. 

“Great question! I know Susie said that if this ever happened to immediately ask what are we and figure that out-” 

“You talked about this to Susie?” He asks, eyebrows raised. You gave him a confused look. 

“Yeah, why?” You question, watching him intently as he tried to think of a clever response. 

“So you’ve had a thing for me?” He asks, smirking at your look of shock at his realization. You don’t even grace him with an answer as you bury your head in your hands. This feels awfully familiar. “There, there,” he says, patting your back as you wallow in embarrassment. “How long was it?” You resisted the urge to make a that’s what she said joke out of what was meant to be a sweet moment. 

“I think since we first met? The girls would tease me for it, but I don’t think I realized until recently,” you murmur, counting the days on your fingers. You did not have enough fingers for this. “But enough about this, we can talk about it all we want later. What are we?”

Once again, a look of confusion returns to his face. “Great question.” Again, he chooses to look at everything but you. You sigh.

“I mean, I’m down if you’re down-”

“Wonderful!”

“Great!”

“Absolutely splendid!” Awkward silence quickly ensues. Though you both laugh, and he wraps his arms around you once more, quickly enveloping you into a kiss that quickly deepens. A knock on the door ruins the moment as he pulls away to get up and answer it. “What the hell,” he murmurs as he separates himself from your embrace. 

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING? YOU’RE LATE FOR EVENING PRACTICE,” a familiar voice says. Aaron turns his head to give you a look and you immediately know who’s at the door. Goddamn it Clark. While you get up to see what all the fuss is about and finally make your way to practice, Aaron says something to Clark that you don’t quite catch. Clark goes red and excuses himself, before muttering about how the two of you should just get to practice. 

“What’d you tell him?” You ask, a concerned expression appearing on your face as you face him.

“Nothing you should worry about,” he says, taking one of your hands into his as the two of you make your way there. The two of you walk to evening practice late with swollen lips and intertwined hands, which got a lot of questions from the others, but neither of you cared. You were both happy. 

a/n: erm… ALL THEY DID WAS KISS I PROMISE!! I JUST DON’T KNOW HOW TO WRITE KISS SCENES WITHOUT IT BEING CRINGY. that’s why it got a singular sentence. again it’s lowkey rushed and may need to be rewritten, but that’s a problem for tomorrow me. 

[aaronpaceluvbot]

language exchange (aaron pace x reader)

summary : based off of the post on lovebirdgames’s tumblr about how aaron is fluent in spanish. chaos ensues when he hears a certain person speaking an extremely unfamiliar language that sounds almost like spanish. (tldr: aaron hears reader speaking tagalog - the filipino language, he’s insanely confused because it sounds a little bit like spanish // reader isn’t explicitly said to be filipino…? do with that what you will … aaron also probably already has a thing for the reader??? I doubt he’d act like this if he didn’t). there are translations in the fic itself, so there isn’t a need to like scroll back and forth. i also quote the mamma mia musical like twice, i don’t think it counts as quoting it, but i do say lines from it. 

before you read- gender neutral reader, they/them pronouns are used for reader, reader is NOT cadence, i’m posting this without reading it beforehand, might be a little bit inaccurate to the timing of things ingame, VERY ABRUPT ENDING,  i have tendency to rush when writing, so erm... if i missed anything lmk!! 

wc - 1.5k

It was the first day of band camp, and you scurried off the bus to immediately call your mother and tell her about what happened on that fateful journey. Putting your phone on speaker, you click on her contact. After 3 rings, she immediately answered and greeted you. “Kumusta anak! Pano ba ikaw? Ano Nangyari Sa Trip Mo (Hi dear! How are you? What happened on your trip?)”. 

You immediately let out a sigh and fill her in on the disastrous bus ride. “Nakakainis talaga. Gusto mak sigaw. Mainit at amoy parang inodoro. Nakakatakot talaga. (It was so annoying. I want to scream. It was so hot and it smelled like a toilet. It was really scary)”, you say, words coming out at 100 miles per hour. 

“Nak, kailangang mo mak relax. Kararating mo ba lang? Kailan ba kayo dumating? (Dear, you need to relax. Did you just arrive? When did you guys arrive?).”

“Oo. Ano oras na ba? Kasi kala ko na dating kami sa alas diyes? Baka mas maaga. Yung rehearsal namin mak stastart maya maya. (Yes. What time is it now? Because I thought that we arrived at around 10. Maybe earlier. Our rehearsal is going to start soon).”

“Sige na. Mak papaalam nako. (Well go ahead, get ready. I’m going to go).” With that, your mother hung up and you were left just standing there with your phone in one hand and your instrument case in the other with your suitcases standing idly by. You turn around to get back to the lodge and unpack, but the sight of someone behind you stops you. You let out a scream. 

“Oh my god, you’re fine,” Aaron says, attempting to silence your scream so it wouldn’t attract the attention of the others. 

“Why were you listening to my private conversation with my mom? She was on speaker too!” You say, trying to relax from the scare he gave you. His deadpan facial expression breaks for a moment, with an eyebrow raising but it quickly goes back to normal. 

“I was just trying to find my way to the bathroom when you oh-so conveniently were very loudly on the phone with your mother. Clearly the bathroom wasn’t here, so I turned around to go back and keep looking. But I was very intrigued by your conversation,” he says, putting his hands up in defense. 

“But why? I doubt you’d understand it,” you say, giving him a dirty look. Why would he even eavesdrop on an innocent conversation with your mother out of all people? Nothing interesting was even said. 

“Well you’re not wrong. I didn’t understand most of it. I caught some words here and there,” he says, shrugging. 

“How? You don’t look like the type to study foreign languages for fun,” you quip back, crossing your arms. He mirrors your stance.

“I speak Spanish, dummy. A few of the words that you said were in Spanish.” 

“Oh. Well that makes sense.” “What were you speaking? Because it didn’t sound like any of the other languages that Spanish is related to,” he says, waiting for an answer. 

“Tagalog. The main dialect of the Philippines. My mother lived there all her life and she taught me it. It got colonized by Spain at one point, so that explains the Spanish,” you explain and Aaron gives a thoughtful nod. 

“I see. I do have many more questions about it though.”

“Well, ask away.” “I don’t feel like doing that right now, after all I was looking for the bathroom. But you could come by my room later to tell me more? Maybe even teach me some?” He says, putting on a smirk that you wanted to wipe off his face so badly. 

“Only if you teach me Spanish,” you respond, rolling your eyes. He lets out a dry laugh. 

“Maybe I will. Meet me after evening practice and we can walk to my room to talk about it,” he says. He walks off without saying another word. You sigh and go the other direction, ready to finally unpack, but then realize he’s going the way you need to go. oops. 

—-

Unlike the bus disaster, band camp itself goes off without a hitch and ends up going pretty well. You go to dinner and sit with Felicity and her friends, listening to her talk about some gossip involving the others in the band. “And as I was saying, he really shouldn’t have gotten with her… I mean - we all know he isn’t ready for a relationship. Well obviously we all don’t, if she’s willing to be with him,” she says, letting out a sigh and continuing to trail off. You really tried to like Felicity when she was in one of her gossiping moods, but sometimes you just weren’t in the mood to hear or care about other peoples’ lives. “So what do you think? Are you ok? Are you even listening to me?” She asks, hands beginning to gesture wildly. 

“Oh I’m fine,” you say, giving her a sheepish smile. “Just tired from band camp, that’s all.” She nods in understanding and places her hands over yours.

“I so get you, but like, are you sure it isn’t a guy? Specifically one who plays snare?” Felicity asks, a devilish smile appearing on her face. Her comment causes a couple eyebrow raises from people across the table (namely Peter and Tom).

“What about a specific guy who plays snare?” Susie asks, a similar grin showing up on her face. 

“Nothing! We just had a conversation earlier, that’s all,” you say, burying your head in your hands to save yourself from the teasing. Felicity and Susie both let out a giggle.

“Sure you did… He just ran after you and had a conversation with you that ended with him inviting you to his room just because he could,” Felicity says, smirking as the boy in question decided to make his way towards your table. How did she even know? Did she somehow get lost trying to find the bathroom too or was she that much of a snoop? 

You let out a silent scream into your hands as Cadence clears her throat. “Let’s leave them alone, I think they’ve been through enough suffering for now,” she says, reassuringly patting your shoulder.

“Thanks Cadence,” you mutter before being rudely disturbed during your session of absolute embarrassment by a certain someone. 

“Who’s been through enough suffering?” A familiar voice asks. God, why did he have to show up now out of all times? This is so inconvenient. 

“Y/n!” Tom immediately says. You raise your head from your hands and give Tom the dirtiest look you can muster. He shivers at your expression. “Um, did I say y/n? Because I didn’t! I actually meant someone else!” He says, eyes widening as your eyes bore into him.

“Well, suffering or not, they can do that with me. I need to borrow them for a little bit, if that’s alright with you guys,” Aaron says, surveying the table. No one objects as you get up to throw away your trash and escape your personal hell. 

“What’d you need me for again?” You ask once the two of you were out of earshot from the rest of them. He raises his eyebrows, but then quickly brings them back down.

“Did you forget about our conversation earlier? I was serious about it, but if you don’t want to that’s-” “Oh my god! I didn’t forget at all I promise! I thought you meant you needed me for something else!” You say, eyes widening as you try to defend yourself. 

“I’d be worried if you did because that would mean the heat would be getting to you,” he murmurs, getting closer. “I think it’d be a good idea to check though just to make sure.” He raises his hand to your forehead and you immediately feel your face heating up at his cold hand. “That’s weird, you’re really warm. You also look pretty red, maybe I could walk you back to your room and we could do this another time-” “NO! No, I’m perfectly fine. It’s just so hot here since it’s you know, summer and summer is pretty hot and I don’t want to let you down-” you sputter, trying to explain your behavior. He lets out a laugh. 

“You are so easy to fluster,” was all he could say about your measly attempt at defending yourself. You cross your arms and pout, turning away, ready to end the conversation. He grabs your arm and quickly spins you around before you can go. “Can I tell you a secret though?” He asks, with a genuine expression on his face. You nod as he clears his throat. “I just wanted an excuse to talk to you. We could still go to my room and talk about foreign languages all you want, maybe even some other stuff if you feel up to it.” 

-

He drags you away to his room and you both talk about everything but foreign languages for what feels like forever until evening practice ruins the moment, but you wouldn’t trade that short amount of time for anything else. In fact, you feel lighter after that exchange.  

[aaronpaceluvbot]

you wanting me tonight feels impossible

summary: there’s snow on the beach (it’s weird but lowkey beautiful) 

before you read: this fic can be read as any of the boys!! so if your heart wants this to be about peter, then it is! if your heart wants it to be about clark, then it is! will create more aaron content soon. not proofread, based off the taylor song, idk if snow on the beach could actually happen based on where they are, but in this fic it does. this fic lowkey does not make any sense, read at your own risk (it helps if you listen to the song while reading) - it reads kinda weirdly but that’s just me trying something new, sorry for the vague ass summary idk what to say..., i tried to make it angsty but i think i just made it confusing, erm reader can be cadence if you want

based off these specific lyrics... 

wc: 665 

—-

You wandered over to the beach while the party was in full swing, smiling and waving to a few people as you found a good spot to sit at. The day was cloudy, but it just made the temperature slightly colder, which was nice considering that there was a morning practice earlier. You know that there were people surrounding you, having fun and enjoying themselves, but you just felt alone and unnerved. You couldn’t place your finger on exactly what it was, but it was starting to become a pit in your stomach. Maybe it was your ever growing feelings for a certain boy, but you decided to ignore them. You two were great as friends, so why ruin it?

While deep in your thoughts, said boy wanders over to your little spot. He goes to tap your shoulder and you let him. You turn around to face him. “Can I sit here?” He asks and you nod. You scooch over to make room for him, only for him to sit insanely close to you. Of course he had to do that now when you were contemplating your feelings for him. You look everywhere but at him. 

The two of you sit in comfortable silence as the party goes on. You hug your knees to your chest as he tries to make small talk. You answer, but clearly your mind is wandering. As much as you’d hate to admit it, he knows - he can tell. “Penny for your thoughts?” He asks, trying not to pry. You give him a smile and a dry laugh. You laugh it off and just say that you’re tired from practice, nothing special.

Then, you both notice something. The air becomes colder and the clouds become darker. Could it be rain? No, that’s not it. Rain doesn’t make flakes like this. So that means it must be snow. But on the beach? You shake your head. It can’t be. It’s summer, you guys are at the beach for god’s sake. You catch a few flakes in your hand and examine it. It’s definitely snow. You start laughing and he does too. “This is so weird,” you murmur, suddenly entranced by the sudden snow. 

“I know,” he responds, going to grab your hand. You move it away from him. You can’t afford to lose this friendship. You think he doesn’t notice, but he does. “But it’s kind of beautiful; like something that seems impossible can still happen, you know? It still has that chance.” You nod, but you don’t process his words. However, your heart immediately does. You feel immediately sick to your stomach. Why would he say that? Is he implying what you thought he was implying? You want to run, but you feel rooted in place. 

“Yeah, yeah. Right,” you half whisper, only for him to hear. Why were feelings so complicated? His expression suddenly becomes serious.

“I have something to tell you.” You nod. “I have feelings for you.” You think your worst nightmare and your ideal dream simultaneously came true.

“No, no. You’re lying,” you murmur, clenching your fists. What couldn’t he understand? If you two got together, it might destroy your friendship. You valued it too much to just get rid of it. “You don’t. I know you don’t.”

“What are you talking about? I just said I did,” he says, confused at your reaction. He thought you liked him as well.

“No. You can’t do this.” You suddenly get that feeling again. You feel rooted in place even though you want to run far far away. You do though. You run as fast as your legs can take you, but you can hear his voice calling out for you, concerned about your actions. You stop to catch your breath. He catches up to you. You both embrace, and you start crying. He does as well. There was nothing else but the two of you, and the snow on the beach as it all came down. 

[aaronpaceluvbot]

mago (aaron pace x reader)

Title: MAGO

Summary: in which you and aaron are best friends, and he realizes things a little late (better late than never!). 

wc: 1.1k

Before you read: very loosely based off of the song mago by gfriend but not really?? but also kind of?? Also this is my warmup to get back into writing writing again! probably a little choppy and it’s not proofread so if there’s major issues lmk! gender neutral reader ?? but reader doesn’t get referred to by anything at all!

You remember when you first met aaron. The two of you were in elementary school and he sat next to you in class. Both of you were both pretty quiet kids, minding your own business and interacting with each other only when necessary. The seating arrangement was perfect for the two of you since you’d both rather focus on what you were working on than conversing with others. However, this was soon to be ruined. 

Your teacher changed the seating chart and now you were stuck next to kids that you didn’t know and quite frankly, stressed you out. They were loud and you couldn’t focus and all you could think was that you wanted Aaron back. So, during recess you approached him with an upset look on your face as you asked if he’d be willing to go with you to ask your teacher to put you two next to each other again. You were surprised when he said yes, but as it turns out - the two of you were in the same dilemma. You were both stuck next to seatmates that were for lack of better terms, not your favorite. You’d rather sit next to each other. 

After recess, the two of you made your trek back to class a little bit earlier so that you could ask your teacher about the new seating arrangement. “Ms. Smith?” You ask, peeking your head through the door. She was sitting at her desk and she made a come hither motion, so the two of you stepped into her classroom. 

“What’s wrong? Are you two in trouble? If so I’d be shocked-” She gets cut off by Aaron. 

“No… We just want to sit next to each other… We’d rather sit next to each other since it’s harder to focus with the people we sit by,” he says quickly. You’re surprised that he came up with that good of a reason that quickly. Your teacher nods.

“I see… well your grades have been a bit lower and you two have seemed to be less attentive in class, so I’ll make some changes to the seating chart for tomorrow, but for now, the two of you can sit together in the back at the half table, alright?” The two of you nod and thank her and head back to your new seats. 

When you two sat down, he was about to say something, but you beat him to it. “Here, this is for you,” you say, handing him one of your many friendship bracelets. He examines it and looks back up at you with a confused look. 

“What is this?” He asks, fidgeting with beads and sliding them around on the string.

“It’s a friendship bracelet! Since we’re friends now, right?” you ask, now afraid that he might decline. He slips it on.

“Friends.” 

—

The two of you head off to middle school, excited as can be. You both were joining band! You two were in the same class and you both branched out and met more people. You became friends with Cadence, Susie and Tom and Aaron became friends with other percussionists. Even though you both were making more friends, you still kept in contact and would talk to each other in your other classes. This stayed the same until high school, when you befriended a certain trumpet named Peter Dang. He was sweet, but he was sweet to everyone. But a friend to all, is a friend to none. He wasn’t the one that you grew up with and he certainly wasn’t the one who would be there for you all those times.

Aaron was the one who watched you run out of homecoming Junior year because Peter had the audacity to break up with you in the middle of the dance, even though you were his date. He chased after you, but not before giving Peter the dirtiest look he could muster. He found you in the parking lot, sitting on the curb by where you parked your car. When he sat next to you that night, he realized two things. He’s had a crush on you ever since you two were little kids and that you deserved a lot better than Peter. 

He let you bawl your eyes out into the fabric of his uncomfy suit as he tried to soothe you and make you feel better. “I really thought he was the one,” he heard you murmur. You shook your head and let out a dry laugh. “I guess not then.” The two of you stay like that, closer than you two had been in a while. 

“He wouldn’t be the one for you anyways. I’m pretty sure that if you asked him what color your eyes were, he wouldn’t know,” he mutters. When he realizes that you heard that, he makes a face and immediately opens his mouth to apologize. Instead of being upset, you laugh.

“I’m pretty sure he didn’t, if I’m being honest,” you say, shaking your head at yourself. “But it’s fine. At least I know you’ll always be with me. You’re such a good friend, you know that?” You ask, finally choosing to look him in the eye. Those words brought an odd pain to him. This wasn’t the first time that your friendship was referenced, but hearing it coming from you felt odd. It felt odd and it hurt that you didn’t see him as anything that could be more than friends.

“You know, this feels so silly, but a few months before I met Peter last year, I had the biggest crush on you. But I never really said anything until now because I was afraid that you’d hate me or something, but you probably wouldn’t because it’s in the past now, right?” you ramble. He internally winces. He had a chance to be with you all along? 

“I would care actually because I have a crush on you right now. I’ve had a crush on you since we were little kids,” he thinks. Your eyes go wide and he feels himself burning up. Did he say that out loud?

“Aaron,” you murmur, looking him in the eye. “Are you sure?” You ask, looking slightly upset. He nods. 

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable or anything like that-”

“No. No it’s not that. Not at all. I feel relieved actually,” you say, giving him a soft smile. “I’ve liked you since you went with me to ask our teacher to switch our seats so we could sit together. I guess I just gave up hope on you liking me back, so I decided to ignore my feelings for you.” He nods at your words and pulls you closer. 

“Is that why you dated him?” You shrug at his words. 

“Not sure. It was probably for a lot of reasons that I won’t understand later on, but if I’m being honest there’s one thing I’ll always understand.” You leave it at that, and Aaron immediately knows what you’re referencing. 

-

[aaronpaceluvbot]

bboom bboom bboom (aaron x reader)

summary: there’s a talent show being held to raise money for the band! what are aaron and the drumline doing? DANCING! TO BBOOMBBOOM BY MOMOLAND! But they only have 8 people… so they recruit you! (drama comes after.)

before you read: not proofread, interpret reader and aaron’s relationship how you want to because it’s never explicitly said what they are , this fic can take place in the same universe as the others or not (specifically because reader is a member of colorguard and said to be a former member of the dance team). also drum and drummer are like mostly Silent during this fic. i feel like aaron is lowkey/highkey ooc in this. but i love him anyways. 

wc: 3k. (3029 to be exact). 

—

When Garth said that fundraising ideas were needed, some freshman came up with the brilliant idea of a talent show. However, there was one big problem. pretty much everyone in the band had a talent they were thinking of - playing their instrument. While that would work, it would be extremely boring to sit through basically what would be a paid band concert and no one would be willing to go. However, you came up with the perfect idea - banning instruments from the talent show! You approached Garth after the meeting with it. He immediately approved! But not everyone was too happy about it. But it was already approved so that sucks for them! Though, some other dilemmas were brought to attention. 

—

A few days after the announcement was made, you were chased down by a certain bass drum player. He came to you with an upset expression on his face. “Doug?? What’s wrong?” you asked, as he took a few deep breaths. 

“The drumline wants to do something for the talent show together but we don’t know what to do! So Aaron told me to go find you and get you to help us!” he said, clearly concerned. You nod. 

“So where’s the rest of the drumline?” You ask as you follow Doug out of the music hall and into the long and winding gym hall. 

“In the dance room!” You make a face that you hope he didn’t catch. 

“Why? Are you guys dancing or something?”

“I’m not sure!” You let out a tiny sigh as the two of you finally make it up to the dance room. You open the door and are faced by the drumline sitting in a circle in deep conversation. A certain boy’s eyes meet yours. “I brought her!” Doug says triumphantly, pumping his fist. 

Aaron nods, clearly pleased. “Good job Doug!” He gestures for you to sit next to him in the circle. 

“So what’d you need me for? Doug said you guys needed help coming up with something for the talent show?” You ask, looking around the circle. All the other members looked confused.

“I thought we already came up with something,” Tanner says, looking around to make sure he was right. Everyone else agrees in some way or another. 

“Yeah I thought we were going with my idea and I thought that was why we needed y/n in the first place,” Sophie says, gesturing towards you. 

“What’d you need me for?” You ask, now confused as everyone looked at you expectantly. 

“We’ve decided that for the talent show we want to do a dance number. Sophie decided on this 9 people dance to a song called “Bboom Bboom” by a group called Momoland because apparently there aren’t a lot of easy 8 people dances out there,” Aaron says, watching your expression. “We thought you’d be able to help because you’re on guard so then you’d be good at dancing.” 

“Also because you used to be on the dance team,” Sophie mutters out, which was only heard by you and Doug somehow. You wondered how she knew that because it wasn’t something that many people in the band knew about you. 

“YOU USED TO BE ON THE DANCE TEAM?” Doug asks, clearly shocked. You nod at his comment. 

“I was on it for around 2 years and then I quit. It just wasn’t my thing anymore, but either way I’m not sure if you’d want my help in the first place-”

“We want all the help we can get! Right?” Aaron says, looking around and giving everyone a scary look. Everyone else nods and agrees. 

“Fine then, but don’t get mad at me for how I help you guys,” you say, shrugging. 

“You heard them. I’m giving full reign to y/n during this,” Aaron says as you get up from the seated position on the floor. You nod and form a bright smile on your face. 

“Luckily for you guys, I know pretty much all of Bboom Bboom and I’m gonna assume Sophie does as well?” You ask, surveying the room. Sophie nods enthusiastically. “You’ll be helping me teach it!” A dark look flashes across her face, but you choose to ignore it in favor of starting a quick warm up. You connect your phone to the speakers in the dance room and start playing something upbeat. “We’ll be warming up now! So get up and spread out!” You call out, waiting for them to follow your instructions. Surprisingly, they all do and you start warm ups. Soon after, you hear drum? drummer? begin to complain about having to stretch. You turn around to face them and see them struggling with a good old lunge. 

“Do we have to?” One of them whines. Sometimes you wondered how Aaron dealt with them.  

“It feels weird!” The other complains. You sigh, and think of a way to reprimand them, but then you have a great idea. You’re going to take a page out of Aaron’s book for this one.

“You guys can sit out stretches if you want. In fact, any of you can if you really want to. But if you pull, tear or hurt something, that’s your problem, not mine. So choose wisely between feeling a little uncomfortable and having a torn muscle,” you say, giving both of them a dirty look. They both gulp and get the message.

Once you finished up warm ups, you began to get started with teaching them the choreography. You weren’t expecting perfection at all, mainly because this just wasn’t their thing. Clearly none of them had ever stepped in a dance studio, except for probably Sophie. You still wanted to know about how she knew about your history on the dance team. After a mostly-productive practice, you call it a day and end it. You tell them when you would meet to practice for the talent show. After all, no one wants to make a fool of themself in front of their peers. However, while everyone was leaving, you asked Sophie to stay behind. She looked like a deer in headlights.

“Did I do something wrong?” She asks, clearly nervous. 

“No! Not at all. I was just curious about something. You said that you knew that I was on the dance team and that I quit. I was just wondering how you knew since I don’t really talk about it and I don’t remember you being on the dance team either,” you explain. She nods.

“I tried out last year because my sister’s on the team and we’ve always danced together, but after I heard about some horror stories from the girls there, I tried my best to mess up my audition and just do marching band instead. I always did like band better than dance if I’m being honest,” she says. “Can I go now, or?” You nod, and she quickly exits. Were you that intimidating? Probably not considering that she’s been on the receiving end of Aaron’s pranks. You’ve always found it odd how he never did prank you, but then again he didn’t really prank anyone outside of drumline. 

A voice calls you out of your deep thought. Speak of the devil. “What’s taking you so long? I’ve been waiting here for 5 minutes already!” He says. You could almost imagine him rolling his eyes and his expression immediately darkening. 

“I’m just grabbing my stuff!” You say, rushing out now. You meet Aaron by the door of the dance room and see him scrolling through his phone. 

“You ready?” He asks, pocketing his phone and grabbing his car keys. 

“Mhm! I just had to get my stuff and ask Sophie something!” You say enthusiastically as you follow him into the parking lot. He raises his eyebrows and makes a face.

“Oh? What’d you have to ask her? Was she causing trouble? I could prank her for you-”

“It’s nothing! I was just curious about how she knew about my whole dance team thing. I think like 3 people in the band know. Well obviously more now, but you know?” You say. Aaron nods as you continue rambling. He knew the story and he was there for most of it when it happened. The two of you reach his car and you get it in on the passenger side. He always kept his car tidy which was to be expected, but was still nice. “How’d I do?” You ask as he pulls out of his parking spot. Since it was after dismissal time, the parking lot was basically empty except for the people staying for extracurriculars. 

“Hm?” He asks, keeping his eyes on the road.

“I mean like, how’d I do with the whole dance thing today?”

“You were fine. I expected you to be a lot worse,” he says with his classic deadpan expression. You sigh. Were you really that out of practice? He notices your sigh and he laughs. “I’m just messing with you! You did great.”

“Are you sure? I feel like I was too mean,” you say, fidgeting with your hands and looking out the window. 

“Nah. You could’ve been worse. I thought you were the right amount of strict,” he says, finally giving you a look. It was a genuine one this time.

“Was the dance too hard? It’s pretty easy, but we could always make it easier since some of you guys were struggling a little bit or Sophie and I could teach it slower since I know we both went pretty fast since we both already knew it-”

“It was fine, all it needs is some practice. Plus a little mess up or two isn’t the end of the world. It’ll be funny since the talent show isn’t too serious. I just think you need to relax a little bit,” he says, taking a hand off the wheel and placing it on top of yours. “Don’t stress yourself out about things you can’t control.” You nod at his words. The rest of the drive consisted of silence and Aaron’s playlist. 

The two of you finally arrive at his house to work on a project that you two had been putting off because of marching band and other commitments. It was a simple research project that had to be presented in front of the class. It wasn’t too difficult, but something was distracting you. Maybe it was all the things that happened today, maybe it was the fact that you finally set foot in the dance room after practically being banished from it or maybe it was the fact that the boy next to you was only giving you silence. Either way, something was getting to you. You brush it off in favor of focusing on the project. It could be dealt with another day if it was truly that important. 

—

Another day, another talent show rehearsal. Slowly but surely, there was less and less time until the talent show so that meant some logistics had to be discussed. First off was the age old question of what would everyone wear during the performance. However, this caused some dissent within the group. “I refuse to wear green!” Drum or Drummer complained. The other one agreed. Aaron was clearly not having it and let out a deep sigh. 

“Just wear it. You’ll only have it on for 5 minutes max,” Aaron says, expression darkening. Drum and/or Drummer decided to shut up. They both nod and agree. 

“Great! So now that’s settled, let’s do a run through! However, I will not be dancing in it and will just be watching you guys!” You say, sitting by the mirror in the dance room. Most of the drumline got nervous since you were who they’d watch for the choreography, but you were mostly just curious about their progress. “Sophie, get down here too! I think you should see your hard work as well!” She nods and takes the spot next to you. The boys get into their starting positions as you grab your phone and start the music. It goes off without a hitch! While there were some slip ups here and there, it was actually kind of good! You both applaud and go to join them! You’re definitely ready for the talent show. Afterwards, you and Aaron walk to his car in silence. He gives you a look as the two of you get in. 

“What’s up?” You ask, confused.

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” he says, starting the car and pulling out of the parking lot.

“Are you sure? You were giving me a look and everything,” you say. He clearly wasn’t listening to you since he turned his music up louder. “Seriously, is everything fine?” He shakes his head. You’ve never seen him like this before. It was almost as if he was upset? Panicky? Nervous? 

“I heard a rumor involving you going around, and it just doesn’t sit right with me.” You give him a look to urge him to keep going. 

“Who’d you hear it from? What’d they say?” You ask, eyebrows knit together as you tried to think. You didn’t really have many enemies. Sure a few people disliked you, but not enough to spread a rumor like that. 

“I don’t know who started it, but Sophie told me about it the other day. So please just take my word and ignore people, even if they are saying things.” You nod as he continues driving.

–

That incident was odd to say the least. This may have been what you were distracted by the other day. Aaron would walk you to class and keep you out of sight from the prying eyes and the hushed whispers coming from everyone else. You were sick and tired of whatever was going on. You couldn’t even find out what people were saying. On the way home with Aaron the night before the talent show, you snapped. “What exactly is going on?” You ask him. He doesn’t reply. “With me and the whole rumor thing. What is it? What are they saying?” You question him.

“Nothing that isn’t going to make your worrying even worse. You’re already stressed about the talent show, focus on that. I can tell you about the rumors when we’re done,” was all he said. You sigh. Well obviously you want to know even more now. 

–

It was finally the night of the talent show, and after successfully performing, Aaron pulled you aside. “What’s up?” You asked, clearly confused. You finally finished performing and you did it well. He lets out a sigh at your question and holds your face in his hands. The two of you stay that way in the wings, as you hear the distant sounds of Poptart and Alex’s magic act.

“You know that whole rumor thing? And how I wouldn’t tell you what it was and I kept you from finding out about it?” You nod. He continues, “Sophie heard from her sister that a couple girls from the dance team wanted to sabotage you before the talent show. Something about how if you wanted to dance that badly, you should’ve stayed on the team or something.” You let out a snort that eventually turned into a stream of laughter. Aaron was clearly confused. “Are you not worried that they’ll do something to you or-”

You wiped away a tear from laughter as you tried to respond. “No I’m not! To put it lightly, I think they’re just bitter about a bunch of people quitting so they’re making empty threats to cope with it,” you say, clasping your hands with his. “I’m going to be fine. We’re going to be fine,” you say, smiling.

“EW! YOU TWO NEED TO GET A ROOM!” Alex says as he and Poptart walk into the wings. You and Aaron give the kid a look. “This is why your pigeon pooped on you during your magic act,” Aaron says as Alex goes bright red.

“No it didn’t! It just left me a little gift!” Alex says, trying to defend himself. Poptart sighs as he leaves and lets the boy try to sputter out a response. He runs after him when he notices that he isn’t going to get out of this one. Once he’s gone, you and Aaron give each other a look and immediately begin laughing. 

“Did his pigeon really poop on him?” You ask, tears in your eyes forming once more. He nods.

“I didn’t see it, but I definitely heard him go ‘Noooo! Why’d you poop on me! How am I gonna get this out of my hair!’” He says, mimicking the younger boy’s voice. You both laugh.

“Wanna get ice cream after this? It’ll be my treat since I made you worry so much about me,” you say with a smile on your face. He murmurs something that sounds a lot like a yes. 

–

The two of you enter the ice cream shop with matching smiles on your faces as you both order. He gets coffee flavored ice cream and you get vanilla with a bunch of toppings. He lets out an amused chuckle at your excitement as you almost spill one of the many toppings on it. He wanted nothing more than to cherish this moment forever. 

“Aaron?” Your voice breaks him out of his thoughts. 

“Hm?” He hums, clearly enjoying his ice cream. 

“Thank you.”

“For what exactly?” He smirks as you playfully roll your eyes at him.

“Just being you. And worrying about me even though you really didn’t have to,” you say sheepishly. You still felt kind of embarrassed that he’d be willing to do something like that for you, but you also felt grateful that you had someone like him. He nods and opens his mouth to speak, but quickly closes it. You tilt your head, bewildered. 

“It’s nothing. I was just going to say the same thing you did,” he says, letting a smile light up his face. You didn’t really believe him and you both knew that he was keeping something to himself, but you both leave it at that. You enjoy the moment between the two of you while it lasts.