Rumors or Reality - Fan Fic Eminem x Minaj

Part of the Game

Marshall POV

After finally waking the fuck up, Nicki and I wandered down to one of the booths. I wasn't certain how this all would play out just yet, but I had a suspicion that she had a song ready to go. Sure enough, when we stepped in to monkey around with things, she jogged her head to the mic in the recording section.

"You want me to do it the real way, or just spit it for a bit?" She asked. I sat back in the chair I was in, looking at her curiously.

"You already have a beat in mind?" I asked and she nodded, smiling with an almost evil look.

"Oh, yeah," she said. "And my bars. You're gonna love it. In fact, you're gonna be sorry you didn't think of it."

"Awfully confident, aren't we?" I teased and Nicki shrugged.

"You don't get where I am being shy or uncertain," Nicki responded and I nodded.

"Ain't that the truth," I muttered, thinking of my own movement through the industry. If I'd been afraid to mouth off, I'd never be where I was.

"Alright," I said, shaking my head slightly as if to clear the memories. "Let's hear some of the verses," I encouraged, gesturing with my hand.

Nicki stood and rolled her neck, then her shoulders. I watched as her face went from the teasing, easy smile to a serious, almost deadly calm. Then, she started in.

I couldn't decide whether to close my eyes and listen or watch. Her expressions as she rapped were intricate, flowing from one thing to the next as her eyes moved and her body followed. She seemed to slip into the song as if immersing herself in water. The feel of the rhymes took over and she wasn't just spitting the words, she was the words.

After a moment, I shut my eyes and let the rap take me. My fingers tapped out the beat that I was sure she was using as my head started to nod. When she hit a few nasty bars, I paused and smiled, biting my lip in appreciation. When she was done, I opened my eyes. She was looking at me with a brow raised, a smile flirting around the edges of her mouth.

She didn't ask what I knew she wanted to. Instead, we gazed at each other in silence as I tried to hold out. Ultimately, she won the patience contest.

"You know damn well I thought it was good," I said drily and Nicki scrunched her nose at me, grinning widely now.

"Yeah, but I wanted to hear you say it," she responded and I rolled my eyes.

"You're hungry for praise?" I taunted and Nicki walked closer, her eyes shining brighter than stars as she replied.

"I don't know many women who aren't," she said. "It's in our DNA to make men fess up to what they're thinking; what they're feeling," she continued. I gave her a flat look and shook my head.

"Feelings," I said, distaste evident. Nicki chuckled and shook her head.

"You know," she said with a cocked head. "I don't believe for a minute that you're as cold as you play, Em," she noted. "I think you're just locked up so that those dirty things called emotions can't get the best of you."

I shook my head, sighing as I got up from my chair and moved around the room. Instead of responding to her, my mind was replaying her rap, going through possibilities of where I could add bits. It wasn't long before I caught the beat and the scheme.

"Do the first set again," I demanded, readying my mind for jumping in. Nicki nodded and started, getting into it once more with her body. I rolled my jaw, easing up the tension in it as she spat. When she hit the end, I started, playing off the topic with a freestyle.

We went back and forth, her lines and mine, for the better part of an hour. We weren't in the recording phase just yet. Rather, we were testing out words, getting rhythms in line, and toying with wordplay.

Nicki's lyrics were layered, but her style has always been different than mine. While the point of a feature is, at least in part, to contrast the main portion of a song with the offshoot, a good feature also finds a tie to the main artist's work. In order to hit the right sound, my words had to both reflect my personality and fly in sync with hers.

When the hour mark hit, I nodded. I was sure I had the right portions now, though I was probably going to go over them a few times to see if I could improve on them. Nicki was nearly jumping, her excitement was so evident. I smiled, unable to hold it back in light of her enthusiasm.

"This is gonna be epic," she said, her grin taking over her face as her body pulsed with energy. I chuckled and nodded.

"Yeah," I agreed. I looked at my watch just as my stomach announced itself.

"I need food," I said, noting the obvious. "You in?" I asked.

Nicki nodded, moving to gather the light coat she'd set aside when we walked in the door. She started to slip it on, but it caught on something. Walking to her, I shook out the side and held it so that she could wear it. She looked over her shoulder at me, her eyes bright.

"Such a gentleman," she teased. I gave her a flat look and stepped back. She laughed, pulling her hair out to lay across her back.

"You trying to say you don't like praise, boo?" Nicki challenged and I shook my head.

"No," I denied. "It's just not often I'm called a gentleman," I noted wryly.

"Well," Nicki responded as we started walking toward the door. "Maybe you don't act like it because you're not around too many ladies." I caught the door on instinct, closing my eyes and rolling my lips in when I realized what I'd done. Nicki patted my cheek, allowing her perfume to waft into my nose as she passed me over the threshold.

"Twice in as many minutes," Nicki commented. "I'm flattered."

I sighed, moving to step in pace with her down the hallway. It's not like I want to be an asshole all the time. It's just best – for me anyway – if I don't let my guard down too often. When you get too comfortable with people, they see things that can bite you in the ass later. It's a lesson I'd learned time and again.

"What do you want for breakfast?" I asked and Nicki's brows furrowed as she looked up at me.

"I don't want breakfast," she scoffed. "It's almost lunch time, let's get something greasy and nasty."

I nodded, gesturing to the door to the outside world as we walked through the lobby. We continued to talk about silly, surface level things as we made our way to my car. It was only when we were sitting in a place that served chicken curry that I realized it:  I'd opened every damn door for Nicki, from the studio to the restaurant, and I hadn't even recognized I'd been doing it. If any paparazzi had caught it, the rumors about us being an item sure as fuck were going to be fueled.

Letting it go, I tuned back into the conversation with Nicki. After all, it was all part of the game, right?