Emo Trinity x Reader

Patrick Stump x Reader - Favorite Record

Requested on Tumblr
Word count: 4 740

It would have been an overstatement to say that you were less than happy to move from Las Vegas to a small town in Illinois. Illinois of all places! The company you were working for had decided that they needed more people at their site in a town close to Chicago. And instead of hiring new people from the area, they transferred you 1 500 miles north east, away from your friends, from your family and everything you knew. If you would have had a choice, you would have stayed in Las Vegas, hanging out with your friend Ryan and helping him with his music, but it was either Illinois or being fired.

Now you lived in a town called Glenview in a small apartment. It had taken you several weeks to move in properly, until you were happy with the way your flat looked. After all, a home was more than a bit of furniture. It was plants and pictures and books, and records. You had an entire shelf just for your records. Back in Las Vegas you had spent hours browsing through record shops, randomly pulling out records, reading the titles and then judging by the cover and the writing and the titles whether you could like the music. In the beginning you had made some terrible choices, often playing the record at home for the first time and switching it off after the first two minutes because fighting cats would sound better than this. Of course you could have returned these records and gotten something else instead, but you kept them as a reminder of how good you had become choosing music by its 'appearance'. Ryan often mocked you for that, insisting that you missed brilliant musicians that way, and he was probably right, but you also discovered brilliant music that you otherwise would have never heard of. Over the last years you had gotten so good at finding new music, that you had barely listened to one of the chosen records less than twice in a row. But for the first few months in the new town, it seemed as if this hobby of yours would be over now, since you had no record store to go to anymore.

That was until one late night you got lost, just a few streets away from home, and stumbled over a small shop that was still open. When you took a closer look, you discovered it to be a record shop that only had a small entrance but reached far into the building and even had a second floor. You had been overjoyed by your discovery and returned the next day with the intention of picking back up your old habit of browsing through records for hours without taking a break.

In the daylight you also noticed how a small café was part of the store, making the shop even more sympathetic to you. In corners of the rooms or at the dead end of an aisle, armchairs were placed and signs on the shelves were encouraging the customers to ask the owner to play a record they were interested in, but not sure if they would enjoy.

You went there every day after work, often just looking through records, barely buying anything, but the owner of the store enjoyed you being there. He always said it was rare that young people were as interested in records as you were. For the first few weeks you were the only regular customer, often spending hours alone in the shop, apart from Isaac, the owner. The other customers who came in often were twice your age and just asked for a record or strictly went to the section of music they were interested in and left ten minutes later again. But that changed one rainy day in spring.

The weather had been warmer the last days, but today it was cold and unfriendly outside, a chilly wind making a warm jacket and a scarf necessary. You had been in the shop for only about twenty minutes when the bell over the door announced a new customer. Out of reflex you looked up and were surprised by the sight of a young man around your age. He was short and a bit on the chubby side, blond-reddish hair sticking out from under a brown cap. He must have seen you staring at him, honestly, how couldn't you? He was breathtakingly beautiful. He smiled shyly at you and you averted your gaze back to the records in front of you. Much to your surprise he threw his jacket into one of the armchairs at the side and started going through records, just the same way you were. When you left the shop hours later, he was still standing in front of the shelves, running his fingers gently over the covers of old and dusty records.