You watched as Joe sat down on the couch, guitar spread across his lap. He stared down at the instrument with an intense expression, plucking the strings quietly. Hums of different pitches filled the air, and he fiddled with the tuners every so often when he came across a pitch he didn't like. Occasionally, his eyes would flick up and vaguely register the TV screen before returning to his work. His hands looked so skilled, and his tinkering never wavered.

   Joe working with his guitar was certainly not an unpleasant sight to see. Quite the opposite, in fact. His concentration was unbelievably sexy, and the way he chewed on his lower lip as he worked nearly made you crazy. But, there was one flaw with his tinkering:

   And that flaw was that it was constant. Every time you had planned to talk to him, he would grab his guitar, sit down, and transport to that faraway place that only guitarists would understand. Just by his expression, you could tell that whenever he played, he was in a different world. But, sometimes, you wanted him to be in this world. With you, and paying attention to what you had to say. Because, what you had to say was more important than absentmindedly strumming a guitar.

   You had liked Joe for a long time, and you had been fighting with yourself over whether or not you would tell him. And, every time you were about to, he would pick up that damn guitar again, and he would strum away. Sure, that was a very efficient source of eye candy for you, but eye candy was not what you desired at those times.

   Disrupting him was always an option, but, whenever anybody talked to him while he was in the zone, he was clearly not invested in the conversation. He probably wasn't even listening at all. He would give halfhearted answers, his eyes not even bothering to leave his guitar. The band had learned to not even speak a word to him when he was tinkering, otherwise they would be in for a less than stellar conversation. Unbeknownst to Joe, Tom would quietly whisper in your brother, Steven's, ear and mock Joe's short responses. "Mhm," he'd mutter in an exaggeratedly bored tone. "Yeah, sure." Steven would practically keel over on the ground laughing at this, but, again, Joe was too preoccupied to notice.

   And, understandably, you wanted to have his full attention for this confession.

You placed your hands on your lap, unsure of what to do with yourself. The rest of the band was scattered throughout and outside of the house; Brad and Joey were doing their own things in their own respective rooms, Steven was out running errands, and Tom was out day-drinking. Meaning that you and Joe were alone in the living room. Nobody was there to bother you, nobody was there to thwart your plan. You could confess right there, right then.

   If it weren't for that damn guitar, of course. Joe was looking at that thing like it was his baby, and you couldn't help but feel envious of the inanimate object. It had his time, and that was all you wanted.

   But, you realized that there could not have been a better time for you to confess than that exact moment. Each time you had wanted to, some member of the band was mulling about, poised to listen to every word. It wasn't like they'd sabotage you or anything, but they (especially Steven) would certainly poke lots of fun at you, and you, quite frankly, could do without the embarrassment.

   So, you decided to at least try. Try to get Joe to pry his attention away from his beautiful guitar and to you, whom you hoped was just as beautiful to him. The very notion that you'd finally be spilling your feelings to him made your stomach clench. If he didn't return your feelings, this would be very awkward. After all, there wasn't another band member here to lighten the mood. To steer the conversation away from your humiliation. No, you'd just be left to stew in your own embarrassment as he went back to his guitar.

   But, then again, this private environment did make things a lot more intimate, didn't it?

   "Hey, Joe," you ventured, not really expecting much of a response. After all, he was in his la-la land filled with notes and chords.

   And not much of a response was what you had gotten. "Hmm?" he hummed in reply, continuing to strum away.

   You didn't know what to say to obtain his full attention. Aside from the presence of the rest of the band, this was the main contributor of why you hadn't told him sooner: he was untouchable right now. How would you get his attention?

   "Can I talk to you for a minute?" you lamely asked, walking over to the couch from your previous position of being perched on the armchair. You sat down, looking hopefully at him.

   He didn't even dignify your presence with a glance. "Yeah, sure," he mumbled absentmindedly, adjusting one of his tuners with two careful, precise fingers.

   You stared at him for a bit to see if he would put down his guitar and turn his attention to you, but when he didn't, you requested quietly, "Can I have your undivided attention? It's pretty important."

   "You have my undivided attention," he said in a deadpan tone, still not meeting your eyes.

   The gentle sounds of his guitar were the only noises that filled the air as you tried to figure out how to be more forceful, but not a jackass. "I more mean. . ." You cleared your throat, lightly tapping his hand awkwardly. "I more mean, can you put that down and actually look at me?"

   "I can play and listen, (Y/N)." This time, his eyes darted over to yours for the briefest moment.

That was progress, you supposed. So, you just needed to keep annoying him until he put down the guitar out of exasperation (but not with too much exasperation, since him being genuinely angry was the last thing you wanted). "Are you serious?" you teased. "No, you can't. If you could play and listen, you'd hear all the times that Tom has made fun of you behind your back."

"He did that?" Joe questioned, sounding only infinitesimally bothered. Still, though, his eyes were focused on his guitar.

"Yep. For not listening."

When he didn't reply, you stared at the floor, lips pressed into a thin line as you debated where to go from here. "Come on, Joe," you eventually blurted out pathetically.

"Oh, my God," he groaned, a small smile on his face. "You're annoying. I'm listening, God damn it. Go."

As you watched him continue to indulge in his fascinations, all the will to pry him away from his guitar left your body. Clearly, it would be an impossible task. What more could you have done?

So, you settled for just telling him. Besides, the news would be surprising enough to rip him away from his music for you, right?

"Joe. . ," you began, picking at your nails. Your throat felt dry, your tongue swollen. Rejection was not something you desired, and you feared it was imminent. "I um. . .I like you. A lot."

Joe went quiet a second, and that made you feel slightly nervous. You had wanted an immediate reaction, like jumping into your arms and cheering, maybe. Pondering wasn't good. It meant he had to think about how to respond, and why would he have to think about it if he wasn't going to reject you?

"Go on," he eventually said slowly, his voice lazy.

Confused, you responded, equally slowly, "That's it."

He strummed a few strings, then a few more as you were waiting for him to speak, frozen in confusion. Why had he thought that there had been more? Should you have given him more? You weren't above listing off all of his amazing qualities (his obsessive guitar playing not being one of them), and you would do so in a heartbeat. Maybe that was what—

"I like you, too," he revealed, and your heart leaped with happiness.

But, that happiness was quickly extinguished when you realized that something wasn't right:

His tone wasn't what it should have been if he was confessing his romantic feelings for you. He should've sounded surprised, excited. . .anything but what he had communicated. As opposed to sounding at all involved, he had said those words too nonchalantly. Too lazily.

And that's when you realized that he had thought you were talking about him in a friendly way. That you were just proclaiming your platonic love because you could. Because he had been so preoccupied, he completely missed the social cues that maybe, just maybe, you were communicating something a little more important than a random declaration of friendship.

"No, that's not what I mean," you said quietly.

He didn't acknowledge your statement in any way, his gaze not meeting yours at all.

Sharp annoyance suddenly flooded your body. Multi-tasking wasn't that hard, so why was it so impossible for Joe?

In a burst of anger, you grabbed his guitar from his hands and put it down on the floor. You had almost thrown it, but you realized that if you had broken it, he'd have had your head. And, even though you were nearing the point where you'd have his head, you didn't need the favor returned. After all, touching his guitar was a big enough offense.

Joe's head finally whipped around, his eyes burning into yours. An anger similar to yours was detectable in those orbs that you could get lost in, and his mouth was downturned in an upset frown. "Hey!"

"Don't 'hey' me! Joe, I want you to listen to me! You barely even acknowledge me when you've got that thing in your hands."

"Oh my God, what? What is it that's so important that I can't play and listen at the same time?"

"I like you, Joe!" you finally blurted out, and it felt like a huge weight had been lifted off your shoulders. You hadn't realized how much you were agonizing over confessing until right then, when you were staring angrily at the man you knew you were in love with. "More than as friends, okay? Like, romantically! And I wanted your full attention to tell you. I didn't want you to be distracted by that thing." You gestured sharply to his guitar. "I wanna date you, Joe." You paused a little before adding bitterly, "Well, maybe I don't now!"

Joe stared at you, utterly flabbergasted. You liked him? No way. This was a cruel trick of the eye, and of the ear.

But, when he saw you staring at him expectantly, he knew that somehow. . .this was real. You liked him, and he liked you. How lucky he was!

He felt awful now, though. He had simply brushed you off when you had been trying to convey deep, romantic feelings to him. All because of that stupid guitar. The one he nervously fidgeted with anytime you were near. It was a habit that he could not break for the life of him. Anytime you blessed him with your beautiful presence, his hands went to his guitar, and his eyes did, too. He could never bear to look at you because of his fear that he would simply die at your beauty.

You looked beautiful now, too, despite how angry you obviously were. Your rage made you look intense, confident. It made you look brutal, but in a somehow gorgeous way.

Joe opened his mouth to speak. He didn't know what to say, however. One annoying part of him wanted to comment on how you had touched his guitar. His instrument. His baby. But, only when his one love was staring him in the face did that fact seem so trivial. He always got mad when people touched his stuff. But you took his values and stomped all over them, replacing them with you, you, and only you.

So, he chose to forget that. He needed to tell you just how he felt about you. Eloquently. In a way that would sweep you off your feet and make you fall even harder for him.

"I like you, too."

And with that, Joe's tongue dried up. Nothing more could be said. He was too mesmerized by you, and too pained by the borderline aching beat of his heart. It didn't feel natural, for his heart to be behaving in the way that it did. It was making him dizzy. It was hard to breathe. Some inner voice cautioned him to go to the hospital, but another reassured him that it was just you. And of course it was. You were capable of anything, even causing severe heart palpitations.

Joe didn't feel that that tiny little proclamation was enough, however. So, he worked to talk around his dry tongue. "I want to date you, too. Be my girlfriend, (Y/N). I think you're such an awesome person that deserves the world. You're beautiful, you're kind, you're funny, and you have such a kickass music taste. I've never met anyone like you before."

That felt more appropriate, so Joe left it at that, not wanting to have to speak with that annoying quiver his voice always seemed to have around you.

You had thought that merely telling Joe would be enough to lift the weight of confessing off your shoulders, but the massive tidal wave of relief and ecstasy proved that assumption wrong. You had never felt so light and so free. So much so, that Joe's initial resistance didn't feel like such an annoyance anymore. It didn't matter. You had him, and that's all that did matter.

You smiled, and that made Joe smile, too. You pushed the guitar further away from the two of you with your foot, scooting closer to him on the couch. "So, that means you're my boyfriend now."

You didn't phrase it as a question, but rather a statement. Still, Joe enthusiastically agreed. "Yes, and you're my girlfriend."

"Mhm," you hummed in reply. You looked at the guitar, then back at Joe with a smirk. "I like you better when you're not playing that thing."

"And I like you better when you're not taking it from me," he said back, his hand coming up to cup your cheek.

His touch sent shocks of electricity down your body, and you leaned into it with a contented sigh. Joe Perry was yours, and you were Joe Perry's. You couldn't even begin to process how you'd gotten dealt such a godly hand in this life.

Your eyes fluttered closed as you felt his breath tickle your lips, and you smiled a little as they touched yours. You had been fantasizing about this moment for God knew how long, and your fantasizes didn't even do his kisses justice. They were so soft and gentle, and smooth. His movements were smooth; each tilt of the head, touch, and stroke of the tongue flowed together perfectly, and it made you rather self-conscious. You didn't think you could compare to what he was doing, but you assumed that maybe you could when he let out a hum of contentment.

You two pulled apart to catch your breath. "I think," he panted, "I should listen to you more often. When you say to put down the guitar. This is way more important."

"I think so, too. You've been missing some pretty worthwhile shit I've had to say aside from this, too."

"Oh, do fill me in."

And with that, you launched into all the useless shit you had wanted to tell him when he was tinkering (that you could remember). You felt so appreciated as his eyes burned into yours. They were alight with interest, alight with love. It was hard to find someone who would listen like that. Well, he was still a bit of a fixer-upper, of course, hence the guitar. But, so many people lacked the passion for what you had to say that he had, even when they weren't busy.

As Joe watched you, talking animatedly, he hoped that maybe, just maybe, he could break the habit of his nervous fidgeting. He hated having to rely on his guitar, thereby tune out the world around him. But, now that he had you, there was no reason to be nervous.

Of course, he thought that, but who was he kidding? Even though he had you, your beauty, inside and out, would still fluster him from time to time. And he had a feeling that he'd still be seeing the strings of his lovely guitar fairly regularly.

—
Thank you to out0nAlimb for this amazing request!! Sorry this took so long! Finals, sports, yk how it is. But, summer break starts today for me, so I should definitely be writing more!