(Not a part of the celebrity crush mini series)

💭

"Hey, look at me." Joshua whispered softly as he rubbed small circles onto the back of your hand. You sighed and looked up, meeting your boyfriend's reassuring eyes. "We're gonna be fine. I love you."

He placed a small kiss on the tip of your nose, knowing that if he were to kiss you anywhere else on your face, he was in for an earful from your makeup artist. You smiled warmly at the meaningful gesture and reveled in the comfort of his embrace until your little moment was interrupted by your assistant, reminding you that you had to be on set soon.

You walked out onto the stage a few moments later, the crowd cheering and the bright lights blinding your vision. "Welcome to the show!" James cheered once you and Joshua approached center stage and the crowd had died down.

When you both were settled in your seats the cameras began rolling on the new segment. "Everyone, please help me give a warm welcome to our next guests, Y/N L/N and Joshua Bassett!" James announced warmly.

You and Joshua were completely unaware that you'd both be doing this segment with James until around 10 minutes ago, so it was safe to say you were nervous. Your manager agreed on your behalf to do the interview in a heartbeat once she found out that James needed a few guests for his last segment of the show. She was too ecstatic about the publicity you, Joshua, and the show's upcoming season would get to remember to tell you both about it.

"How're you both feeling about this?" James inquired with a cheeky smile on his face. You and Joshua glanced at each other from across the table with similar looks before responding.

"I'm practically shitting my pants, James." You answered honestly, eyeing the foul items of food placed neatly around the circular table.

"This smells fucking—oops sorry for swearing—disgusting." Joshua stammered while he pointed down at the bird saliva, earning a laugh from the audience and James.

"Just don't breathe." You advised jokingly as you looked down at the platter directly in front of you; the thousand year old egg.

"Easier said than done, Y/N/N."

"Alright children, so this is how the game works." James began to explain how this game segment is played and the order in which you'd be playing. "So, I will ask Y/N a question, Y/N will ask Josh a question, and Josh will ask me a question. Got it?"

After you and Joshua nodded approvingly, James proceeded to list the different foods on the table that one of you would have to eat if you chose not to answer a question written on the cards. These foods and beverages consisted of turkey testicles, cow tongue, ant yogurt, a salmon smoothie, pig flesh meat jelly, a thousand year old egg, bird saliva, and cod sperm.

Delicious, right?

"Alright, Y/N, you can go first. Would you like to choose for Joshua?" You nodded and smirked mischievously as you eyed all of the disgusting foods while slowly spinning the table around and watching Joshua's face contort repeatedly when different dishes passed by, the pungent scent hitting his nose each time. 

You decided to give him the cod sperm right off the bat, seeing as it got the biggest reaction out of him when it passed by his nose. Joshua groaned and buried his head in his hands while the audience cheered and hollered at your food choice.

You turned to your left and picked up the top card that sat on a little tray, making a mental note of the glasses filled with water and milk beside it in case you'd need it later.

"Alright, Joshua." You spoke teasingly, attempting to maintain a suspenseful tone as you read the question off the card. "Who is your least favourite costar and why?"

Joshua gasped and shook his head before looking down at the ivory coloured cod sperm and then met your eyes again. "I honestly, truly love everyone on the show. I don't dislike anyone."

"Just answer the question, Bassett." You smirked.

"It's Y/N, isn't it?" James laughed wildly at Josh's reaction to his question. Josh's eyes widened and he quickly denied James' claim, while you crossed your arms and turned your head away from Josh's pleading gaze in mock offense.

"No—I.. It's not Y/N. I can't—no that does not mean that I have a least favourite—okay wait!" Joshua stuttered messily as he gave the cod sperm one final look before picking up his fork and toying with the contents in the small bowl.

"Just don't look at it!" You spoke as you leaned away from the table. Joshua looked up at you with a blank expression.

"Oh yeah, that fixes everything. Just don't look at it."
He deadpanned before taking a deep breath in and putting the cod sperm in his mouth. You covered your mouth and shut your eyes tightly as Joshua chewed slowly.

"Oh god, the aftertaste! That tastes like shit!" Joshua grabbed the waste bin and paused, looking back towards the audience. "To spit or to swallow, that's the question."

Ultimately, he decided to swallow it, sticking out his tongue to show you that it was all gone before rushing to down the glass of water to rid his mouth of the nasty aftertaste.

Next, Joshua turned to James and gave him the pig flesh meat jelly. James refused to answer his question, so he ended up chowing down on the pig flesh meat jelly without any hesitation whatsoever.

"Alright, Y/N.." James spoke while rotating the table at a taunting rate. "I think I'll give you—"

"Give her the turkey testicles!" Joshua interrupted with enthusiasm in his voice. James' grin grew wider than the Cheshire Cat's. He mischievously turned the table until the cuisine was right in front of you.

He picked up the card and immediately covered his mouth. "Y/N," he spoke through laughs, "You're an incredible actor. From Stranger Things to It, HSMTMTS, and everything in between, you always manage to deliver a brilliant performance. Throughout your career, you've had many memorable onscreen kisses. Rank your costars from best to worst kissers; Caleb Mclaughlin, Chosen Jacobs and Joshua Bassett."

(Sorry, I love Caleb and Chosen
sm and they are SO underrated)

The juicy question made the audience 'ooo' and whisper excitedly to the people beside them, expressing immense interest.

A rosy blush covered your cheeks and you slapped the palm of your hand against your forehead in embarrassment. Joshua stared at you expectantly, as if the answer was obvious.

While you appeared calm—for the situation at hand—you were internally panicking. You and Joshua had been keeping your relationship a secret from the public for 5 months now. You both got together during the HSMTMTS premiere, and shortly after agreed to keep things low key until your 6 month anniversary (at least).

Even though you've denied the relationship rumors that arose shortly after the series came out, many fans still had their suspicions about you two and shipped you either way.

It was difficult at first, especially when new relationship rumors would come out about you and one of your costars or one of Josh's costars—but deep down inside you knew that telling the public about your relationship too soon would only lead to disaster.

Right? Will subtly revealing your relationship a month early really do any harm to your relationship? Probably not.. but would you risk it?

Maybe one day. But right now, you were perfectly content with your relationship with Joshua and didn't want to do anything to jeopardize it.

"I can't answer that!" You laughed defeatedly, while Joshua furrowed his eyebrows. The contemplative look on your face only made him insecure and a bit worried. Now, he was less focused on studying your expression and more invested in questioning every single time you'd kissed.

Sighing loudly, you knew you couldn't hurt either of them considering how close you all had gotten during filming. However, you really didn't want to have to eat a turkey's balls.

"Best to worst? Uh, okay—give me a second—yeah.. I can't." You muttered quickly as you plugged your nose and took the tiniest bite. James and the audience bursted out in laughter at Joshua's shocked reaction. His eyebrows were practically touching his hairline and it looked like he'd seen a ghost.

Tears rimmed your waterline as you gagged at the chewiness of the 'food' and grabbed your waste bin to spit it out. "Okay," you inhaled sharply, glancing at the men sitting in front of you and sending Joshua a shameless wink that made him guffaw. "Let's keep going." You moved on swiftly and spun the table around, contemplating which food to give your boyfriend.

"Y/N.." You hummed in response, avoiding his everlasting gaze.

"Have I told you how nice your hair looks today?" Joshua began, sending you a sickly sweet smile.

The crowd cooed and chuckled simultaneously and you mimicked his expression. "Aw, thanks. I'm still giving you the salmon smoothie though."

Joshua groaned exhaustedly and leaned in to take a sniff of the weird concoction as you read off the question. "What was happening in this viral picture of us?" You spoke as you lifted up a card with a paparazzi photo of you two attached to it.

The photo was recently taken; you remember the day vividly actually. It was from your 5 month anniversary. It was also the day that the Anyone Else music video reached a million views. To celebrate, Joshua had taken you on a boat to watch the sun set.

You both were both sitting at the front of the boat, Joshua laughing wildly at something you had said as you shared a large blanket, completely unaware of the lurking photographers until you were back on land. But by then it was far too late, the photos were already all over twitter.

Honestly, there wasn't anything particularly off about the photo. You weren't kissing or acting overly affectionate in the photo, but another sighting of you and Joshua out and about together only fueled the fire and caused more relationship rumors to emerge.

"Uh, you were telling me, um, we were talking about—what was it—oh I remember now. This is more embarrassing for you than me actually." He spoke with an airy chuckle, and suddenly you remembered your conversation. It wasn't too embarrassing, but it was also something that didn't needed to be said on TV. "Y/N had just accidentally walked in on the skipper in the bathroom and he wasn't too pleased with her."

You blushed embarrassedly as the crowd cheered and their laughs echoed through the studio.

Next, Joshua went on to ask James his question which he answered with ease, meaning he didn't have to eat a thousand year old egg. Then it was your turn and Joshua was looking at you with a smirk.

"Y/N for your final turn you will be having.. a good ol' cow's tongue!" The enthusiasm in James' voice made you roll your eyes as you grimaced at the tongue's large, bright pink taste buds.

"Alright, let's get this over with."

"That's the spirit!" James cheered as he read the card silently to himself. "You've been in the spotlight for a while now, ever since you were 15, correct?" You nodded with furrowed eyebrows, unsure of where this was going. "It's safe to say you know a thing or two about fame. What's the worst part about being famous?"

"You gave her such an easy question!" Joshua complained, crossing his arms as he pouted. You giggled softly at Josh's reaction.

"Well.. uh, I don't want to seem like I'm being ungrateful or anything—because I'm not, I'm very grateful for the fans and all of these experiences—but.. I guess not being able to go to 'regular' places ir do regular tasks without being followed or photographed gets old after a certain amount of time."

"After the first time!" Joshua shouted.

James chuckled at your very thought out answer. "Couldn't have said it better myself. Speaking of, do you wish you weren't photographed here?" He grabbed the picture used for Joshua's previous turn that you had set aside on the table in between you and James and held it up cheekily.

"Now James.. you know that's a completely different question. I already answered the question I was given." You grinned smugly as James stared back at you defeatedly. Since you were clearly right, James prompted you to continue the game and go on with Joshua's turn.

After choosing to give Joshua the bird saliva, you grabbed the next card and fought back a laugh as you skimmed over the question. "Joshua, you recently released a music video for your latest single Anyone Else. Since then, speculating fans seem to believe that the mysterious female behind the camera is your girlfriend. Who—"

Before you could even finish reading off the question, Joshua lifted his glass towards the audience before taking a gulp of the bird saliva.

James clapped and chuckled loudly and you placed the card in front of the lower half of your face to hide your smile. Joshua made sure to gargle with water to wash the disgusting taste out of his mouth.

"Why's it warm?" Joshua questioned as he wiped his tongue with a napkin in hopes that the overwhelming aftertaste would disappear.

"It's fresh. Guillermo actually collected the bird saliva on the roof for us this morning." James replied, nodding towards the show's drummer who was watching the interview with amusement.

James ended the segment in the same professional way he does every time, making sure to flash a warm smile and mention season 2 of HSMTMTS coming out soon before the camera cut off and people dashed around the stage. James hugged you both and thanked you for being on the show before rushing off to prepare for the next interview, leaving you and Joshua on the side of the stage with the crew and your assistant.

Once you both had your microphones taken off and were left alone, Joshua pulled you out of the hallway and into his dressing room.

After shutting the door an turning around, he placed one of his large hands on your hip and another on your cheek before leaning in to place a soft kiss on your lips. You kissed him back until he tried to deepen the kiss and insert his tongue. You quickly pulled back and placed a hand on his chest.

"You can taste the bird saliva, can't you?"

You scrunched up your face and nodded awkwardly, pressing your forehead against his chest to hide your evident embarrassment.

"Yeah, we should probably go brush our teeth." Joshua spoke pointing towards his mouth. "Can I just ask you a question first?" You leaned up to kiss his cheek as you gestured for him to continue.

"So, uhm.. does Caleb Mclaughlin kiss better than me?"

N O T E !
the flow is OFF on this one but it's okay—