All Time Low Oneshots

Old Pictures - Zack

You find old pictures you and your husband Zack have in a box in the basement and look through them.

"Why do we have so much shit?", I ask myself and frown.
I'm standing in the middle of maybe thousands of cartons and sigh. My little sister asked me for some of the baby stuff I have left. I know it is somewhere down here but... well... let's say I was never one to be really tidy and I may have forgotten to label the boxes before Zack and I carried them down here...
I get to work and start with the first boxes. I open about four of them and in every single box is some stuff for Christmas. Okay, I'm gonna search in another corner...

Emma is now five years old, so I guess the baby things could be in some of the cartons at the back. I shove a few boxes over and climb to the very back of the basement room. I open a box and find some old college stuff of mine. Since it consists mostly of books and it isn't that important to me anymore I use it as a stool.
I start with a box to my left. I open it and the first thing I see are some old books. I actually look a bit through them but stuff them back. These are the books I used to read as a teenager. So nothing to read now and Emma is still too young for it.
Huh... I could have brought a sharpie with me to at least now label the cartons... ah well, doesn't matter now.

The next box are many old DVDs and CDs. With a smile I pull some of them out and chuckle over them. There are some pretty embarrassing CDs... Not gonna name any of it...
I close this box and try the next. I pull it open to find some stuffed animals, letters, a crazy hat and even a few packages of old condoms. I furrow my eyebrows but one look at the letters and I know this is one of Zacks old fan-boxes. He usually keeps some of the fan mail and presents up in the living room or his den. But when it gets too much he stuffs everything in a box and carries it down here. I don't think he ever through something away - just things like half eaten burgers...
The next box are some old clothes... I actually find his old red bandana. With a smile I get it out and wrap it around my head.

The next box surprises me. It's a box full of photos and albums. Curious I pull the box closer and take out a stack of photos.
I literally let out an "Awwwww". These are old pictures of Zack and me. I look through them. There are some of our vacation in Europe, pictures of parties we had... some from tour... I look through them and next I get one of the albums out.
"Oh my gosh! I looked for them for so long!", I exclaim.
I look at a picture of Zack in a black tuxedo in the middle of a little chapel. A bit behind him stand his three best mates: Zack, Rian and Alex. They are all dressed nicely but my eyes never really leave Zack. He looked so unbelievingly handsome on our wedding...
The next picture is my dad walking me down the aisle. I have a big smile on my face and my dad has a loving gaze. The next few pictures show our friends and family. My mom and Zacks sister are already crying and I smile at the memory. My sister tried to comfort Sam and my mom but they couldn't stop bawling their eyes out.
I admit I shed a few tears too... but most surprising was, that Zack had tears in his eyes. He was never one to cry. I don't even know if I saw him crying before our wedding...
With a sigh I move on to the pictures of the after party. There is a picture of Alex, Rian and Jack standing in the middle of our guests. Oh I remember their speech. I've never seen Zack this embarrassed and angry at the same time. I don't know what caused his face to go more red. It was so bad Zack tried to jump up and chase Jack out of the room (Jack told a story about Zack doing some pretty weird shit while being totally wasted - to say Zacks mom was not pleased when she heard he was only seventeen would be an understatement...). I took me a bit of time to convince him to leave the boys alive... I just wished I would've let him knock Jack out... Of course the boys had to bring up the many times they heard me and Zack getting it on in his bunk or the back of the tour bus...
I move on a few pictures and smile at the fun time everyone had. All in all it was a beautiful wedding and till today we have an even more beautiful and happy marriage.

I dug through more of the pictures and coo over most of them. I brings back all those wonderful memories Zack and I shared. About half way through the box I find some CDs. Curiosity gets the best of me and I take out the CDs. I'm already half way out of the room, when I look back. I hop back and stuff all the pictures I took out back into the box. I close it and carry the box upstairs. I set the box down beside the couch and make my way into our bedroom to get my laptop. Zack is out for a run and Emma is at a friends house, so I have my peace to look what's on the CDs.
I put the CD in and wait for my laptop to load whatever is on it. It takes a few seconds, then my video player pops up. A video starts playing, the sound of a familiar guitar riff blasts through the speakers. I jump and turn the volume down.
"No... not really!"
I wind forwards and start laughing. Only All Time Low would have illegal copies of their own music videos and DVD.
I let it play from the beginning. At first there is of course Circles, followed by The Girl's a Straight-Up Hustler and Coffee Shop Soundtrack.
Oh my freaking god are these videos cute!... and awkward.
I watch them about three times, then I move on to the ones from So Wrong It's Right. My eyes always search for Zack in the music videos and I laugh so hard at his different styles when he was younger. We got to know each other at the end of 2010 and got together a few months into 2011. So I never saw him with his emo, long black hair from high school or his curly hair and almost afro style. Once I'm through the older videos I let them play, so I have some music while looking through the rest of the pictures.

The deeper I dug into to box the older the pictures get and I can't stop laughing. Most of the pictures are of the beginning of the band and man they looked ridiculous back then. But some of them are pretty cute. I sort them. I make a stack with cute pictures of Zack, cool pictures of the band and a stack with the dumb ones. As anyone who knows the guys could guess, the stack with the dumb ones grows pretty fast.
"Babe? I'm home!", Zack comes in and yells through the house.
"In here", I giggle at a picture of Zack, Rian and Jack. Zack and Rian smear Jack different kind of foods around the face.
"You found Emmas old clothes?", he asks and comes in. I look up and my breath hitches.
Zack just wears his basketball shorts and dries himself off with his tank top. I gulp at his ripped, tattooed and wet body. He grins at my reaction and walks over.
"Love how you still get speechless", he mumbles and bends down to me. He pecks my cheek and looks over my shoulder.
"Where do you have these from?", he asks surprised. He walks around the couch and sits down next to me. Zacks eyes drift over to my laptop and he smiles at the video playing.
"Seriously, where did you find these?"
"In the basement... Look, there are tons of pictures", I point at the box and the pictures scattered around me.
He takes some into his hands and either chuckles or looks a tiny bit embarrassed. I take the stack with the pictures I found cute.
"What do you think if we frame some of them? Maybe we could give some of them to the boys... I bet Cass and Lisa would love to have some cute teenager pictures of Rian or Alex..."
He takes them out of my hands and looks through them.
"You're so not gonna frame pictures of me in high school! I looked so stupid back than!", he huffs.
"I think you were pretty cute... dorky but cute", he smiles at me and pecks my lips: "Thanks but nope."
I pout but he just laughs: "The pout lost its power once I saw Emmas pout... It's so much worse than yours."
"Oh dammit", I mumble.
"What else is in there?", he nods to the box. I had it over and he starts to rummage about the box and I compare him to his old self. Zack was never lean or lanky. Zack always had a nice body and some muscles, even as a teen. Throughout his twenties he got so ripped... Some time I thought all his shirts would rip if he tensed up.
Now he still is ripped as hell, but not as much as a few years ago. After our wedding he wouldn't work out so much anymore and once Emma was born he spend so much time with her, there wasn't any time left for his work outs. Mostly he limits it to his time on tour and at home he runs mainly.
His hair is still short and he has his natural dark blonde colour. He has a few more tattoos and I love them.
"Wow... I forgot how stunning you looked in that dress...", he murmurs and pulls me from my thoughts.
"Huh?", I ask and look over.
"Still can't get over the fact you chose awkward and shy little me", Zack smiles and shows me a picture of our wedding. It's one of the ones a professional photographer took. We stand in a forest and he holds me tight against him.
"Still can't get over the fact you love me too", I smile back.
"Yeah, I do", he whispers.
"And I'd always say 'I do' again", I smile lovingly at my husband.
"Absolutely", he agrees.