Pairing: ex!musician!Clay Barton x ex!musician!Reader
Part 1 Summary: Your night soured when your bandmate quit on you twenty minutes before the you needed to perform, but you quickly helped by an unlikely savior.
Warnings: fluff, angst if you squint really really hard, let me know if I missed any!
A/N: here you go my lovelies!! enjoy! (dividers made by @strangergraphics)
You were on in twenty minutes.
You felt electric with anxiety and excitement, how you always felt before a show. You thrived off of the adrenaline rush shows gave you, so addicting it almost felt like a drug. You could hear the crowd thrumming with anticipation and it made you feel filled with nerves. You loved this feeling.
“You ready?” You asked, turning to your bandmate.
“No. We need to talk. Out here” She nodded to the exit backstage, looking pissed.
“Is it really that important? We’re on in twenty.” You asked, slightly irritated that she chose now of all times to want to have a heart to heart.
“Yes. Now.” She grabbed your hand and dragged you towards the exit.
“Okay, okay. I’m going.” You huffed, following her out into the hallway. Out here, there were other bands psyching themselves up and going over song lyrics.
“So what do you want?” You asked your bandmate, crossing your arms.
“You what?” You shook your head, baffled.
“I quit. You got it through your head now?” She tilted her head, somehow getting more pissed than she already was.
“Seriously?” You questioned her, still in disbelief of what was happening.
“I can’t handle working with you anymore, you’re so self-centered. You didn’t even want to talk to me until I dragged you out here! I’m so sick and tired of your shit!” She ranted.
“You couldn’t have at least given me a heads up before the show? We’re the next band up!” You yelled at her, irritation crawling through your veins.
“You’re proving my point! You don’t think about anyone but yourself! Have you even stopped to think about how many times I sucked it up and suffered my way through every rehearsal and show we had together?” She pointed angrily at you.
“Wow, so you’re saying that I’ve basically been a pain in your ass this entire time and you finally have the guts to say it to my face?” You took a step towards her, your stance menacing.
“Yes! Have fun at the competition, I hope you win!” She stalked off angrily, throwing her hands up in the air.
“Oh I will! No thanks to you!” You yelled at her.
“You are so welcome!” She screamed back, slamming the door on her way out.
You were going to lose it. You wanted to scream or curse someone out but you did none of those things, you just ran a hand through your hair and sighed, trying to work this out in your head. This was nothing compared to the other things you’ve gone through. You work under pressure all the time, stress is nothing to you. Yeah. Right. You were screwed.
“Ouch.” A familiar voice said, bringing you back to the fact that there were many onlookers that just watched what just happened.
You looked over to the person, thinking it was some old hookup or something, but instead you saw a face that you used to love. Crooked smile, shaggy dark brown hair, and a look in his eye that told you he was trouble. Your ex-boyfriend. Clay. You stood there frozen, before blurting out “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Nice to see you too, princess.” He smirked at you.
“Don’t call me that.” You hissed.
“Funny, I remember when you loved when I called you that.” He remarked, obviously enjoying how irritated you were already getting.
“What are you doing here?” You repeated, gritting your teeth.
“Why is anyone else back here? I’m competing.” He gestured to the all the other bands in the hallway.
“You have got to be kidding me.” You sighed, closing your eyes and wishing away this night. Maybe when you opened your eyes everything would go back to normal.
“For once in my life, I’m not. We could do each other a favor, if you wanted.” He suggested, crushing any hope you had left that this night would get any better.
“And what favor is that?” You raised your eyebrows at him.
“It was kind of hard to miss what just happened. I could help you out here. We could use an extra guitarist.” He asked, looking almost nervous.
This was perfect. But such a bad idea. But such a good one too. This was exactly what you needed. But did you want to work with your ex? Seeing how bad your relationship ended, working together didn’t seem like the smartest option, you knew that the both of you would end up trying to beat each other over the head with your guitars by the end of it. You didn’t have any other option at the moment, and you desperately wanted this record deal.
You rolled your eyes and muttered “I’m in.”
“Really?” He blinked at you, not expecting you to say yes.
“Yes. Don’t make me regret it.”
“I would never.” He gave you his trademark crooked smile that made your heart squeeze in your chest. Deep down, you missed that smile.
“Welcome to the band.” He stuck out his hand.
“Yeah.” You shook it, hating yourself for getting into this position.
“Hey, I’m back! Who’s this?” A girl with bouncy blonde hair and killer eyeliner made her way over to the group, smiling at the two of you.
“Our new guitarist.” He slung an arm over your shoulder, instantly making you shove him away.
“Oh sweet! We needed one! Nice to meet you, I’m Kenzie.” She said, looking confused at why you two were so annoyed with each other.
“Cool.” You nodded at her.
“Don’t take her bitchy disposition as a personal thing Kenz, she’s just like this.” Clay reassured her when her smile fell slightly at your remark.
“Bitchy?” You turned to him.
“What do you want me to deny the fact?” He taunted you.
“You’re unbelievable.” You scoffed.
“Hey, could I interrupt and ask what’s going on here?” Kenzie asked, looking terribly awkward.
“We used to date.” You explained blankly.
“Ah, this makes a lot more sense now.” She nodded her head.
“Hey, you’re up next! Let’s go!” A hassled looking stagehand pointed to you and gestured backstage.
“We’re coming!” Clay said before you could respond, walking over to the backstage door.
“I don’t know what you’re performing, you do know that right?” You asked Clay.
“Yeah you do actually, it’s the songs we wrote together that one time, remember?” He tilted his head at you.
You did remember, although you really wanted to forget those times you two would sit together making up lyrics and chords, laugh at one another whenever you’d make up a stupid rhyme. You shoved away the feelings that rose within you when you remembered how things were before it all went bad, and walked backstage.
This was such a bad idea, but you’d deal with the consequences later.
Taglist: @ghostgardn @vibeswithaubrr
