temptation | george clarkey
summary; george misses his girlfriend, yn, so the sidemen bring her in during his time on 'inside'... but her visit comes at a cost.
** warnings; slight mention of sex but just some sickening fluff. **
'inside' really re-ignited my love for george, not that i didn't love him enough already, so thank you for that, sidemen. in a real funk for him so this is a little something to bring both my feels and the beauty of george on 'inside' together!
let me know what you think.
enjoy! x
“Whatever you do, just resist whatever they throw at you.”
“I mean, I don’t really think I should be taking spending advice from the one guy spending the most of our prize money in here,” George taunted playfully, a guilty look spreading across PK’s face that soon broke apart with a cheeky grin before his hands came up in a surrender, acting like the innocent man he was portraying to the cameras yet those around him could just about see right through him, “but that was the plan, my man.”
George shot a playful finger gun in PK’s direction with a wink following suit before he disappeared around the corner of the fake living room, all put together in a studio for the sake of the show, and away from the chatter and the laughter coming from the other housemates. Their conversations becoming distant, almost inaudible mumbles, as he rounded the corner to the Temptation Room and awaited the fate of his next decision. His thoughts raced through his mind because he wasn’t sure what his plan was.
He’d seen the temptation that Whitney had faced, knowing it was one she definitely couldn’t resist, and he’d seen the temptation Jason had accepted, just a day prior to his own moment in the temptation room, that had been something he was passionate about happening.
George really didn’t want to follow suit.
… or that’s what he told himself.
He told himself to be strong and to remember that whatever they were going to put before him, he could probably have once he’d left the show. He told himself to ignore what the Sidemen were about to put before him because he knew they were doing it for the content of the show. Yet he had a gut-feeling it was going to be something difficult for him not to be tempted by, and they knew what his weaknesses were, telling himself to think about how the prize pot would be worth splitting if he chose to resist, if he ever had the chance of becoming a finalist.
“Welcome to the Temptation Room, George,” Vik’s voice echoed around the empty room, catching George’s attention as his eyes dodge where the cameras were placed, looking anywhere but the lenses that were filming his every move because he knew he was going to be sussed out, “if you take a look to your left, there’s another door. Resting on top of the doorframe, above your head, is a card which has your temptation in. If you could reach for it and read it out loud.”
And he did as he was told.
“In the room before you-” George started reading but he caught a glimpse at what was next to come on the card and his words, as well as his breath, caught in his throat, “shut up, you’re joking me?”
“If you could finish what’s written on the card,” Vik warned him gently but there was a hint of a smile in the words that came through the speaker, “please, George.”
“In the room before you is your girlfriend, YN. For thirty thousand pounds of the prize money, you can spend half an hour with her. Do you accept your temptation, George?” He read from the card and he could feel his heart pumping sporadically in his chest, his hands trembling and his legs turning into jelly as he stood before the door, knowing just who was on the other side. “This is a new low, Sidemen.”
“We know you miss her, George. We’ve heard you speak of her a lot whilst you’ve been in here so it wouldn’t be so bad if you accepted it,” Vik said with a hint of mischievous and cheekiness in his tone and George groaned exasperatedly, rolling his head back and letting go of the card, completely dismissing it as it floated to the floor and landed by his feet, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes out of frustration, “she’s made it very clear to us how much she misses you, too.”
“But the final is only a couple of days away and I swore I wouldn’t take this temptation so we could keep the money. The guys back in the house, they thought I was the strongest member who wouldn’t get tempted,” he said, almost as a reminder to himself as he spoke aloud his thoughts, “but, God, I do miss her though. A whole lot. We spend almost every single day together so it’s strange for her not to be in bed when I wake up in the mornings or walking around telling me stupid jokes in the silence. Instead, we have KSI’s hollering to get us out of bed.”
There’s no response to him - part of him wanted Vik to give him some guidance but he knew that was a long shot - and he frowned.
He wanted nothing more than to accept.
When he woke up in the morning, he thought of her routine. Not that he knew the time but he checked off a list that he thought she’d have done by then; made the bed, ate her breakfast, got herself showered and dressed for the day, watched what she missed on television before she started her work day. He thought about what she might have had for lunch, what she might have been planning for dinner, who she was out and about with as she passed the time and filled the void of him not being there.
He missed her small daily updates as she informed him what she was up to. Silly pictures to accompany her tasks, updating him on how she’d bumped into Arthur unexpectedly for lunch or went out for an impromptu pint with Chris because she’d seen him out and about, expressing how she couldn’t wait to come home and have him all to herself because that feeling was always matched and he was never ashamed to tell her how he wanted to a night in with her.
When he went to bed at night, all he could think about was YN. Wondering what she was up to, whether she was asleep or scrolling through TikTok because she couldn’t drift off, knowing she would be frustrated at herself because she liked to be up early so she could plan out her day. He wondered whether she was thinking about him like he was thinking about her, wondering if he was okay like he was wondering if she was okay, wondering if she missed his cuddles and how she wanted nothing more than to be curled up by his side which was a feeling he missed a lot.
His routine had changed, not that he had much of a routine to follow, and having a YN-shaped hole in his life for that week was tough for him to deal with.
“Your radio silence makes this so much easier for me,” George grumbled sarcastically, sitting himself down on the floor and resting his back against the wall beside the door, “I don’t want to spend money because I haven’t spent a lot of money but because I haven’t spent much money in here, it almost feels like it’d be acceptable for me to go ahead and agree.”
He sighed with slight aggravation because the decision that he needed to make had the cogs in his mind working overtime.
“I’m surrounded by strangers here and as nice as they are and as great a conversation they hold, and it’s been nice getting to know them but no-one beats YN and that’s why I’m so stuck. I want some normalcy and the feeling of home, just to feel like I’m in my safe space,” George argued with himself, the back of his head colliding with the wall behind him, “I know she’s in there and I know she would say we only have two days left before we see each other and that it would be a waste this far into the week.”
“What’s your answer, George?”
“I need a moment,” he admitted and, for the first time, he looks into the camera lens and it’s evident he’s torn up over both sides of the decision that he needed to make. His eyebrows are pinched together on his browline, his cheeks are a rosy-pink colour from how heated he was making himself feel over his thoughts, his eyes full of desire to see her yet his mind was telling him a whole something different, “I think-”
He cuts himself off and there’s a smile that twitches his lips.“I think you might want to turn off the cameras because I’ve really missed her and I might not be able to hold back,” he said with cheekiness in every word that rolled off his tongue, “I want to see YN. I need to see her.”
“I accept the temptation, Sidemen,” he said with slight trepidation to the sentence; he was really about to see the one person he’d been craving to see for the last few days and he felt… nervous. Of course he felt nervous. Because he didn’t know how the rest of the house would react to him spending 30k on seeing someone he had a possibility of seeing as soon as the next elimination rolled around but, at the same time and almost blurring the lines between the two, there were excited nerves that were fluttering around his insides because it was his girlfriend he was about to see. “Let me see her, please.”
The lock of the door clicked beside him and it caught his attention from where he was still situated on the floor, a creak soon following as it opened, and he saw her trainers before he saw the rest of her. The Adidas Campus trainers that were coloured an off-white cream and a deep-green, that he always took the mickey out of because the laces were so chunky and made her feet look tiny compared to his own, were matched with baggy jeans and a white t-shirt fitted to her frame that was paired with one of his zip-up hoodies that seemed to swallow her up… yet she still looked comfortable and cosy. And seeing her face was all it took for him to feel all of his emotions flooding through him.
“Are you going to get up and hug me or what?” She wondered and he scoffed out a gentle laugh, his eyes glossing over and he refused to let his tears spill because he didn’t want to be deemed an emotional wreck all over Twitter when the show came out on Netflix, “come on, you silly billy.”
She held her hands out and he took them, without hesitation, pulling himself to his feet and wasting no time in wrapping his arms around her and holding her close to his body, her head slotting nicely underneath his chin, her arms linking around his waist as she gave him a squeeze that the both of them seemed to need in that moment. The first ounce of true happiness he’d felt in five days, the desired touch of the one person he wanted around, breathing in the scent of her perfume. His stresses from the previous few days, and the knowledge of him being on a television show that kept him away for a week, seemed to disappear and, in that moment, it was just the two of them.
In their own little bubble.
And they stood like that for a good few minutes.
Neither one of them wanted to break the silence that surrounded them as they stood together, arms wrapped around each other as they swayed from side to side in the baron room, their rhythmic breathing being the only thing that seemed to fill it.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he whispered into her ear, a tickling sensation coursing down her neck from where his facial hair brushed over her skin. In the five days he’d been unable to groom himself, it had gotten a lot longer than she was used to (not that she was complaining - if someone asked her how she felt, a complaint would be the furthest thing from what she would say, if she was being honest), sending goosebumps down her arms and a shiver down her spine, “so much.”
“I’ve definitely missed you more,” she giggled sweetly and she reluctantly pulled away from him, loosening her arms around his middle and bringing her hands to cup his cheeks in her palms, “the boys have been driving me crazy, you know? They let me stay for the week whilst you’re not there and I have no idea how you put up with them.”
“You learn to drown them out,” he said and tilted his head to the side and into the gentle touch caressing one of his cheeks, “but I’m glad you’ve had some company this week. Even if they are annoying, they mean well.”
“I think they miss you a lot, too,” she informed him, “Chris has been coming to me for advice like he would go to you for. But I don’t know if I can give good advice as someone that isn’t a bloke.”
“Anything can be better than what I tell him,” George snickered and she rolled her eyes, “seriously. You think I tell him what he should do? He goes and does the opposite of what we say, anyway.”
He wrapped his hands around her wrists, pulling them from his face and along with him as he went back to the place he was sitting when she entered the room, the both of them sliding down the wall as they sat beside each other. He bent his knees up, resting his elbows on them and stretching his forearms out, whilst YN stretched out her legs and placed her hands in her lap.
“How are you finding this whole thing?”
“Not as hard as I thought I would,” George said and YN nodded softly as he spoke, a warm smile on her lips as she listened to him tell her everything he wanted to get off his chest, “but I think I’m just struggling to feel a part of something here. Everyone has someone they can go to, like a small group, when things get a bit difficult or when something happens so I just feel like I’m stuck in the middle. I’m friends with everyone here now which I think is helping me but,” he shook his head in denial, “I don’t know how the hell I’m still here. These guys have so much more going for them than me. They’re louder than me, have more of a personality, are definitely going to be shown a lot more than me so I have no idea what the hell I’m still here for.”
“You deserve your place here,” she clarified, “you must be doing something right if you’re two days away from the final day.”
“There are moments during the elimination rounds where I wish it wouldn’t play into my favour but I can’t seem to fail on purpose. I’m so thankful to be here and grateful that the Sidemen asked me to be here but, at the same time, I want to come home. I want to be back where I feel comfortable, in my own bed and my own flat, with my idiot friends and lovely you,” he looked at her and slotted his fingers through hers, holding her hand tightly, “I want to be back with you. I hate not walking into a room and not seeing you sitting on the sofa or waking up next to you in bed and watching you sleep or hearing you sing in the shower or see you making me some breakfast in the mornings, even if it is just some scrambled eggs on toast.”
“It’s not long and we’ll be back doing those small things you love,” she reminded him and her thumb rubbed across his knuckles in a soothing manner, “I can’t wait to watch you on Netflix either. I can’t wait to tell people all over the place that my boyfriend is a Netflix star.”
“A Netflix star may be a bit of a stretch,” he laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners, “you’ve not told anyone, have you?”
“I know you and how bad you are at keeping secrets,” he teased and nudged an elbow into her side, and she rolled her eyes in response to him, “reckon I could smuggle you back in there? I don’t think they’ll notice if I sneak you in under my jumper and hide you in my bed.”
“Oh, I reckon they would,” she laughed and he groaned at her answer, rolling his head back and letting it collide softly with the wall, “I was really hoping you wouldn’t accept your temptation, you know?”
“Because it means saying goodbye to you again,” she said, turning on the spot and she sat herself upright so she was facing him, her vision looking down at her lap as her fingers played with the digits on his hands to distract her mind from thinking about the half an hour that was passing too quickly, “I hated it the first time so this one sucks even more.”
It was a night she couldn’t forget, still fresh on her mind, and she could feel the heartache so vividly. As if every time she thought about it, she was reliving that morning.
The morning started off early but slow. They woke up hours before they needed to so they could squeeze in a cuddle in bed, which soon turned into the slowest sex they could make that allowed them to drink in every single emotion in every single moment, holding each other close as if they would disappear if they let go. They showered together, they got ready together, all whilst shedding a few unwarranted tears as they prepared themselves to spend a week without any form of contact. They stretched out breakfast-time which consisted of quick goodbye sex on the counter as they waited for their food to cook and, by the time mid-morning had come by, they’d already squeezed in enough time together to feel satisfied in how they parted ways. His suitcase packed for the week and stood upright at the front door beside his shoes as well as the jacket he was going to wear for his entrance, the two of them holding each other as they whispered their goodbyes to each other.
A morning she was going to need them to relive once he was home so the memory had a positive connection.
“I needed to see you though. As much as I hate saying goodbye, too, I just needed a little boost before the end.”
“I would have done the same though,” she admitted, shrugging nonchalantly and looking up at him, “you have such a strong hold on me, George Clarke.”
“As do you, YN YLN,” he repeated in the same manner, “I couldn’t not say yes knowing you were on the other side of the door. So close to me. I wasn’t going to let the opportunity of holding you and having you next to me pass me by. Some of these guys have accepted theirs and they’ve spent so much more than me through the week. I feel it was an okay choice to make.”
“Spoilers,” she warned him, pointing an accusing finger at him before covering her ears in protest to hearing anything else that she was going to watch in the show when it aired, “don’t tell me anything else, mister.”
Before they knew it, as if no time had passed at all, it was soon time for them to say their goodbyes.
George could feel it in the pit of his stomach, heavy and twisting up into knots that made him feel sick, knowing that it was soon approaching the half an hour mark and he hated how quickly it seemed to go. And YN could feel her emotions building up, with an ache in her throat that made it hard to swallow and a feeling of dread coursing through her that made her feel tense and sad, trying not to look at him in fear that she would crumble on camera.
The door that she had entered opened again and they took that as their cue to stand back to their feet.
“What’s stopping me from walking out with you?”
“You’d be an idiot to do that,” she laughed softly, shaking her head at his bizarre proposition, “you’ve got this far so you need to see this through till the end, you donut.”
His fingers connected with hers, keeping a tight grip on her as if she would walk out that door and never be seen by him again, and his thumbs stroked across the back of her hands. She could feel the shaking of his limbs from the disdain of having to see her walk out and disappear behind the door, and it was enough to bring tears to her eyes.
“I love you,” she smiled sweetly, contradicting the tears that had threatened her eyes and had slowly started to dribble down her cheek, “forty-eight hours and you’ll be back with me.”
“It could be less,” he reminded her, bringing his hands up to wipe away the tears away from her cheeks with his thumbs, “I could see you tomorrow.”
“Be optimistic, mister. You’re going to that final,” she says, leaning up on her toes and pressing a kiss to his cheek and she allowed her lips to linger a little longer against the soft curve of his cheek, “I would give you a great big smacker on the lips but Netflix might have to change the rating of the show because I don’t think I can control myself.”
He smirked at her and he could feel the heat rising to his cheeks.
“Yeah, we best not do anything too risqué. We’ll save that for the privacy of the bedroom,” he whispered with an almost growling tone, “I love you.”
“George, YN. I’m afraid your time together is up.”
“Yes, thank you, Vikstar. You don’t need to remind us,” George grumbled to the camera and, as saddened as she was, she giggled at his attitude to the voice that echoed around the room, “I guess this is it.”
“Sadly,” she pouted and neither one of them could take their eyes off each other, “someone’s going to have to pry me away from you, I think. I can’t bring myself to step away.”
“Go on,” he mumbled dejectedly, his eyebrows pinching together, “forty-eight hours to go.”
“I’ll see you on the other side,” she grins, pulling her hands away from his at an agonisingly slow speed, “good luck. I love you.”
“I love you more,” he watches as she steps towards the door.
Deep down, she didn’t want to turn around to look at him and, truthfully, George didn’t think he could handle it if she took one last look at him; he was okay with watching the back of her as she disappeared around the door and, as it slowly closed behind her, he felt his heart plummet to the floor.
As he stepped foot back into the small bubble of Inside, he felt sad yet he seemed to find a new found excitement to finish the show. That one half an hour with her being a pick-me-up, giving him a new lease of happiness, and he was determined to finish. The quicker the time went, the sooner he’d be back with her. The laughter and distant chatter seemed to get closer as he rounded the corner and ascended up the three stairs back into the main area, poking his head around the corner and looking into the room, a timid smile on his lips.
“You didn’t get locked in the room then,” Jason teased as George fell to the sofa and slouched down into the cushions with a grumpy expression on his face, “what was it? What happened?”
“Uhm,” he coughed into his fist to clear his throat, as well as to drag out the moment for dramatic anticipation for those around him and for those who would be watching when it was released to the world, “so, they uh- they tempted me with YN.”
“Oh, no way! Your girlfriend?”
“Yeah,” George nodded, “I couldn’t resist saying no so I took it. I had to see her. I needed to see her.”
“I think I’d have done the same if it was my partner,” Milli-Jo said, sitting beside George and resting her hand on his shoulder and rubbing it soothingly, “I don’t think anyone is going to be crazy mad at you for giving in. It happened last season, it was bound to happen this season. We should have seen it coming, truthfully.”
“I think I just needed to feel a sense of home. My normal life,” he admitted, guilt soaring through his veins at how the entirety of the room was watching him as he explained his reasoning, “she gets me through a lot, always has done since I’ve known her, so there was no way I was passing the opportunity. I thought about it but,” he shrugged, “I don’t think I’d have been happy walking out of that room if I turned it down.”
