#— ✕ ·˚ a broken record in a lonely room | music ❜

[thetravelingtyper]

On The Same Page pt5 (Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader Bookshop! AU)

On the way home from Price and the beach you recollect an old story...

Part 3, Part 4, Part 6, Masterlist

Warnings: None!

The road home was filled with music, a light heart, and the cleansing of rain. The storm rolled over you, rumbling with flashes of lightning sporadically lighting up the night. Lumbering hills with peaks and festering marshlands spanned alongside. One step off of the lonely road would take you to a world unlike your own. You thought deeply as you drove. Of things gone by, as the ocean disappeared, you missed home. 

You were 13 when your parents became too busy, and left alone to your own devices you stumbled upon sanctuary. In the woods, you found a fox's den, now empty of its inhabitants. But there you found a new life. A fallen log your seat, you brought your typewriter out and started recording. The breaking of sticks down your trodden path, wisps of clouds on clear days. The sounds of birds, swooping swallows with dart-like precision. The growing flora and fungi in the damp woods.

Every day you would return, after school chasing the familiar shadows of your imagination. They kept you close comfort. One day, years later, however as you approached you found the glint of orange, and to your surprise, there was a fox asleep in the den. As you turned past the corner you ended up unintentionally waking the creature, its head popping up with ears like radars. Amber eyes met yours and you both just watched each other. However the creature did not startle, so you slowly approached yards away. Setting down your jacket you sit on it and slowly open the case of your typewriter. While its ears twitch, the fox shows no motion of moving, instead content with watching you. 

Your hours were lost in the lone fox. And to your pleasure, it was there the next day, then the next week. You made it a habit to go to the den with your new acquaintance. As you met your first partner you would just talk in a soft voice to the fox, As junior college passed and your heart had been broken the fox had become something more in your brain. It was a symbol of the resilience of nature, of making the space you find yourself in yours. You finished your undergrad with the first drafts of your first book.

And as for the fox? One day you returned, set on your plan to move for your masters you had brought some meat out for the fox. Yet as you crossed the path you found the den empty for once after about two years. You frowned but left the meat anyway, vowing to return once before you left. But life got busy, saying goodbye and closing up loose ends. You vetted your life and your writing career. Stories covered your room walls, old and new. You were leaving everything you knew. A few days before you left on a brisk moment of free time you went on a whim to the den. 

As you walk you reminisce on the years spent on this path. The turned stones, the old tree house, the creek the elements of your stories light up your vision. You can hear the howling of wolves under the wind, the creaking of moving trees, the ringing of fairy voices. And yet as fantasy swirls with reality you turn the bend to find not only your friend but a few fox kits as well. You stared in all as the fox watched you with bright eyes.

“You did good.” It's a whisper not only to the fox but to yourself as all of the elements of your growing stories fade back into reality. 

A flash of lightning brought you back to reality as you parked the car in your building’s lot and prepared to face the onslaught of London rain. You sling your backpack on awkwardly in the tight space of the car and throw on your jacket over it. Street lamps flickered in wind and rain as you rushed out of the car and to the cover of the parking area. There was some wild feeling in you being exposed to the elements, just like at the ocean and when you were a kid. As you made it under cover you tilted your drenched head back and laughed into the evening. The florescent hum, there is something intently human in your heart. 

You see movement and jump. Leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette is Simon. He watches you a smile playing on his lips.

“Happy Dove?” 

The nickname has you blushing and you shove off your wet coat.

“Yeah, I guess so.” You chuckle. Simon raises a brow at your form before he puts out his cigarette. He shrugs off his jacket and holds it out for you.

“Come on I'll walk you home.” He looks at you expectantly, his body taking up a lot of the space in the hall. But as you move forward he steps aside to allow you next to him.

“Here,” He offers and you hand him your bag, he shoulders it and hands you his jacket. Slipping it on you are met with the smell of smoke and cologne. You relax into it as it engulfs you, something in SImon’s eye shining. You begin the walk under the awning together in comfortable silence. Simon cuts his stride short for you, and you give him an appreciative smile. 

His hair is slightly damp you realize then, it gives him a bit of a boyish look, water-darkened hair complementing his eyes. He looks forward, scanning the path then turning back to you.

“Were you outside long?” You ask, the cold bristling you despite your borrowed jacket.

“No. I was watching out for you.” He offers it honestly. You hum, then you set a hand on his arm without thinking too much. Simon’s eyes widen a fraction and turn down to the contact. You realize then and move to pull away with an apology but Simon offers you his elbow. You pause but you take his arm in yours. Despite only being in a long-sleeved black shirt, Simon radiates warmth and you find yourself leaning into him. He glances at you through his peripheral vision.

“Are you not cold Simon?” You ask concerned. He shakes his head, putting on your backpack fully,

“‘M fine, thanks love.” Is all he offers, seeming content with silence, but he tucks his hand into his pocket, thus pulling you closer and you find yourself silently swooning. A few more minutes pass when you reach the main street, rain still pouring but the bookstore is in sight. 

“Hold on, I've got an umbrella somewhere. I don't want you to get soaked.” 

You pull on your arm and Simon begrudgingly releases you. You dig in your backpack producing a bright orange, fox-patterned umbrella. The sight is a bit bright and contrasts with his aesthetic but Simon opens it and holds it anyway, a brow raised that makes you giggle.  Once you reach the cover of the book store you find the door unlocked so you enter followed by Simon into the warmth of the store. Simon does his best to avoid getting water everywhere but you take the bright umbrella from him with a thankful smile. 

Having heard the door Sam rounds the corner.

“You found her then huh.” Sam notices you in Simon’s jacket and his grin widens and you give him a look.

“Sammy, not a word.”

“I said nothing!” He raises his hands in mock surrender. 

“Thanks for walking her.” He adds and approaches you. Before you can escape you are locked in a headlock as Sam ruffles your hair.

“Sammy! Stop!” You push at his arms laughing. You both spend a fond moment roughhousing before you remember Simon.

“Simon at least stay for dinner till this storm lets up!” You insist, finally tapping out with Sam, he finally releases you with a kiss on your head. The older man stands on the cusp of the affection, watching. You spin back to him staring up with a pretty smile, expectant.

“Alright,” He says it intensely. It makes you pause, he sees this and shifts his weight, then nods an affirmation just as a large crash of thunder startles all of you. 

“We have a spare bedroom if you need it,” Sam checks his phone, “the rain isn’t supposed to let up until tomorrow. You best stay the night.”

The thought doesn't seem to trouble Simon too much,

“If it's not a bother.”

You clap your hands together, 

“I did owe you dinner didn’t I huh? And a sleepover is just like college Sam!” 

Your best friend looks from his painted nails to Simon, the idea seems to crack him up. Simon glowers at him. You chuckle and set a hand on Simon’s arm. 

“I met Captain Price today.”

This catches his attention, turning down to regard you as he speaks.

“He gone fishin’?”

The dry humor catches you off guard but you smile and reply,

“Something like that. He and I talked about stuff. He’s a good man Simon.”

At that Simon nods eye still tracing your hand, He raises his own to it to see your reaction. Your eyes widened at the direct contact, but you had been feeling comfortable with the man. You shoot him a shy smile and he returns it.

“It's a date then?” He asks.

Sam looks up from behind the counter eyes sharp. He meets eyes with Simon and the ex-lieutenant finds his equal in ferocity. Simon takes your hand and shares a look with Sam, a quiet conversation between them before Sam nods and starts to head upstairs, one final glance behind him at you and Simon.

“Can you lock up Buttercup?” He pauses in question.

You can only nod with an embarrassed blush on your face. Sam heads upstairs leaving you and Simon together. He seems content just holding your hand. He takes it, lifting your palm from his arm and simply grasping it in his dropping your hands down to hang. Your heart beats a little faster but you take the next step to interlace your fingers. 

“I gotta lock up Simon.” You say it with a grin but he doesn't move his hand instead gesturing to the door.

“Ill follow.” His mumbles.

You give him a humored look, swinging your hand in his. He waits a moment, releasing your hand as you step to the door, Simon following like a shadow. He reminded you of Nebula, your childhood cat. A cat of few meows but much affection and he would follow you around the house. 

You flip off the switch for the lights and the neon leaving you and Simon basked in darkness. His pale skin is illuminated by the light from the stairway behind the counter. You turn around to meet him and are caught by the glow of him with the back light. He stands like some bygone god, ever vigilant, but his eyes and hair are soft. He carries your bag looking down at you with curiosity. 

“What is it, Dove?” 

He asks you but your mind is drawn back to the wildness of the sea earlier. You liken it to Simon in your mind. Something beautiful but with the wilderness within, a man of scars and hewn edges. Someone with a stormy past. Your mind swirls with storm clouds, yet here is this man who has taken a step to attach himself to you. 

You want to reach up and touch him, like some modern adonis with honey for eyes and a deep voice. But something caught in your throat, there was so much untold in this story, this connection that it made you stumble. Who was he to step into your dreams? Instead, you step forward to meet him. You raise a hand in question, He steps forwards and meets your palm. His large hands engulf yours.

“Nothing, nothing at all.”

Taglist!

@ghostlythots, @tapioca-milktea1978, @cmbghost

End Chapter 5

Note: This was shorter than I really wanted it to be so expect 6 to be longer!

[paperclip-skz]

Coffee Sometime?

Reader x Chan

Imagine: You've been an Idol for some time now, and you're having trouble with a new song. You're borrowing a studio room and someone walks in on you singing.

WC: 1.6k

*****************************************

It’s late. It's just past 8 pm and you're still in your studio. Everyone has left to have dinner at their homes, but you're still here, singing your heart out alone. You’ve been singing the same song for the past hour and a half, trying to get the melody just right, but nothing seems to work. Track after track nothing speaks to you, your voice sounding more like a broken record player as you sit here, listening for what feels like the 100th track.  

You sigh and comb your hands through your hair in annoyance. You slam your hands down onto your lap as you stare at the monitors plastered on the wall. You're borrowing the studio from someone, you don’t know and didn’t care to ask. You just needed a room to record in, you didn’t care who it was. Although you appreciated their setup. The monitors are plastered onto the wall, not too high to hurt your neck but not too low either. The chair is comfy enough to sleep in, and there's a couch conveniently placed right behind the setup. Your recording room isn't far, it's in a separate room with a glass shield separating the editing room from the recording room. It's a simple room, but a cozy one. 

You lean back in your chair trying to think of a way you can get yourself out of your head. I can just start singing, that usually helps. You decide to go back into the recording room and just hit record. You didn’t have anything planned to sing, you weren't even going to sing the song you were currently working on, you just wanted to sing. 

The first song that came to mind was “Lost Boy” by Ruth B. There was a small electric piano in the recording room, so you sat down and switched some of the buttons so you were playing classical. You started to play the slow tempo of the song as you sang the words. 

There was a time when I was alone,

Nowhere to go and no place to call home. 

My only friend was the man in the moon 

Even sometimes he would go away too. 

Then one night as I closed my eyes

I saw a shadow flying by

He came to me with the sweetest smile

Told me he wanted to talk for a while, he said

Peter Pan, that's what they call me. 

I promise that you’ll never be lonely 

And. ever. since. that day.

The song was like a second language to you. Reciting the lyrics clearly and calmly. You used to be obsessed with this song as a kid, so you knew the perfect way to sing it in your range. 

I am a lost boy, from Neverland

Usually hanging out with Peter Pan.

And when we’re bored we play in the woods

Always on the run from, Captain Hook

Run, run, lost boy

They say to me

Away from all of reality

Neverland is home to lost boys like me

And lost boys like me are free

Neverland is home to lost boys like me

And lost boys like me are free

You’ve already closed your eyes when you started singing, swaying your head. You’ve been singing ever since you were a kid, it wasn’t until your friend Seungmin heard you singing and told you you sounded great. He gave you so much confidence that you pursued a life in music, if it wasn’t for him you wouldn’t know where you’d end up. 

He sprinkled me in pixie dust and told me to believe

Believe in him and believe in me

Together we would fly away in a cloud of green 

To your beautiful destiny

As we soared above the town, that never loved me

I realized I finally had a family

Soon enough we reached Neverland

Peacefully, my feet hit the sane

And. ever. since. That day.

The smile you had while singing was glowing, you loved singing, and you couldn’t help it. Every time you sang it felt like you were being transported into the song. Feeling the lyrics in your soul and the emotions sprint through your body.

I am a lost boy from Neverland

Usually hanging out with Peter Pan.

And when we’re bored we play in the woods

Always on the run from, Captain Hook

Run, run, lost boy

They say to me

Away from all of reality 

Neverland is home to lost boys like me

And lost boys like me are free

Neverland is home to lost boys like me

And lost boys like me are free

Peter pan, tinkerbell, Wendy darling

Even captain hook 

You are my perfect storybook

Neverland I love you so, 

You are now my home sweet home

Forever a lost boy at last

Peter pan, tinkerbell, Wendy darling

Even captain hook 

You are my perfect storybook

Neverland I love you so, 

You are now my home sweet home

Forever a lost boy at last

And for always I will say.

I am a lost boy from Neverland

Usually hanging out with Peter Pan.

And when we’re bored we play in the woods

Always on the run from, Captain Hook

Run, run, lost boy

They say to me

Away from all of reality

Neverland is home to Lost boys like me

And lost boys like me are free

Neverland is home to Lost boys like me

And lost boys like me are free

Once the last note dies out in the small recording room. You smile to yourself, knowing something as simple as singing an old song would get you out of your head. You establish that nothing you do is going to be better than what you just did, so you just give up for the night. You want nothing more than your comfy sweats, oversized hoodie, and a snack to go along with your current Netflix drama. You gathered up your things from the recording room and started to head to the conjoining door out of the recording room. As you open the door you quickly realize there is a head poking inside the editing room’s door. You quickly say hello and bow not knowing who it is. 

“Hi,” the man says. He’s very cute, you think to yourself. He’s got deep dimples and his eyes squint when he smiles. He has dark hair that covers his forehead, he has broad shoulders, and a build that could send a girl drooling. 

“Hello,” you say back, blushing at your thought and suddenly becoming shy. 

“Sorry, I couldn’t help hearing you sing. You sounded amazing, almost like magic” His dimples show one more time.

“Oh,” you giggle shyly, angling your head down to cover the blush that spreads, “thank you”.

“I’m Chan, by the way.” You smile at him, lifting your head.

“Y/N” 

“Pretty” is all he responds with. Suddenly, now you see a small blush creek across his cheeks, a small chuckle escaping your lips. “Well, I should probably let you get back to work”. He makes a move to walk out the door, but you're quick to stop him.

“I’m actually just about to head out” you say just before he closes the door. He reopens it with surprise in his eyes. “I mean, if you're headed in the same direction, would you mind walking me out?” you're surprised by your courage, but it seems like Chan doesn't notice. 

You didn’t think his smile could get any wider as he gestured for you to walk out the door he was holding. You grab the last of your things and walk out with him. 

On the short walk to the door, you learn so much about him and learn so much about you. You learn that his home is Sydney Australia and he has a dog named Berry. He learns that you're originally from the States and came here to study music. You talk for what seems like hours, but only lasts a few minutes until you're hit with the cold weather of Seoul. 

You both stop. Just minutes ago you both were talking and enjoying each other's company, but now it's crickets. You too hardly know each other, but don’t want to make any move to end the night. You're the first to speak, knowing you should get home and rest. “I’m that way” You point behind you and he looks over your shoulder. He just nods his head, you can see the gears shifting in his brain thinking of what’s the best thing to do here. 

“I should walk you home, you shouldn't be out here all by yourself”

His concern warms your heart and a small smile greets his shining eyes, “it's okay, really. I walk home all the time, sometimes later than what it is” the disappointment on his face is so clear, the warmth that was previously in you disappears and is replaced with a sharp pain. 

“But, how about I give you my number? That way you can keep walking me out of the building late at night” Your cheeky suggestion is what lights his face back up like a christmas tree. 

You both engage numbers and he waits for you to walk in the direction of your home, while he walks the opposite way. You feel like a teenager having her first crush in highschool, you can’t stop smiling. 

You finally get home and set all of your things down on the counter. It's a record time when you're in your favorite comfy clothes, snack in hand, and you're starting your drama. You are about 5 minutes in when your phone chimes with a notification. You look to see who it's from.

Chan <3

Coffee sometime?

*************************

this was just something cute I wrote, I wanted to try something different. :)

[beefromanoff]

Going Under Ch. 33

summary: just read the chapter <3

characters: Bucky Barnes x OC

soundtrack: End of Beginning - Djo

warnings: fluff, pop star fantasy x love story, set in an AU where the Avengers reunite after Civil War, pre-infinity war, slight angst, hurt/comfort, lonely reader/OC.

author’s note: THREE CHAPTERS IN A WEEK HOLLA, this one is a doozy! I'm feeling all the feels right now and can't WAIT to see what you guys think.

the next chapter will pick up right where this one leaves off, but I just really wanted the ending to be meaningful...you'll see. anyways I LOVE YOU and thank you to @charmedbysarge and @wasalreadyhere for being emotionally invested and making me want to crank these chapters out. seriously, these are for you. <3

chapter list

________________________________

Gianna

The elevator echoed with the sound of her heels on the white marble floor. Pressing the button for the top floor, Gianna leaned back against the wall as the ascent began. Wanda’’s voice carried through the phone pressed to her ear, venting about how the new recruiting class is disappointingly devoid of any good looking male agents. A few moments later, the door slid open to reveal a long hallway with her door at the end, now accompanied by a new addition.

A sentinel of the Iron Legion stood stoically by the entrance, the humanoid bot stationed there to protect her and her home.

"Wanda, seriously, tell Nat this is too much," Gianna spoke into her phone, chuckling. "I don’t need my own personal Iron Man."

Natasha's distant voice filtered through the phone, clearly shouting from whatever room she and Wanda were in, "You can never be too careful. You have a history of trouble, remember?” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Gianna hoped they could hear her eyes rolling through the phone. “It’s just that the giant robotic suit of armor doesn’t really go with my decor.”

“Hey, I offered to assign live agents to you instead and you not-so-graciously declined.” 

“Well, I also have a bad habit of falling in love with my security, so this seemed a little safer.” Eyeing the silent guardian, Gianna shrugged off her coat and let it fall onto the back of a dining room chair. 

“Like I said, there aren’t any cute ones anyways.” Wanda scoffed. 

“Next time you guys come to stay, we’ll go back to a basketball game. You’ll have your pick of the whole roster.” Gianna laughed, slipping out of her heels. 

“I’m counting on it.” Wanda giggled. “Alright G, we have to go. It’s Sam’s night to cook and I can smell something burning. We love you.” 

“Love you guys, talk soon.” She blew a kiss into the phone before hanging up, setting it on the nightstand. It had been a long day in the studio, with very little to show for it. She’s been working on recording some of the songs she’d written lately, but recording love songs with a broken heart just didn’t bode well. So for the past week, she and her producer had gone back and forth, trying to find inspiration that just wasn’t there. Finally, they called it a night. Gianna slid her feet into plush slippers, padding across the spacious living area to the kitchen.

Pouring a generous glass of red, she headed to the sprawling sectional and sank down. She desperately needed to shower and sleep after her marathon day. This morning’s coffee run felt like a lifetime ago. The emotional toll it took to try and write lyrics she no longer felt connected to, to revisit the emotional place she had been evicted from by the love of her life, it was heavy. Luckily, her producer was nothing if not understanding, even suggesting they put a hold on new music for the time being. She’d kept her days full. Wanda and Nat stayed for the rest of the weekend after their night out, and it really had done her good. Part of the pain she’d been feeling hadn’t just been from the loss of Bucky, but of the whole team that had become her friends and family. Knowing they weren’t truly lost, that the love was still there, it healed part of her. She missed them the moment they left, but she didn’t feel quite as heavy as she had before they came. 

Between long recording sessions, fittings for the upcoming awards’ season, and her increasingly frequent coffee meetings with Sebastian, she was able to keep her mind somewhat occupied. But she knew filming for the Winter Soldier movie would begin soon, so their meetings would end. All the preparation would take place before the production started. He’d given her an open invitation to the set, but she politely declined. Seeing him and discussing Bucky was one thing, but seeing him in full costume, seeing him with the arm and the suit and everything else necessary to bring him to life…she didn’t think she could stomach it. 

Sipping her wine, Gianna's fingers scrolled through her phone, swiping through countless headlines—snapshots of her life through the eyes of people who would never know her.

A particular headline caught her eye, a gossipy piece hinting at her connection with Sebastian, taken earlier that week. Gianna gave a half-hearted smile, mentally patting herself on the back. They’d played right into her hand. It was a game she felt like she had mastered, knowing what they wanted to see and how they’d spin it. All she and Seb had done was move their meetings to more public places, the paparazzi had taken it all from there. No hand holding, no kissing, no affection at all besides the hugs hello and goodbye. Yet, the media was convinced that they were head over heels for each other. 

‘Starlet has a type: dark and dangerous’ read the headline, accompanied with side by side photos of her with Bucky several months ago and with Sebastian now. The comments were growing by the minute. Half of them swooned, calling the new pairing a match made in heaven, while other comments claimed she was rebounding. They weren’t exactly wrong. The difference was that she wasn’t rebounding so much as she wanted a certain someone to think she was. Gianna knew it was wrong to play games with Bucky, to try and elicit some reaction she’d probably never even see. Just like she knew it was wrong to sing a song with such poignant lyrics, venom in her voice, and hope he would see it. She just couldn’t help it. All this pain had to go somewhere.

Finishing her wine, Gianna returned the glass to the sink and retreated to her bedroom to get ready for bed. The high ceilings and plush carpeting couldn’t be more luxurious, but being in this place alone night after night felt less like a palace and more like a prison sentence.

Bucky

The city breathed beneath the streetlights, and Bucky exhaled, a plume of mist dissipating in the cool night air. Running through the familiar streets, the rhythm of his footfalls echoed the cadence of his thoughts.

New York held a special place in his heart—the pulsating heartbeat of life only having grown since his years growing up here. Even with all that had changed over the past century, it was still New York. It was still his home. His evening jog had become a ritual this week, helping to quiet his mind before going to sleep in the uncharacteristically quiet Tower. He’d chosen to stay behind when the rest of the team flew back to the compound last week, needing a change of scenery and time to clear his head. The intervention with Nat and Wanda, all the memories they’d shown him, seeing Gianna in person for the first time in weeks, realizing his plan to let her go be happy without him might have actually worked…it was a lot to process. He needed time. 

"I'll be fine," he assured Nat and Steve, his gaze scanning the skyline. "Just need some time to clear my head."

The sound of the Quinjet’s engines nearly drowned out his voice, their hair whipping around all of their faces. 

“Okay, Buck. Take care of yourself.” Steve patted him on the shoulder. 

“Don’t you dare spend the whole week brooding.” Nat elbowed him. “Promise me you’ll leave the Tower like a normal person.” 

“I promise.” Bucky gave a half-assed smile.

“Good.” She paused before hugging him. “It’s gonna be okay. I don’t know how or when, but it will be.” 

“Thanks, Nat. For everything.” 

He stood on the helipad and waved to the departing ship, sending his friends back to their home. He knew the training and development of the SHIELD agents was important, but he still held out hope that the team would relocate back to the Tower more permanently. Being here, even in such bleak circumstances, just felt right. He’d give himself two weeks. Two weeks to sort through his feelings, to take some time and get his head on straight. He needed to get it together so he could be the leader and teammate his friends deserved. Two weeks to get all of this sadness, this rage, out of his system despite the promise he’d made to Nat that he wouldn’t spend the time brooding. 

After these two weeks, he wouldn’t let this heartbreak rule his life. 

One week into his self-isolation, and he was no closer to being okay. Maybe that’s because he wasn’t entirely truthful with himself. As much as he did want to clear his head, he knew he had an ulterior motive for staying in the city. A hope that maybe, just maybe, the winding streets of favorite city might conspire to bring him face to face with her. Gianna. Every run, every walk to get food, every time he stepped onto the balcony, he couldn’t help but hope. He searched for her face in every crowd, thought he heard her laugh in every bustling coffee shop. He wanted to move on just as much as he wanted her to have his heart forever. Just maybe, it would happen by chance. They’d run into each other in the streets of the city they both loved, he’d be forced to tell her everything on his mind and heart. If it happened like that, he would know it was meant to be. He wouldn’t be trying to make something happen, it would happen on its own. 

As he jogged through the dwindling evening crowds on the sidewalk, he couldn’t help but look for that flash of golden blonde hair. 

Gianna

The conference room hummed with anticipation, the sleek glass walls offering a panoramic view of the city below. Gianna sat at the head of the table, her gaze steady as she listened to the discussions unfold. This was one of the lowest floors of the Avengers’ Tower she’d ever been on. She knew the first 40 floors were all occupied by various business ventures of Tony and Pepper’s, and now one of them housed the executive team of the record label they’d purchased so many months ago. 

Around her, the executives from Stark Records, including Pepper herself, and her manager, Tom, huddled together, their voices echoing off the polished surfaces. She’d learned all of their names, but didn’t remember them. A group of men in suits was largely interchangeable for any other group of men in suits. She trusted Pepper and she trusted Tom, but the rest of them could go either way. She assumed Pepper wouldn’t have hired them if they were as skeezy as her last label, but she couldn’t help but be wary. The room was overly air conditioned, as all conference rooms usually were. Gianna’s blouse did little to protect her from the chill, her coffee thankfully warming her hands.

"We need something big," one of the executives remarked, his tone charged with determination. "Something that will show the world you're back, stronger than ever."

Gianna nodded, her expression composed. She had spent months recuperating, rebuilding herself both physically and emotionally after the attack. Now that she’d returned to the city, the world was holding their breath and eagerly awaiting her return to touring. The irony was that she felt like more of a wreck now, months after the attack, than she had immediately afterwards. She sipped her coffee, willing herself to stay focused instead of throwing herself a pity party. It was her idea to return to working, her idea for this meeting to happen in the first place.

"We want to plan a charity concert," Pepper interjected, her voice a calm anchor amidst the flurry of ideas. "A big benefit show that will not only mark your return but also give back. We know you already ensured the costs of all the victims were covered, but we could invite them all to attend, and present them with additional funding. We could also choose another charity of your choice, raise money for that as well."

Tom leaned forward, his brow furrowed in thought. "It's a massive comeback," he admitted, "but I think it's exactly what we need. It would be incredible press, and I think we could really make an impact with a benefit of that size."

Gianna's heart swelled with purpose. She had always believed in the power of music to heal, to unite, and now, more than ever, she felt a profound sense of responsibility. If all this had to happen to her, at least she could make some good come out of it. This was her longest time away from the stage since she began touring all those years ago. Her return had to be massive.

"I'm in," she declared, her voice unwavering. "Let's make this happen."

The room erupted into a whirlwind of planning, ideas flying back and forth. Dates were discussed, venues considered, and a lineup of performers curated. As the meeting drew to a close, a sense of collective determination filled the air and anticipation filled Gianna’s stomach. She glanced out the window, the city stretching out before her. As excited as she was to take the stage and make this a smashing success, she felt a pang for the one person she always assumed would be backstage when she returned.

Bucky

Bucky strode through the sliding glass doors of the Tower, a gust of cool morning air greeting him as he stepped onto the bustling New York street. The sun was still rising over the city, casting long shadows between the towering buildings.

As he descended the steps, he noticed a pack of men in suits entering the building. He gave them a curt nod, feeling their eyes on him as they made their way towards the entrance. It was all the same. At the compound, it was the SHIELD agents. Here, it was all the white collar professionals working on the lower levels of the Tower. He wondered if the Winter Soldier would ever stop being a spectacle. 

Whatever, screw them and whatever self-important corporate bullshit they were headed off to discuss. Not his problem.

His jog took him through the heart of the city, the pulse quicker and more lively than his evening jog the night before.

Further into his run, he passed a coffee shop where a familiar face emerged at the last second. Their paths collided, nearly sending them both sprawling. With lightning-fast reflexes, Bucky caught the arm of the man he’d run into and steadied them both. Before he could apologize, he recognized the man. 

Of fucking course.

Sebastian, starstruck but courteous, introduced himself. Bucky's piercing gaze warned him to tread carefully. “It’s truly an honor to meet you, Sargent. I don’t know if you’ve heard, I’ve been trying to get in touch with you -” 

Bucky gave a reluctant grunt in acknowledgement. 

"Look," Sebastian said, cutting through the tension, “I don’t want to take up too much of your time. It really is an honor. I want to do right by you and your story. If you ever want to come to set, to give your opinion…just know you’re welcome.”

“Thanks,” Bucky’s voice was gruff but he forced himself to shake the hand Sebastian extended to him. As the actor turned to leave, Bucky spoke again. “Be good to her.” 

Turning back, Sebastian had a puzzled look on his face before something clicked. He stepped closer to Bucky, speaking quietly, as if he realized their interaction was likely being filmed and/or photographed.

"Hey, whatever you've heard, seen—it's not what it seems. Gianna and I, we're friends. Strictly platonic. I asked her for help with the role, and she's been incredible. She’s been coaching me, helping me learn about well, uh…you." He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “My agent couldn’t get ahold of you, and I heard she was back in the city, so I figured it was worth a shot. She’s been great. Hell, she honestly made my job harder. I thought she’d give me some kind of insight that made it easier to portray you, but the way she talks about you, man…I have bigger shoes to fill than I even thought.” 

Bucky's skepticism lingered, but he listened. Sebastian detailed Gianna's commitment to ensuring the movie did justice to Bucky's character. He spoke of her kindness, her professionalism, and her desire for the film to be a true reflection of Bucky's journey.In that moment, Bucky glimpsed the complexities of Gianna's heart. Even in heartbreak, even in her immense anger, she sought to protect him, to preserve the integrity of his story.

“Thank you.” Bucky said solemnly, nodding to Sebastian. Turning to walk away, he caught himself, feeling like he owed the man more than his standard two word reply. “Hey, I’ll come to the set. Just uh, let me know when and where.”

Sebastian grinned. “Will do. For the record, I really hope you don’t show up alone.” 

As Sebastian walked away, Bucky stood alone on the bustling street, the city once again fading away. A newfound clarity surged within him, and with purpose in his stride, he turned back toward the Tower.

Gianna

The elevator doors slid open, and Gianna stepped into the hallway. The soft hum of city life filtered through the large windows, casting a warm glow across the long stretch as the sun sank below the skyline outside.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come out tonight?” The familiar voice crackled through the line.

“Sorry, Mads. I’m beat. This week has kicked my ass. I just need an early night in for a change. Sorry I’m lame.” She held the phone between her cheek and shoulder as she dug for her keys in her purse.

“Um, says the girl who’s the reason I partied with the Avengers last weekend. You are the furthest thing from lame. Enjoy your night, watch a shitty rom-com, and get your beauty sleep. I’ll call you tomorrow.” 

“Sounds good, love you,” Gianna laughed as they hung up. The guardian stationed outside her door interrupted her thoughts. 

“Good evening, Ms. Cruz. Are you staying in for the evening? Shall I activate the overnight security protocol?” The mechanical voice inquired. Gianna responded affirmatively, and with a whirl of high-tech precision, the glowing lights behind the armor clicked from blue to red.

Once the door was open, Gianna meandered through her expansive living space, taking her sweet time. It had been weeks since she was home by 6pm with no plans to leave again. Heels in hand, her fingers glided over the grand piano that stood as a silent testament to countless late-night melodies. She moved toward the bathroom, the marble floors cool beneath her bare feet.

Her bathroom, a sanctuary of luxury, overlooked the city. The skyline twinkled beyond the glass, a tapestry of lights. Gianna set the tone, turning on soft music that reverberated through the spacious room.

The centerpiece was a deep, clawfoot bathtub, the thing that had sold her on this place even more than the views. Gianna began drawing a bath, adding a mix of oils, filling the air with hints of lavender and vanilla. As the hot water cascaded into the tub, Gianna let the melodies envelop her. She shed the weight of the day and her clothes in a pile on the floor, going to pour herself a glass of wine and a heaping glass of ice water as the steaming tub filled.

Bucky

Bucky stepped into the elevator, pressing the button for Gianna's floor, the weight of anticipation hanging on his shoulders. He'd had the entire day to wrestle with what he would say, how he would explain himself, and most importantly, how he would convey the depth of his feelings. Really, he’d had the whole week to do so, but it wasn’t until his chance encounter with Sebastian that he’d known what he had to do. He was looking for a sign, a fated run-in, and he got one. It wasn’t with the person he expected, but it gave him the same answer. Gianna wasn’t seeing anyone, and whatever she felt towards him, she was still acting in love. He couldn’t let himself waste one more night not undoing his mistake. 

Thankfully, the doorman hadn’t given him trouble. He was either a fan or afraid, or both. After his wide-eyed stare watched Bucky come up the front steps of the building, he eagerly opened the doors without so much as a question. Although, Bucky assumed, he probably had seen a magazine sometime in the past year and could make a guess who Bucky was there to see. 

As he rounded the final corner leading to Gianna's apartment, he was met with an unexpected obstacle – an Iron Legion bot? Shit. This had Natasha written all over it. He could practically hear her lecturing Gianna about the piss-poor security in this building. Given that he himself had just walked straight in, he couldn’t exactly say she was wrong.

As he cautiously approached, a cold, mechanical voice echoed through the corridor, "You are unauthorized to enter this unit. Please stand back."

Bucky, determination etched on his face, continued forward. The voice repeated "You are unauthorized to enter this unit. Please stand back." This time, the mechanical arm raised towards him, palm beginning to glow.

"I just need to talk to her. It's important," he urged, his tone pleading.

The robot, however, was unyielding. "Unauthorized access. Step away."

In his desperation to reach Gianna, Bucky attempted to sidestep the bot. But as he moved to go around it, the Iron Legion reacted with a blast to his midsection, knocking the wind out of him in a low grunt and sending him sliding back several feet. He steeled himself, taking a slow breath in through his sore chest before stepping forward again. 

"Unauthorized access. Step away."

Bucky advanced again, but this time, the bot’s metal fist flew out with inhuman speed, clocking him across the jaw. He barely had time to react before his own blood splattered across his vision.

Gianna

The steam from the bath curled around her silhouette as she leaned back in the tub, the soft melody of a gut-wrenchingly sad song playing in the background. The skyline outside her window twinkled, mirroring the city lights. She took it in for a moment before closing her eyes, letting out a deep breath and, for the first time all day, letting her feelings wash over her. The excitement about performing again, the nerves that she never seemed to outgrow, the love she felt from reconnecting with friends, and the ever-present ache of something missing. She let the feelings flow and didn’t fight them. Good and bad, heart wrenching and fulfilling. The steam from the tub began to turn her hair into ringlets where it framed her face, water condensating on her skin. The only buffer between the tidal wave inside her and her sanity was the warm buzz from the wine. 

In her daze, she almost missed the first strange noise outside her door. A thud. A few seconds later, another. Then…a grunt? Her eyes flew open. A series of thuds, punctuated with what was most definitely a groan.

Concern etched across her face, Gianna pulled herself from the bath, wrapping the robe around her still-dripping body. The noises were too concerning to waste time drying fully off, and if she was being honest, the wine had dulled her better judgment anyway. The noises persisted, so loud they sounded like they were right outside the door. 

Shit. She thought. Maybe Nat was right to send the Legion.

She approached cautiously, her steps light and breathing shallow. A small puddle began to pool under her bare feet as she pressed her hands through the door and looked through the peephole.

Gianna’s blood went cold. 

On the floor leaning against the opposite wall, blood dripping from his swollen face, was Bucky. 

Gasping, she hastily opened the door. Her hands were trembling as she fumbled with the lock and yanked the door open. The Iron Legion bot's mechanical voice droned, "Defensive Protocol Engaged. Perpetrator Apprehended. Would you like me to call for local law enforcement?" The machine was standing perfectly still in its’ post beside her door. 

"What? No! Disable security protocol," Gianna breathed, her eyes never leaving Bucky's battered form. The lights on the machine turned back to blue, and she knelt beside him, her voice a mixture of panic and disbelief, "Bucky? Buck, can you hear me?"

Bucky's eyes, aching and swollen, slowly opened. He gave a soft grunt in confirmation, but immediately coughed after the effort, fresh blood spilling from his mouth. Blood was dripping down the side of his face from a laceration on his forehead, his lip was split and swollen, and his whole face was puffy from swelling. Gianna had a sinking feeling that if his arms weren’t covered by his sweatshirt, she’d be counting a lot more bruises. Eyes trailing down his body, assessing damage, she froze when she saw his hands. 

There wasn’t a single bruise on his knuckles.

She ran her hands delicately over his, fingertips tracing the veins there. Her stomach knotted with the realization. He didn't fight back. He didn't even try to defend himself. Gianna knew his abilities, she’d seen him rip metal apart before without half a thought. She knew he could have dismantled the bot and ripped her door off of its hinges if he really wanted to. The fact that he didn’t even try…Her heart shattered. Silently, she helped him to his feet and into her loft, her touch gentle against the rawness of his wounds. He was incredibly heavy, the weight of muscle and vibranium combining to make it nearly impossible for Gianna to help him to his feet. One arm slung over her shoulder, they slowly made their way into her home.

“Here, sit here,” Gianna was breathless from the effort of helping him walk. She hooked a foot around the leg of a dining room chair, bending down to allow him to drop into it. She rushed around, her wet footprints dotting the carpet, frantically searching for the first aid kit. Her heart was pounding in her ears, hands fumbling as she dug through the box in her hall closet she never bothered to unpack. She mentally cursed her own procrastination and the wine for fogging her brain. Finally freeing the kit, she hurried back to the table and pulled out the chair right beside Bucky, sitting so close their knees were touching.

“Sorry ‘bout the carpet,” Bucky mumbled, his swollen lip making the words imperfect. Gianna didn’t have to look down to know he was dripping blood onto her plush white rug.

"Shush," she replied, her voice gentle yet commanding. The sight of him, bruised and battered, stirred emotions she had been desperately trying to bury. “Don’t worry about the carpet. I never liked it anyways.” He tried to chuckle but the coughing overtook him again, causing him to wince and grab at his ribs.

His sweatshirt, now damp with blood and sweat, clung to his body. “Take your shirt off.” Gianna instructed, switching damp washcloths after the first one was covered in dried blood from her dabbing at his forehead.

“Y’gotta buy me dinner first,” He mumbled, coughing again with the effort. 

“James Buchanan Barnes,” She scolded, though she had to bite her lip to keep from grinning. “This is so not the time.” Her hands gently gripped the hem of his sweatshirt, ever so lightly lifting it. He groaned as he slowly raised his arms over his head and allowed her to remove it. When it was fully off, she dropped it into a heavy heap on the floor. 

“Bucky…” Her eyes welled with tears as they raked over his body. His ribs were blackened, so swollen that his toned stomach looked puffy in all the places he’d been struck. His collarbone was decorated in bruises, likely broken. That explained why he wasn’t able to remove his own shirt. Gianna reached back for the washcloth, gently cleaning the dried blood from his face, careful not to press too hard. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Why didn't you fight back?" she asked, her voice a delicate whisper that hung in the air.

He was quiet for a moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was thick, "It was here to keep unwanted visitors away.” He took a labored breath. “ And I'm an unwanted visitor."

"Buck," she began, her voice cracking with genuine remorse. “I am so sorry, I never would have wanted --”

Bucky, gripping her wrist firmly, stopped her. His words were still slightly slurred by the swollen lip. "You have nothing to apologize for. I came here to say that I’m sorry, to tell you I was a fucking idiot." He coughed, wiping the small amount of blood from his mouth on the back of his hand. “I fucked up. It’s my fault. All of this is my fault.”

“Shhh,” Gianna gently stroked his hair back from his face. “We don’t have to talk about that right now. Just let me get you cleaned up, okay?” He looked like he wanted to protest, but silently nodded. Sinking back into the chair, he closed his eyes. 

It took nearly half an hour for Gianna to get all the crusted blood from his face. She cleaned all his cuts, closing lacerations with butterfly bandages she was shocked she had. They’d strapped bags of frozen fruit to his ribcage and collarbone using a long ace bandage, and she poured him a strong glass of bourbon even though they both knew it wouldn’t make a difference to him. 

His eyes were still closed, breathing less ragged. Thank goodness for his accelerated healing, although Gianna worried that if something healed wrong before they could get to a doctor, they’d have no choice but to re-break it. Considering the only doctor he trusted was half an hour away by Quinjet exclusively, that wasn’t a very likely option.

“Hey,” She ran her hands through his hair again, tucking it behind his ears. Blue eyes fluttered open, focusing on her. “How you feeling?” 

“Like a million bucks.” He sat up straighter, groaning.

“I don’t have other clothes for you, but I can wash these if you want…” Gianna tried not to look at his bare chest. “Are you hungry? Do you want me to call someone? Steve, I should call Steve.” She stood to go retrieve her phone but metal fingers wrapped around her wrist.

“Wait,” His voice was strained. “Just wait.”

Before she could respond, he pulled a small black notebook from his back pocket. Gianna recognized it instantly, the familiar leather cover, the journal he’d trusted her with months ago. He handed it to her, a silent invitation to read once again. She slowly took it from him and sank back into the chair across from him.

___________________

She deserves someone without a past like mine, not a guy grappling with shadows every night. Every smile she gives me feels like a reminder that I'm not the man she thinks she loves. It's selfish to keep her tethered to me. The whole world knows she’s too good for me. She deserves better. I’ve tried to shake this for too long and there’s a reason I can’t.

I know what I have to do.

___________________

Watching her laugh should've been enough to change my mind, but it wasn't. It just intensified the guilt that she's wasting her joy on me. How did it come to this? I need to set her free from my chaos, my mess. She is sunshine and I’m the darkest fucking cloud in the sky.

___________________

She knows something is wrong. I can see it in her eyes. I just don’t know how to end the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Dragging it out isn’t fair. She can feel me pulling away. I guess part of me hopes that will make it easier when it ends.

I can’t wait any longer. It isn’t fair to her. It’s killing me.

___________________

It’s over. It’s done. I will never forget the pain in her eyes. 

I feel like I just lost half of me. I feel like I’m half alive. 

At least she’s finally free.

___________________

The compound is too quiet. The silence is a constant reminder of what's missing. Everyone feels it. She brought color to this place, and now it’s gone. I don’t know if I wish I never felt it or if I’m glad I got the time that I did. 

I hope her world is still colorful.

___________________

Her absence is killing me. The loneliness is like a weight I can't shake off. I keep reminding myself it's for her happiness, but this empty bed and quiet room is haunting me. I wake up from nightmares and wish she was there to talk me down. I lie awake at night and convince myself I can still hear her breathing, she’s still asleep next to me. 

Then I wake up. A new nightmare. One where she’s gone and it’s all my fault.

___________________

She's moving on. The pictures say it all. Laughing, beautiful, happy. Living, a life without me. It stings, but it's what I wanted for her. Fuck, seeing it hurts more than I expected.

This is what was supposed to happen. She’s happy and that’s what matters.

___________________

Her late-night performance. I swear she saw me through the screen. Her voice, her face – it's a comfort and a torture. I thought she was happy, told myself she was happy. She looks as haunted as I feel. She looks…colorless. She’s angry and it’s all my fault. I broke the one person who I never saw without a smile on her face. 

If she doesn’t smile again, I will never forgive myself.

___________________

I’m running out of things to tell myself. It isn’t getting any easier. I just hope that somewhere, in some universe, we made it. I hope that some version of me deserves her and that we made it. 

Silent tears traced a path down Gianna's face as she finished the last page. As she looked up, her eyes met Bucky's. He reached for her hand, a silent invitation. She took it, feeling him tug her towards him. As she hesitated, mindful of the fresh wounds all over his body, he reassured her with a crooked smile. 

"You could never hurt me," he whispered.

Gianna relented, allowing him to pull her closer. He guided her gently onto his lap, closing all the space between them. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and the dam of emotions she had held back broke. Tears streamed down her face as she sobbed, "I missed you so much. I couldn't sleep, couldn't stop thinking about you. Every second, every day. I miss you, I need you, I can’t do it without you.”

Bucky's grip tightened on her back, and he murmured into her neck, "I've been in agony since you left." He held her in silence for a few moments, feeling her small frame shake with sobs. The guilt of knowing he caused them battled with the joy that she was in his arms again. “I’m sorry. G, I’m so, so sorry.” He stroked her hair as he mumbled apologies over and over, knowing they’d never come close to expressing his remorse. “So fucking sorry.”

When she finally pulled back, her tear-streaked face held a resolve. "Never leave me again," she demanded. “Ever.”

He met her gaze with a seriousness that matched hers. "You better mean it. Once you say those words, I'm never letting go of you again."

She leaned forward, gently resting her hands on his cheeks as she leaned close and pressed the softest kiss to his swollen lips. "I mean it," she whispered.

[lovesongbracket]

Reminder: Vote based on the song, not the artist or specific recording! The tracks referenced are the original artist, aside from a few rare cases where a cover is the most widely known.

Lyrics, videos, info, and notable covers under the cut. (Spotify playlist available in pinned post)

Alone Together

Written By: Andy Hurley, Joe Trohman, Patrick Stump & Pete Wentz

Artist: Fall Out Boy

Released: 2013

This song is about a relationship that may or may not have been supposed to happen. The two appear to be different but are actually quite the same. Notice the juxtaposition in the title of the phrase being ‘alone together’ so, in fact, the two are not alone. Pete has been known to mention in concert how no matter how lonely we get, music will always be there for us. “Alone Together” was released as the band’s third overall single from Save Rock and Roll and was later certified platinum by the RIAA.

[Chorus 1] I don't know where you're going But do you got room for one more troubled soul? I don't know where I'm going But I don't think I'm coming home And I said, "I'll check in tomorrow if I don't wake up dead" This is the road to ruin and we're starting at the end [Chorus 2] Say, yeah, (yeah!) let's be alone together (yeah!) We could stay young forever (yeah!) Scream it from the top of your lungs (yeah!) Say, yeah, (yeah!) let's be alone together (yeah!) We can stay young forever (yeah!) We'll stay young, young, young, young, young Uh, uh, uh, uh-oh, uh, uh, uh, uh-oh Uh, uh, uh, uh-oh, uh, uh, uh, uh-oh [Verse 1] Cut me off, I lost my track, it's not my fault, I'm a maniac It's not funny anymore, no it's not My heart is like a stallion, they love it more when it's broken Do you wanna feel beautiful, do you wanna, yeah [Pre-Chorus] I'm outside the door, invite me in So we can go back and play pretend I'm on deck, I'm up next Tonight I'm high as a private jet, cause [Chorus 1] I don't know where you're going But do you got room for one more troubled soul? I don't know where I'm going But I don't think I'm coming home And I said, "I'll check in tomorrow if I don't wake up dead" This is the road to ruin and we're starting at the end [Chorus 2] Say, yeah, (yeah!) let's be alone together (yeah!) We could stay young forever (yeah!) Scream it from the top of your lungs (yeah!) Say, yeah, (yeah!) let's be alone together (yeah!) We can stay young forever (yeah!) We'll stay young, young, young, young, young Uh, uh, uh, uh-oh, uh, uh, uh, uh-oh Uh, uh, uh, uh-oh, uh, uh, uh, uh-oh [Bridge] My heart is like a stallion, they love it more when it's broken Do you wanna feel beautiful, do you wanna, yeah [Pre-Chorus] I'm outside the door, invite me in So we can go back and play pretend I'm on deck, I'm up next Tonight I'm high as a private jet, yeah [Chorus 2] (Yeah!) Let's be alone together (yeah!) We could stay young forever (yeah!) Scream it from the top of your lungs Say, yeah, (yeah!) let's be alone together (yeah) We could stay young forever (yeah!) We'll stay young-yo-yo-young, I-I- [Chorus 1] I don't know where you're going But do you got room for one more troubled soul? I don't know where I'm going But I don't think I'm coming home And I said, "I'll check in tomorrow if I don't wake up dead" This is the road to ruin and we're starting at the end

God Only Knows

Written By: Brian Wilson & Tony Asher

Artist: The Beach Boys

Released: 1966

“God Only Knows” is a song by American rock band The Beach Boys. It is the eighth track on the group’s 11th studio album, Pet Sounds, and one of their most widely recognized songs. “God Only Knows” was composed and produced by Brian Wilson. Tony Asher helped Brian with the lyrics. Carl Wilson sang lead, and Bruce Johnston sang harmony vocals with Brian in the outro. The song broke new ground in many ways. It was one of the first commercial songs to use the word ‘God’ in its title. As producer, Brian Wilson used many unorthodox instruments, including the harpsichord and French horns that are heard in the song’s famous introduction. Although The Beatles engaged in a friendly rivalry with the Beach Boys based on mutual respect, Paul McCartney called this song the best song ever written.

[Verse 1: Carl Wilson] I may not always love you But long as there are stars above you You never need to doubt it I'll make you so sure about it [Refrain: Carl Wilson] God only knows what I'd be without you [Verse 2: Carl Wilson] If you should ever leave me Well, life would still go on, believe me The world could show nothing to me So what good would living do me? [Refrain: Carl Wilson] God only knows what I'd be without you [Interlude: Carl Wilson, Brian Wilson, and Bruce Johnston] Ooh, ooh Do, do, do, do, do, do, do Bow, buh-bow, buh-bow, buh-bow (Do, do, do, do) Buh-bow, buh-bow, buh-bow (Do, do, do, do, do, do) Buh-bow, buh-bow, buh-bow, buh-bow (Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do) [Refrain: Carl Wilson] God only knows what I'd be without you [Verse 3: Carl Wilson] If you should ever leave me Well, life would still go on, believe me The world could show nothing to me So what good would living do me? [Chorus: Carl Wilson] God only knows what I'd be without you [Outro: Carl Wilson with Brian Wilson and Bruce Johnston] God only knows what I'd be without you God only knows what I'd be without you God only knows what I'd be without you (What I'd be) God only knows what I'd be without you (God only knows) God only knows what I'd be without you (What I'd be) God only knows what I'd be without you (God only knows) God only knows what I'd be without you (What I'd be) God only knows what I'd be without you (God only knows) God only knows what I'd be without you (What I'd be) God only knows what I'd be without you (God only knows) God only knows what I'd be without you (What I'd be) God only knows what I'd be without you (God only knows)

[rossmacdonaldsgf]

based off the song all i need to hear

ross macdonald x female oc

no warnings just pure fluff and ross being a simp.

he mopes when she’s gone, her music ringing out the silent bunk. like a broken record, the song never stops repeating, the track going round and round in circles. he loves his guys and touring, but they’re just not you. around a circular table, he circles his finger round his glass of whisky, probably jack daniels, if he focuses hard enough, he could smell your hair. argan oil, he loved that smell, he could hear your voice, mindlessly chatting about something insincere. he could feel your warm breath, scented with rum and coke trickling down his neck. he sighed, a deep, long, melancholy sound that made him sink further into his seat, the conversation filling the room meanless to him, it meant nothing without his lonely aching arm carelessly thrown over your shoulders, holding you near.

he falls asleep, a nights full rest dependent on your distant voice over the phone ‘i love you’. a nightly ritual, that’s all he needed to hear to gain enough peace to rest his tired eyes. the bed feels cold and lonely without your warmth to fill it, his arms feel empty without anything to wrap around, he settles for clutching his duvet closer to his chest.

the morning sun wakes him, the guys still asleep, he could tell from the peacefulness that overtakes the bus. he takes a seat in the kitchen, his mug that says ‘best grandad ever’ (an inside joke between the two of you) filled with steaming black coffee, if you were there, you would’ve made him a sweet vanilla coffee, but you’re not, so bitter, it is. there’s no food appealing enough to him, not when cooking is laced with memories of dancing around a kitchen with you. the boys wake up one by one, each one saying good morning in their own way, they offer him food, he declines. he doesn’t really feel like talking. he loves them, but all he wants is you.

each show feels more empty without your sparkling presence. he’s pretty sure the crowd can sense his sadness, not that he talks during shows, but he knows they know, he thinks sometimes they know him better than he knows himself. the songs fun feel seems lost without anyone special to perform it too, he doesn’t need the cheers of fangirls longing for him, he just needs you. “falling for you” brings a tear to his eye, he ducks his head down so nobody sees it, it was always your favourite. throughout the shows, he can hear the odd person calling his name, can hear the odd ‘ross, i love you!’. it’s empty words that can usually bring him to crack a smile, makes him know he’s appreciated. but today, it’s meaningless, because it’s just not you.

he’s lost count of the days you haven’t replied or called, it’s sad his moping, he knows your busy. you’re a grown adult with a successful job, but he worries. his notebook is filled with letters and notes, messages and calls he might send with words that would make you smile so wide he would forget the nights he wrote them. but it’s meaningless, he would never send them. so he keeps them in his notebook, only for his eyes. the days blur into eachother, he just wishes for one small reassuring message, even if it’s insincere, a sentence filled with no meaning, he just craves your voice, your attention and love.

he sent you his tour schedule months ago, he’s on the last leg of it now. his nights are fuelled with the comfort that if you wanted to, you’d show. you should know the boys would drop everything in a heartbeat to get you here. he. he, would stop and would fight everything to get you here, back where you belong.

his dreams at night are filled with you, your voice, your eyes, your smile. you hold his hand and the hole in his heart becomes smaller. it’s a saturday night when it happens, his phone buzzes, he picks it up, a small voice speaks and he doesn’t need any explanation to know. ‘i love you.’ he smiles. ‘that’s all that i need to hear.’

[ghost-skull-trash]

Within this hell, tear out your heart to survive.

Within the rusting hell that was the Hadal Blacksite, An inventor waits for their friend to return safely, they wait and wait but… they haven’t returned. Now they journey through hell to find them, meeting those who want them dead along the way. Happiness has to be fought for after all.

So with some of my friends encouraging me to try and put some of my fics here! This one came to mind JUST as I was about to fall asleep, thus its very messy, hell I expect like three people to even see this so don't expect the next house of leaves, OK? Anywho I hope you enjoy! :D

The only clock in the room was broken, a mess of components and broken black plastic, picked clean of what’s useful and what left to gather dust, like the rest of this hellish site. .

.

.

Rain held her stomach in pain, hunger pangs  making every breath feel like torture, her eyes were dull, staring into nothing, too exhausted to focus on anything in her makeshift room, sitting below her “bed” the fairy lights gave a soft glow, illuminating her thick dark hair, partially kept up in a half-assed bun and making her dull orange gorka pop out from the shadows.

In Front of her sat a cup of self heating noodles boiling away, having to restrain herself from eating them raw and risking a myriad of illnesses.

the only clock broken she counted down in her head when she could eat, she felt it kept herself sane, but that’s hard to prove when you find yourself rambling for hours on end to nobody and not even realising you're doing it until your throat is red and hoarse.

Distant gunshots and the facility groaning with the noises of death made her nauseous and worried… worried about getting hunted down by her employers or some poor sod they sent in their place… or they would end up hurting her partner, SEVER who was still out trying to find supplies or some way to get the both of them out of this iron coffin.

SEVER was the only thing keeping her going at this point, early on she would've laid down and let the cold metal be her grave, being her last thoughts be that of the warm grass of home, or her late father, but SEVER was too kind, they stuck by her even on her worse days, before she re-grew her heart and chose to care again and to show her love, asking her quizzically about her large collection of movies and music, being intrigued by her stories of home and dancing with her on those lonely nights, it made this box feel like home.

Rain slowly ate the oily noodles, little clumps of chicken floating in the lightly chilli flavoured broth… normally she wouldn’t even eat this even as a dare, but when you are slowly wasting away with the risk of starvation to boot, it made them palatable … she would rather eat expired lasagne mre’s though…

The only entrance to the room was a partial crushed door or as an emergency, the site spanning ventilation shafts, on the day the site went into chaos something crashed into the door just as it was about to close, jamming it inwards and leaving only a small gap to crawl through, even still that gap is mostly hidden with boxes or shelves whenever SEVER goes out on a supply run.

Crunched the empty cup under her boot, sitting at her desk and reading through whatever she could, files, instructions manuals , anything, that if she and sever got out of here she could use it as blackmail or evidence against this hell.

Picking up a book from one of the many piles of junk and garbage that made up her room, she gave it a look over, it was a maroon coloured book detailing recommended purchases for the site, such as canteen supplies, vending machine stocking and printer ink, it goes of this tediously detailing the history of when such orders started, any interest on potential suppliers and cost reduction.. It was 637 pages of near microscopic records and mind numbing drivel, even when it was describing how an employee was crushed flat like a pancake, bones to powder from a dropped shipping container made Rain yawn in boredom.

It was hard to focus, she always found it hard to focus but now it feels impossible, like she is chasing after one letter at a time before the word makes sense, closing the manual and ripping up the empty noodle cup, she used a dry bit as a bookmark and tossing it back into the pile.

Sitting back on the floor at the foot of her bed her mind once again wandered, thinking of everything she made in this hell.. one such mistake was a robot, the Z-809 Casket, originally tasked with smaller mineral collection, to pick up debris from larger automatons latter used instead to find convicts trying to escape, whether barely alive or dead, the robot would pick them up and shove it into its compartments, limbs often sticking out, sometimes moving, sometimes accompanied by screams.

Another machine she made was the Z-730 The MacroMiner. A bacteriophage styled automaton suited for high pressure exploration and building, with a specialised compartment in its chest designed to be able to be filled with supplies to then walk along the seabed to its destination.

Rain had a plan to implement a back door into its code so she could utilise them for sabotage against the company, but it was never completed,, surely there is some code leftover she could use but…

Her thoughts dwindled as her eyelids grew heavy, she has been struggling to stay awake, spending most of her time sleeping or laying in bed, she feels so weak.. And SEVER still hasn’t come back yet..

Rain looked at the busted door, judging her options, she knew she was going to die.. but wasn’t sure as to when or how.

Her poor condition clouded her better judgement as she crawled under the broken door in order to find SEVER.

 peeking out from behind a box, her eyes struggling to adjust to the darkness, the emergency lights having been broken or burned out, Rain felt something else in the room, something with many arms that reached out like octopus legs, grasping and cold, her orange goggles developing frost as Rain swears she saw white glowing eyes floating around her.

Staying close to the floor she felt along the cold concrete walls for another door, her hand brushed against its metal frame as the door shot open, blinding her with the light from the other room, rubbing her eyes, the room she was in felt empty once again, the twisting shadows disappearing.

The other room was a mechanical bay, scientists would test out whatever Geneva Convention breaking toys they had on test dummies, engineers used it as a glorified storage unit for their junk, and occasionally a tall serpentine man with a third arm and an angler fish light would come by for spare tools and materials, he looked dead inside, Rain never said hello to him and neither did he, she could feel the hatred emitting from him anytime he looked at her, as if he was cursing her out in his head perhaps calling her a monster under her breath.. she didn’t blame him, she would hate herself too.

The only thing not taken was a bulky red wrench, used for fastening bolts on the outside of the underwater base, inconvenient to use traditionally but otherwise a great weapon.

Rain kept walking, room after room, the dull buzz of the electrical system going haywire, distant screams from what she can assume were either her former co-workers or “expendables” that were sent down to grab whatever they can, either way Rain decided not to take her chance with meeting either.

Her walking came to a stop, the room was pitch black, something she was used to by now, but that wasn’t what made her pause, there was furniture everywhere, overturned or broken, and riddled with smouldering bullet holes.

[mt07131]

2 A.M.- Maeve Divine

2 A.M. 

2:07 A.M, if she wanted to be accurate, according to the dim light of her bedside clock. 

2:07 A.M, and Maeve was wide awake. This wasn’t uncommon for her, she always said she had too much going on in her head to be able to rest. She used to be able to turn over and see Seven right beside her, also awake. They would spend hours just talking, talking about music, about themselves, about anything and everything. In those brief moments in time, when the rest of the world slipped into dreams, they would just talk.

But she couldn’t do that anymore. She turned her head to the side of the bed, to that empty space that weighed on every part of her. Her eyes focused on that space, as if she could will him to appear beside her. As if the past week had been just the world’s longest nightmare and this was all in her head. But it wasn’t, and Maeve had to accept that. Nothing would be the same anymore, because Seven had left and he took a part of her with him.

She sat up, rubbing the heels of her palms into her eyes. She knew she couldn’t keep doing this to herself, but she couldn’t help it. Every waking moment was occupied by thoughts of that party, of their fight, of everything that had happened since. She went through her recollection meticulously, wondering what she could’ve done to fix everything. What choices could she have made differently to make sure things wouldn’t crash and burn the way they did?

Maeve reached past her clock (2:10 A.M.) and to the worn notebook that sat on her dresser. Maybe she could write, distract herself. Her best ideas always came to her in the dead of night, hence why she kept the notebook so close to her at all times. Writing songs, yes, that would fix everything, or at least it would fix her right now. It was all she spent the week since the party doing, you know, between bouts of sleeping and crying and ordering takeout and screaming.

She opened it up to a fresh page, placed the pen tip to the paper and… nothing. Normally, she would have something, anything. What were all those racing thoughts doing in her head if they weren’t there to help her write the next great Reject Saints hit? She tried again, willing something to come out, and still nothing. Instead, there were just dots of ink on the page, memories of starting something but never finishing.

With a sigh, Maeve flipped back through the book. Her notebook had been her one constant companion through this aftermath, disjointed choruses and unorganized verses scribbled wherever she could find room. One thing was for sure though, they all had one overarching theme.

“A lonely heart remains until we know the truth.”

“It started with a spark and ended in flames.”

“No, I don’t really want to leave you behind, but apparently you can’t stay all mine.”

“Give it up for what we could have been.”

“So take my broken heart with you.”

She let out a loud groan, bouncing back against the mattress and letting the notebook rest on her face. Part of her wanted to finish them, to record them, to let him hear what he had put her through. But she couldn’t do that. No way could any of these songs see the light of day, not now. The wound of their breakup was still too raw. Besides, what if he listened to them? Would he ever? Doubtful, Seven made it very clear that he wanted nothing to do with Reject Saints and Maeve anymore. 

The notebook slid down to her chest as she sat up again, and again she opened it up. Not to those most recent pages, but to those first ones. Scribbles from back in high school, when she knew jack shit about how to put a proper song together. Occasionally, her notes and doodles were interspersed with another hand's writing, one that matched the tattoo on her uncovered wrist. His handwriting showed up more and more as she flipped through, eventually being used as much as her own. This notebook had been touched by him in so many ways, more than she ever truly realized. And now, it was all she had left of him.

She almost considered burning it. Throwing it into the fireplace at Devyn’s place or just lighting a match and watching it catch until it was only ashes in her hand. She almost did, she came very close during one particularly emotional night, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t just get rid of it, because as much as Seven had made his mark on it, it was hers. It had everything, it was everything. She couldn’t just get rid of it.

That same reason was why the new notebook Rowan had gotten her (spiral-bound and everything, he had said, fresh new upgrade) still sat untouched on her desk. That’s what he had said, but she knew why he gave it to her. He was trying to help her start fresh. But that same reason was why she kept reaching for this notebook, her notebook, the one with the cracked spine and the cover duct-taped back together. Because it was hers, to the core, and she couldn’t just forget about it.

Maybe she needed to just zone out, she thought as she snapped the notebook shut. Placing it on the bedside table (2:39 AM), she instead reached for her phone. Music then, music was always her lifeline. She just needed to calm down, listen to something familiar, just let go. One deep breath, and she tapped that bright shuffle button.

“Dare me to jump off of this Jersey bridge-!”

Maeve scrambled to pull the headphones out of her ears. Of all the songs it could’ve played, shuffle decided to grace her with their song. One of the first they had ever figured out together, that they ever performed together. 

She couldn’t escape him. They had been so intertwined for so long, sometimes it was hard to tell where Seven ended and Maeve began. Everything reminded her of him and it hurt. It hurt so much, because he had become an extension of her and vice versa. She had to move on, figure out who she was without him, but that wasn’t going to happen so soon. For now, she just mourned what they had been.

Phone back on the nightstand (2:41 AM), because that was a total bust. Maybe she would just… lay there and pray she would fall back asleep eventually. Maybe she would exhaust herself thinking pathetically about her ex-boyfriend, ex-band mate, ex-everything. That was how that worked, right? And it did. Blissful, dreamless sleep finally took her in its gentle embrace.

Eventually, she got out of bed. She cleaned up the takeout containers. She started trying to be human again. She started being not just Maeve, but Maeve Divine again. 

And then, one of those songs did end up seeing the light of day. It was a final goodbye, the last page of the chapter. That’s what she told herself, at least, that putting that song out into the world would be the end of it all. Even if she didn’t truly believe it herself.

“Now I feel nothing ‘cause I’m done with you.”

[teabutmakeitazure]

I love the mortal x immortal ship. Even more because I'm some kind of sadist loving a reincarnation trope with it. Deal with this strange powerful being kidnapping you and telling you how much he missed you, or how you are still as beautiful as the day he lost you. He sometime comes randomly in your room to hug you and tell you how happy he is to see you again. Sometime he comes and have a mental breakdown, crying, and telling you he is so scared to lose you again, and again, and forever.

Worst thing is when he tells you about some genuine happy memories, or show you something you liked a lot in your past life, in you are just like "It's beautiful. And he seems really happy. But I have no memory of this"

it's worse because in Otherwordly Desire (name still stc) there is no kidnapping. it is merely 'coincidence' after 'coincidence', music that keeps replaying on a broken record after a pause when the song ends. there is candlelight and a love in your arms that will dissipate into smoke if you waltz for too long or too little. it is a flower you cannot preserve even in resin. it is the snow that melts on your rooftop and drips onto your front porch but you can't hate it because the sound makes it feel less lonely at home. it is the inky words fading from the pages of the old books in your library. it is the old ring you've kept with you your entire life, the thing desperately needing a polish. it is the food you cook and put on the table. it is the gentleness with which you take that hand and kiss each knuckle. it is the candle flame that flickers because of the wind from the open window. it is you. but it is not her.

love is not her, because she is not her.

[baileye]

In early 2022, when Daniyal Ahmed set off on a road trip from Karachi in Pakistan into the neighbouring province of Balochistan , his only contacts were a few distant connections who he hoped would lead him to a legendary musician within the region. After circling villages near Pasni, a fishing port on the Arabian sea about a six-hour drive from Karachi, Ahmed by chance spotted Ustad Noor Bakhsh on the side of a lonely road sitting next to his broken motorbike, waiting for help.

Ahmed is an anthropologist who teaches at Habib University, and had been chasing down masters like Bakhsh in remote regions across Pakistan. Bakhsh was already well known within Balochistan both as a solo benju (a type of zither) player and as Balochi vocalist Sabzal Sami’s accompanist for three decades. Ahmed was alerted to Bakhsh’s talents after he saw a video of him playing circulating on Facebook. A musician himself, he’s invested in amplifying regional talent that has become obscured in a country lacking robust infrastructure to support musicians, especially those who play traditional music.

When Ahmed told Bakhsh about his work, he was invited to stay, and over five days recorded an album’s worth of music by Bakhsh. In clips of sunset jams near the Shadi Kaur creek, Bakhsh sits cross-legged with his electric benju – his right hand expertly plucking strings on the base, his left moving rapidly up and down the keys on the neck – playing everything from Balochi compositions to Bollywood favourites, flanked by two damburag players, each holding a long-necked lute and keeping the beat.

Ahmed wasn’t just blown away by Bakhsh’s technique, but his ability to improvise, and play across forms. “The playing is virtuosic – it’s totally full of this spiritual energy,” says Ahmed, who has since become his manager. That first meeting changed both of their lives within a year. Ahmed’s Instagram stories of Bakhsh playing went viral, leading to press in Pakistan and India, an invitation to perform at Boiler Room’s debut broadcast in Karachi last June and then release an album, Jingul, in September, which received acclaim from Pitchfork. This summer, at the age of 78, he embarked on a 10-country European tour, including the huge Roskilde festival in Denmark.

[superblycaffeinated]

We're back and ready to share the new and re-written story! I hope those that were reading the original So Far, So Goode are still with me, and for those of you that are new, welcome 🧡 I can't wait to hear what people think and I hope you enjoy it! Head on over to the So Far, So Goode masterlist here for information on the story, general warnings, and last, but certainly not least - the music. I'll be posting here and on Ao3 (under superbcoffeedrinkersubparwriter) - but you need to be a registered user to read over there. CW: description of guns

Chapter One:

To be honest with you, I used to think I was the furthest a person could possibly be from lonely. 

Which, I suppose, is because I had never really been alone long enough to ponder the true depth of all that surrounds the word, feeling - state. The more I think about it, the more I start to doubt if I’ve even touched the surface of what it means to be alone. 

I’m a triplet, so I haven’t been physically alone even before birth, save for the one minute and forty seven seconds both my brothers were out in the world before I arrived. Also, not only am I a triplet, but one of five Goode kids. Plus, there are my two cousins, and all of the Goodes that aren’t Goodes, but hell, yell the name in a room and they’ll all be turning their heads (a phenomenon I’m told goes well into the past). Long story short, I have a lot of family, making it almost impossible to ever be alone. 

Since there are so many of us, I guess I should clarify which Goode I am for the official record or whatever? Believe it or not, I haven’t actually written a formal CoveOps report before this. Despite receiving a superior education in the field I wish to enter, I’ve never once encountered any training on how to write one of these things. My educators (and family) claim paperwork is the worst part of the job, so maybe they hold off until it’s too late and it just never gets taught? I don’t know. All this is to say, don’t judge me it’s not up to, like, professional standards, okay? 

My name is Joelene Macey Goode, but everyone calls me Joey or Jo. I know most people hate nicknames, but I honestly prefer it over my full one. Not that Joelene is a bad name, but you try living eighteen years with people singing terribly offkey at you while you stand there awkwardly. So, no offense to Dolly, but I can’t hear Jolene without wincing now (but if you read this Ms. Parton, from one Gallagher Girl to another - you rule!). 

And yup, that’s me. A Gallagher Girl. My identity, my cover, my school - all for the last five and half years of my life. 

Since you’re reading this, I’m sure you know exactly who we are and what we do at The Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, and you may be thinking you know all there is to know about us Gallagher Girls, but I am no ordinary one. 

I’m a legacy, a fourth generation one to be exact. Meaning, a lot of Goodes (in one form or another) have walked those hallowed halls. They slept in the same rooms, they took the same classes, they ate the same creme brulee and then crushed records or did impressive enough things to end up with their pictures in our hallways and their names in our history textbooks (the ones that tell the real history that is). And they did it all before graduating. 

It’d be one thing if it was just their accomplishments to live up to, but it’s the footsteps attached to the person attached to the name, that I’m truly scrambling behind. 

Because, yes, you’ve been reading that last name correctly. 

Goode. 

Maybe you’ve heard of us? The best family in the biz, as Grandpa likes to boast.

I don’t like to phrase it quite that way too often as Grandpa usually gets a look from Grandma and mom that could kill him. And I mean, literally kill him, if Peter and I hadn’t accidentally broken the specific pair of glasses meant for such a thing on our fourteenth birthday. 

Because, as I’m sure you’re very aware of, by the “biz”, Grandpa and I mean that martini shaking and pouring while dodging a bullet, running from the explosion in a suit hand in hand with a girl in heels, passionate kiss or dramatic monologue before jumping out of the moving train kind of stuff. 

Spy craft. 

Espionage. 

The cool shit. 

But don’t worry, I know that stuff doesn’t really happen and it’s all for the cinematic experience. 

Why my Grandpa gets the looks, is because saying that “we’re the best in the biz” goes against everything my parents have told me and my four siblings our entire lives. That the name doesn’t mean we carry and wield this magical power. Being a Goode doesn’t allow us to assume we’re the best without working towards anything. 

My parents weren’t wrong, and I’ve never, ever, once taken my last name to mean I could do what I wanted with zero consequences. In fact, it’s made me believe the exact opposite. It isn’t zero consequences when we mess up, it’s an astronomical amount. Because, when you’re a Goode, you’re not just messing up, all Goodes are too. 

Instead of skating by on the merit of the name, I’ve spent my entire adolescence feeling as if I need to rise and thensome to earn the name that was simply just given to me because of my blood. 

Oh you’re their daughter? So you can do this like that? Why yes, as a matter of fact I am the daughter of agents Morgan and Luke Goode, and while I can do it like that, I’ve been forbidden from doing it in the house, or from using it on my brothers, thanks for asking. 

Also, yeah, you read those names correctly too. The best agents (in my totally unbiased opinion of course) the CIA has ever seen, are my parents. 

So, you see, I’ve got Goode blood, and not just any. I have to do this. I have boots to fill and make my own impressive steps with -  a name I have to live up to. 

I’ll admit though, that the name, the legacy of it all, the movies I love, the training - none of it compares to the real reason I have to be a spy. 

It’s a word, pretty well known around these parts, maybe you’ve heard of it?

Classified. 

Now, I don’t know about you, but when someone tells me I can’t know or that I can’t do something, I cannot rest until I know all the information or I do the thing. 

I’m told this lovely trait of mine comes from my mother, and a little bit of my dad, and potentially a whole lot from a great grandmother I’ll never know. So, I take breaks. I've learned when it’s time to take a step back - a breather - before I let the need to know or do swallow me whole. But I can’t let it go fully, not really, not until it’s done. 

Which is why I have to be a spy, and not only a spy, but the best. Because if I’m the best, then that word is never going to be in my way again. Knowledge is power, and power is privilege, and privilege is responsibility. 

So, when my mother was home for my entire Summer break, I knew it was my responsibility to -

Hold on. Let me backup. I don’t think that came out with the emphasis it requires to get my point across. 

My mother, current and working agent Morgan Goode, of The CIA was home, doing “nothing”. All. Summer. 

Something stunk, and it wasn’t just Andy and Peter’s disgusting socks that quite literally could have been radioactive. 

All summer, the feeling that my great grandpa - Grandpa Joe  - always tells me to never ignore, sat heavy in my gut. 

A spy’s gut is their number one weapon, Joelene, and the longer mine felt off, my nerves frayed and sparked until the slow, incessant heat of something wrong, finally caught fire and I couldn’t ignore the burn any longer. 

As mom took hushed phone calls and locked herself in the office of our safe house for hours, I felt the inside of that room and its contents calling to me like a flame does to a moth, or in my case, the opposite. I was the flame, engulfed, consumed by my need to know and that office and what was happening behind its closed door was the moth I was destined to devour. 

And that was all before she used that awful, horrible, no good for shit word. 

The classified of it all would have tipped me over the edge regardless, but it was the fact that it was my mom who said it that really sealed my fate. 

I can count, on my two hands, the total number of times my mother has said that something was classified to me, without my dad prompting her to do so. She’s always been a little…shall we say looser? with information. She is the one who always sort of half answers our questions until dad is stepping in. He’s constantly reminding her that her children are not supposed to know that she stopped a bomb in Brazil or saved an ambassador to France and that she’s, “making us think it’s okay for them to sneak out of their heavily guarded and safe schools and fly to foreign countries when it is absolutely not okay and don’t even think about it.”

I’ve heard dad’s speech so many times, that I promise you, even if I wasn’t trained to recall intimate details and information, I would still be able to tell you it verbatim.

That speech wasn’t gonna stop me because it never has, and, as I’ve previously stated, I have that trait that makes it so I can’t let things go. 

My dad shoved puzzles and code-breaking books at me all Summer. I beat Peter and Andy at Super Mario Brothers (the old one, from the 80’s, as Luigi - do you know how hard that is?). I beat Grandpa at Scrabble twice (which, okay, wasn’t that hard to do), and was forbidden from playing Monopoly with Peter inside the house ever again. I watched twenty-two spy movies, sixteen rom-coms, and five westerns. I learned the dance to Push It by Salt ‘n’ Pepa, mastered the Swift maneuver (that’s Taylor, by the way) and none of it worked. 

At my wit’s end is when mom caught me staring at a vent in the hallway between bites of Fruit Loops. Calculations and assumptions of what would stand between me and the other side seemingly apparent on my thinking face as my milk turned pink and the cereal turned squishy, because mom shook her head slowly without lifting her eyes from a newspaper. 

While, when she did lift her gaze, there was a distinct glint in her green eyes that could have you believing she was amused, her tone told me all I needed to know when she said, “Don’t even think about it if you love your eyebrows.” Which I really do (I have part of my namesake to thank for that - she never once let me take a tweezers to them no matter what the trends said) so, Operation Vent was out. 

But a threat such as this was an obstacle of child’s play proportions. Potential eyebrow removal standing between me and information? It was fuel to an already raging fire, a carrot in front of a bunny, a tailored suit and a shaken not stirred martini before the finest double o seven. 

So, on the morning of my mother’s birthday, the day before me and my brothers were to head off to school for our Senior year, I knew it was my last chance. 

I was careful to avoid the creak of the floorboard directly to the left of my bed as I semi-rolled off of it. 

Landing on socked feet, I held my breath as I glanced up at the bed across from mine. The eldest of all my siblings and us Goode kids, my sister Collins, was still asleep. Her chest rose and fell evenly under a buttercup yellow duvet and flat palms, her straight brown hair fanned over her pillow and framed her peaceful face. 

She looked like a goddamn Disney princess even in her sleep and I’ve hated her since we were kids for it. 

I hated her even more when my fingers had barely touched the cool metal of our door knob and her whisper sliced through the silence sharper than any knife my Grandpa had taught us to throw. 

“Whatever it is you’re about to do, it’s not a good idea and you should go back to sleep.”

“I’m just going pee,” I lied easily. 

She rolled her gorgeous eyes from her pillow, still laying on her side. 

Collins, of all my siblings, is the most made to be a pavement artist. She is a natural at blending, at becoming whoever she needs to be, but her eyes have always given her away. They’re a soft and warm brown most of the time, but depending on what she’s wearing or the lighting around her, touches of green and blue come out. But no matter what color they are, they’re far too expressive. 

Amusement and maybe a little pride shown in them then, her hands roamed under her cheek and her legs tucked up under the sheets as she spoke. “You have your lucky shirt on, and your lock picking set in your pocket. But sure, you’re going to the bathroom.”

“You never saw me,” I whispered, and practically somersaulted (to avoid the door hinges squeaking) out of the closest thing either of us had known to a childhood bedroom.

Spies aren’t totally devoid of feeling and emotion like the movies and novels would like you to think. They’re humans too, and crave and need a place to call home - they just need to be more careful about it, is all. 

Growing up, we moved around DC a lot, but I’m sure our actual address was in California or Idaho or something. Grandma and Grandpa took care of us quite a bit when we were really little. One of my earliest memories is Grandpa teaching me the signs for when grilled cheese is ready to flip while also teaching me the exact spot to press with a precise pressure that makes your enemy release without control (a method he so humbly calls The Zach Attack, by the way) at their ranch in the Midwest. 

There, and here, are the only two safe houses I’ve returned to. This one, close enough to school and DC, but not too close, is my childhood home if the life of a spy allowed such a thing. Sometimes, when I think about this place, I’m filled with an undeniable grief that makes my chest ache with something heavy. Because I know that one day, and maybe one not so far off, I’ll never return to it. 

This is not where, if I choose to have them, my kids will take their first steps. A boyfriend won’t show up on this doorstep with flowers and a handshake for my dad. There aren’t lines of mine and my siblings' heights tracked, there aren’t framed photos hung on the walls, there is no attic full of boxes of baby clothes or memories too fond to get rid of. 

Sure, there’s still little touches of our family here though. A dent in Andy and Peter’s room from where I flung open the door repeatedly hitting the knob into the wall. Peeling stickers of rock bands Peter and I plastered on the underside of the shelf in my closet. Scratches and scuffs on the hardwood from chairs being pushed away from the huge gathering table. A bright blue nail polish stain on the carpet in mom and dad’s room where Leia and I spilt it. We all give the fridge an extra bump with our hip to make sure it stays closed and we hit the top of the entrance to the living room as we pass underneath it. 

It’s my home. And like any girl in her home, and like any spy, I know its sounds, its tricks and secrets, its shadows. 

And sure, Collins caught me before I even left the bedroom, but that didn’t matter. If I avoided certain floor boards, if I kept low, and I worked slowly, I was convinced I could break into the office without anyone, particularly my mother, ever knowing. 

I had managed to slip down the entire hallway without a hitch, and was knelt in front of the office door with my compact lock picking set (an actual compact with the ability to unlock anything, thanks to my Aunt Macey) when I heard something. 

Hearing something, in the early hours of the morning, before the sky has really even transitioned from black to indigo, isn’t out of the ordinary. 

But hearing something, at a remote safe house, when your entire family should be asleep, is out of the ordinary. 

While I noticed the noise outside, I had failed to notice things, plural - my family’s number one rule. 

Because I failed to notice the lack of a competing snore with Peter’s and the smell of cinnamon, I’m not proud to admit I jumped when my mother’s figure slipped around the corner from the kitchen and her voice calmly and quietly asked me, “Did you hear that?”

“Yes,” I answered immediately, because I knew if my mother was clarifying if she wasn’t alone in hearing something, it was serious. There would be time to discuss how I was literally caught in the act of breaking and entering later. 

My mother stood at the end of the hallway, a steaming cup of coffee nestled between her hands. I snort and roll my eyes whenever anyone tells me I look like her. My mother is gorgeous, undeniably so, and while I may have her dark brown curls and green eyes, there’s no way I look like her.

Especially then, when she looked so much like a regular mom. My dad’s old SIX sweatshirt hung from tense shoulders. Worn navy fabric engulfed her frame, slightly covering rumpled pajama pants covered in penguins. Her brown curls were piled high on top of her head, loose pieces falling free and erratic.

But I knew about the scars under the sleeves, and the prosthetic beneath the penguins, and the look behind the green eyes. She was the furthest thing from a regular mom, especially when a louder thunk happened outside in what could be considered our driveway. 

Mom knelt slowly, her gaze on the front of the house that I couldn’t see, as the door knob in front of me started to twist. Before I could even tell her, she calmly and quietly just said, “Dad.”

I’ve always known my parents were good spies, but I never thought I’d see it in action, like this. 

The office door slowly opened, and dad barely looked at me, completely unphased as he called, “Morgan?”

He was equally fresh from sleep. A Blackthorne shirt pulled tight across his chest where letters faded and his plaid pajama pants wrinkled, looking so exceptionally dad, except for the black pistol in his hand. 

I was suddenly and acutely aware of a real threat. This was not CoveOps. This wasn’t P & E. This wasn’t a fun field trip Grandma had taken us on to Roseville with Uncle Matt. The gun without a safety ready to shoot in my father’s hand spoke the words I’d been fearing for years - this is real, and you’re not prepared, are you Joelene?

“Here, I’m fi-”

Two doors at the end of the hallway opened, cutting her off. 

My brothers blinked, heavy lids opening and closing sleepily but awake enough to assess the severity of the situation. Shirtless torsos tense as they both stared at the gun in my father’s hand and then at me with matching hard frowns. Their expressions were the beginning and end of their similarities. Peter’s brown hair was disheveled, curls flattened in some spots and sticking straight out in others. Andy’s blond was slightly less askew, if only because it was shorter. His green eyes landed exactly two inches taller than Peter’s brown, but his shoulders took up far less space in the doorway than Peter’s broad frame. One made to slip in and out of places he wasn’t supposed to and the other to barrel into anything that got in his way in the process. 

Collins, who must have determined I’d need the assist, was dressed for the occasion in all black and glaring at me from her spot crouched in our doorway. 

“I told you it was a bad-”

The front door knob rattled and my father was pushing me behind him as he stepped out of the office fully. He quickly made his way down the hallway, and I felt more than heard the steps of three of my siblings backing me up. 

Dad made to grab for my mother until she held her hand up, all of us freezing at her silent command.  

I’m convinced my parents have two different bodies. 

There’s the mom and dad bodies. The soft spot on my dad’s chest that’s perfect for a cheek to rest while listening to him read Shakespeare. The hands my mom gently runs over our heads, carefully detangling my curls. Arms and hands that twirl bodies around the kitchen in time with old music, heads that throw back in laughter with ease. 

Then, there are their highly trained take no shit I’ve seen things you can’t even imagine spy bodies. 

I hadn’t really seen these versions of my parents until then. Sure, I’d seen them fight, we all have dad to thank for our own stances. But this was different. These were shoulders and hips that stood with purpose, strong, planted, but ready to move. Arms that held a gun steady and sure. Eyes that communicated with each other without mouths saying a word. Bodies that were inherently made to protect, to fight. 

To kill. 

It was in less time than it took me to blink that their bodies transformed back into their mom and dad versions. 

The gun dropped to my dad’s side, their shoulders fell, tears quickly made my mom’s eyes glassy and both of them breathed out a name in the way only parents can. 

“Leia.”

I’d never seen my dad move so quickly, disappearing around the corner before my mom could. 

A quiet and familiar giggle burst out from the entryway, thick with tears as she whispered, “Hi, daddy.”

The four of us barreled down the hallway, tripping over each other and shoving, not believing it was her without seeing it for ourselves. 

Mom disappeared next, accompanied by the voice that couldn’t possibly be there, louder, and happier than her first words, “Happy Birthday!”

“What is wrong with you? Why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you tell us? Your dad could have -”

“Because it was a surprise,” my other sister interrupted my mother in a way I’ve never been brave enough to do so and I knew it was really her. Here. Especially when she said, “Where are the idiots?”

If Collins was made to blend, Leia was born to stand out. Even in an olive green t-shirt and camo government issued pants, Leia Goode sparkled, she glowed. Her blonde curls were pulled into a uniform low bun, and I had never seen her so tan, or her muscles so defined. Her green eyes practically glittered when the four of us rounded the corner, and her dimple poked out on her cheek and her freckled covered nose scrunched as she smiled. 

Collins managed to reach her first, but we all slammed into her, tripping over the two large green duffles at her feet as we all fell to the ground in a laughing and crying heap of chaos - our speciality. 

Leia winced under all of us, quick and quiet enough that if we weren’t who we all were, if we weren’t all still a little on edge, we wouldn’t have noticed. 

“Are you hurt?” Collins pushed all of us out of the way, gaze roaming over Leia protectively. Nurse Collins activated and assessing. 

“No,” Leia shrugged. But not the kind of shrug that admits you’re lying, the kind that, delivered properly, and with the right expression she currently wore, made you think you were crazy for asking. Of course she wasn’t hurt, why would you think such a thing? 

Normally, this expert lie delivery could win awards, and I’m sure Leia thought she was in the clear, on her way to The Academy to collect hers. But, the thing is, our parents are not normal parents. And while many parents seem to have this, like, engrained skill to suss out a lie, spy parents are worse. 

Way worse.

Each of them took a step closer, crossing their arms as they stared down at Leia like they weren’t thrilled to have her home. 

It was a shared look we’d all come to know extremely well. Without moving or saying anything, they seemed to circle you, pulling out your lie with only their eyes, making you spill your guts easily. 

They were good and highly trained, and we were no match for them. We all knew it was easier to fold - don’t lie when you’ve already been caught, don’t lie to the people who know your tells better than you do. 

But Leia stood with ease, and smiled. She shrugged again and looked at my parents without wavering. 

“I’m fin-”

“Don’t,” my mom narrowed her eyes with the word. She sucked in a breath, and I knew a speech was coming, but Leia threw her hands up in the air with a groan. 

“Alright! There was a tiny incident. It’s already healing.”

Andy’s fist clenched at his side, his jaw pulsing as he asked, “What happened?”

Leia pinched the bridge of her nose with her forefinger and thumb, closing her eyes in the process so she couldn’t see how my mom’s lips twitched in the fight of a smile or how her gaze made pointed contact with my dad’s. 

It was something we’d all seen him do a hundred times at least and before Leia could answer, Peter snorted, hands covering his mouth as his shoulder shook. 

Collins bit her lip, unable to hide her grin. Andy shivered, muttering “That’s scary.” I sucked in a breath, fighting a wheeze and Peter fell against me, laughing harder. 

Leia’s eyes flew open, looking around with a frown. “What? What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” my mom shook her head, tucking one of Leia’s stray curls back behind her ear, “What happened?”

Leia frowned, placed her hands on her hips and huffed. 

“It’s classified.”

Mom snorted and we all lost it. Dad grinned and kissed Leia’s forehead right above where her eyebrows knit together as she whined about how she didn’t get it and that someone needed to tell her what was so funny right now. 

It didn’t matter why she was home, or that she hadn’t answered the question, not really. It didn’t matter that I still didn't know what was going on in the office all summer. It didn’t matter that my dad had a gun and had been ready to use it. 

All that mattered was that we were laughing, and safe, and together for the first time in a long time. 

[familylightfox]

Hours of time could be passed playing the guitar. It was something that Light had grown accustomed to while stuck within the small room in the barracks for the majority of his life.

Music was a way to escape the confines of the room, at least mentally.

Even now, when they had escaped from one room within the empire, it felt as if they had just entered another. The Freedom Fighter base wasn't the most welcoming place. Not when Sonic almost seemed hell-bent on antagonizing Gibbous for hours on end until she either retreated behind the former soldier's legs or became so upset that Light had to bring them back to their room so she could decompress.

His fingers plucked at the strings on his acoustic while singing quietly in the main gathering area.

As always it was after everyone else had taken to their respective rooms and the two bioprojects were free to move about. Gibbous had taken up a comfortable spot on the couch beside him as he played, curled up and rocking her head from side to side in time with whatever he played.

But it seemed that their peaceful moments would be broken as the toddler's head picked up. That lone footstep into the main room had caught her attention and the jade eyes peered into the darkened hallway with a low enough growl to get Light to stop playing.

"I'm still shocked someone like you was able to pick up an instrument and play it like a natural." A backhanded compliment, but at this point, the former was sure that it was the best he would ever get from the hedgehog.

"Unlike what some might say, bioprojects aren't any different from a natural born mobian. Before everything went to hell, it was recorded bioprojects were made for those who couldn't reproduce themselves." Mismatched eyes lifted, seeing the hero's hand reach for his head and sway on his feet. "But I guess that's a fact only a few are going to remember."

"Yeah, well that's not what they're used for anymore. Now you're all tools for Buttnik." Light rolled his eyes at the statement and set his guitar to the side. "Besides. The ones that had wanted one made at least gave consent."

"Shut up!" Both adults stopped in their tracks and Gibbous jumped off the couch to square up to the speedster while standing between him and her dah. Quills were raised and teeth were bared. "I didn't ask to be made. And I didn't ask to be made from you!" She took a step forward and Sonic instinctively took a step back. "If I would have had a choice. I would have Light be my dad any day over you. You've been nothing but an asshole to both of us even though daddy's trying to help."

"I..." The hero looked from the toddler to Light, as if the former soldier would say anything. He did not. At least not to anything Gibbous had said so far.

"You don't have to like us, but I would hope you might at least trust us that we're here to help you. To set things right again in the world." A pause. "Maybe the knowledge that the day you escaped from Robtonik's prison with your friends, I was the one who turned off the security systems."

Light left the words lingering in the air, taking his guitar in one hand and scooping Gibbous up with the other. They took their leave passed the hedgehog and went back to their room.

Leaving Sonic in the darkened room after they left. Standing there.

[gabenvrhappened]

TheOldGabeOr… The First Time

Imagine the light entering your room at four in the afternoon. It’s warm because it's sunny, and the rays of light are making their way calmly to your beige carpet, simply and smoothly, exactly how things are supposed to be. Flowing naturally, exercising the simple nature of what they were born to do. There's no question why, it just is. And everything feels fine because it’s just you, the sun, and your private world.

What I just described is a scene from a movie that I rewatched yesterday called The First Time — a movie that shaped most of my aesthetic goals in life now, such as having a wave collage on my room and a record collection. My day had been shitty and unproductive, so I just wanted to watch something safe. I had remembered this film a few days ago and meant to come back to it, so it felt like the right choice for a comfort movie. It starts with Dave meeting Aubrey (Dylan O'Brien and Britt Robertson) on a dark alley near a house that was having a party that their friends were invited to, but that they didn't feel like going for their own personal reasons, so there they were, in an alley, ready to be surprised by life.

That reminded me of a concept I've been trying to absorb since a bus ride to work that I'll never forget, from years and years ago: of how things happen when you’re not expecting them to. Of course, it’s a cliché idea from a cliché movie, but it holds some truth. Nowadays, you have an app for everything: making friends, meeting your future love, having meaningless sex. It’s all too controlled by a piece of metal, plastic, and glass in your tiny hands. The whole world and all its possibilities just laying there, for you to decide what's good and worth it. Life is so much bigger than that. For me, having control was always the most important thing, even if I didn't notice because it was my subconscious that was pulling the strings. As you grow old, you realize that the best things happen out of the blue. The most special, too.

Honestly, I don’t feel like telling my kids I met their father on an app. Imagine how cool it would be to say that we met each other in a coffee shop and he asked me about the book I was reading? Or that we met on the underground when he noticed that I was mad and asked me why (“Tesco closes at 11 pm on a Saturday night. Can you believe that? I just wanted to be drunk!”). Maybe I’m too old-fashioned, and the time for that has come and gone, but still, wouldn’t it feel romantic? Wouldn't it feel right?

Piece by piece, I’m trying to open up more and more. For me, that means taking my earphones in public. That’s a huge deal for me. You know, just sit on the underground train reading a Dostoevsky book or walking down the streets hearing the city noises, not my music (trying to get drunk but being sabotaged by Tesco). That’s a concept I’m trying to put into a song also, but I’m still trying to find the right words for it. Especially because I also feel like it could be something like that “on his own world” kind of guy that someone tries to come into the bubble and show him that he can be loved and cherished even if he's broken inside (specially if he's broken inside). If in movies, we have the lonely lost boy being found, why can’t we have it in the real world, too? Is it too far-fetched to hope for that? Who has the answer?

Maybe I’m too busy trying my best to not fantasize things and daydream anymore. But recently it feels like that’s not a bad thing and, if done right, it won’t stop you from getting what you want. Call it manifestation? My new friend here, she's the one who likes to stay quiet in the underground train daydreaming. Or visualizing herself as the characters of a movie she had just watched. I found that so fascinating to hear. So unique, carefree, and free of anxious thoughts, but if it was coming from me, the words I would use to describe would probably be all in the "weird" semantic.

If there's a first time for everything, how does one find a way to have a first time in something that was already lost in time? Redefining can be done for everything, or is there a rule to that? I don't have the answers, but every great discovery started with a question. I just find it hard to remember myself to keep asking these types of questions, but I'm glad that I can be reminded of that with movies like this one. Especially with a young shirtless Dylan O'Brien.

[hymns-across-the-stars]

Serenade ! for gabe and mirage !

Most machines love music; it's a part of their design that Mirage never really understood the reasons for, why hearing even a few stray notes can usually catch the full attention of one passing by. Considering what most of them are—or had been, rather—it just... seems like a flaw, something that can be used and exploited.

All that said, it's not really an issue with the current state of things. And, for what it's worth, she's no different from the masses. Predisposition to enjoyment aside, music is comforting—something that had occasionally broken through the dread when those thoughts became too loud in her head or things were... lonely.

Those times are less frequent than they used to be, by a large margin. It really does help that she and Gabriel actually enjoy each other's company—or at least, she's fairly sure it's mutual. Nonetheless, she still has those hours upon hours of songs saved to memory. She doesn't even need a recording anymore.

And sometimes, she sings them instead.

It seems like an unusual thing among her peers. For all their love of music, she's rarely heard few admit to singing. Some literally don't have the voice; others will absently hum along but do no more. It could be private, still. It's not like she'd sing in front of others. It's more a thing to fill the silence, when she's alone on a task and trying to break some of the monotony.

Today, it's handling that last bits of cleaning the classroom. It's not the same as hearing a human voice, of course, sounding just a little too unnatural to even her own processors. But it still feels good and right and...

"Kiss me, out of the bearded barley... Nightly, beside the green, green grass..."

Well, love songs just hit different.

Somewhere around the second verse, though, she realizes she's, uh... no longer alone in the room—and suddenly it hits her that it might just be shyness that stops the others from singing. With a noise that can only really be described as a startled beep, Mirage sets down the cleaning supplies she's holding.

"Gabriel, please tell me you just came in."

[newmusicradionetwork]

Aimee Van Dyne “Why Should I Care”

After a 15-year hiatus, Folk-Americana singer-songwriter Aimee Van Dyne has returned with a new 11-song album, ‘Broken Love Songs’ which has placed on the Alt-Country Chart, the FAI Folk Chart, and the RMR Americana-Country Album Chart, and has been aired on over 100 radio stations internationally. Her song, ‘Why Should I Care?’ was selected as Runner-Up in the AAA/Alternative category of the International Acoustic Music Awards (IAMA) and her song ‘Lonely Me’ was selected as a finalist in the Country category for the 2022 John Lennon Songwriting Contest. Her song ‘Hold On’ was selected as a finalist in the Folk category for that same contest. Her original compositions, acclaimed as “songs of durable beauty and intricate craftsmanship” (Alan Young, Lucid Culture), are characterized by strong melodies, catchy hooks, and symphonic, three-part harmonies. They reflect influences such as Neil Young, John Lennon, and Lucinda Williams. Written and arranged by Van Dyne, the songs on ‘Broken Love Songs’ are deeply personal and confessional explorations, whose “loosely connecting thread is that of going into the wilderness and emerging intact” (NY Music Daily). Indeed, Van Dyne has submerged herself into the wilderness, both figuratively and literally, examining the dark entanglements of failed relationships, acknowledging that “on the other side of dark comes the light.” Co-produced by multi-instrumentalist Jim Henry (Tracy Grammer, Eliza Gilkyson) and recorded by David Chalfant (The Nields), ‘Broken Love Songs’ features a first-class team of musicians, including Jon Carroll (Mary Chapin Carpenter), Paul Kochanski (Lori McKenna) and Jon Graboff (Ryan Adams, Norah Jones). Born into a musical family, Van Dyne is a classically-trained pianist who picked up the acoustic guitar at the age of thirteen after discovering the music of Neil Young. Earning degrees in both art and architecture, it wasn’t until Van Dyne was in her thirties and working as an architect that she decided to pursue music professionally, performing at venues such as The Bitter End and The Living Room, and releasing a 5-song EP. With the birth of her twin daughters, Van Dyne made the difficult decision to devote herself to child-rearing full-time, casting aside her guitar into the cellar, where it remained for the next ten years. A move from Brooklyn to the Berkshire Mountains, along with the dissolution of her 23-year marriage, was the impetus for her to return to songwriting. Van Dyne is thrilled to be playing live music again, and has upcoming shows scheduled throughout the East Coast. She currently lives in Berkshire County, MA, with her two lovely daughters and her three silly cats. Additional Artist/Song Information: Artist Name: Aimee Van Dyne Song Title: Why Should I Care Publishing: Aimee Van Dyne Publishing Affiliation: BMI Album Title: Broken Love Songs Record Label: Aimee Van Dyne Record Label: Aimee Van Dyne 917-501-2352 aimeevandyne@gmail.com Radio Promotion: Lisa Grey 914-762-2976 lisa@blueriverpromo.com Read the full article

[azenari]

chaconne | 11.13.17

originally published on TinyLetter

sometimes i wonder if my taste in music is eternally enslaved to my memory - the darkest corners, their deepest wounds. in the years that have flown by since childhood i have rabidly consumed every and any genre that could make me feel something more forward... the sensation of running from death and chasing freedom, a departure from days i couldn't bear to recall. i've been a voracious, devoted consumer. i don't practice and the fingerboard on my violin is no longer attached to the rest of the instrument. i can't (or won't) remember simple intervals. i wrote my bachelor's thesis about the magic of women who claim hip hop as their bread and butter; women who loved me but were not, in fact, me. i gave whatever was left of me in a mad attempt to elevate collegiate a cappella above cliché, an aspiration with no room for childish individuality. when my soul is tired, it is not prepubescence i turn to but rather the gritty, naive immortality of adolescence. all the iPods i purchased and lost, the soundtrack to walking alone through a vast concrete jungle. after she left, i carried my own backpack. i no longer cared to carry my violin. and yet when i sit down in front of a keyboard in an attempt to create, the pandora's box in my memory rattles with death throes that refuse to relinquish their hold, however faint, on the rest of my life. pandora produces melodic, arpeggiated tributes to an era that i willfully abandoned. more often than not, my compositions trail off in chord progressions that recall dead white men from centuries ago alongside the benevolent spectre of my late mother, who is equally and irreversibly dead. i can't remember her voice, but my hands can't stop playing her music. in all my years scrabbling at my perforated heart via the powerful ineptitude of written language, i have never once composed a word to the sound of Western classical. in all my years since discovering more, i have never once bothered to listen to it for the sake of the music itself; until now. so what now? the piano is tuned for the first time in 11 years. i'm in a house again, with a family of my own. a picture of her adorns the lid. i can feel the burning pixels of her eyes when i practice, reminding me to slow down when i make mistakes unless i want to spend an exponential amount of time fixing them. without meaning to, i find myself encouraging my roommates to do the same, unconsciously doling out unsolicited musical advice while washing dishes and worrying about dinner. the spitting image of her with a little extra eyeliner and fewer worldly wrinkles. it took me this long to remember, but she, too, spent due time in the city of angels, reconciling memories of a dying mother. two lonely and singularly indomitable women, one departure per american coast, a mother i can't remember and a mother i never knew. it's hard not to wonder whether i'm next. beloved but alone, eyes open and staring at the emptiness of the ceiling, screaming for a daughter i would never see again. dying, with the clock still struggling desperately to tick. when i dream of learning the second half of saint-saens' introduction and rondo capriccioso after a decade of denial - when i stumble through bach preludes on the piano as if i'm seven again, my ring fingers clumsy and weak - i wonder if i'm already dead. is my consciousness buried beneath the off-white pages of old sheet music? was my innocence snatched by the reaper hovering in my mother's glassy eyes? then again, i can't tell if my broken-record creativity is reminiscent of death or merely memory; the treasure of the past trying to claw its way back to the present as i endeavor to dream, once more, of the future. i think it depends on whether i choose to keep playing.

[maggiealbright]

wreck.

trigger warnings: illness, cancer, death mention/death, anxiety attack

“There are things to consider,” Olivia admonished sternly from the hallway, in the way that Olivia says things that means both ‘I support you fully’ but also ‘I am prepared to take over completely’. She had not, Maggie noticed, allowed the door to fully close. That felt like a slight, but so did most things Liv did, and Maggie didn’t have the energy anymore to figure out if it was passive aggression or actual obliviousness that made her sister so casually offensive, sometimes.

Turning away, she blinked, then watched the traffic beneath them sputter along a the street. Across it, a parking lot for employees. She’d parked there more than once. No one had bothered to give her a citation. In her experience here, the pattern of relationships is cyclical: people grow familiar. And once that happens, they grow fond, sometimes. Tolerant, at least. But more than anything, they grow sad. For you. About you.

“I’m sure they’ve discussed it,” their mother curtly dismissed, unwilling to handle both this conversation and the spat she anticipated would blossom from it. In recent weeks, every attempt Olivia made was aggressively rebuked. Maggie wasn’t hungry, even on the days she couldn’t remember eating last. Maggie didn’t need new clothes, even after a record five days without showering. Maggie didn’t want coffee, though her body screamed at her for allowing it to suffer in the absence of caffeine. She didn’t want Olivia. She didn’t want her parents—doting and prodding and touching, her, and even Jane. Her mother holding her hand. Maggie hated it. She hated that she hated it.

She wanted Jane to tell her to stop it. Say she was being ridiculous. Say it was okay.

Only one of those things, of course, was true.

There were actually things to consider, to Olivia’s credit, but they were largely easy to do so when you’ve had time to prepare, which they’d had a few months of, and Maggie was very, very good at doing. Jane wanted to be cremated, she’d decided, after weeks spent researching the absolute dumbest methods of “immortalization” imaginable—ashes shot into space, ashes turned into coral reefs, ashes littered around a Disney attraction to ruin it for everyone else.

“I want to be the best dead fiancé you’ll ever have,” she would assert sweetly, her tired eyes still, somehow, twinkling.

“You’ll be the only one,” Maggie murmured, unamused by this macabre line of thinking that Jane was somehow so comfortable existing with. Still, this was as close to a nice thing as she had to focus on, really. Josh would be her fiance forever, in a way. It had a gross, oddly sweet sentimentality. 

“Fingers crossed for you,” Jane would offer, morbidly.

Anyway, so there was no burial. Not a proper, stand-at-a-graveside-and-mourn one, at least. For this, Maggie felt slightly cheated--she’d wanted to make a spectacle of her love for Jane, and since they’d run out of time for a wedding, a funeral was her next best shot. But it was not to be. Instead, Jane’s parents and siblings orchestrated a memorial for her back in Oregon, full of photoboards and music and alcohol. Maggie spent a lot of it in Jane’s parents’ en-suite, thinking about how Jane was gone, now, and this was the world after her, and it was terrifying and lonely, and she couldn’t even watch Jane be lowered into the ground, see her body taken by the dirt. Instead it sat in an urn, downstairs.

--

Once Maggie came back to Philadelphia, on any given night at any given time, someone was somehow always “in the neighborhood”, bringing food, or offering to pick up the living room that had become Maggie’s new home base because she couldn’t sleep in her and Jane’s bed, or do a load of laundry, or make a pot of coffee, or vacuum, or anything to force a restart, essentially, to return Maggie to factory settings, to before she became stuck like this forever, broken and useless. Caught in a loop. This would be a nice thing–and was a nice thing, really–and Maggie appreciated the nice thing openly, publicly, appropriately. 

But she could not appease them. The loop was comfortable. In its’ ring laid Maggie’s entire life, the mess of it unraveled gloriously, again and again. Her life had come apart at the seems, her future now dead to her. She began to think of her life like this: not as things that may unfold, but as a series of events that had already happened, a touching montage like the ones at Jane’s memorial, played on a loop endlessly until the screens were taken down and the projectors turned off.

At least from here, in this rut, laying on her couch until four in the afternoon and then getting up only to amble around the apartment like a disoriented ghost, she could exist in the junkyard of her grief.

Nothing she owned could be passed without Jane’s memory flooding her—the bed Jane broke when they moved in, but gave an Oscar-worthy performance pretending it was already like that; the stupid, threadbare t-shirt from her high school volleyball team in the laundry basket. She kept it there for weeks, afraid to touch it. 

—

The truth of  Maggie’s wreck was not that it was beautiful, or poetic or sweet or romantic or deserving–or even capable–of being understood. It was just, as wrecks often are, a devastation. She felt mangled for months, as though she’d gone countless rounds with an invisible opponent, death and all its fanfare having kicked the shit out of her. 

She had texted with Jane’s siblings periodically, usually cursory check-ins. But she spoke to Jane’s parents once a week on the phone, like clockwork on Sunday evening, and each time they sounded so outrageously sad for her that her hands shook; as soon as they’d said their goodbyes, she’d power the phone down and shove it in her bedside table, not turning it back on until the next afternoon. She was afraid to leave the house, afraid to be seen, to be perceived. She spent all of her PTO and sick days laying in bed. 

The night before she was due to return to work, she hid in the bathroom for hours, her chest convulsing. She called her sister. Within twenty minutes, Olivia was at her door, using her key, rushing her way in. She acted as if it was an emergency, and maybe it was. Maggie laid in her lap for hours, until finally, Olivia coaxed her into bed. They laid facing each other, their hands clasped, as they sometimes did when they were little. 

The next morning over silent coffee, Olivia said plainly, in her ‘I totally support you’ and ‘I’m prepared to take over completely’ voice, “You need to go to therapy.”

And she was right.

--

It was a Thursday family dinner when she informed the family--well, her parents and Olivia and Olivia’s boyfriend (she thinks his name is Greg, but it doesn’t really matter, because Maggie has spoken to him twice and both instances have been about—you guessed it—Olivia)-- of her plans. There were many differing opinions offered without restraint or regard for how much Maggie cared about them on renting a car in contrast to flying. Nobody told her it was a bad idea. Nobody told her it wasn’t the right time. Her father, notably quiet, simply looked at her for a long time, until Olivia asked him to pass the green beans.

“I think she knows when she’s ready,” she heard her mother saying later as she did her nightly cold cream/eye serum routine in the upstairs bathroom. She could not--didn’t want to--hear her father’s response. The truth was, she didn’t know. She didn’t know what quantified being ready, what that metric looked like when it was met. She just knew she wanted to do this. And maybe that was enough. Jane would have thought it was enough. Jane was ready. 

Jane had been ready. 

—

Maggie had never been a big fan of being outdoorsy, and she knew Jane knew that, and she knew Jane knew that and still did with this information what she had--left specific instructions in a note, to be carried out “whenever.” Jane would often have to beg Maggie to go for a hike with her, and when she relented, she’d complain for the majority of it. They’d fought about it, a few times–-or, more, about how Maggie didn’t do anything without complaining, and how Jane never let her do anything without making her feel like she had to enjoy herself, and then Jane called Maggie immature, not understanding why she needed to lash out when she had the slightest idea that something might change, or be different. Maggie could remember almost all of the exchange now as she worked her way through the woods toward some unknown endpoint, surrounded by the thing Jane loved, and, so, surrounded by the idea of her, and, so, surrounded by the idea of her being gone. Maggie timed her footfalls with her breathing, and found it hard to exhale evenly, the air catching in her throat. 

Maggie had once said on a drive home from some trail in the Catskills--a Jane vacation pick--that the water was “pretty but that she didn’t need to see a waterfall to know that”, and that the “colors of the leaves weren’t reason enough for her to go spend four hours in the rain walking through mud”, and that “all trees looked the same”. Now, Maggie looked up from her feet to find that, here, she was right--all trees did look the same: tall and ominous and all-knowing. She felt small. 

The waterfall grew louder, soon, almost deafening, and Maggie’s heart lurched, starting to pound in her ears. There were so many mechanics to this she hadn’t considered: what if there were other people? How much did she leave? How much could she stand to lose? How much did it even matter. 

When she finally arrived at its base and beheld it in all its’ splendor, hundreds of feet tall, she wanted to feel majesty. She wanted to feel moved. Instead, she simply felt validated: it was…a waterfall. 

Well, Jane’s waterfall, now.

__

That night, in the motel off of Route 5 that advertised $59-a-night rooms and a Jacuzzi tub with a ‘z’ missing from the sign, Maggie laid on top of the covers, listening to the sound of the rain pounding against the window. She’d planned to star her drive home in earnest, but quit after two hours of white knuckle driving in zero visibility, and here, in a kind of stasis between what she’d just done and her daily life, she had the burden of time. 

She thought about the book from the library that she liked the most, the one that didn’t encourage staying busy or being strong–it was “A Beginner’s Guide.” She only remembered bits and pieces of it, having read it over the course of a handful of hours in the middle of the night and then moved on to the next one that had been given 4+ stars on the internet, but the pieces she remembered seemed more important now than they had at the time. That stasis–the loop--can end. Should end. Will end. 

But this one–the one where she moved through grief like thick fog, the one where she was always Poor Maggie, the one where she would wake up to an empty bed and cry about a toothbrush or a shower loofah–this was infinite. This loop was her entire existence, now. This loop was where she kept Jane, in whatever sick way. 

She took in a deep, shaky breath, and then a wracking sob shook itself loose from her ribs, clawing its way out. She hid her face in her hands, the cool of her ring pressing into her cheek.

This was not what she had thought might happen when she had read the books, or watched the movies, or listened to the music, or talked to her therapist. It didn’t even feel like the grieving she was supposed to be doing. It wasn’t beautiful, and it wasn’t meaningful, and it certainly wasn’t gratifying. It didn’t feel like a release. It didn’t feel like anything.

It just hurt. It just was. 

In all the time she had had since Jane’s diagnosis, in the hours of research and planning, in the nights alone in the apartment, she had never felt this. 

This was something new. Something foreign. 

It was the wreck of her entire life, shattered and twisted, incomprehensibly destroyed, laying before her, waiting on her to be reassembled. A day would come, eventually, when the pieces would need to be recognizable again. Sorted. Then, usable. Purposeful. Meaningful. Something Jane would love. Something Jane would be proud of. 

Even if it was without her.