a one shot of luke finally going to one of joes shows
“five years of front row”
☆ joe keery x fem!reader ☆
another luke one because apparently i can’t stop writing this little family 😭 i wanted to do one where he’s older and actually gets to enjoy joe’s concerts instead of sleeping through half of them. thank you for reading!! <3
summary: luke has been going to his dad’s concerts since he was a baby. now at five, he knows the songs, has opinions about the setlist, and fully believes every show is partly his.
word count: 5.7K
warnings: fluff, established relationship, dad!joe, son!luke, concert setting, lots of family moments, no use of y/n
Luke had been going to Joe’s concerts for longer than he could remember.
Literally.
There were pictures of him at six months old asleep against your chest backstage, enormous protective headphones covering half his head while Joe stood beside you already dressed for the show, grinning at the camera like he’d personally invented fatherhood. You still remembered that night better than most — the way Joe had hovered over the two of you for twenty straight minutes before someone finally dragged him to the stage, checking and rechecking that the headphones weren’t too tight, that Luke wasn’t too warm, that you had water, that you had everything, as if the venue might spontaneously stop functioning the second he walked away.
There were videos from when Luke was one, bouncing wildly on your hip while you tried to keep his headphones in place. He used to grab at them constantly, offended that something was covering his ears, and you’d spent entire songs locked in a battle of wills with a one-year-old who did not care that the bass was, in fact, dangerously loud.
At two, he’d learned that pointing at the stage and yelling “Dada!” got a reaction from almost every adult around him. He’d figured out fast that it worked on strangers too — crew members, security, people three rows back — and he’d used it shamelessly, delighted every single time somebody laughed.
At three, he’d developed favorites. Not just songs. People. He decided, apparently unilaterally, that certain crew members were his and others were merely tolerated. Adam had made the cut almost immediately. It had taken Trent a little longer, mostly because Luke had been suspicious of anyone who wore sunglasses indoors.
At four, he’d started getting offended if Joe changed the setlist and left one of them out. That had been the year you’d first seen him cross his arms during a show, a full body’s worth of three-foot-tall outrage aimed at a stage he could barely see over the barricade.
And now, at five years old, Luke Keery considered himself something of a professional concertgoer.
“Mom.”
You glanced down.
Luke was standing between your knees in the dressing room, staring at himself critically in the mirror. He had his chin tilted up, turning his head slightly side to side, the exact same way you’d once caught Joe doing in a hotel bathroom mirror at two in the morning, half-asleep and still inspecting himself like the room owed him an explanation.
“What?”
“My hair.”
“What about it?”
“It’s wrong.”
You looked at his hair.
Then at Joe’s reflection in the mirror across the room.
Then back at Luke.
It was almost ridiculous how much of his father lived in that little face. The set of his jaw when he was concentrating. The way his eyebrows did that same skeptical tilt whenever something didn’t meet his standards. You used to joke that you’d contributed nothing to this child except height, and lately you weren’t sure you’d even managed that.
Luke had insisted on growing his hair out because Joe’s was long, although his version was considerably messier from spending the afternoon running through hallways, climbing onto furniture he had specifically been told not to climb onto, and repeatedly stealing snacks from the catering table. There was a smear of something orange — cracker dust, probably, or possibly a crime against the craft services table — near his ear that neither of you had noticed until just now.
“I think it looks fine.”
“It doesn’t.”
From the couch behind you, Joe looked up from his guitar, one hand still resting flat against the strings to quiet them.
“Looks good to me.”
Luke turned around, fully committing to the argument now, hands landing on his hips in a stance you recognized instantly because you’d seen Joe strike it during more than one soundcheck disagreement.
“No.”
Joe’s eyebrows lifted.
“Okay.”
“I want it like yours.”
You pressed your lips together to stop yourself from smiling.
Joe looked at you.
You looked at Joe.
There were certain situations in parenting where neither of you needed to speak. A whole language had built itself between you over five years — a look that meant he’s you, a look that meant good luck, a look that meant I am handing this entire problem directly to you and walking away.
This was one of them.
Your problem.
Joe set his guitar aside, leaning it carefully against the arm of the couch the way he always did, like the thing was made of glass instead of wood and steel.
“Come here, man.”
Luke immediately crossed the room, abandoning the argument with you the second a better option presented itself.
Joe pulled him between his knees and started fixing his hair with his fingers, pushing it around until it vaguely resembled his own. He worked slowly, thumb smoothing down a piece that kept springing back up, tongue caught briefly between his teeth in concentration. Luke watched the process through the mirror with intense concentration, occasionally reaching up to swat Joe’s hand away from a section he’d decided was already perfect.
“You know,” Joe said, “most people pay somebody to do this before a show.”
Luke frowned at his reflection.
“You don’t.”
“Sometimes I do.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I never see them.”
“That doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
Luke considered this, visibly weighing the evidence, the way he weighed most claims Joe made that sounded suspicious.
Then apparently decided it was irrelevant.
“More like yours.”
Joe glanced at you through the mirror.
“You created this.”
“Me?”
“You.”
“You’re the one with the hair.”
“And you’re the one who told him he looked handsome with it long.”
“He does.”
Luke smiled at himself, pleased, tilting his chin up another inch like he was posing for a photo nobody had asked to take.
Joe caught it immediately.
“Oh, there it is.”
Luke tried to stop smiling, mouth twitching with the effort.
“There what is?”
“That giant ego.”
“I don’t have an ego.”
“You’re five. You don’t even know what that means.”
“Yes, I do.”
“What does it mean?”
Luke went silent, eyes narrowing slightly like the question had personally wronged him.
Joe waited, arms still loosely braced around him, clearly enjoying every second of this.
You waited too, leaning your hip against the counter, already knowing this was going to be good.
Luke looked at himself in the mirror again, buying time, searching his own reflection for the correct answer as though it might be written somewhere on his face.
“It means my hair looks good.”
You laughed so suddenly you had to turn away, one hand slapping over your mouth.
Joe stared at him for a second before nodding slowly, like a man conceding a point in a debate he hadn’t expected to lose.
“Yeah. You know what? Close enough.”
Luke escaped the second Joe finished, immediately running toward the door because somebody had walked past outside and apparently everything happening in the venue required his personal supervision. He didn’t so much walk as launch himself, socked feet skidding slightly on the concrete floor.
“Hey,” you called. “Where are you going?”
“Adam!”
“You don’t even know if that was Adam.”
“It was!”
The door opened.
It was, in fact, Adam.
Luke disappeared into the hallway with him approximately three seconds later, his voice already carrying back down the hall — something about his hair, something about the show, something about whether Adam had seen the new sneakers he was wearing, which nobody had asked about but which Luke clearly considered essential information.
Joe watched the empty doorway.
“He doesn’t even say goodbye anymore.”
“He sees you every day.”
“That’s not the point.”
You turned around in your chair to look at him.
Joe was still staring toward the hallway with an expression that was far too offended for a grown man whose five-year-old had simply chosen his friend over him for five minutes. There was something almost theatrical about it, his hand pressed lightly to his chest like he’d been wounded, though underneath the performance you could see he wasn’t entirely joking.
“You know he thinks your concerts are his social events.”
“They kind of are.”
“He walked in here and immediately asked where Trent was.”
Joe leaned back against the couch, feigning deep offense.
“He likes Trent more than me.”
“He likes everyone more than you.”
“That’s insane. I’m his father.”
“You’re old news.”
Joe narrowed his eyes.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Very much.”
He reached for your hand when you walked past him.
It happened so casually that you almost kept moving.
Almost.
Joe’s fingers wrapped around yours and pulled you backward until you were standing between his knees instead, the same spot Luke had occupied a few minutes earlier, though Joe filled it considerably differently.
“You ready?” you asked.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t look nervous.”
“I am.”
“You’ve done this approximately a million times.”
“And?”
“And I don’t know. At some point I’d assume your body would realize nobody’s chasing you with a knife.”
Joe laughed quietly, his hands settling at your hips, thumbs moving in small absent circles the way they always did in these last few minutes before a show, like he needed something to do with his hands or the nervous energy would go somewhere worse.
“That’d take all the fun out of it.”
You ran your fingers through the front of his hair, fixing a piece Luke had messed up while demanding his matching hairstyle, smoothing it back into place with the kind of practiced ease that came from doing this exact thing hundreds of times before.
Joe looked up at you the whole time, watching your face instead of the mirror.
There was always something strange about these few minutes before a show.
The venue outside the room could be loud enough that you felt it through the floor. People were moving everywhere — crew shouting numbers back and forth, a radio crackling with somebody’s voice, footsteps thundering past the door every few seconds. Someone was always calling for Joe, looking for something, checking something, needing a signature or a decision or a five-second answer to a question that felt enormous to them and small to him.
But he’d gotten good at finding these tiny pockets of stillness with you.
Sometimes thirty seconds.
Sometimes five minutes.
Enough.
“You’re gonna be great,” you said.
“Yeah?”
“No. I just didn’t know what else to say.”
Joe squeezed your hip.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
He pulled you closer, forehead nearly resting against yours, close enough that you could see the small crease of focus already starting to form between his eyebrows, the one that meant part of him was already halfway to the stage even though his hands were still on you.
You smiled, resting your hands on his shoulders, feeling the tension sitting there the way it always did before a show — not fear, exactly, just the particular kind of alertness that came before doing something in front of thousands of people.
“Luke requested his song, by the way.”
“Of course he did.”
“He said I needed to remind you because last time you forgot.”
“I didn’t forget. It wasn’t on the setlist.”
“I told him that.”
“And?”
“He said you’re in charge.”
Joe stared at you.
You shrugged, entirely unbothered.
“He has a point.”
“He’s becoming difficult.”
“He’s your son.”
“Our son.”
“He gets that from you.”
Before Joe could answer, Luke came charging back through the open door, breathless, hair somehow already worse than when he’d left, one shoe untied and flapping with every step.
“Dad!”
Joe immediately looked over your shoulder, hands still on your hips but attention fully redirected.
“What?”
“They said five minutes!”
“I know.”
“Five minutes!”
“Thank you.”
Luke ran over and wedged himself directly between the two of you, small shoulder pressing insistently into the gap like he was physically dividing territory that belonged equally to him.
Joe let go of you to catch him, scooping him up with the ease of someone who’d been doing it for five years, settling him easily on one hip.
“You gonna watch?”
Luke gave him a look.
It was almost insulting.
“Yeah.”
“The whole thing?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re not gonna fall asleep?”
Luke’s mouth dropped open, genuinely scandalized.
“I don’t fall asleep!”
“You fell asleep last time.”
“No, I didn’t!”
You looked down at him, arms crossed now, playing along.
“You absolutely did.”
“I was tired.”
“That’s usually why people fall asleep,” Joe said.
Luke ignored him completely, choosing instead to address the more sympathetic party.
“I was four.”
“That was three months ago.”
“I was little.”
Joe looked at you.
You bit the inside of your cheek, trying very hard not to laugh at the sheer confidence of the deflection.
“Right,” Joe said seriously, nodding along like this was a perfectly reasonable defense. “Totally different guy now.”
Luke nodded, satisfied that the matter had been settled in his favor.
“I’m five.”
“That’s huge.”
“I know.”
Someone appeared at the doorway, clipboard in hand, not even needing to finish the sentence.
“Joe.”
Joe looked over.
“Yeah. Coming.”
And just like that, something shifted.
You’d seen it hundreds of times by now. Joe stood, rolled his shoulders back, grabbed what he needed — a water bottle, a pick he kept in the same pocket every night out of habit rather than necessity. The lazy version of him who had been sitting around arguing with a five-year-old about ego and hairstyles disappeared beneath the focused one who knew exactly where he needed to be, replaced in the span of about four seconds by someone with better posture and a different kind of stillness in his face.
Luke watched him do it.
He always did. Every single time, without fail, he went quiet for just a second, tracking the change like he was trying to figure out exactly where the line was.
Joe caught him doing it.
He crouched down, knees cracking slightly, bringing himself level with Luke’s face.
“Hey.”
Luke stepped closer.
Joe held out his fist.
“Good show?”
Luke bumped his tiny fist against his, the motion practiced and precise.
“Good show.”
It had been their thing for years.
Originally, Luke couldn’t even make a fist properly — his fingers used to curl into something closer to a limp wave, and Joe would gently reshape his hand into the right position every time, patient about it in a way he rarely was patient about anything else.
Now he did it without being asked.
Joe stood and leaned over to kiss the top of his head before turning to you.
He didn’t need the fist bump with you.
Instead, he slipped a hand around the back of your neck and kissed you quickly.
“See you out there.”
“Go.”
He kissed you once more, quick and unnecessary, the kind of kiss that existed purely because he could.
“Joe.”
“Going.”
“Dad!”
“I’m going!”
Joe finally disappeared through the door, and you could hear him laughing at something someone said in the hallway before the sound faded into the general noise of the venue.
Luke grabbed your hand.
“Come on!”
Apparently, you were late now.
By the time you reached your usual spot — a slightly elevated platform just off the side of the stage, close enough to see everything, far enough back to stay out of the way — the room had changed completely. The house lights were still up, but the energy in the crowd had already started to build, that particular hum of a few thousand people who knew the wait was almost over.
Luke’s headphones were firmly over his ears, although he’d complained the entire walk over that they messed up the hairstyle Joe had given him. You’d promised to fix it later, a promise you both already knew you’d probably forget, because within minutes the hairstyle would be the last thing on either of your minds.
The lights went down.
The crowd erupted.
Luke erupted with them, jumping in place, both fists in the air like he’d personally been waiting all day for exactly this moment. In a way, he had.
“DAD!”
You laughed.
There was absolutely no possibility Joe could hear him over a room full of screaming strangers.
Luke did not care.
“DAD!”
And then Joe walked out.
Luke’s entire face changed.
That was your favorite part.
Not because Luke was surprised to see him.
He wasn’t.
He’d watched Joe do this his entire life. He’d sat through soundchecks and rehearsals. He knew what guitars belonged to which songs. He knew which people would be standing backstage when you arrived. He knew that Dad disappeared for a while and came back sweaty and hungry afterward.
But somehow, every single time Joe stepped onto a stage, Luke looked at him like he’d never seen anything cooler in his entire life. Like the man walking out under those lights was someone new and enormous and slightly unbelievable, instead of the same person who’d been arguing with him about hair gel twenty minutes earlier.
You understood.
Five years old or not, you probably looked exactly the same.
Luke immediately started jumping.
You caught both his hands.
“Careful!”
“Mom! Dance!”
“I am dancing!”
“No, like this!”
His version involved significantly more jumping than dancing, knees bending and springing back with total disregard for rhythm, tempo, or the actual song playing.
You copied him anyway, matching his ridiculous bouncing step for step.
Luke screamed with laughter, delighted that you’d committed to it.
It took approximately half a song before he abandoned your hands and started performing alongside Joe from the safety of the side stage.
Not watching.
Performing.
Every movement was exaggerated — arms flung wide, head thrown back, an entire one-man show happening three feet from you that nobody in the actual crowd could see.
Every lyric he knew was screamed.
Every lyric he didn’t know was also screamed, except with completely invented words that occasionally, hilariously, rhymed with the actual ones.
You pulled out your phone.
Luke noticed immediately, spinning to face you with the speed of someone who had a sixth sense for exactly this.
“No!”
“What?”
“No video!”
“You love watching the videos later.”
“No!”
You lowered your phone.
“Okay, diva.”
Luke pointed at the stage, arm fully extended, the universal five-year-old gesture for this is more important than whatever you’re doing.
“Watch Dad.”
“I’ve seen Dad.”
“Mom.”
“Okay!”
You put the phone away.
Luke nodded, satisfied, immediately returning his full attention to the stage as though the interruption had never happened.
The next song started.
He recognized it before you did, head snapping up, whole body going rigid with anticipation.
His head snapped toward you.
“Mom!”
“I know.”
“This one!”
“I know!”
“My favorite!”
“Yes, Luke, I know!”
Joe knew too.
You saw it happen.
He was halfway across the stage when he glanced toward the side.
Straight toward you.
Luke was already losing his mind, both arms windmilling over his head.
Joe smiled.
Not the performance smile.
Not the one aimed out at the room, the one calibrated for cameras and phones and thousands of strangers.
That one was yours.
Yours and Luke’s.
Luke waved both arms over his head, practically vibrating.
Joe gave him the smallest wave back — just two fingers, barely a movement at all, easy to miss if you weren’t looking exactly at him.
That was enough.
“HE SAW ME!”
“Yes!”
“He saw me!”
“I saw!”
Luke grabbed your hands again.
This time, you let him drag you completely into it.
You danced with him through the entire song, spinning him once when he demanded it, catching him when he stumbled into you, both of you singing badly and loudly enough that it was probably fortunate neither of you had microphones. A few people nearby had noticed by now, smiling at the sight of the two of you, though Luke was far too absorbed to care about an audience of his own.
Halfway through, Luke climbed onto a nearby road case, scrambling up with more confidence than coordination.
You immediately grabbed his waist.
“Absolutely not.”
“But I can’t see!”
“You can see perfectly.”
“No, I can’t.”
“You are literally looking at him right now.”
“I wanna be taller.”
“Well, unfortunately, I can’t fix that tonight.”
Luke held his arms up, the universal request that had worked on you since he was old enough to make it.
“Up.”
You stared at him.
He smiled, fully aware of his own leverage.
“Luke.”
“Please?”
You lasted approximately two seconds.
Then you picked him up, hoisting him onto your hip with a small grunt you tried to hide.
He was getting too big for this.
You noticed it every time now.
His legs hung lower against you than they used to. You couldn’t carry him endlessly anymore without your arms complaining, a fact that quietly startled you every single time you registered it. Five years had somehow passed between the baby asleep against your chest in giant headphones and this little boy singing directly into your ear, elbow occasionally jabbing your collarbone in his enthusiasm.
Luke wrapped one arm around your neck.
With the other, he pointed toward Joe.
“Look!”
“I’m looking.”
Joe had moved toward your side of the stage again, guitar slung low, feet planted in that wide, familiar stance he took during the bridge of almost every song.
Luke waved.
Joe looked over.
Then, without missing a beat, he pointed at him — a quick, deliberate gesture, unmistakable even from a distance.
Luke gasped.
You felt his entire body straighten against you, spine going rigid with pure delight.
“He pointed at me!”
“He did.”
“Did you see?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see, Mom?”
“I saw!”
Luke turned back toward the stage, practically glowing.
Joe was laughing now, you could tell even from here, shoulders shaking slightly as he turned back toward the crowd.
You shook your head at him, though he wasn’t looking anymore.
Joe shrugged at nothing in particular, still grinning.
Then Luke started singing again, louder than before if that was even possible, riding the high of being seen.
You watched him for a second instead of the stage.
His little profile. His messy hair, completely undone from Joe’s careful styling now. The headphones slightly crooked over his ears. His hand keeping time against your shoulder even though he had absolutely no sense of rhythm, tapping somewhere between double-time and no time at all.
You kissed his cheek.
Luke immediately wiped it, unbothered but businesslike about it, the way he handled all affection during a performance he considered too important for distractions.
“Mom.”
“What?”
“I’m singing.”
“Sorry for disturbing you.”
Then Joe changed songs.
Luke froze mid-sway.
He looked at you, eyes wide with the beginning of betrayal.
You knew immediately.
“Oh no.”
Luke slowly turned toward the stage, as if giving Joe one more chance to redeem himself.
“He skipped it.”
“Maybe it’s later.”
“He skipped my song.”
“Luke—”
“DAD!”
You started laughing.
“Dad!”
Joe could not hear him.
“DAD, YOU FORGOT!”
People nearby were beginning to laugh too, a small ripple of amusement spreading from the strangers who’d caught on to exactly what was happening.
You covered your mouth.
“Luke, I don’t think—”
“MY SONG!”
As if the universe had decided Luke Keery’s ego needed to remain intact, Joe glanced toward you right then, maybe out of habit, maybe out of some instinct honed over five years of exactly this kind of interruption.
Luke pointed an accusing finger at him, fully committed, unwilling to let this slide.
Joe frowned from the stage, confused, mouth shaping a silent what.
Then looked at you.
You mouthed, His song.
Joe’s expression changed with recognition, eyebrows lifting.
He laughed.
Actually laughed, right into the microphone, although nobody else knew why — a burst of sound that got absorbed into the song, most of the crowd assuming it was just part of the performance.
Luke crossed his arms, entirely unimpressed by the laughter.
“He knows.”
“Oh, he knows.”
“He better do it.”
You looked at your five-year-old, still perched on your hip, arms crossed like a tiny furious executive.
“Who are you?”
Luke didn’t answer, too busy monitoring the stage for signs of compliance.
His song came two songs later.
Joe introduced it with, “This one’s apparently mandatory tonight,” and you could hear the smile in his voice even through the microphone.
Luke’s arms shot into the air.
“YES!”
You nearly folded in half laughing, nearly dropping him in the process, which only made him laugh too, the two of you a mess of noise on the side of the stage while a few thousand strangers sang along without any idea why the two of you found it so funny.
Afterward, backstage was considerably quieter.
Luke had made it through the whole show.
Technically.
He was also currently lying across a couch with his head in your lap, insisting he wasn’t tired while blinking slower every thirty seconds. His shoes had come off somewhere between the stage and here, and one sock was already missing entirely.
“You made it,” you told him.
“I told you.”
“You did.”
“Whole show.”
“Whole show.”
His eyes closed.
You smiled, brushing a piece of hair off his forehead.
“Luke?”
They opened again, slower than they had ten minutes ago.
“I’m awake.”
“Obviously.”
The door opened.
Luke sat up so quickly you nearly got hit in the chin.
Joe walked in, still slightly damp from the show, shirt sticking to his shoulders, a towel draped around his neck.
“Dad!”
There was no trace of exhaustion anymore.
Joe barely had time to put anything down before Luke launched himself off the couch.
“Whoa.”
Joe caught him, absorbing the impact with the ease of long practice, lifting him easily despite the guitar case still hanging off one shoulder.
“You did my song.”
“I did.”
“You almost forgot.”
“I didn’t almost forget.”
“You did.”
“I was building suspense.”
Luke looked suspicious, narrowing his eyes in a way that was, once again, unmistakably his father’s expression.
Joe looked at you over his head.
You shook your head.
“Don’t look at me. He spent two songs publicly criticizing your setlist.”
“Really?”
“He was furious.”
“I wasn’t furious.”
“You crossed your arms.”
Luke rested his chin on Joe’s shoulder, unbothered by the accusation.
“I thought you forgot.”
Joe’s expression softened, all the teasing draining out of it at once.
“Never.”
“You forgot last time.”
Joe paused.
“Okay, one time.”
Luke smiled, victorious.
Joe carried him over to the couch and sat beside you, keeping Luke on his lap, one hand automatically settling against his back.
Immediately, Luke started talking.
About everything.
The song.
The lights.
How Mom had danced wrong.
“I did not dance wrong.”
“You did.”
“There is no wrong way to dance.”
Luke looked at Joe, appealing to a higher authority.
“Mom danced wrong.”
Joe nodded solemnly, entirely too serious for the topic.
“I’ve seen her. I believe you.”
You slapped his arm.
“Excuse me?”
Joe laughed.
Luke laughed harder, delighted by the alliance.
“Oh, great. Team up on me.”
Luke leaned across Joe to reach you, small hand outstretched.
You let him grab your hand.
“Mom.”
“What?”
“You were good.”
“Oh, now I’m good?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you.”
“But Dad’s better.”
Joe immediately held up his hand, feigning innocence.
“Okay, don’t drag me into this.”
“You already put yourself in it!”
“I didn’t know there was gonna be ranking.”
“There is now.”
Luke settled deeper against him, the argument apparently resolved to his satisfaction.
His energy disappeared as quickly as it had returned, the last of it draining out of him in the space of a single yawn.
Joe noticed too, glancing down.
“Tired?”
“No.”
“Right.”
Luke’s eyes closed.
Joe looked at you.
You smiled.
“Whole show.”
“I’m impressed.”
“He nearly fell asleep during the last song.”
Luke’s eyes stayed closed, voice already thick with sleep.
“No, I didn’t.”
Joe lowered his voice.
“Sorry.”
Silence settled around the three of you.
Not complete silence. It never was backstage.
You could still hear people outside the room, cases rolling down the hall with that particular rumble, pieces of equipment being packed away, somebody laughing somewhere nearby, a radio still crackling faintly in the distance.
But in here, everything had slowed down.
Joe’s arm stretched across the back of the couch behind you.
You leaned into him.
Luke was folded against his chest, one small hand still wrapped loosely around two of your fingers, breathing slow and even.
Joe looked down at him.
“He’s huge.”
“I know.”
“When did that happen?”
“I don’t know.”
Joe ran his hand over Luke’s hair, smoothing it down out of habit even though it was already a lost cause.
It was completely ruined now.
So much for the pre-show styling.
“You remember when he’d sleep through these?”
“He slept through everything.”
“He slept through that entire show in Chicago.”
“With the headphones slipping over his eyes.”
Joe smiled, the memory clearly playing out behind his eyes.
“You have that picture?”
“Obviously.”
“You have everything.”
“Somebody has to.”
He looked at you, something quiet and warm in his expression.
“You’re gonna show those to his girlfriend one day.”
“Obviously.”
“He’s gonna hate you.”
“That’s fine.”
Luke moved slightly between you, murmuring something unintelligible in his sleep, one foot kicking out against the couch cushion.
Joe immediately lowered his voice even more, going still until Luke settled again.
You watched him do it — that automatic, unthinking carefulness, the way his whole body adjusted itself around the smaller one currently drooling slightly on his shirt.
There were still moments when seeing Joe as someone’s dad caught you off guard.
Not because it was unusual anymore.
It wasn’t.
Five years of it had made this version of him as familiar as every other one — as familiar as the version who argued about setlists, the version who forgot where he put his keys, the version who could hold a room of thousands of people in the palm of his hand for two hours straight.
But sometimes you’d see him onstage in front of thousands of people and then twenty minutes later he’d be sitting beside you with your sleeping son on his chest, absentmindedly rubbing circles over his back without even seeming to notice he was doing it.
And the contrast still did something strange to you, every single time, like your chest couldn’t quite decide how to hold both versions of him at once.
Joe caught you staring.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, what?”
You shook your head.
“Just looking at you.”
“Why?”
“Can’t I look at you?”
“Not like that.”
“Like what?”
“That face.”
You smiled.
“I don’t have a face.”
“You have a face.”
“Good observation.”
“You know what I mean.”
Outside, the venue was still being taken apart around you.
Tomorrow there would be another city. Another soundcheck. Another dressing room Luke would immediately treat like his own house, inspecting the couches, claiming a corner, asking Adam where the good snacks were kept. Another show he’d insist he was old enough to stay awake through, and would probably lose that particular battle again.
But for now, Luke was asleep between you.
His headphones were abandoned somewhere under the couch.
His hair no longer looked remotely like Joe’s.
And five years after his first concert, he’d still ended the night exactly the same way he had as a baby.
Asleep against his dad while you sat beside them.
Some things, apparently, didn’t need to change.
thank you so much for reading!! <3 i really love writing joe, reader and luke together, especially these little moments of luke growing up around joe’s music. Also sorry for the absence, i’ve been very lazy and doing other one shots... as always, requests are open!!
taglist: @mr-joel-keeny @lilacdreamrxo @helaenabugmom @jajajhaahaha @louisbelongstome28 @leaveonthelight29
also if anyone wants to be added to my tag list you can send me a message, ask, or just comment and i’ll add you !! ☆