Boyfriend Material 2.0-Sunday
This week is Boyfriend Material Week 2.0 - Quarantine Edition! Each day I’ll put out a one-shot with one of my favorite idols - each day picking someone different. Who will be boyfriend material tomorrow?
Pairing: Sammy (TheRose) x YN
Type: RoomatesAU
When you find a roommate online, there’s always a risk. They could be super messy or loud or disgusting.
Or you could look like all of those things and more to them.
Or things could be great. You could both be relatively quiet and not cross paths. You could share chores and clothes and take turns cooking.
But you never thought you could luck out and find a roommate that turned your apartment into a home.
Until some obnoxious ray of sunshine called Sammy answered your ad and knocked on your door with just a bag and a guitar.
Okay he hadn’t just shown up at your doorstep after finding your ad actually. He had called and you met him at a coffee shop first to interview him as a potential roommate. After that went well then he showed up at your doorstep with his stuff.
But he really did only have a bag and a guitar.
Sammy was enrolled in the music program at a local college and had been living in the dorms for a while until he was having trouble affording it, so he had to find a cheaper option.
Enter him entering your apartment.
It was modest to put it romantically... small to put it realistically. But it had two small rooms connected by a bathroom off of the living room and a kitchen that had a washer and dryer tucked into the corner. And even though it was...modest...you were a student also and needed all the help on the rent you could get.
It had been a weird start. You both tried to be quiet and stay out of each other’s way. But one day Sammy broke the awkwardness.
“You sing really loud in the shower you know,” he said while grabbing cereal one morning.
Cereal you already had and just about choked on.
“And when you’re doing homework. How do you focus?”
“I can’t tell, are you asking me because you want me to be quieter?” you asked, genuinely confused by the tone he was using.
“I don’t actually mind it. You have a good voice and good taste in music. But like the other day when you were working on those casebooks or whatever it is you read all the time, you were singing along and...dancing? Kind of?”
“I’m going to try and ignore the fact you couldn’t identify my dancing, but I guess it just helps me focus? All my other senses get blocked out and singing my favorites doesn’t take much thought so I can just concentrate?”
“That’s kind of cool,” he said, sitting down across from you.
“And you know,” you started while cleaning up your dishes, “I’m not the only one who sings loudly in the shower.”
The choking cough you heard from him sounded like sweet payback music to your ears. Which you enjoyed until you handed him a glass of milk before heading to pack up for the day.
After that, you guys fell into a more comfortable rhythm. Sammy joined a band and would be out of the apartment more, but when he was back you guys would typically talk music or binge some shows together.
And then you even started sharing the chores around the apartment. He kind of became the best roommate you could have asked for?
It was a good thing you had gotten so comfortable because almost 7 months into living together a pandemic forced your community into a precautionary quarantine. Both your and Sammy’s classes went online, and somehow so did his band practices?
The first week you both tried to keep things scheduled and treat every day like normal, only doing work in the apartment instead of going outside.
In the second week, you stopped putting on as much makeup all the time, I mean some times it was just fun to do, and Sammy switched from jeans to sweatpants pretty much always.
By the third week, you both were in pajamas most of the time, fighting over the tv remote, and attending classes with your video cameras off.
Sammy’s band practices were pretty much done by the honor code too because it was too hard to really sync up onscreen.
Your apartment turned into a kind of eternal sleepover with work sprinkled in occasionally, especially as classes came to an end. The only problem, even if you were treating life like an eternal sleepover? You were still two high-energy, young-blooded individuals and, no matter how in-sync you were, you got bored.
“We can’t play that with only two people,” you said for the third time as Sammy thought of another card game.
“What about if we play Sorry? Each take two colors?”
“We played that two days ago.”
“Then you pick!” Sammy yelled, flopping back onto the floor.
“We still have a puzzle we haven’t-”
“I will go cross-eyed if we do another puzzle this week,” Sammy said, rolling onto his stomach and resting his chin on your knee to look at you.
And your stomach flummoxed.
A downside to the quarantine? You were spending a lot of time with a guy you were growing increasingly more comfortable with and interested in. And that guy? Had grown a habit of hanging around the apartment in just his sweatpants.
You pulled your knee out from under him so his head dropped and you turned around to pull a blanket off of the couch and throw at him.
“You are going to catch a cold. I don’t know why you spend every waking moment like that. I mean don’t you feel like putting anything on when you get up in the morning?” you laughed out, packing up some of the veto’ed games.
“What do you mean?” Sammy asked, picking himself off the ground to help you. “I do. The sweatpants. When I sleep I don’t wear an-”
“DON’T!” you yelled, dropping the games on the couch and slapping your hand over his mouth. “Don’t finish that sentence if you want to have any say in what we play tonight.”
And he licked your palm.
“Gross Sammy!”
“Well I know what I’d like to play with you but you just called my saliva gross so I doubt it’ll work,” he mumbled out while you were busy washing your hand obnoxiously in the bathroom.
“How about this,” he started, louder this time. “I’ve been working on a song for the band and I need someone to help me work on the harmonies.”
Feeling relieved you were back in familiar territory, you settled onto the couch with him and his guitar.
“Okay so here’s what I’ve got so far,” he started, strumming away.
You really admired Sammy’s talent in music. He always said he was just a simple guy with a guitar. Or he’d joke about his song-writing skills with lines like “Hello my name is Sam and I like some ham/ girls call me bam when they see me they go damn.”
You never let him live that one down let’s be clear.
But then he had lines like “a word you can’t forget in the breeze/ sorry, for not turning back/ sorry, for this selfish self of mine.”
And if his lyrics didn’t give you goosebumps, his voice would.
You never had been a big fan of voices with excessive vibrato. But his was so raspy and unique that every time you heard it you would get lost in the song, in his voice.
Kind of like you were now.
“YN? Did you have any ideas?”
“Huh?”
Sammy turned to you and set the guitar across his lap with a smirk on his face. Now, instead of being distracted by his voice, you were distracted by that smirk.
“What were you focusing on?” he asked. “The few chords I’ve put together could not have been exciting enough to draw that look from your face.”
“I was just thinking,” you started.
“Clearly,” he laughed, putting his guitar in its stand and resettling on the couch with a blanket wrapped around him. “Talk to me.”
You mirrored his position and then looked him dead in the eyes.
“You are incredibly talented, you know that right?”
Sammy blinked a few times, clearly not expecting that.
“I’m serious, Sammy. You have a gift and I’m just really proud of how serious you take that.”
“You-you’re something special you know that?” he said back on a breath. “How many people are as kind as you are? I’ve seen it for months now and it still surprises me every time.”
At that you were blushing and twisting your fingers together.
“I just think it’s important to say what you feel sometimes,” you said.
“Really?” he asked, with something in his voice you couldn’t nail down so you looked up.
“I mean things are meant to be shared, joy to be doubled and sorrow to be halved. It’s not always easy because of timing or personalities, but I do genuinely believe that.” you said, holding onto one of his hands that you didn’t remember grabbing in the first place.
Sammy ducked to smile and mumble again, “and you say I’ve got a talent with words.”
When he looked back up, he grabbed both of your hands in both of his, making you blush.
“I like you.”
You blinked.
“You aren’t required to say or do anything back, but I wanted to say it because I think we fit well together? I don’t just feel comfortable around you, but I’m never bored, even when we have the same days in and out. You just make my heart smile.”
Cue some more blinking from you.
“Okay I’m going to need you to stop and look away for a second,” you interjected, not being able to take any more.
Sammy immediately dropped his hands and backed to the end of the couch before turning his head to drop onto the cushion.
“I’m so sorry I made this so weird now, right?”
You knew you wouldn’t be able to say anything with him staring at you, but you still felt nervous looking at him, so you crawled across the couch to hug him with your head on his shoulder and eyes shut tight.
And with no preamble, you answered.
“I like you too.”
Sammy’s arms immediately came up to crush you to him and you felt his cheek actually nuzzle against the top of your head.
“Oh thank goodness I didn’t want to have to find a new place to live in the middle of a pandemic,” he joked out.
“I guess you can stay,” you laughed.
“Best roommate/girlfriend ever.”
“You do have to start wearing a shirt though,” you said, pulling back and pointing to his exposed chest, “because dating you is going to make resisting the urge to oggle you that much harder now.”
“I knew you were distracted by me!”
“I am not having this conversation with you!” you said, pushing off of the couch to ignore him until he grabbed your arm and pulled you back down.
“Okay no conversations let’s just cuddle some more.”
“That sounds like the perfect way to spend the night.”
//
Masterlist
