#rt insert

“As in... I’m moving out troubles” he finishes lamely, sloshing the tequila into the glasses before pushing one towards you. “Oh man, I’m so sorry” you say, watching his eyes shine in the dim lights. He shrugs, removing his apron and passing it to the next shift worker in line, stepping away from the bar to move closer to you. Trying not to pull a face, you lift up your shot, holding it out to him. “To being single” you say sadly, clinking your glass against his before downing it; letting your insides burn.”That’s one” Neil jokes harshly, “ready for two?” bringing the bottle he’d left on the bar back to your now empty shot glass. This time, you can’t avoid the disgusted expression that works its way on to your face. “Oh god, please; if we’re gonna be doing this all night I’m going to need something nicer”. He smiles at you teasingly, a little more genuine, before topping up your glass. “Fine, last one” he says, filling up his own glass and passing the bottle back to the new bar attendant, “then I’m heading home”. You toast your glasses together, raising and eyebrow at him as he quickly tips his shot back with a shudder. “Well, heading to Robs” he corrects himself, his voice husky from the burning. You finish your drink with what little grace you can muster, before reaching for your coat.

“Let me walk you there” you offer, but he shakes his head. “Nah, I just need time to think is all. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately.” He laughs a little, staring off behind you distractedly. “You’re a good friend, Y/N” he continues, returning his gaze to you, “which is why I’m gonna tell you the signal again.” You stare at him blankly. “Wat?” you say shortly, confused. He holds his hand over the bar, looking at you, then tapping it once. “This signal”, he repeats he motion before explaining further. “Everyone who works here knows that signal to mean ‘holy fuck help me’ when it comes to bad dates or annoying patrons.” You laugh a little, but let him keep going. “There’s a man over there, looks like he’s been punched in both eyes cus of how tire he looks, that hasn’t stopped checking you out”. You mouth opens slightly, surprised. “What a description” you joke, smiling widely, “you’re really selling it”. You throw your arms into the air in exaggeration “cus, like, dating is totally what’s on my mind right now.” “Good” he says, ignoring your sarcasm and nodding as he picks up his coat and moves to leave “cus he’s about 10 seconds away from heading over to buy you a drink”. Before you can protest, Neil has already moved away and out the door, “I’ll be fine!” you hear him yell from outside; leaving you with nothing but his smirk and your utter confusion.

With a deep, aspirated sigh, you lean back against the bar, the new tender smiling sweetly at you as she continues to serve. Before you can move to leave to escape what you expect to be a soon awkward social interaction; you hear the stool next to you squeak across the wooden floor. “Hey” says the voice of the man now occupying the chair to your left, though you have yet to look up and greet his face. “This is gonna sound weird cus I was coming over here to tell you that you’ve got, like, rocking boots on and stuff but now I swear to god you look familiar and I have no idea why so I thought I’d come over here to try and figure it out and – oh my god.’ He stops suddenly, breaking the quick stream of his stumbling words when you turn to look at him, certain you recognised his voice. Your eyes settle on his face, and immediately you’re overwhelmed by the warms of his deep set eyes nestled in their dark circles, as well as the lines that cease his face and that shock of wild hair.

“Y/N?” asks Joel, incredulously; his eyebrows knitting together and mouth hanging open. Your face splits into an uncontrollable beam as he exclaims your name again, happily standing up with his arms open. “Oh my god, Joel!” you reply, bouncing into his arms and hugging him tightly, joining in his laughter. “Jesus Christ,” you manage, pulling away and touching his arm, staring up at him, “what the hell are you doing here?” He laughs again, running his hand through his hair, the look of surprise still clinging to his features. “I could ask you the same thing” he retorts, leaning against the bar. You look to the attendant, who is watching you both closely; and you offer her a smile before she returns it and turns away. “Last time I saw you, you’d abandoned ship to chase your dreams” says Joel, rubbing the back of his neck. You nod, pulling yourself back on to your stool so you were at eye level. “Yeah,” you reply, nodding “that was, what” – you pause to think – “five years ago now?” “Oh god, way to make me feel my age” remarks Joel, and you laugh. “Five years...” he mutters, staring at you with an attentive, yet distant expression.

Mariel shakes her head and laughs, “All in due time Y/N, it will happen to you one day,”

  You two banter on like this for a little while until you arrive at the bar and meet up with the others. You clung close to Barbara and Bethany as you sat at the bar, watching Mariel and the others go completely off their face and enjoy the night. 

  You sipped on your drink, at this point you had no idea what it was anymore, you were just drinking and drinking, Until you couldn’t stand straight and started making a scene, causing you to get kicked out and Barbara to follow.

 “I’ll call Tyler,” You barely make out what Barbara says but you nod, immediately regretting your decision and throw up a little. Barbara sits you down on the curve and rubs your back, you couldn’t even think straight.

 “I’m proud of you, Y/N, you got kicked out of a bar for the first time. Congrats!” You smile weakly. 

“Hey Barbara - oh shit is Y/N okay?” You hear a deep, mellow voice say. You couldn’t make out who it was. “Not really, if you need help getting Y/N to their house...”

“No, no,” The voice insists, “I”ve got it.”

Before you knew it you were whisked off the ground and cuddled against the warmth of this figure, with his strong arms wrapped around you. “Naww Tyler, you two would be so cute together!”

“T-Tyler?” You slur as he sits you in the passenger seat of his car and clicks in the seatbelt. “Yeah Y/N, its me.” He assures you. “You’re my knight in shining armour...”

“Yeah yeah,” 

The car ride was silent, the radio was turned down and all you could hear now was the soft hum of the car. “I’m taking you back to my place okay? You live too far out and I don’t want to leave you alone, is that okay with you Y/N?” 

You nod your head slowly.

“Tyler...”

“Yeah, what’s up Y/N? Do you need a drink? Need me to pull over?”

“No, not that. Tyler, I love you,”

“I love you too Y/N... and we’re here. I’ll get you out of the car, dont worry.”

All you remember before your head hit a soft surface is Tyler kissing your forehead, you felt a smile grow on your face. 

You wake up in the morning with your head pounding and a bit of your memory lost. You hastily look around recognising nothing. This wasn’t your room, this wasn’t your bed. Wait, what’s that smell? 

A second later, Tyler walks in, only wearing pajamas pants and giving you greasy food. 

“Tyler?! What am I doing here?!”

“You got drunk Y/N, you went out with the girls and - “

“I told you I loved you last night, didn’t I?” Your head began to throb.

“Yeah you did, not that I’m complaining.” Tyler smirks, setting the food down on a level part of the bed before leaning over towards you and pressing his lips against yours.

Mondays sucked. They were full of meetings. Usually, you weren’t filming, which you loved being on set. You did occasionally get to sneak in some writing by pretending you were taking notes.

The current meeting was about the next few weeks scheduling so you had to pay attention, meaning you couldn’t spend the time writing. You were able to though kick the front of Blain’s sneakers with your boots here and there and earn a glare from your blond friend. You’d flash a smile at him each time before he turned back to Josh and his notebook.

After a few kicks, Blaine started to return with his own little tap to your boots. You retaliated by wrapping your leg around his. Blaine in return brushed his leg against yours. You weren’t thinking about who was watching you or what the two of you looked like.

Finally, you had a break between meetings and started to head to your office as you waved Blaine goodbye while he walked off with Josh.

You were almost to your office when you heard someone calling your name. You spun around to see Aaron chasing after you. You waited until he caught up. He gestured to your office door and you nodded letting him in before shutting the door behind the both of you.

“What’s up?” you asked concerned as to why he chased you down and didn’t want to just talk in the hall.

“What’s up with you and Blaine?” he asked crossing his arms.

“I’m sorry. What?” you were honestly confused where this was coming from because you and Blaine had always been overly close. He was your best friend after all. You moved around your desk and sat down, setting your laptop down.

“First the bar then today during the meeting. Don’t even get me started on the fake boyfriend thing,” Aaron raised an eyebrow.

“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa,” you held up your hand, “When did Blaine tell you about the fake boyfriend thing? Did he mention it was his idea to go along with it?”

“I asked him if he finally manned up and asked you out since I saw the two of you holding hands in the parking lot on Friday,” Aaron elaborated.

“What do you mean man up?” you were growing more confused by the second.

“Don’t change the subject,” Aaron warned.

“I’m not. Nothing is going on between me and Blaine so there’s nothing to report, Dad. Now what are you talking about?” it was your turn to lean back and cross your arms.

“You’re kidding me, right? You just don’t want to give up flirting with your not boyfriend,” Aaron narrowed his eyes. This was starting to be really out of character for him and you were getting pissed.

“Aaron if this is a joke…” you trailed off.

“A joke? Are you kidding me or are you just blind to the fact that Blaine is in love with you,” Aaron shouted.

It felt like your heart stopped and you could feel the color drain from your face. “I-I-” you were at a lost for words.

Aaron’s face dropped, “You didn’t know. Did you?”

You shook your head no. Eyes watering. You were feeling suddenly overwhelmed.

“I’m going to go. Just talk to him okay. A lot has been going on lately between the two of you and I think you should talk,” Aaron noted.

You numbly nodded as he left your eyes.

“Hey, Y/N,” Eric strolled into your office not a minute after Aaron left. “Oh, hey. Are you okay?”

You shook your head at the intern, “Sorry. I just sort of had a bomb dropped on me.”

“The whole Blaine loving you thing?” Eric asked as your eyes shot up to him. He realized he shouldn’t have heard that and backtracked, “Sorry. I may have heard a little of what Aaron was shouting. I didn’t catch much. Are you okay? Do you love him?”

You placed your face in your hands as everything seemed to just keep coming at you, “I don’t know. I really don’t. I haven’t thought that far ahead or at all. I just sort of need to be alone.”

“O-okay,” Eric nodded understanding, “If you want my opinion though I think you guys actually do make a good couple. I was jealous at first but I get it now. I mean I even saw you kissing on Saturday night. You seemed to love him as much as he loves you.”

You looked back up at him, taken aback once more, “I’m sorry, you what?”

Eric held up his hands, “I promise I wasn’t being creepy. A few of us new guys from broadcast were out on Saturday and we sort of caught you making out with Blaine on the dance floor.”

“Great,” you sighed and placed your forehead on the desk, face down and overwhelmed.

Eric didn’t say anything else, you just heard his footsteps retreat.

After having a massive meltdown for a good five minutes you suddenly realized you needed the one person who could confirm everything.

“Josh!” you shouted running out of your office ignoring the fact he wouldn’t have heard you all the way across stage five. You practically crashed into your hairy friend when you finally found him.

“Why don’t you go on and we’ll catch up,” Blaine waved Josh along as you double over to catch your breath.

You shook your head and pointed to your dark haired coworker.

“Josh?” Blaine asked and you nodded.

Josh chuckled and pat Blaine on the shoulder, “Why don’t you go ahead and we’ll catch up.” Blaine shrugged and headed off to the next meeting. “So what’s going on?” Josh asked as you finally stood back up.

“Blaine,” you began and he raised an eyebrow. “I want the video from Saturday.” You knew Josh would never pass up a chance for recording bad dancing.

“You don’t want to see that,” Josh shook his head, “Chris is really awful.” You raised an eyebrow and he sighed before pulling out his phone and hitting a few buttons before queuing up a video and passing you the small device.

You watched as you poorly danced on Blaine but your breath caught when you watched your drunk self move in closer and closer until finally, your lips were on Blaine’s. After a little too long, the video stopped but you were still mid make-out session.

You got teary eyed again and looked to Josh as you passed his phone back. “How long has Blaine had feelings for me?”

Josh sighed, “I really don’t know. He doesn’t really talk about them. I do know the first time I saw the two of you, he was in deep.”

“What about me?” you asked softly.

You didn’t expect your career to lead you in this direction. You thought your life would be made up of sitting behind computer monitors as the anonymous aid to a few productions, but now you had to take a look at yourself. Trying to eat cookies off of your face without using your hands as a timer ticked down.

“(Y/N) is… way too good at this,” Jon said. It was true. You had eaten about three cookies so far, and you weren’t even started; that is, until someone tossed a piece of cookie at your face.

“Ryan!” you huffed. Your head was tilted back, but you still knew who the culprit was.

“How do you know it’s me?” he quipped, throwing another chocolate chip at your face. “What about that smug bastard Jon Risinger?”

It was becoming increasingly hard to catch the cookies in your mouth now when all you could do was laugh. You managed one more, then Ryan tried to threw his shoe at you. At that point the competition was over, and you were a giggling mess in your chair. Once you could pull yourself together, you pointed an accusing finger at Ryan.

“I call bullshit!” you declared, wiping crumbs from your face. “This shoeless man is a saboteur!” 

“Maybe you just instinctively sabotaged yourself!”

“Points!” Jon interjected before the argument could get out of hand. You and Mariel were behind by a single point, and you let out your respective groans.

“Okay, okay,” Ryan said, picking up his last cookie from the ammo pile. “I think if (Y/N) just eats this last cookie, then her and Mariel should get the lead.” He walked up to you, cookie in hand. “Deal?”

 “Deal.”

You woke up on your couch with a blanket tossed lazily over your legs and the worst headache of your life. Nearly falling off the couch, you drew the blinds and started some much needed coffee. Sure, you had indefinitely had some drinks at the bar last night, but this was ridiculous. Your memory was too clouded, the sunlight was too unbearable, and some peculiar sort of dread was feeling all too familiar. 

Once the coffee had made its way through your veins, you felt a little better. At this point you felt ready to change out of yesterday’s clothes and brush your teeth when you heard a muffled buzz from your phone, which had since been tossed on the floor. Making your way towards it, your stomach sank when you saw the name printed up top:

Jon, 2:13 A.M.

…I can’t ruin our friendship (Y/N). I had a great time with you tonight, and I can’t say I don’t feel the same way about you, but it just wouldn’t be right. 

Before you could text back in a frenzy to discover what you had said, your memories began to piece themselves together.

First there was Jon. Jon was seated next to you at the bar and you two were in a laughing fit over some guy across the room with a Bon Jovi tattoo. The night turned into making up stories about every passer-by, and you couldn’t help but notice the way he swept the hair from his face when he laughed.

Then there was the cold. You were covered in goosebumps, but it felt nice to breathe the fresh air. Everything felt so muddled. The way you felt around Jon wasn’t like you felt around any other friend at the company.

Then Jon came outside, and all of a sudden you started saying all this stuff to him. You must have sounded like a bumbling idiot, yet you said everything that was on your mind. He nodded and lazily leaned in towards you. That’s where your memories cut off.

It became harder and harder to read the text on your screen as tears clouded your vision. If you hadn’t acted off of your drunken impulses things would be okay. But they weren’t. Now all you had was a hopeless crush on a friend who wanted nothing more. 

All of a sudden your phone buzzed in your hand again, which nearly gave you a heart attack. Thankfully Jon hadn’t messaged you again.

Geoff, now

Sure drank a lot last night. Holding up today kid?

You cracked a smile at the accidental irony of the situation, before writing back:

 “Hey Y/N, so how have you been? You haven’t been at the office much lately.” Michael starts up a conversation as Gavin goes to the tap to fill up his glass. “I’ve just been dealing with some stuff, that’s all. Ryan’s kinda been a huge help and convinced me to be here today,” You rest your head on Ryan’s shoulder. 

You were significantly younger than he was but you both admired each other. You were still young and a lot of people thought you and Ryan were secretly together, but really he was just an mentor and a father-figure at times when Geoff wasn’t present. It soon became an inside joke within the achievement hunter office that you and Ryan were dating; just like Meg and Ryan. Some of the fans knew you guys weren’t together; but some we’re just as adamant that you were. 

 “Yes well, you’re welcome by the way,” Ryan laughs, jokingly shrugging you off his shoulder. You pull the sleeve of your jacket over your hands and yawn.

 “Ah well it’s good to have you back Y/N!” Gavin pipes up. Michael moves onto an ad-read and meanwhile everyone decided to do some improvised shit for the camera. Michael stopped half-way through the ad-read and couldn’t stop laughing. 

 Within a span of a few seconds you were on Ryan’s back with your arms around his neck, with your hood over your head and circling the table. 

 “I’m finally taller than Jeremy!” You cheer beamingly, everyone chuckles. “Fuck you!” Yelled a distant voice and everyone burst into laughter yet again. When Ryan couldn’t shake you off; he continued to act normal while you clung to his back like a koala. 

  After a failed attempt to spark another conversation, Michael called the end of the livestream and sighed. 

“You staying for last call? If you want to go home you can, I’m sure there’s someone who’d be able to take you home.” Ryan asks as you jump off his back for a moment, there was no way you weren’t going to cling onto him during last call.

 “I don’t mind,” You shrug “Wouldn’t want to disappoint.”

“Y/N, you know you would never disappoint anyone. Nor are you a disappointment.” 

  “It was a self-deprecating joke Ry -”

“I know but you shouldn’t below yourself like that. I just want you to know that you’re valued.” 

“Thanks Ry,” You could feel the tears seeming, this past week had been so shitty and you just felt like a disappointment - you didn’t even think Ryan would be able to pick that up.