Drabble #6 - Loops (Teddy/Taeyang)
A series of interconnected drabbly things in honor of the last day of Drabble Month. :3
Title: Loops
Pairing: Teddy/Taeyang
Rating: R
Summary: A peek at Teddy and Taeyang's creative process.
A/N: The Panty Loop and the story behind it are 100% real and inspired me to write this. Being familiar with the lyrics of Taeyang's Solar album will help you enjoy this one a lot more. Good translations are available here.
C:/Users/Teddy/Desktop/Loops/pantyloop.aif
"Panty?" Youngbae says confusedly, and then the familiar piano bars for I Don't Care resound through the small studio.
Teddy looks up, sees him staring at the computer screen with his eyebrows up, and laughs. "Yeah. Kush wrote that in his underwear."
"Oh."
"In his place, I mean. Anyway, he called it that."
Youngbae's eyes flick over to him. "Oh." The music stops and Teddy goes back to his book.
***
C:/Users/Teddy/Desktop/Loops/maybegood???.aif
Youngbae's been switching between his drum machine and his keyboard for the better part of an hour, now, his fingers moving carefully over the switches and buttons and his teeth worrying at his bottom lip.
"Teddy," he finally says, frowning, as he unplugs his headphones.
Teddy pretends he wasn't watching him. The beat is clean and simple but it lacks a little depth, and he's considering various ways to fix it when Youngbae sits down at the keyboard again, puts his fingers on the keys, and then it all comes together and Teddy's so fucking proud of him he could burst.
***
C:/Users/Teddy/Desktop/Loops/fruitloop.aif
"Hwang-ssabu says you need to stop eating crap around Taeyang because it's bad for him," Youngbae announces, smiling, as he pulls napkins, forks, and two containers full of fruit salad out of a plastic bag.
Hwang-ssabu can shove his plain white rice and his lettuce straight up his ass, Teddy manages not to say. Fruit salad doesn't sound that bad, anyway - he's been sitting at his desk long enough for his stomach to be rumbling. And his bladder, he suddenly realizes, isn't happy either.
"Bathroom first," he says, standing up, then waves a hand toward the computer. "Listen to this."
"You forgot to save," Youngbae says through a mouthful of melon as he steps back into the studio. "I like the trumpet."
Teddy sits down, leans closer to the screen, and laughs when he spots the filename Youngbae chose. "Good one."
"What?"
"Fruit Loop?"
Youngbae stares at him, chewing slowly. Teddy manages to turn the confusion into an impromptu English lesson once he finally remembers that the damn things are called Fruit Rings in Korea.
***
C:/Users/Teddy/Desktop/Loops/fuuuuuck.aif
Teddy wakes up on his couch with a sequence of chords in his head and barely notices Youngbae sitting at the computer as he stumbles over to his keyboard.
He plays the chords over and over again, changes the order, changes it again, and finally slams his hands over the keys in incoherent, half-awake frustration. Youngbae flinches next to him. "Sorry," he mutters, then rubs his eyes.
He opens them to Youngbae straddling his leg and shoving one arm into his face to get to the keys. He tries a couple of things - brow furrowed and teeth digging into his lip and Teddy's seriously starting to love seeing that expression on him - then perches himself on Teddy's knee and tries a few more.
It takes him about three minutes to work out something perfect. He looks over at Teddy for approval, and Teddy isn't nearly awake enough to censor himself. "You're beautiful when you play."
Youngbae blinks.
"Uh, that was pretty good, too."
He blinks again, then laughs softly and lowers his eyes, his fingers wandering over the keys at random.
Nice save, dumbass. Youngbae doesn't seem to mind, though, and he's still on his knee, and-- "Hey, YB?" he says gently, touching the small of his back.
They stare at each other for so long, perfectly still, that Teddy starts when Youngbae suddenly stands up. "I have to-- dance practice," he says, then nearly trips over Teddy's foot on his way out of the studio.
***
C:/Users/Teddy/Desktop/Loops/justafeeling.aif
He gets home and listens to Youngbae's very first loop over and over again until he knows every nuance of it by heart, until it melts into the background. The melody doesn't take long to work out. The lyrics... He scribbles hurriedly into a notepad, hunched over his desk, and finds out that most of it was already floating somewhere at the back of his mind.
When Youngbae drops by too late at night and looking too tired, as usual, Teddy manages to feign nonchalance for about thirty sweaty-palmed minutes, then thrusts the notebook at him.
"D'you like it?" he asks, too hot and faintly nauseous, as Youngbae's eyes dart over the messy lines.
"Yes, it's..." He glances up, reads again, plays with one corner of the page. "I'm scared too," he finally admits with a little smile, and then Teddy can breathe and everything's okay again.
***
C:/Music/Randomcrap/Unfinished/breakdown.wav
He pads into his living room the following morning and finds Youngbae at his computer with an old blanket around him and a mug of tea in his hands. Sneaking up on him doesn't work, despite the earbuds he's wearing; he feels the vibration of Teddy's footsteps, maybe, and turns his head just in time. Teddy squeezes his shoulders and gives him a kiss on the temple anyway. "Whatcha listening to?"
Youngbae shrugs and gestures to the computer monitor, then offers him an earbud.
Fifteen seconds in, Teddy still has no idea what he's listening to. He bends closer to the screen and something finally clicks when he sees the filename. "Ohh... Wow, where'd you find that?"
"I like it," Youngbae says instead of answering him (so he's been snooping around his music files - Teddy doesn't particularly mind). "Is it for 1TYM?"
"Yeah, it was. For an old song. I just couldn't get the breakdown right."
"I like it," he repeats. "It doesn't sound like anything else. You should make a song out of it."
Teddy stares at the screen as the short file plays again, listening to the synth and the ratatat of the drums and the half-assed "oh oh"s he recorded just to test things out. "Ya think?"
***
C:/Users/Teddy/Desktop/Loops/iloveu.aif
Teddy's digging through his piles of CDs for good funk music that'll show Youngbae just what he's been missing - Curtis Mayfield or James Brown or Parliament, maybe - when a surprised-sounding burst of laughter from the living room makes him stop and raise his head. "What?" he calls out.
"Fuuuuuuck," Youngbae replies, his voice flat as if he's reading something. It takes a few seconds for Teddy to remember, and then he's torn somewhere between laughing too and smacking his forehead in pure embarrassment.
"I couldn't think of anything," he lies loudly. "Name it something else."
***
C:/Users/Teddy/Desktop/move.rtf
"Move," Teddy whispers into the darkness when he can't take it anymore. He doesn't know how they got to this point so fast, but nothing's ever felt righter than Youngbae on top of him, Youngbae's slippery fingers twined with his own, Youngbae panting softly into his ear.
"Like that?" he says, and then his breath hitches and his fingers clench around Teddy's and Teddy decides, after hearing the soft, surprised moan above him, that like that is exactly the right way to do it.
"Yeah, don't stop." He loses himself in the rhythm of Youngbae's hips, of his panting breaths, of the creaking bed... and then Youngbae stops. Teddy can just barely distinguish the puzzled expression on his face when he opens his eyes.
"What's wrong?" Young Bae asks, and Teddy realizes he's been mouthing things.
"Nothing, I just-- shit, it's just." He works his fingers free, squeezes Youngbae's hips. "One sec, okay?"
A moment later he's standing naked at his desk, pounding the keys of his laptop's keyboard as fast as he can. Youngbae watches him from the bed with a faint smile on his face, and Teddy's pretty sure anyone else would have killed him for doing this.
***
C:/Users/Teddy/Desktop/slow.rtf
Youngbae sings in the shower. Teddy's heard him a few times before, warming up for a recording session or practicing his English, but this time it's all stops and starts and awkward pauses and Teddy just has to stop and listen at the bathroom door.
"When you're touching-- When you touch me, I still--"
He listens until Youngbae's made up the better part of a verse, then goes back to work, or at least stares at his keyboard with a smile on his face for several minutes.
Youngbae comes out of the bathroom frowning and muttering under his breath. "Can I use your laptop?"
"Sure," Teddy says, and he's entirely unsurprised by the file that shows up on the desktop when he boots it up a couple of days later. "You need music for that?"
"No," Youngbae replies, then looks mildly embarrassed. "... Don't read it before it comes out. It's for you."
Title: Loops
Pairing: Teddy/Taeyang
Rating: R
Summary: A peek at Teddy and Taeyang's creative process.
A/N: The Panty Loop and the story behind it are 100% real and inspired me to write this. Being familiar with the lyrics of Taeyang's Solar album will help you enjoy this one a lot more. Good translations are available here.
C:/Users/Teddy/Desktop/Loops/pantyloop.aif
"Panty?" Youngbae says confusedly, and then the familiar piano bars for I Don't Care resound through the small studio.
Teddy looks up, sees him staring at the computer screen with his eyebrows up, and laughs. "Yeah. Kush wrote that in his underwear."
"Oh."
"In his place, I mean. Anyway, he called it that."
Youngbae's eyes flick over to him. "Oh." The music stops and Teddy goes back to his book.
***
C:/Users/Teddy/Desktop/Loops/maybegood???.aif
Youngbae's been switching between his drum machine and his keyboard for the better part of an hour, now, his fingers moving carefully over the switches and buttons and his teeth worrying at his bottom lip.
"Teddy," he finally says, frowning, as he unplugs his headphones.
Teddy pretends he wasn't watching him. The beat is clean and simple but it lacks a little depth, and he's considering various ways to fix it when Youngbae sits down at the keyboard again, puts his fingers on the keys, and then it all comes together and Teddy's so fucking proud of him he could burst.
***
C:/Users/Teddy/Desktop/Loops/fruitloop.aif
"Hwang-ssabu says you need to stop eating crap around Taeyang because it's bad for him," Youngbae announces, smiling, as he pulls napkins, forks, and two containers full of fruit salad out of a plastic bag.
Hwang-ssabu can shove his plain white rice and his lettuce straight up his ass, Teddy manages not to say. Fruit salad doesn't sound that bad, anyway - he's been sitting at his desk long enough for his stomach to be rumbling. And his bladder, he suddenly realizes, isn't happy either.
"Bathroom first," he says, standing up, then waves a hand toward the computer. "Listen to this."
"You forgot to save," Youngbae says through a mouthful of melon as he steps back into the studio. "I like the trumpet."
Teddy sits down, leans closer to the screen, and laughs when he spots the filename Youngbae chose. "Good one."
"What?"
"Fruit Loop?"
Youngbae stares at him, chewing slowly. Teddy manages to turn the confusion into an impromptu English lesson once he finally remembers that the damn things are called Fruit Rings in Korea.
***
C:/Users/Teddy/Desktop/Loops/fuuuuuck.aif
Teddy wakes up on his couch with a sequence of chords in his head and barely notices Youngbae sitting at the computer as he stumbles over to his keyboard.
He plays the chords over and over again, changes the order, changes it again, and finally slams his hands over the keys in incoherent, half-awake frustration. Youngbae flinches next to him. "Sorry," he mutters, then rubs his eyes.
He opens them to Youngbae straddling his leg and shoving one arm into his face to get to the keys. He tries a couple of things - brow furrowed and teeth digging into his lip and Teddy's seriously starting to love seeing that expression on him - then perches himself on Teddy's knee and tries a few more.
It takes him about three minutes to work out something perfect. He looks over at Teddy for approval, and Teddy isn't nearly awake enough to censor himself. "You're beautiful when you play."
Youngbae blinks.
"Uh, that was pretty good, too."
He blinks again, then laughs softly and lowers his eyes, his fingers wandering over the keys at random.
Nice save, dumbass. Youngbae doesn't seem to mind, though, and he's still on his knee, and-- "Hey, YB?" he says gently, touching the small of his back.
They stare at each other for so long, perfectly still, that Teddy starts when Youngbae suddenly stands up. "I have to-- dance practice," he says, then nearly trips over Teddy's foot on his way out of the studio.
***
C:/Users/Teddy/Desktop/Loops/justafeeling.aif
He gets home and listens to Youngbae's very first loop over and over again until he knows every nuance of it by heart, until it melts into the background. The melody doesn't take long to work out. The lyrics... He scribbles hurriedly into a notepad, hunched over his desk, and finds out that most of it was already floating somewhere at the back of his mind.
When Youngbae drops by too late at night and looking too tired, as usual, Teddy manages to feign nonchalance for about thirty sweaty-palmed minutes, then thrusts the notebook at him.
"D'you like it?" he asks, too hot and faintly nauseous, as Youngbae's eyes dart over the messy lines.
"Yes, it's..." He glances up, reads again, plays with one corner of the page. "I'm scared too," he finally admits with a little smile, and then Teddy can breathe and everything's okay again.
***
C:/Music/Randomcrap/Unfinished/breakdown.wav
He pads into his living room the following morning and finds Youngbae at his computer with an old blanket around him and a mug of tea in his hands. Sneaking up on him doesn't work, despite the earbuds he's wearing; he feels the vibration of Teddy's footsteps, maybe, and turns his head just in time. Teddy squeezes his shoulders and gives him a kiss on the temple anyway. "Whatcha listening to?"
Youngbae shrugs and gestures to the computer monitor, then offers him an earbud.
Fifteen seconds in, Teddy still has no idea what he's listening to. He bends closer to the screen and something finally clicks when he sees the filename. "Ohh... Wow, where'd you find that?"
"I like it," Youngbae says instead of answering him (so he's been snooping around his music files - Teddy doesn't particularly mind). "Is it for 1TYM?"
"Yeah, it was. For an old song. I just couldn't get the breakdown right."
"I like it," he repeats. "It doesn't sound like anything else. You should make a song out of it."
Teddy stares at the screen as the short file plays again, listening to the synth and the ratatat of the drums and the half-assed "oh oh"s he recorded just to test things out. "Ya think?"
***
C:/Users/Teddy/Desktop/Loops/iloveu.aif
Teddy's digging through his piles of CDs for good funk music that'll show Youngbae just what he's been missing - Curtis Mayfield or James Brown or Parliament, maybe - when a surprised-sounding burst of laughter from the living room makes him stop and raise his head. "What?" he calls out.
"Fuuuuuuck," Youngbae replies, his voice flat as if he's reading something. It takes a few seconds for Teddy to remember, and then he's torn somewhere between laughing too and smacking his forehead in pure embarrassment.
"I couldn't think of anything," he lies loudly. "Name it something else."
***
C:/Users/Teddy/Desktop/move.rtf
"Move," Teddy whispers into the darkness when he can't take it anymore. He doesn't know how they got to this point so fast, but nothing's ever felt righter than Youngbae on top of him, Youngbae's slippery fingers twined with his own, Youngbae panting softly into his ear.
"Like that?" he says, and then his breath hitches and his fingers clench around Teddy's and Teddy decides, after hearing the soft, surprised moan above him, that like that is exactly the right way to do it.
"Yeah, don't stop." He loses himself in the rhythm of Youngbae's hips, of his panting breaths, of the creaking bed... and then Youngbae stops. Teddy can just barely distinguish the puzzled expression on his face when he opens his eyes.
"What's wrong?" Young Bae asks, and Teddy realizes he's been mouthing things.
"Nothing, I just-- shit, it's just." He works his fingers free, squeezes Youngbae's hips. "One sec, okay?"
A moment later he's standing naked at his desk, pounding the keys of his laptop's keyboard as fast as he can. Youngbae watches him from the bed with a faint smile on his face, and Teddy's pretty sure anyone else would have killed him for doing this.
***
C:/Users/Teddy/Desktop/slow.rtf
Youngbae sings in the shower. Teddy's heard him a few times before, warming up for a recording session or practicing his English, but this time it's all stops and starts and awkward pauses and Teddy just has to stop and listen at the bathroom door.
"When you're touching-- When you touch me, I still--"
He listens until Youngbae's made up the better part of a verse, then goes back to work, or at least stares at his keyboard with a smile on his face for several minutes.
Youngbae comes out of the bathroom frowning and muttering under his breath. "Can I use your laptop?"
"Sure," Teddy says, and he's entirely unsurprised by the file that shows up on the desktop when he boots it up a couple of days later. "You need music for that?"
"No," Youngbae replies, then looks mildly embarrassed. "... Don't read it before it comes out. It's for you."