Richpez one-shots

March 8, 2016

A/N: In honor of our fave dog mom's birthday, I wrote a little thing. Tbh this took me far too long to actually write & I still need to edit but I'm on vacation atm. There is reference to the spies bts in this, but it's not super important!
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Lauren woke up half dreading the day ahead of her. She honestly hadn't expecting anything to come of it being her birthday. Sure, she'd get loads of texts, tweets, and posts for it, but really didn't expect much more than that.

As she was deciding whether or not she should just get up and get on with her day, the sleeping figure next to her moved, enveloping her fully in his arms. She curled into him and smiled. This was her first birthday since college they would actually get to spend together. Only a handful of her friends currently lived in LA, most still living in Chicago, which made the day harder than it needed to be. As sad as she was about it, this was her favorite birthday so far. She got to wake up in Joey's arms in their apartment.

She looked up at him with a look of pride and love. She wanted to wake him up but decided against it knowing how hard he'd been working. They were in the throes of tech, which meant Joey was working harder on a show than ever before, wanting his first stage show to go well. She resigned to just staying in his arms as long as possible.

He finally woke up about 20 minutes later. He pulled her closer, kissed her forehead, and whispered

"Happy Birthday Lo."

She smiled up at him.

"Since you're making me tech on my special day, you're getting me a dog right?" She teased.

Joey shot straight up upon hearing this.

"What? We've only lived here for like 2 months and we might be in the starkid show this-" he mumbled trailing off at the end.

"Jojo, I'm kidding. Now let's get ready so we can actually be people before tech turns us into literal monsters by tonight."

Joey got ready quickly, deciding to make breakfast while she finished. She appreciated the gesture, and his cooking wasn't half bad, but it definitely wasn't nearly as good as hers. The morning went by entirely too quickly for both of their liking, and before they knew it, they were in the car headed to rehearsal.

"Please don't make a scene about my birthday, okay?" She asked. She didn't mind him giving her attention, in fact it was her favorite thing, what she doesn't like when it's taking time out of other people's lives for that attention.

"What makes you think I'd do something like that?" He said, not meeting her gaze and keeping his eyes on the road. She saw a small smirk creep up on his face.

"We've been together for 3 years. You really don't think I'm on to you by now?"

He continued to fake his innocence, but reassured her he wasn't going to do anything during rehearsal.

Rehearsal started a little late, but other than that things were running smoothly. That wasn't entirely true, the guys were constantly second guessing themselves and the work, which effected the rest of the cast and crew. She was worried about Joey and how he was handling everything. He puts his all into his work and when it doesn't run smoothly, he tends to blame himself for it.

She really only wanted one thing for her birthday; to spend it with the people she is closest with. But more than anything else, she wanted her partner to be happy. She was determined to make him feel better one way or another.

There weren't many times where either Lauren or Joey, or both were blocking, which meant there was very little down time where they could actually talk and just be together. They finally got a moment while Curt was getting his beard on and setting up for the next scene.