Imagines and One-Shots (Book Two)

Old Time's Sake (Calum Hood) - Part 2

Two weeks later

Only two weeks after Calum had forgiven you, he insisted that you go to the studio with him. You always tagged along to hear what the band had been working on, but that obviously changed after Catfish. His bandmates made it painfully clear to you that they wanted nothing to do with you after Calum told them McKenna was you – not that you blamed them, of course.

But somehow, Calum convinced you to go to the studio.

You were doing well – you actually thought you could face the boys again – but once you were walking down the hallway toward the room, you were panicking.

"I don't wanna do this anymore," you shook your head quickly. You tried to walk back in the direction you'd come from, but Calum wouldn't let you.

"Y/N, come on," he said, "Don't-"

"No, Cal, please..." you choked out as you tried to pull your hand out of his, tears already streaming down your cheeks, "Please don't make me... They hate me, Cal... Please..."

"Okay, princess," he said softly, immediately taking your face in his hands and wiping your tears with his thumbs, "We don't have to. Just please stop crying; You know I hate it when you cry. Now come on, let me see that beautiful smile." He prodded at your sides, making you start giggling through your tears and making him smile in return. "See?" he murmured, pressing his lips to your forehead, "There's that smile I fell in love with." You blushed lightly as he wrapped his arms around you – you were sure you were always going to blush when he mentioned being in love with you.

Calum was starting to leave – you were almost in the clear – when you heard a voice behind you.

"Hey, Cal!" Ashton chirped, "Where are you going?"

By this point, you had moved to hide behind Calum, his thumb rubbing the back of your hand as your other gripped the back of his shirt tightly.

"Y/N's not feeling too well, so I was just gonna take her back home," Calum responded seamlessly. Unfortunately, Ashton could still tell he was lying.

"Y/N," he said firmly, making you start tearing up again, not wanting him to yell at you.

He repeated your name and Calum tugged on you slightly, urging you to at least peek out from behind him to see what he wanted. You reluctantly did so, surprised to see Ashton didn't even look mad.

Ashton realized you were close to crying and instantly knew why.

You and the other boys hadn't spoken a single word to each other since the Catfish crew left and it was clear to him that you were terrified they all still hated you. So when he put it all together, he simply smiled slightly.

"You know, Y/N, there's a couch in the studio if you need to lie down," Ashton told you, "We really want opinions from people who don't know what the songs are supposed to sound like yet."

You were understandably shocked at the gesture, unable to see how he could be so nice to you after everything you put Calum through. But when you looked up at Calum, he grinned softly and squeezed your hand, silently promising you that everything was going to be okay.

So you finally agreed to go in.

Your heart was still pounding as you got closer to the room – Luke, Michael, and John's voices getting louder and louder with every step you took. But you didn't back down; You desperately wanted things to be okay again, and running away every time something involved them wasn't going to help.

Upon hearing someone come back into the room, the three men looked over their shoulders. To be quite honest, you felt like you were about to have a panic attack the moment your eyes met theirs, but Calum once again reassuringly squeezed your hand, rubbing his thumb across the back of it to let you know that he was right there with you.

"Y/N's not feeling too well," Ashton informed everyone while you were shyly hiding behind Calum, "But she's still gonna try and stick around to listen to what we've got so far."

"Cool," Luke grinned at you, "Well, I was about to hop into the booth anyway, so we'll just get started then."

As he did that, Calum took you over to the couch where Michael was. He sat beside the armrest before tugging you to sit down beside him. You obviously did, but you were practically sitting on top of him, too nervous to sit right next to Michael. You heard the blonde chuckle under his breath, but you figured it was just something he was looking at on his phone.

As you listened to Luke recording his vocals for one of the songs, your head was on Calum's shoulder and his arms were around you. He would press a small kiss to your forehead every now and then, making you smile ever-so-slightly.

But the moment Luke came out of the recording booth and Calum had to go in was when you started panicking yet again.

"Hey," Calum said softly, making you look up at him, "You'll be fine. Even if they were still mad at you, they wouldn't do anything with me still in the room." You reluctantly lifted your body off of his, letting him get up. He kissed the top of your head before walking into the booth, leaving you with Michael on the couch and Luke and Ashton standing around.

"Remember when you used to come here all the time-" Michael said randomly. You looked over out of curiosity, finding him smiling at you. "-and you would always sit on the couch right beside me and beg me to cuddle with you until Cal came back out of the booth?" he went on, "It's been a while since we've done that, you know. I kinda miss it, if I'm honest. You're a way better cuddle buddy than Luke."

"I'm right here!" Luke whined, finally looking away from his phone.

"Hey, we've all cuddled with her before," Michael returned, "Am I wrong?" Luke huffed quietly, crossing his arms over his chest.

"No," he mumbled in defeat. You accidentally let out a soft giggle, quickly cutting yourself off – but it was too late; They'd already heard it.

Michael held his arm up as he looked at you, "For old time's sake?"

And you didn't for the life of you know why, but you did it.

You stared at him for a moment – part of you thinking this was some sort of trap – but you slowly scooted over to him anyway, stopping when your knee hit his. His arm came down onto your shoulders as he moved back in his seat, bringing you with him. You leaned into his side with your head on his shoulder, still a little tense – but hey: baby steps.

Feeling how apprehensive you were made Michael sigh, but at least you'd made it this far.

"I know you think we hate you," he murmured, squeezing your shoulders slightly. You tilted your head to look up at him and he smiled softly. "And maybe we did at first, but we're over it now," he assured you, "We still think what you did was really shitty, but Calum's obviously forgiven you for it and he clearly loves you a lot, so there's no use in the rest of us holding grudges. It's clear that you regret what you did, but you've apologized to the only person you needed to. And if he can forgive you, then the rest of us do too."

You swallowed the lump in your throat, quickly burying your face into his shirt before any of them noticed you were crying. Your arms snaked their way around his waist and squeezed him tightly, letting you feel his grin as his face was pressed to your shoulder.

And sure, maybe you had a long way to go before all four boys trusted you the way they used to, but at least you were given a chance to redeem yourself – and you would always be thankful for that.

~

was there any real point to this??? no. but it holds me over until i can finish another imagine so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯