ronnie radke fanfic

“Boo!”

I jumped. I was so caught up in reading that I didn't notice Craig sneak up behind me. I closed the book – another of my favourite author's books, Misery – and pushed Craig. He laughed.

“Whatcha doing?” Craig asked, sitting up on the front of my band's tour bus next to me.

“Reading,” I said. I stretched out my legs. “And wondering if I'll ever tan.”

Craig laughed. “No offense, but an albino would have a better chance of tanning than you.”

I stuck my tongue out at him.

“So, I have a reason for being here,” Craig began.

“Other than bugging me?”

Craig grinned. “So it's working?”

I pushed him again. “What's your reason for being here?”

“Well,” Craig started, rubbing his hands together. “It involves a video camera, a bunch of idiots and Warped Tour.”

“TAITV!” I laughed.

“You got it!” Craig said. “And guess what? Chiodos, Broken Colours and Escape The Fate are going to guest star!”

I threw my hands up in excitement. “Yes! When?”

“Today. Now.”

“Okay,” I said, jumping off the bus and dusting off my cut-offs. “We're going to be super busy today. We'll do TAITV now, then we have to go for a photo shoot and interview for our cover story for Alternative Press, then a signing, then a show, then we're going to hang out with you guys some more...” I paused to take a breath. “So, yeah, we're busy.”

“Cover story?” Craig laughed. “Nice!”

We went to get the rest of my band and drag them – despite cries of protest – from the back lounge to The Academy Is... bus. As usual, it was sunny and extremely hot. By the time we reached the bus, the rest of Chiodos was waiting there along with The Academy Is... and Escape The Fate. They were all talking about what we would be doing in this episode.

“I'm gonna be on TV!” Adam said, pretending to be excited.

“I know, this is my big moment!” I laughed, playing along, the way we always did.

William explained that this episode was going to be about how hot it is on Warped Tour. We all had various ways of “beating the heat” and it would all be shown in the episode. One of my parts was to shoot Butcher with a water gun.

“I'm soaked!” Butcher said after we had finished filming. He lifted his arms to show. Water practically rained down his arms.

I laughed. “I enjoyed that!”

I squirted water at him again to demonstrate. This prompted Max to shout “Water fight!”

For the next half hour, we all picked up water guns from the stash inside the bus and proceeded to drench each other. Other bands passing laughed at us, but not in a mean way. I managed to pretty much drown Sisky, Craig and Ronnie. After a while, we even pulled back into teams, each team being one band.

“Take cover!” Skylar called, dramatically diving sideways to avoid being hit by Bryan. I ducked and hid behind Adam.

“I'll sacrifice myself for you!” Adam said, laughing, aiming at Michael.

After being pretty much drowned, each team, in turn, gave in. We decided that we won, since we were last to surrender. Exhausted, we flopped down onto the grass and tried to catch our breath.

“Does anyone have the good honest decency to gather up these water guns and put them back into the bus?” William said breathlessly, clutching his chest.

“In other words, will anyone put the water guns back onto the bus?” I snickered. I got up and pulled Ronnie up, since he was closest to me. “Sure. C'mon, Ronnie, help me!”

Ronnie groaned but helped me gather up the guns. We put them back into the boxes and went around the other side of the bus and brought them back in. We sat on the bus steps afterwards, still tired out.

“I wonder what they'd think if we showed up to the photo shoot looking like this,” I said with a smirk. “I'm tempted to do it, just to see the looks on their faces.”

Ronnie smiled slightly. “They'd wonder how you look gorgeous even when you're soaked.”

I blushed and ran a hand through my hair. “Yeah, right.”

Ronnie's smile faded a bit. “I can't understand why you don't see it.”

“See what?”

“How beautiful you are,” Ronnie said, looking at me. “Inside and out.”

Before, I thought of it as just playful teasing, but Ronnie seemed to mean it now. Just listening to him saying it was almost enough to make me believe it. Almost.

“I'm not, Ronnie,” I said with a sigh. The steps to the bus were narrow, so we were sitting so close that we were touching. I could hear everyone else talking on the other side of the bus. “I try to be realistic. I don't fool myself into believing that I'm pretty, never mind beautiful. That goes for what's inside, too. I'm not beautiful inside. I'm different.”

Ronnie stared at me. That was being extremely honest for me. I turned away, embarressed. Ronnie said, so softly, “Then, in some ways, you're lying to yourself.”

I shrugged and stood up. Ronnie stood, too, and just when I was about to go back to everyone, he said, “Emily?”

I turned around and looked at him. He looked like he was about to say something else, but we both realised at the same time how close we were to each other. There was some energy between us that felt so real. Ronnie reached up and moved a wet strand of hair from my face. I forced myself to not look at his face, instead focusing on the tattoos on his arms. I became self-concious and worried that the small amount of make-up I was wearing smudged from the water. Ronnie tucked the strand behind my ear and I couldn't help but look at his gorgeous face. His hand hovered next to my face and finally rested on my cheek. He leaned in and kissed me.

It only lasted for a quick moment before we pulled away and stared at each other, both confused. My mind was a mess and I couldn't think staight. I moved away so that we weren't so close, at the same time trying to figure out what just happened.

“Emily!”

I spun around to see Adam a few steps away. My chest knotted up, worried that he may have saw.

“Emily, we have to go and get ready for the shoot and the interview,” Adam said, oblivious to what just happened. “C'mon!”

Silent, I stepped away from Ronnie, whose expression was as blank as mine probably was. I followed Adam around the side of the bus.

As I was getting ready back at our band's bus, I was still thinking about the kiss. It was then that I realised not only did Ronnie kiss me... I kissed back.