Smoke Break- Jesse Rutherford
Jesse Rutherford x fem! Reader
Word Count: 3k
Logline: On a restless world tour, a quiet photographer and Jesse Rutherford begin falling into each other’s orbit through lingering glances and late-night conversations.
Author's Note: SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG... Lmk if you guys want me to write more to this
The city was quieter than it had any right to be for a tour stop. The neon glow of the streetlights bounced off the black tour bus, casting jagged reflections across the asphalt. It was only just a few stops into the wourld tour, Jesse had already started feeling the push and pull of it. The adrenaline of the shows, the exhaustion of the travel, the blur of new cities and new faces. Some nights, he thrived on the chaos, loved the way the crowd roared like it could drown out anything else. Other nights, like this one, he felt the weight of it pressing in; the constant noise, the endless motion, the sense that he was moving but never really getting anywhere.
Jesse stepped off the bus with the same slow, deliberate rhythm he always had. Cigarette dangling between his fingers, he tilted his head back slightly, letting the smoke curl up toward the sky. This quiet was the only part of it that felt like it belonged to him.
He barely noticed the chill in the air or the faint hum of the street around him. He was lost in thought, the weight of another city pressing into his chest, music still vibrating faintly from inside the bus.
He took a slow drag, eyes half-closed, letting the smoke curl lazily toward the streetlights. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was thinking about the way she’d been around lately, always appearing in the small moments between chaos, always calm, always steady.
His thoughts were interrupted by movement; quick, distracted, entirely unaware of him. One moment, he was lost in the rhythm of the tour, the blur of cities and lights pressing in on him, the exhaustion and adrenaline mingling into something that left him both hollow and wired. The next, his mind drifted to her, Y/n. She was a part of the tour photography team. She always seemed to claim the front of the barricades, camera poised, capturing everything he did without ever needing to be noticed herself.
For the past few weeks of the tour, he hadn’t gotten close to her at all. Their worlds were separate planets—he, whisked away by managers, handlers, and the constant motion of life on the road; she, vanishing into empty corridors or quiet corners, camera in hand, disappearing just as quickly as she appeared. His only window into her was the way she framed him, her photos cropping out the chaos, leaving only him in focus. The images would appear on The Neighbourhood’s Instagram the next day, and he’d stare at them longer than he should, tracing the lines of his face through her lens, wondering how she saw him; what she chose to hold onto and what she let go.
He knew his bandmate Zach was friends with her; that’s how she’d gotten on tour. That made her… untouchable, off-limits in a way that only made her more magnetic. He couldn’t ask Zach about her, that would be inappropriate, but it didn’t stop the way he imagined her eyes on him when he was on stage, how he ached for just a fraction of that attention offstage. For those two hours under the lights, if he was lucky, she would be the only girl looking at him, the only one he wanted to see. And that thought of seeing her through the chaos was both a torment and a pulse of something dangerously sweet in his chest.
Y/n peeled away from the venue slowly, like she wasn’t quite ready to let the night end. The noise still clung to her. Voices ringing faintly in her ears as she made her way back through the parking lot toward the smaller, far less impressive tour bus she’d been calling home for the past few weeks.
Working this tour had been a gift, something she still wasn’t sure she fully deserved. Zach had pulled strings, vouched for her, and trusted her with something bigger than anything she’d done before. And it was everything she’d hoped for; access, movement, moments no one else got to see. But it didn’t come with the glamour people imagined. No private rooms, no endless luxuries... just cramped bunks, long nights, and the constant feeling of existing just outside the world the band lived in. Close enough to witness it, never quite part of it.
Still, there were parts she couldn’t shake.
Him, mostly.
She thought about the way Jesse moved on stage; effortless, magnetic, like the entire crowd bent toward him without him ever having to try. Night after night, she’d watched him from behind her camera, watching the way he’d look out into the sea of faces, mostly girls pressed against barricades, reaching for him like he was something just out of reach. She’d always wondered what he saw when he looked at them. If he saw individuals at all, or if it all blurred together into one constant, faceless devotion.
And then, sometimes she’d catch it. A glance. Not enough to be sure, not enough to claim, but just enough to make her pause. Enough to wonder if he ever noticed her the way she noticed him. Enough to wonder if there was anything behind it at all.
She adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder, exhaling as she turned behind one of the buses, cutting through the narrow space between parked vehicles and scattered equipment, and stopped.
Jesse stood just a few feet ahead, leaning slightly against the side of the bus, cigarette between his fingers, the ember glowing faintly in the dark. Smoke curled around him, slow and lazy, like he’d been there long enough to settle into the quiet.
For a second, neither of them moved.
He glanced over at her, eyes flicking up without surprise, without urgency. He didn’t say anything, just exhaled, a thin stream of smoke slipping past his lips, dissolving into the night air between them.
Y/n hadn’t expected anyone else to be out here. Especially not him.
Jesse tilted his head slightly, studying you like he was trying to place something he already knew. The cigarette rested between his fingers, ember glowing faintly as the silence stretched just a second too long.
“You’re always up front,” he said finally, voice low, casual.
She blinked, caught off guard. “That’s… kind of the job.”
“Yeah,” he murmured, glancing away for a second before looking back at Y/n.
She exhaled softly, glancing past him toward the bus, toward the quiet street. “It’s not as glamorous as it looks from up there on stage, you know.”
He let out a quiet breath, almost like a laugh, shaking his head a little. “Trust me… it’s not that glamorous from up there either.”
Y/n’s eyes flicked back to him. “Yeah?”
“Same thing every night,” he said, taking a slow drag from the cigarette. “Different city, same set, same people screaming.” There wasn’t bitterness in his voice, just something tired. Honest. He glanced at yher again, more directly this time. “You getting used to it yet?”
The question caught her off guard, like he’d stepped a little closer without actually moving. Y/n shrugged lightly. “I don’t think so.”
A faint smirk pulled at his mouth. “Yeah… you don’t really get used to it.”
Y/n let out a quiet breath. “I was wondering when that part would hit.”
“It already did,” he said, exhaling smoke into the cool air. “You just get better at pretending it hasn’t.”
The honesty of it caught her off guard, softened something in her expression. For a second, it didn’t feel like Y/n was standing across from him, just someone else stuck in the same strange loop of nights that never quite ended.
“Guess we’re both still pretending then,” she said quietly.
Jesse’s gaze lingered on Y/n, something unreadable settling behind it. “Maybe,” he replied. A pause. Then, almost absentmindedly, he held the cigarette out slightly between her, like an unspoken offer.
Y/n hesitated before reaching for it. Her fingers brushed against his as she took it, the contact light but lingering a second too long to be accidental. It wasn’t enough to pull away from, just enough to notice.
“Thank you,” she said softly, almost absentminded. She brought it to her lips and took a slow drag, exhaling a moment later, the smoke curling into the space between them like it belonged there now, like she did.
Jesse didn’t say anything; he just watched her. There was a subtle shift in him... something tightening, focusing. Not annoyance, not even surprise… something quieter. Sharper.
She was too casual about it. Too comfortable. Most people around him hesitated, overthought, waited for permission. But she hadn’t. She’d just taken it, like it didn’t matter who he was, like the space between them didn’t exist the way it did for everyone else. And he couldn’t decide if that was what caught his attention… or what was starting to get under his skin.
The silence stretched for a few seconds longer than it should have. Y/n didn’t seem to mind. She took another slow drag, the cigarette resting between her fingers like it belonged there, like she’d been doing this with him for longer than just a moment. The ember flared softly, casting a brief, warm glow across the curve of her lips as she inhaled.
Jesse noticed it before he meant to. The way her lips settled around the filter, unhurried. The faint sheen of her lipstick catching the light; it was subtle, but there. And when she pulled the cigarette away, it left behind the slightest mark. A soft stain on the filter of his cigarette. Something about that stuck with him more than it should have.
He found himself staring longer than he meant to, long enough that it started to feel like a mistake. Jesse’s jaw tightened just slightly. Not irritation, just something closer to restraint. Maybe that was what was getting to him.
Or maybe it was just the way her lips kept brushing the filter, leaving that faint trace behind like something he wouldn’t be able to ignore now even if he tried.
Another second passed, then Jesse stepped forward. It wasn’t sudden. It wasn’t even obvious at first. Just a slow, measured step that closed the distance between them inch by inch, like he’d decided something without saying it out loud.
Now he was close enough to notice the details he shouldn’t have been paying attention to. The faint scent of smoke clinging to her, the way her fingers held the cigarette, the quiet rhythm of her breathing.
Close enough that when she exhaled, the smoke drifted toward him, curling into the space between them before dissolving into the night air. Close enough that it didn’t feel casual anymore.
His gaze dropped for just a second—back to the cigarette, to the mark she’d left behind—before lifting to her again, steady this time, intentional in a way it hadn’t been before.
“Enjoying it?” he asked quietly.
His hand lifted before she could answer. He already decided he wasn’t going to wait for her to pass it back.
Y/n barely had time to react before his fingers were brushing near her lips as they closed around the filter. The cigarette was still between her lips, his fingers resting against it, the space between them narrowed down to something fragile.
Jesse didn’t pull away, not immediately. His fingers lingered just a second longer than necessary, close enough to feel the warmth of her breath, to notice the faint imprint of her lipstick staining the filter where her mouth had been. Now that he’d seen it, he couldn’t unsee it.
Slowly, he pulled the cigarette free.
“Zach’s the one who brought you out here, right?” Jesse was already stepping back as he said it.
Y/n felt it before she even fully registered what he’d said. It wasn’t just that he’d stepped back; it was everything that came with it. The subtle rearranging of space, the way the air between them stopped feeling dense and started feeling empty again. Like something had been quietly taken away without permission. She hadn’t realized how close he’d been until he wasn’t anymore, and now it felt obvious. Cold, even.
The warmth that had been sitting between them, the cigarette smoke, his presence, the low hum of him right there in front of her had thinned out in an instant. Like it had nowhere to stay anymore.
Zach’s the one who brought you out here, right?
His words replayed in her head, but they didn’t land cleanly. Not over the feeling of distance that had settled in so quickly it almost felt intentional. Y/n swallowed slightly, though she wasn’t sure why. Her pulse felt louder than it should have been for a conversation that was technically still happening. For something that, on paper, hadn’t actually changed. He was still standing there. Still looking at her. Still close enough that she could see the cigarette between his fingers, the faint mark of her lipstick still staining the filter.
She told herself it was nothing. Just the shift in conversation. Just him stepping back into whatever normal version of this was supposed to be. Her eyes lifted to him again.
He looked the same. Calm. Composed. Like nothing had changed at all. Like he hadn’t just been standing close enough for her to notice every detail of him a second ago—the way he’d watched her, the way he hadn’t looked away fast enough when he should have. Now there was space again, and she hated how quickly she felt the absence of him in it.
He asked me a while ago,” she added, a little more grounded now. “Said they needed someone to shoot the tour, and I guess I fit.” Her eyes lifted back to Jesse.
He was still watching her, but it wasn’t the same as before. Not leaning into her anymore. Not closing the space. Like he’d settled back into something safer without saying it out loud.
Y/n swallowed again, shifting her weight slightly. “I’ve known Zach since school,” she continued, because stopping felt worse than continuing. “He’s always been like that, dragging people into things and acting like it’s normal.” A faint, small smile pulled at her mouth. “This is definitely one of those things.”
Jesse gave a small nod at that, like he understood exactly what she meant. Like Zach doing things without thinking twice was familiar enough to him not to question. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. “That sounds like him.”
“We’ve only really ever seen each other for, what…” he paused, exhaling lightly through his nose, “…two hours a night?”
Y/n blinked at that. The way he said it made it sound strange when laid out like that. Like suddenly the distance between them wasn’t abstract anymore. Two hours, just stage light and noise and movement. Nothing else. She frowned slightly, like she was trying to place what he meant. “That’s…” she hesitated. “Yeah. That’s basically it.”
A quiet beat settled between them again, but it didn’t feel empty this time. It felt like something they were both noticing at the same time and hadn’t admitted until now.
Jesse’s gaze flicked to her briefly. “I didn’t expect you to be this quiet,” he said finally.
She let out a small, disbelieving breath, almost a laugh. “You’ve thought about what I’d be like as a person?” she asked, brows lifting slightly. “I didn’t even know you knew I existed outside of…” she gestured vaguely toward the direction of the stage, “…that.”
“What do you mean you didn’t know?” he asked, like the idea itself didn’t fully make sense to him.
Y/n tilted her head slightly. “I mean… I’m just the person standing in front of barricades taking pictures. I figured you were probably looking over the crowd, not… at anyone specific.”
Jesse let out a quiet breath, something almost like disbelief. “Oh, I knew who you were,” he said simply.
“You… what?”
He glanced at her again, more directly this time, like he was deciding there wasn’t a point in softening it. “How could I not?” he added. “You’re there every night. Front row. Same spot. Always looking up.” His eyes lingered on her for a second longer than necessary.
“And you’ve got these eyes—” he stopped briefly, like he was realizing he was about to describe her too specifically, then continued anyway, quieter now, “—like you actually take things in. Like you notice more than most people bother to.”
Y/n felt something shift in her chest at that. Because she hadn’t known that. She’d thought she was just another blur in the crowd to him. Another face behind a camera, not someone he’d been noticing. Her voice came out softer than she meant it to. “I didn’t think you could even tell who was who from up there.”
Jesse gave a faint shake of his head, almost amused.
“I can,” he said. “More than you’d think.”
He glanced down briefly at the cigarette, then back at her like the thought had already moved past it.
“I’ve seen your work too,” he added.
That caught her off guard in a different way.
“My work?”
“Yeah,” he said. “The photos. Zach shows me some of them sometimes.” A beat. “You’re good.”
Y/n blinked at him, genuinely surprised now. “You’ve seen my photos of you?”
Jesse nodded once.
“And?” she asked before she could stop herself.
That made something shift in his expression again. Not quite a smile, but something softer around the edges. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “It’s weird seeing how someone else sees you.” His eyes flicked back to hers. “Especially when it’s someone who’s been watching you the whole time.”
The words hung there for a second longer than either of them moved. And for the first time since the smoke break started, it didn’t feel like they were meeting for the first time anymore. It felt like they were just finally catching up to something that had already been happening without them saying it out loud.
