#Rock Johnson lucky draw

[themculibrary]

Daisy Johnson/Jemma Simmons (Skimmons) Masterlist

Addicted To You (ao3) - DeceitfulHonesty E, 26k

Summary: A raid at the SHIELD lab where she was working, leaves Jemma in the hands of her greatest enemies. As she tries to stay alive, Jemma finds herself drawn to someone who destroys all her expectations of Hydra: a specialist who calls herself Skye.

and i can go anywhere i want (anywhere i want just not home) (ao3) - autismboard G, 5k

Summary: She defined herself by the things that she loved: she was a scientist, a wife, a best friend.

At that moment, she was sure of only one of those things. So the only conclusion she could draw was that there was no more Jemma. --------

Jemma post 5x14 attempting to make sense of the situation at hand (aka girlie is struggling)

and if you're still breathing (you're the lucky ones) (ao3) - plinys M, 6k

Summary: She’s seen Groundhog Day and every other story about being stuck in a time loop. Though normally the people in these loops are unwilling participants, unable to change anything significantly, but needlessly repeating the same cycle until they learn some sort of moral of the story.

The thing is Jemma already knows the moral of this story. At least, she thinks she does.

can you see me using everything to hold back? (ao3) - midnightstrawberries T, 6k

Summary: Sometimes, late at night, unable to sleep and sprawled under bed sheets, head hanging upside down off the left side of the bed, Skye likes to imagine her parents. What they were like, who they were, how they lived. She dreams until her head starts hurting too much and she has to sit back up.

Skye is sixteen years old and she has never lived in the same place for more than a year at a time. (Something tells her she never will. Something else tells her to believe otherwise.)

~

Skye and Jemma meet in high school instead of at SHIELD.

Follow Me, I Know A Shortcut (ao3) - nerdwegian G, 1k

Summary: Jemma is acting weird around Skye.

I found love where it wasn't supposed to be (right in front of me) (ao3) - EB_FanficFan_1458 mack/yo yo, jemma/daisy, kate/bobbi, clint/natasha T, 24k

Summary: “Is this what gay stargazing is? Stars and confessions?” Nat whispered. Bobbi laughed silently. “Yes. Now you’ve experienced that, you’re officially with us. Welcome to the family.”

For the first time in years, Daisy and Bobbi feel safe at their home with Phil Coulson and Melinda May. But what happens when Phil and Mel decide to adopt Natasha as well? The demons of their pasts come back to haunt them. Can they stay safe and happy, or will everything fall apart?

I'll Be The Rock Star If You'll Be The Scientist (ao3) - nerdwegian T, 10k

Summary: "Wait, wait, wait! Sir, are you telling me the dinosaur escaped our plane in your flying car?"

It's All About Biochemistry (ao3) - Selenay

Summary: Jemma pulled in a calming breath. "Just. I'm not really used to this kind of thing yet."

"What kind of thing?"

"Post emotional crisis kissing," Jemma said. "It's new to me."

Love Me at the Corner Cafe (ao3) - Heylittleyahtzee (HeyYahtzee) T, 36k

Summary: Skye likes to keep an eye on her regulars, so when Jemma Simmons comes in entirely flustered one morning Skye can’t help but reach out to her. It turns out that Jemma Simmons can’t help but return the favor. Unsurprisingly there is no going back from this

Slytherin to My Heart (ao3) - happypugfics E, 82k

Summary: Skimmons Hogwarts AU Skye and Jemma find themselves in their sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry dealing with the same old issues it has to offer: homework, tests, quidditch, house points, their relationship...and oh, the Triwizard Tournament.

The Hydra Disaster (ao3) - Rhino (RhinoMouse) M, 39k

Summary: Jemma's time undercover at Hydra gets far more interesting and Important when she gets pulled into project World Killer. She is not prepared. But SHIELD needs her to succeed. Which would be easier if her boss's boss's boss, Agent Daisy Johnson hadn't taken an interest in her. It would also make Agent Morse's life easier if the scientist she's supposed to protect would stop breaking every rule of spy craft. Every. Single. Rule.

The Way Our Horizons Meet (ao3) - plinys M, 50k

Summary: Four years ago Skye married Jemma in order to keep her from being deported, now when the day has come to end things she can't help herself from wondering how they got here and how she can get her to stay.

Until We Get There (ao3) - Pitkin E, 275k

Summary: “I’ve got a tail,” Daisy announced, loud enough to hear through the phone as she watched the silver truck appear around the fourth corner, having made a successful square with the truck following. She made a left at the next possible road, deciding she would head back toward the highway to get to a better populated area.

Lily gasped. “You do??” She asked. “CAN I SEE IT!?!” She screeched in excitement.

Under normal circumstances, this reaction would have been more than enough for Daisy to roar with laughter and come up with an excuse for why Lily wasn’t allowed to see her non-existent tail. Today she was quiet as she glanced behind her in the rearview again.

wandering (ao3) - cardiganweather E, 4k

Summary: Jemma Simmons has survived an alien virus, jumped out of a plane without a parachute, and worked with an Asgardian to solve a murder mystery. She can handle sharing a bed with a girl she likes in a too hot hotel room.

Right?

Want to Annoy Your Family This Thanksgiving? Call Skye! (ao3) - DeceitfulHonesty T, 4k

Summary: "I’m a 25 year old, unemployed hacker with no high school degree who lives in a van that’s older than me. If you’d like to have me as your strictly platonic date for Thanksgiving, but pretend to be in a serious, committed relationship with you to irritate your family, I’m game. I require no pay but the free meal I’ll get as a guest and the joy of spending an evening with people I can aggravate! Call Skye." Based on the Craigslist ad that people love to share this time of year.

[boredwritergirl]

Day 14 - The Nameless Space Station Part 1

The Nameless Space Station Part 1

The crew of the S.S. Qohor couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw it. A long abandoned space station, floating endlessly without power. Rocks, burn marks and miscellaneous space debris were coated all over the hull. The written symbols being of no language known to man, indicating that this vessel may have been older than humanity itself.

Captain Braum’s lip quivered, her pupils dilated as she erupted with joy. “D-Do you know what that means!? This is the discovery of a lifetime! When we get back in touch with Houston, NASA is going to have a field day with this.”

Her Chief Engineer, Sasha Volkova, didn’t share her enthusiasm. “Captain, we should get back in range of radio communication to discuss our findings. Our ship is far too small, our crew too short to investigate that massive thing.”

What Sahsa stated had been correct, there were only a small number of astronauts aboard the shuttle. The abandoned space station was at least twenty times as large as their spacecraft and would have taken several weeks or months to explore with the team they had brought along.

But Braum was an older woman than Sasha, tall, dark haired and confident in her ways. She obviously only thought highly of Sasha’s suggestions when they best suited her interests. She detested having the small, mousey, 20 something year old in her crew. “Nonsense. We have to be there first. We’ll be the first people to board an alien vessel, to take their artifacts back home for study. This is our Armstrong moment, and I’m not going to let you ruin it for us!”

Braum led her team into the station, having Sasha stay behind, keeping the shuttle docked at what must have been an old hangar bay.

As the astronaut crew walked into the dark, abandoned space station they surveyed the area, or what they could see of it at least. They found themselves in a large, empty open area with various rooms on the side and all sorts of hallways and connections made through by the big empty blotch of space in the center of the floor.

“This might have been some sort of promenade.” Officer Smits said. He was likely the closest thing to a paleontologist on the crew. His old,dusty body not living up to NASA standards anymore, only his seniority in the department getting him back up into space again. 

The captain said, “Perhaps it was, but we shouldn’t jump to conclusions too fast now. We need to study more of these rooms, get a broader idea of what their purposes might have been and draw conclusions from there. If we make assumptions now, that’ll cloud our judgment.”

Smits simply nodded, the gray haired fox knowing better than to start an argument with Captain Braum.

Braum then commanded her other two astronauts, “Manfreidi and Johnson, I want you both to search the perimeter while the old man and I search that thing over there. If we’re lucky it might be some sort of terminal or power source.”

The astronauts did just that, Manfreidi and Johnson scouring across this level of the station while Braum and Smits made their way to a strange contraption lined up against the wall. The alien device was metal with green glass tubing. They could tell that the metal was once shiny, that the tubes likely lit up, but that was so, so long ago.

As Braum and Smits began fiddling with the device, the lights started to flicker, power restoring to the space station. Both astronauts were convinced that they didn’t cause that.

“Something’s fishy.” Braum said. “I don’t like this one bit.”

“P-perhaps we did that by-” Smits began to say before getting cut off.

“No, that’s just what you want to believe. That’s the safer, more convenient answer to accept. But that doesn’t make it the truth.” 

Braum then began to yell as she continued, trying to catch the attention of her other officers who couldn’t have been too far away by now. “Manfredi! Johnson! Get your asses back over here! We need to stick together, there’s something with us!”

And none of them knew just how right she was quite yet…

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[rockjhonsonwinner-blog]

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[mirioho]

love how artists can draw midorima with any object and be like that's his lucky item and it can be the weirdest and most random shit but like we accept it cause yes that checks out midorima would carry around a life-size cardboard cutout of dwayne the rock johnson if it was his lucky item of the day

[es05l2k5sl]

I'll never understand why WB had to redesign the Batcast for the new Bat adventures. Some characters took getting used to. But as for the villains, I'm roasting they asses cus they're ugly. Can't change my mind.

These Oswalds together look like 2 different people bruh. But we're here to talk about new Oswald. This Wimpy x Olive Oyl fusion snoody looking ass bitch. I'd like his outfit if it didn't have that lazy drawned bow tie looking like 2 triangles glued together & those fake ass MJ gloves. Also when tf did he have 10 fingers in dis universe? Also fuck that hair. Rocking a balding Mullet like ponytail before. Now it's just a boring cut down. Got dat snooty ass bitch look on face like his bird shit don't be stinking. I'll rock tf out u. Lookin like a whole ass Looney character or sum mf from the 30s.

Wot da fuck dey got Selena wearing here? Sis looking like a whole ass alien. Kid vs Kat looking ass bish. And her skin white af too? Did sis fall in some damn Joker acid too? Sis whole lower face is white as shit! Dat shit paler than crack. Like sis got the white slapped outta her and she just turned whiter. Das probably what happened. Her ass probably got on my mans Bruce last nerves one night and got da shit backslapped out her ass.

So my dude Matthew got turned a different color pal & got his neck privileges revoked? Lazy af but not the worst revamp.

You kno that meme: "upgrade, upgrade, FUCK GO BACK!"? Dis pre much sums up Jonathan here. My mans jus looks so dirty here. Looking straight outta da trash bin. Like literally dirty. Nasty ass teeth probably got dat hot ass breath blowing thru them bitches. Das a real fear toxin right there. Long ass black as shit dirty ass hair. Tryna copy off my girl from the ring w dat shit. Need to take dat dirty ass wig and mask and Amish hat tf off my dude. It is not rocking you. Dat whole worn out trashy ass outfit ain't working for you either hoe. You need to take yo ass a bath bitch cus your arms looking brown and ashy as a bitch. You can not even THINK about borrowing anything from me w yo dirty creepy stalker lookin ass. If you don't put down that damn stick like yo ass need help walking and shit I oughtta bitch ya ass with the shit fo going around dressed like dis. Take that damn rope off your neck bitch fo I do something Bruce won't do.

Bruh, you can not go up to my face and tell me these niggas are the same person in the same mofucking universe! Jervis What da fuck did they DO TO YOU MY N**GA?? N**ga looking like a damn leprechaun with special needs and shit. Rocking all dat dookie green swag but you got no swag anymore my dude. It's shit like you clothes and yo breath! Yo shits wasn't perfect and white before but them hoes looking hella worse now. What you get drinking all that damn tea my n**ga. Ol Tiny ass n**ga. Like wot. HOW?! HOW TF DID YO ASS SHRINK??? LIKE SOMEBODY TOSSED YOU ASS IN A LAUNDRY DRYER AND PROBABLY FORGOT TO TAKE YO STUPID ASS OUT. PROBABLY WHY YO HAIR WHITE AND SMALL AS SHIT YA UGLY ASS LUCKY CHARMS LOOKING ASS CRACK FEENY. If you don't hop yo ass back under a rainbow with dem skinny ass broken heel lookin ass tap dancing shoes.

Victor, bruh, they dem did yo ass so dirty in the new adventures. I ain't gonna lie that new suit kinda ok. But you looking like a whole skeleton and shit. Lookin like a young Palpatine & shit. Ol Frisky dingo looking ass! Need to put those goggles back on. The least yo (spoiler) 2003 Baxter Stockman ass can do now.

Yo ass probably looking mad as shit cus ya can't jack it no more n**ga. Dats all gon now. Long with yo unloyal ass wife. How tf she gon bounce on you after everything you did for her? After all the years and bull you had to put up with & she leave yo cold ass for another nibba? Fuck DCAU Nora. Just fuck her.

Scarface lookin like a damn Fanboy & Chum Chum character & his boy over here lookin like Chode. Next.

UUUUUUUUUUGGGHHHHHGG.

Just. UAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHH. Bruh I will never understand who tf thought this shit was a good idea?! Like who the fuck, was drawing dis nigga. Drew DIS Sus af shit. LOOKED at dis shit. And said to deyself: "Yeah dats da Riddler aight". HELL TO THE NAH DAT AIN'T NO DAMN DAS A (dick) FIDDLER! HE LOOKIN SUS AS FUCK NOW WITH THEM TIGHT AS GREEN SPANDEX AND THAT DARK AS HELL EYELINER. Looking like gay Christmas elf! Looking like a gay ass ballay dancer with them Spider Gwen ballerina shoes. You can't dance for shit nigga! Yo shit is SOOO DAMN TIGHT like I can get a good sight and shape picture of yo "Question mark" I'm telling y'all. sSSSUUUSSSSSSS. Looking like a bigasss lima bean. Skinny ass Jack skeleton moFucka. Like. They did my boy Eddy so freakin dirty with this. My mans had class, style, a nice look, HAIR. Now he. Whateverthelivingfuckdisbaldasspeterpanlookinmofuckasupposestobe. And i hate how that's how he did be lookin in almost every new Batverse when why tho? Nigg(m)a look stupid as hell. How tf he expect to be tooken seriously dressed and lookin like dis ? If I saw dis fucker in real life and he threatens me, imma laugh at his ass and beat him with his cane. Get ya Richard from Allen Gregory looking ass away from me. I can't!

Bruh it don't look that much but they did my mans Harvey dirty too. LOOK AT MY MANS FACE. good half i mean. Yall nigs kno. THESE MUHFUCKERS STRIPPED HIM OF HIS PRETTYNESS! Man. Dis version of Harvey was a pretty muhfucka. You can't deny dat shit

Even when he became Two-Face he still got dat 1 side of pretty.  And that deep af panty soaking voice to go along w it. He dat half and half package. 

Now HE LOOK LIKE DIS

WHOEVER TF DID DIS NEED DEY ASS WHOOPED! SQUARE TF UP NOW. NIGGA LOOKS LIKE EYEBROWLESS VERSION OF DOC FROM SECRET SATURDAYS. FAT ASS BLOCK NOSE MUH FUCKA.  His eye looks like traingle with a Nike logo on top of it. Lookin like a poorly drawn Dwayne The Rock Johnson. And ya other half ain't lookin that good either. Dat 1 eyebrow putting Helga Pataki to shame! I mean the shit didn't look good before but it was somewhat tamed, now the shit looking like full grownass caterpillar. And that lip black as hell. Kno that side dirty as fuuhck!

I don't even know what tf I'm sposed to say about DIS except (kinky..)

Angelica pickles looking ass. Bigass blonde captain coconut looking ass hairstyle. Looking like a blonde creepy ass Wednesday Adams. Dem black as fuck Kim possible lips. She actually looking like a family guy character with that bigass head and small body. I SWEAR she ded looking like one of Stewie's ex's right now my dude! Got  tiny ass flat ass guitar chip shoes. Looks like sis wearing fucking Zippers as shoes. Sis got that "i got something planned fo yo ass" smile. Sis look like she plotting something or did some evil shit already.

. . .

Bros I'm sorry but I'm just as confused as you like. I can't find a single thing different about Harley. Like literally nothing. Her makeup at night be looking blue sometimes, looking like a fakeass Livewire, but nah. They didn't even touch homegirl. Why tf is Harley the only character that stayed the same?????! Niggas was playing favorites. They had plans for that ass since day one. They was probs like: "Aye y'all. DO NOT TOUCH HARLEY. SHE STAYS THE SAME!" "why?" "JUST LISTEN TO ME BITCH!" "Wha bout her mans?" "Oh hell yeah fuck his shit up!" ...sigh.. Yep. It's that time...

UaaaaaaAAAAAAAHHH what else is dere to be said about dis ugly ass nigga? Dis nigga look like Yakko Warner & Freakazoid's love child! Dis nigga look like a random Tiny toons or Animaniac character! With that dookie green shirt and flower. You and Riddler's gay ass both matching them Dexter's laboratory Gloves. Why tf yo eyes eyes black as fuck tho?! How tf does one do that to theyself?! Yo ass probably snorted some shit and ya shits expanded and that's prolly yo pupils with ya cracked out ass. Nigga don't even look like a clown no more. Hell Jared Leto Joker atleast had the lipstick down. Dis nigga got dem ashy ass lips hanging out. Nigga think he owning too. Nigga you don't own shit! Broke as hell now. And yo design broke too. Joker? Man more like Broker. Got dat fairly odd parents hair. Got that Cosmo and Wanda in one. Like bitch if you don't. Just like Riddler i can not take yo animaniac looking ass serious. You do not scare me bitch! Bye!

Now see dis? DIS is Aight! A lot more fitting and & faithful to the character. No over the fucking top redesign, you can actually tell it's the same damn character as before, a little bit of swag for personality

So that's the tea. Ivy & Croc are the only good rogue redesigns in the whole series, evBody else ugly as shit.

[tylerthirst]

dear siennas inbox,

i came back from being sick for two weeks and i came back to dwayne the rock johnson plastered everywhere. like there's poorly drawn posters and chalk drawings of him all over campus, inside and out. apparently it's because our homecoming is themed around dwayne the rock johnson for some fucking reason. and i want to clarify it's themed around HIM specifically, not one of his movies or wrestling, just dwayne the rock johnson himself

why,

shaun

your school sounds like an art school tbh lucky you

[artificialqueens]

Pulling Leaves Off Trees, Chapter 1: Been Through the Wringer a Couple Times (Multi) - Sportkuras

Summary:

c’est bon: damnnn

c’est bon: wait. jan isnt your apartment near shea’s

human girl: @jansport spill

Jan could feel her stomach drop as she looked at the message.

“Oh, goddamn it.”

—

Or: The girls try to survive college, and everything else that comes with almost being an adult.

A/N: my first fic here on artificialqueens! i noticed that arent many college au’s and group chat fics of the s12 cast so i let myself be self-indulgent for once!! its unbeta’d so apologies lmao but you can talk to me here and you can find the ao3 link here! comment if you’d like!

***

Jan started her morning like almost every college student in their third year would: to be woken up by their alarm after a night of heavy drinking. She woke up with a start and groaned as Chromatica II started blaring from her phone, blindly reaching for it on her nightstand and peering at the time.

Damn. One in the afternoon, huh?

“Thank god I don’t have class today.” The blonde muttered as she checked her notifications: 7 from Twitter, 3 from Insta, and 1 from their group chat. She sat up from her bed and scrolled through the chat, trying to quell her pounding headache.

Bon Voy

Members: jaidaessencehall, heidininacloset, jansport, jackiecox, gigigoode, crystalmethyd, britafilter, dahliasin, nickydoll, aidenzhane, and widowvondu

lebron essence ball: okay so

lebron essence ball: me and shea are at the library rn and she’s complaining to me abt how she couldnt sleep right

lebron essence ball: and chile….it was bc someone was getting RAILED last night lmaooo

lebron essence ball: she said, and i quote, “the bitch had such a good time even I’M jealous”

c’est bon: damnnn

c’est bon:wait. jan isnt your apartment near shea’s

human girl: @jansport spill

human girl: also

human girl: feels weird that we didn’t start this day with a good morning announcement from jan

c’est bon: the vibes were off 😞

Jan could feel her stomach drop as she looked at the message, “Oh, goddamn it.” She’s now acutely aware of their apartment door opening and Rock’s footsteps padding from outside her room, most likely just coming home from her class. She suddenly remembered exactly what happened last night; most especially memories of what happened between her and her roommate . Memories of them being drunk as hell, coming back to their apartment from god knows how many bars, going to Jan’s room giggling like teenagers on a sleepover and well. You know.

Jan checked her phone again.

lebron essence ball: jannette….would you happen to know who was the lucky gal? 👀

backpack backpack: good morning to you too gigi 🙄

human girl: *Afternoon, actually

human girl: Now spill! I know you know almost everyone on that floor.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. How in the hell was she gonna say that her and Rock got drunk and hooked up as casually as possible? She could lie, but Jaida, Brita and Widow could smell bullshit coming from a mile away, and she’s a horrible liar. They’d know she was bluffing.

Might as well get it over it. She let out a sigh as she typed out a message, hoping that it was only Jaida, Nicky and Gigi who were online.

backpack backpack: haha yeah so um

backpack backpack: that was me & rock actually

Even though no one could see her, Jan hid her face behind her hands, bracing for the worst. Several dings!  had come from her phone as soon as she sent the message. Of course it wasn’t only Jaida, Nicky and Gigi who were online.

cox destroyers: Oh my god.

Jan’s eyes widened when she saw Jackie reply, although she’s not quite sure why she was panicking about Jackie knowing about her hook up with Rock in the first place. All she knows is that she’s gonna have to face Jackie (and everyone else, for that matter,) later.

sin city: ohhh bitch—

c’est bon: you and ROCK???

dom top: !!!

dom top: idk who Rock is but get it sister

backpack backpack: Thank you! Thank you, Heidi. It’s like you’re the only one who’s not acting weird right now.

c’est bon: lmao heidi

c’est bon: she’s jans roommate

human girl: Janice Elizabeth Sport.

von du for two: not this shit again i swear to god

tap water: Jan.

tap water: You know that I love you

tap water: BUT WILL YOU PLEASE STOP SLEEPING WITH YOUR ROOMMATES

Jan rolled her eyes at the messages, wanting the ‘news’ to be over as soon as possible. “And they say I’m the dramatic one.” She huffed as she quickly typed on her phone again.

backpack backpack: okay can y’all chill 🙄

backpack backpack: we just got drunk and slept together, that’s all.

backpack backpack: tell shea im sorry though xxxx @jaidaessencehall

lebron essence ball: bitch you know it ain’t about having a drunk hookup with someone

lebron essence ball: its about the fact that you banged your roommate AGAIN

backpack backpack: oh COME ON

backpack backpack: this was just the second time!!

backpack backpack: and lemon’s with priyanka now!!!

von du for two: girl you & lemon were fucking almost every week i can’t with u

von du for two: going at it like rabbits while we were outside your apartment getting ready to watch glee :/

tap water: and, frankly, i don’t want to come up to your apartment to run lines with you if i have to hear y’all fooling around. my good, christian ears have heard enough.

She felt her face heat up in embarrassment.

backpack backpack: oh my god can you guys please shut up!!!!

backpack backpack: it’s not gonna happen again bc it was a one time thing

backpack backpack: i promise

human girl: [dwayne the rock johnson voice] are you sure about that?

backpack backpack: yes georgina goode i am 100% sure

Jan bit her lip as she looked up at the door to her room. Okay, she’s not 100% sure, but not because she regretted it or anything. As much as her brain was allowing her to remember, last night was good. Great, even. But between auditions, college, and working in the café, her love life (or lack thereof) is on pause for now. Besides, it’s not like anyone has been actively pursuing her, or vice versa.

But it wouldn’t hurt to ask Rock, right?

Sighing in defeat, Jan quickly got up from her bed with her phone still in her hand (as much as her hangover allowed her), left her room and knocked on her roommates door, hoping that she wasn’t busy. She heard a faint “come in!” from the other side and opened the door softly.

“Hey, roomie.” She joked.

Rock looked up from her drawing tablet and slipped off the headphones from her ears. “Glad to see you’re finally awake, and here I thought you were a morning person.” Rock’s room was a mess of color and paraphernalia; while Jan’s was strictly purple, pop culture, and musical theater, hers was an array of figurines and albums on the shelves, kpop & anime posters tacked on the wall behind her bed reaching up to the ceiling, and a somewhat decent gaming setup in the corner of her room. Crystal and Nicky would be proud.

Jan rolled her eyes, “Yeah, well, last night was something,” She slightly cleared her throat at the mention of last night. “Also, about last night…”

Rock raised her brow, “Go on?”

“It was a one time thing, right?” Jan furrowed her brows in question, “I mean, last night was amazing , as much my brain is allowing me to remember. And you’re hot, so, I’m not complaining. Really dig the anime e-girl vibe, and I’m sure anyone would tap that ass! I mean, I did, but I’m just—”

“—Not looking for anything right now?” Rock cut her off, saving Jan from turning into a hungover, rambling mess.

She let out a sigh of relief, sitting on her roommates bed and putting her phone down, “Yeah, doll. Just been really busy right now, y’know? 3rd year isn’t a joke.”

The pink-haired girl let out a snort, “Oh, I know the feeling. And don’t worry, I wasn’t looking for anything either, and while last night was fun,” She looked at her pointedly, and Jan was calm enough to actually smirk at the incident between the two, “I’d much rather have you as my friend than as my fuck buddy, because you are loud , girl!”

Jan shrieked at that, “Oh my god, shut up!” She threw a pillow at Rock’s head while the girl let out a cackle, “My friends were on my ass about that too, some friends they are.”

“Wait, you told your friends about that? Aren’t you friends with Nicky?”

Jan huffed, “Mama, more like I was forced to tell them. Jaida’s friend, Shea—whose apartment is next to ours, by the way—was complaining to her about how she couldn’t sleep last night because of, um, my tendency to be vocal.”

“You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Rotted bitch!” Jan threw another pillow at Rock, this time missing because the girl was doubled over in laughter, “I can’t believe you! The disrespect, really. I shouldn’t be taking this from you, I still have a shift to do at 3.”

“But you took it from me real good last night, so,” this time Rock shielded her face as Jan threw pillow after pillow at her, trying to speak through her laughter, “Okay, okay! I give, I give! I’m sorry, mom!”

“Bitch! I can be a top if I want to!” Jan exclaimed in mock offense. As their laughter subsided, the blonde suddenly had an idea, “Oh! What if I invite you over for dinner?”

Rock smirked, “One: we’re roommates. It’s not really inviting me to dinner if we eat in the same room. And two: I thought you said you weren’t looking for anything?”

“I mean dinner with my friends, gorg. All 11 of us eat together at least once a week, this time we’re gonna crash at Heidi, Jaida and Brita’s. Maybe you wanna come and meet them? I know you and Nicky know each other somehow, so it wouldn’t be too awkward, right?”

“Introducing me to the family already? Ain’t that a bit too early for you, Ms. Sport?”

“More like introducing you to a bunch of kindergartners,” Jan muttered as she checked her phone for any new notifications, “But yeah, I want them to know you as my roommate and friend , not as my roommate who I slept with.”

Bon Voy

dom top: okay so jans sex life aside

dom top: y’all are still coming over tonight?

sin city: yes girl!! college sucks ass sm i need to eat my feelings

c’est bon: wouldn’t miss it for the world mon ami xoxo

cox destroyer: I’m gonna be a little late! I just have to return and borrow some stuff in the library.

human girl: can we please order pizza hut <3

lebron essence hall: no <3

von du for two: we are going to order dominoes like civilized people

human girl: ugh fine, all of you have 0 taste

human girl: crys said yes btw she just has class right now

tap water: aiden said she’s gonna come too, she just can’t message the chat bc she’s still in her shift

Jan grinned at Brita’s message, finally getting the chance to steer the conversation away from her.

backpack backpack: So if she can’t message the chat because of her shift, why’s she messaging you, miss brittany filter?? 👀

Jan can feel Brita’s eye roll from miles away.

tap water: She speaks!

tap water: And don’t act like this conversation isn’t over, Miss Janice Sport. You have a lot of explaining to do.

“So, are ya gonna introduce me as your forbidden, but passionate lover? Whose romance was short-lived, yet wild, fiery and unforgettable?”

Now it was Jan’s turn to let out a cackle as she left Rock’s room, “More like my chaotic mess of a roommate who farted herself awake!”

This time it was Rock’s turn to gasp in offense, “That was one time and you fucking know it! And my answer is yes, by the way!”

Jan sent a message to the chat before grabbing her towel and putting her phone away to take a shower.

backpack backpack: oh btw i’m inviting rock to hang out with us!!! I promise she’s super fun and that we’re just roommates and see y’all soon please dont kill me or make it awkward with rock xxxx

tap water: are you

tap water: kidding me.

von du for two: oh for the love of GOD

***

[stylesnews]

In a decade, Harry Styles has gone from teenage heartthrob to a global pop star in his own right. As he's distanced himself from his adolescent years as a member of One Direction, he's become his own person, starring in the 2017 blockbuster Dunkirk, hosting Saturday Night Live and creating music that pulls from a variety of influences.

Styles released his second solo album Fine Line late last year, and in addition to showcasing some of those influences and his talents as a songwriter, it was also a huge commercial success, with the biggest U.S. sales week for a British male artist since Eric Clapton's Unplugged in 1992.

But Styles says he spent a lot of time rethinking his idea of success after touring his self-titled album. "I think if you're making what you want to make, then ultimately no one can tell you you're unsuccessful, because you're doing what makes you happy," he says.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly spoke to Harry Styles about his love of Fleetwood Mac and finding freedom in the music of the '70s, what he would say to his 16-year-old self and nail polish. Listen in the player above and read on for a transcript of their full conversation.

Mary Louise Kelly: Your most recent album seems tied up in the '70s, which is a decade you didn't actually live through. What is it about that era that draws you in?

There's a freedom in the music that is so inspiring. If you go back and listen to so much of that music, and you listen to songs from [Carole King's] Tapestry and Harry Nilsson songs, they sound so fresh. I think it's crazy that something that was made so long ago, you can listen to it now and be like "I want my drums to sound like these drums, and I want my strings to sound like these strings." I think that's really incredible. And I think it's just the freedom, it's people doing what they wanted to do. Obviously, the music business has changed so much since then — there was a lot more of everybody hanging out together and playing songs, and I feel like music is a lot more competitive now.

And is it maybe a little more produced now? Less organic?

I think we just have different technology. When we came to do my first solo album, I had this thing where I wanted to do everything to tape. And then I kind of realized that The Beatles didn't use tape because it was really cool to use, they used it because it was the best technology they had [at the time] and it sounded the best. And now we just have different ways of recording stuff and you can make stuff sound really nice — so we kind of abandoned the tape thing. Overall what draws me to that time with music is just the freedom.

Was making Fine Line sound like the music of the '70s a conscious choice?

I'm not listening to stuff so much anymore being like "I just want my stuff to sound like this." You grow up listening to what your parents listen to. For me it was the [Rolling] Stones, Beatles, Fleetwood [Mac], a lot of Queen, Elvis Presley, Shania Twain, Savage Garden, Norah Jones. That was kind of like the base of what my first experience with music was, and I feel like you can't help but have a lot of references from what you grew up listening to [in your own music].

Speaking of Fleetwood Mac, I saw you've gotten to know and work with Stevie Nicks. What's that like, to get to know someone who was the soundtrack of your childhood and go out on stage with them?

It borders on an out-of-body experience. "Dreams" was the first song I knew all the words to; I used to sing it in the car with my mom. Every time I'm with her, you want to be, obviously, present, right? I'm trying to enjoy being with her and soaking in. But I think at the same time, while you're in the room with her, I'm sitting there thinking about being 10-years-old and singing the song.

Does it matter if you're super famous yourself?

I don't think so, because ultimately we're all humans. It's not like paralyzing starstruck, it's more like I try and appreciate what my 10-year-old self would think of it. I think ultimately you meet [other famous people] and you're kind of in awe of them, but at the same time you get to hang out with them on this human level, where you're just talking and it's really amazing.

Those are the moments that kind of mean the most because it's real. And when everything else about being in music goes away, that's the stuff that I think you end up telling your grandkids. For example, with Stevie, my favorite moments about it aren't usually the show, it's the practicing. When we first played together, it was at the Troubadour — famously, where Elton John did his first U.S. show — and it was an amazing moment, but my favorite was soundchecking. It's like four people in there and just us singing in the empty Troubadour. For me, that's a moment that I'm going to hold on to.

Speaking of moments where you wish you could tell your younger self "Buddy, you have no idea": 10 years ago when you auditioned for the British reality show X Factor, the judge Simon Cowell asked you "What do you want to do with your life, what are your future plans?" You said you were going back to college in the fall to study "law, sociology, business and something else, but I'm not sure yet."

There's a lot of us who wanted to be a rock star and ended up being lawyers. You've gone the other way. Is it funny listening back to yourself? What do you wish you could tell your 16-year-old self?

I guess like "Don't worry." In the early years, I spent a lot of time worrying about what would happen and getting things wrong and saying the wrong thing and doing the wrong thing. I'm trying to let go of the worrying thing, and that's what I've loved the most about this album, rather than the first one. I think I had a lot of fear — whether it was conscious or subconsciously — just about getting it wrong. When I listen back to the first album now, although I still love it so much, I feel like I was almost bowling with the bumpers up a little bit. I can hear places where I was playing it safe.

When I listen back to the first album now, although I still love it so much, I feel like I was almost bowling with the bumpers up a little bit. I can hear places where I was playing it safe.

I think with this one, after touring with an album that wasn't necessarily a radio record and people came to see the show, I realized that the only thing that people really want is for you to do what you want to do. Ultimately, I think if people believe in you, you can make a bad record, you can make a bad song, and people will still come to a show if they're interested and they want to come see you. I think the only time people go "You know what? I'm done with this," is when it stops being authentic. You can't really blame people for that. If there's an artist I loved and I felt like they were faking it, I can't say that I'd keep going to the shows. I think that was a big thing for me, just trying to worry less. The worst thing that can happen is that I make a record that I think everybody else wants to hear, and then it doesn't do well. And you sit there going "Well I wish I'd just made the record that I wanted to make." I think if you're making what you want to make, then ultimately no one can tell you you're unsuccessful, because you're doing what makes you happy. That's the biggest thing that I learned this time.

You dress amazingly. You wear suits, but they're patterned and florals and you had that blouse that got all the attention at last year's Met Gala. I noticed you're wearing nail polish, and you do wear clothing that blurs traditional lines sometimes. What are you hoping people take from that? Is it just "This is what I want to wear, deal with it" or are you trying to send any kind of message?

For me, it's not like doing it to send a message. Part of being on the last tour, when people came to watch the show, I realized "Oh, these people just want to see me be myself, and I'm telling them to be themselves." And I just didn't want to be a hypocrite. I do it when I'm not working, so to me it doesn't feel like it's "Oh, I'm sending a message with my nail polish." I just put a lot less weight behind it, I think. And sometimes I forget, because I'll go somewhere and someone will be like "Have you got nail polish on?" I'm lucky that I work in an industry that allows you to be creative and express yourself, and I'd encourage it to anybody.

Can you tell us about a favorite song on the album?

My two favorite songs on this album are probably "Cherry" and "Fine Line." "Cherry" is the fifth song on the album. It's one of my favorites, mostly because of how it came about. When I started making this album ... I felt like it had to be big. The last record wasn't really a radio record: The single ["Sign of the Times"] from it was a 6-minute piano ballad, so it wasn't the typical formula. So I felt a bit of pressure that I wanted to make something that worked. I was trying this stuff one night in the studio, and I was worried because I just wasn't really liking anything that I was doing. I felt like I was trying too hard. That's when I make the music that I like the least, is when I'm trying to write a pop song or I'm trying to write something fun.

Everybody left for the weekend, and it was me, Tyler Johnson, who I work with, and Sammy Witte. It was two or three in the morning, and we were having a drink and just talking. I was saying how I have all these records that I'd love to make, I love all this kind of music and in five years I want to make this kind of record, and in 10 years I want to make this kind of album, and then I'll get to make the music that I really want to make. And Tyler just said "You just have to make the music that you want to make — right now. That's the only way of doing it, otherwise you're going to regret it."

And "Cherry" was the result of that?

Yeah, so we stayed and Sammy started playing the guitar riff, and we did it through the night and recorded it. Everybody came back in the morning and listened to it ... I heard it when it was finished and was like "This is the kind of music I want to make."

How did you write "Fine Line?"

"Fine Line" I wrote [during] a gap in the tour. It was January 2018 and I was at my friend Tom's house, who I work with, and we just started strumming this thing, and we started layering these vocals, and it turned into this 6-minute thing. I had it for a long time and I kept listening to it during the tour, like I'd listen to it before I went to bed. Just sonically I loved the song, and I loved the lyrics of the song. When we wrote it, I kind of knew it was the last song of an album, and we ended up taking it to Bath, in England, where I was making this record for a while. I wanted it to turn into something else at the end, I wanted like a big crescendo ending. While we were in Bath, Sammy started playing this little thing on the piano, and I tweaked it a little bit and I was like "That has to go at the end of 'Fine Line.' " Now when I listen to it, it's one of those things where I'm just proud that it's mine, I'm so happy. It's one of those songs that I've always wanted to make.

[halo-jpeg]

Could you by any chance, do slashers with a shy, twink SO?

I love this yes!!! I FINALLY finished this, jeez!!! This took a looong time. All my asks all for all the slashers I write for so it’ll take a long time for me to get the content out! Sorry for the wait!

Slashers with a Shy Twink S/O

Michael Myers

He’s a sucker for height differences, so a short guy is absolutely his type. He’d hold you close at all time, sitting you in his lap and never letting you get up.

You’re shy? That’s perfect, who needs to go outside into society anyways? He’d much rather keep you at home where he can make sure you’re safe, so don’t worry about having to go talk to people other than him.

Will protect you until the end of time. He’s super paranoid that you’ll be hurt or attacked for any and all reasons, so he’ll be close by no matter what, making sure no one makes you even the slightest bit uncomfortable.

Whether it’s comforting or unnerving to know hes always close by, it’s the undeniable truth. Just shout for him and he’ll be there. Dip momentarily into a quiet place and he’ll be there. Talk aloud, he’ll hear you.

Jason Voorhees

Right away he knows you’re different from other campers. You’re short, fragile, and completely afraid to be out with the other teenagers. You aren’t as overly-confident and obnoxious like they are so that grants you bonus brownie points.

Again, you’re fragile and small, along with the purest babey in the world. The forest is dangerous; even before you know Jason is there he’ll be protecting you.

After you actually meet and get to know each other, he’ll be at your side no matter what, even if trespassers need to be dealt with. If it makes you happy he’ll do whatever you want him to.

He’s pretty shy himself, when he isn’t killing of course. He understands the whole ‘not too keen about attention’ stuff, so he does his best to keep trespassers away unless you want to be with them- until they’re killed.

Brahms Heelshire

He L O V E S Y O U. You are the cutest most adorable little thing hes ever seen and he will 100% love and cherish every single little thing about you.

You’re so tiny compared to this tower of a man and he LOVES to tease you about that, leaning his elbow on your head and purposefully placing stuff just too high for you to reach.

He’ll curl his entire body around yours like some human cocoon and you’ll be stuck there until he says otherwise.

Will always want to have tea parties and is always saying you’d look good as a doll, like his mini-Brahms self. Has scoured the internet for a custom-doll maker.

Billy & Stu

Protectprotectprotectprotectprotectprotectprotect-

Billy likes to tease you for being so small and shy when he’s generally outgoing, and finds it almost weird that you’d go for someone like him. After all, you’re basically polar opposites.

Stu makes you feel loved every second of the day, making sure no one makes you uncomfortable and always asking to hold your hand.

Both boys are so glad to have someone like you tolerate them and their stupidness. They don’t know how they got so lucky.

Thomas Hewitt

Thomas is a big man, and he loves tiny little you and your nervous personality.

He’s always afraid that you’ll get hurt if you leave the house, so you rarely do, and only when he’s with you, glued to your side like a protective tick.

He’ll pick you up and seat you on his shoulder, carrying you around like a parrot or something. Tommy loves to take walks with you like that.

Any and all teasing from his family will result in him punching them. Hard. He won’t take anything, not wen it comes to you because you’re his S/O and no one gets to tease you >:(

Bubba Sawyer

Another sucker for height differences!! He’s TALL, so he’ll always want to compare heights, seeing if you’re going to grow as tall as him some day. Even when you tell him you won’t, he still has hopes that you’ll grow as big and strong as he is.

No matter what Drayton says you are NOT doing any chores that are even remotely dangerous. If you ever try to help hunt trespassers or use a saw or hammer, Bubba will erupt into a series of panicked whining, and then he’ll drag you away into the safety of home.

Even though you’re so small he still likes to be the little spoon sometimes. It makes him feel even more loved and valued than ever. On days where he’s the big spoon, he loves that too, because then he knows you are feeling just as loved.

He’s shy too, so he knows how you feel!! He’ll take you on walks through the sunflower fields if guests ever come over, or if you want to get away from the shouting of his brothers.

Danny ‘Jed Olsen’ Johnson

Twink? Y E S. Danny is pretty twink-y himself, so you go perfect together. Everything about your personality is entrancing you him.

Will teach you how to use your height and weight perfectly; if you’re short, you’re harder to spot, and you can learn how to walk silently no matter your weight.

Danny is the polar opposite of shy, but he absolutely respects that you aren’t as confident around people as he is. He’s a natural attention whore, so he’ll absorb it all and keep peoples eyes off of you.

Some days where you’re really reluctant to go into public he’s perfectly content with chilling at home with a movie.

Billy Lenz

Will 100% call you Twink. All the time. Every day.

Makes fun of how short you are even though he’s pretty short himself, doing whatever he can do sabotage your daily life while still being convenient for his own- a lot of things are going to be placed just out of your reach.

Shy? Good, you don’t get to go outside anyways. It’s always attic time for Billy, and attic times means him, you, and the rocking chair, much too small for two people.

The ultimate little spoon. Cradle him in your arms or suffer 😡

Leslie Vernon

He’s a very outgoing, loud person; your polar opposite, so he can be a little overbearing. He draws a lot of attention (and loves it all) as well, so you’re often put out when you don’t want to be simply because he doesn’t notice that you’re uncomfortable.

He always makes it up to you with cuddles and love, feeling bad for making you uncomfortable.

Short? Okay. That’s fine, he doesn’t tease you or anything, you’re too good for that.

His favourite thing EVER is planning out his little hunting games. He usually lets you pick out the group (after he’s chosen his final girl, of course). You always think up different ideas than he does.

Vincent Sinclair

L o v e l o v e l o v e

He will cherish every single little thing about you because he’s never seen anyone as naturally perfect as you are.

Models 80% of his wax figures after you!!! There’s a lot of different mini figurines with your features, even if he tries not to let you know that.

He’s so shy, so he doesn’t ever want to go out of the basement. Now, you don’t ever want to leave either, and he loves it. Your personality is so easy to handle, it’s not overwhelming in the slightest and he loves you.

Bo Sinclair

Endless teasing. I’m so sorry you have to deal with this nasty texas man.

He’ll randomly rip things out of your hands and hold them too high for you to reach, laughing all the while.

He can be soft though, and he’s softer around you than anyone else. He’ll cuddle you and tell you how he’ll keep you safe no matter what.

He locks you in your room whenever people stumble across Ambrose. He won’t risk getting you hurt.

Lester Sinclair

You’re just the cutest to him!! Compared to his brothers he’s tiny, so he loves that you are too!

He’ll bring you with him on his work rides, cranking country tunes through his old tinny radio and singing along loudly.

It’s nice and secluded all throughout the work day, so you won’t have to worry about much social interaction.

On the day Lester runs into someone he intends to lure back to Ambrose (like offering a ride) he’ll make sure he takes all the attention, talking non-stop so you didn’t have to talk if you didn’t want to.

Norman Bates

He himself is pretty twinky if we’re being honest. You’d totally click personalities.

He’s shy too, so there would never be the problem of having to talk to other people. The two of you make do with simply being around one another.

He’ll read you books and make tea, along with constantly buying you flowers. He’s so in love with you.

The most gentlemanly gentleman on the earth. Absolutely no teasing from this guy, and he’ll beat anyone who teases you to a pulp.

Pyramid Head

S m o l b o i = p r o t e c t

Super territorial and constantly worried about you. If you ever leave his sight he’ll flip, his anxiety blasting through the roof. He’ll spend hours tearing the town apart to find you.

He’ll pat your head as his main sign of saying ‘I love you’. If he could speak he’d shower you with endless praise.

He’s so big and strong and brutal, but when it comes to handling you he’s so careful and gentle, like two different sides of a coin.

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[hlupdate]

In a decade, Harry Styles has gone from teenage heartthrob to a global pop star in his own right. As he's distanced himself from his adolescent years as a member of One Direction, he's become his own person, starring in the 2017 blockbuster Dunkirk, hosting Saturday Night Live and creating music that pulls from a variety of influences.

Styles released his second solo album Fine Line late last year, and in addition to showcasing some of those influences and his talents as a songwriter, it was also a huge commercial success, with the biggest U.S. sales week for a British male artist since Eric Clapton's Unplugged in 1992.

But Styles says he spent a lot of time rethinking his idea of success after touring his self-titled album. "I think if you're making what you want to make, then ultimately no one can tell you you're unsuccessful, because you're doing what makes you happy," he says.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly spoke to Harry Styles about his love of Fleetwood Mac and finding freedom in the music of the '70s, what he would say to his 16-year-old self and nail polish. Listen in the player above and read on for a transcript of their full conversation.

Mary Louise Kelly: Your most recent album seems tied up in the '70s, which is a decade you didn't actually live through. What is it about that era that draws you in?

Harry Styles: There's a freedom in the music that is so inspiring. If you go back and listen to so much of that music, and you listen to songs from [Carole King's] Tapestry and Harry Nilsson songs, they sound so fresh. I think it's crazy that something that was made so long ago, you can listen to it now and be like "I want my drums to sound like these drums, and I want my strings to sound like these strings." I think that's really incredible. And I think it's just the freedom, it's people doing what they wanted to do. Obviously, the music business has changed so much since then — there was a lot more of everybody hanging out together and playing songs, and I feel like music is a lot more competitive now.

And is it maybe a little more produced now? Less organic?

I think we just have different technology. When we came to do my first solo album, I had this thing where I wanted to do everything to tape. And then I kind of realized that The Beatles didn't use tape because it was really cool to use, they used it because it was the best technology they had [at the time] and it sounded the best. And now we just have different ways of recording stuff and you can make stuff sound really nice — so we kind of abandoned the tape thing. Overall what draws me to that time with music is just the freedom.

Was making Fine Line sound like the music of the '70s a conscious choice?

I'm not listening to stuff so much anymore being like "I just want my stuff to sound like this." You grow up listening to what your parents listen to. For me it was the [Rolling] Stones, Beatles, Fleetwood [Mac], a lot of Queen, Elvis Presley, Shania Twain, Savage Garden, Norah Jones. That was kind of like the base of what my first experience with music was, and I feel like you can't help but have a lot of references from what you grew up listening to [in your own music].

Speaking of Fleetwood Mac, I saw you've gotten to know and work with Stevie Nicks. What's that like, to get to know someone who was the soundtrack of your childhood and go out on stage with them?

It borders on an out-of-body experience. "Dreams" was the first song I knew all the words to; I used to sing it in the car with my mom. Every time I'm with her, you want to be, obviously, present, right? I'm trying to enjoy being with her and soaking in. But I think at the same time, while you're in the room with her, I'm sitting there thinking about being 10-years-old and singing the song.

Does it matter if you're super famous yourself?

I don't think so, because ultimately we're all humans. It's not like paralyzing starstruck, it's more like I try and appreciate what my 10-year-old self would think of it. I think ultimately you meet [other famous people] and you're kind of in awe of them, but at the same time you get to hang out with them on this human level, where you're just talking and it's really amazing.

Those are the moments that kind of mean the most because it's real. And when everything else about being in music goes away, that's the stuff that I think you end up telling your grandkids. For example, with Stevie, my favorite moments about it aren't usually the show, it's the practicing. When we first played together, it was at the Troubadour — famously, where Elton John did his first U.S. show — and it was an amazing moment, but my favorite was soundchecking. It's like four people in there and just us singing in the empty Troubadour. For me, that's a moment that I'm going to hold on to.

Speaking of moments where you wish you could tell your younger self "Buddy, you have no idea": 10 years ago when you auditioned for the British reality show X Factor, the judge Simon Cowell asked you "What do you want to do with your life, what are your future plans?" You said you were going back to college in the fall to study "law, sociology, business and something else, but I'm not sure yet."

There's a lot of us who wanted to be a rock star and ended up being lawyers. You've gone the other way. Is it funny listening back to yourself? What do you wish you could tell your 16-year-old self?

I guess like "Don't worry." In the early years, I spent a lot of time worrying about what would happen and getting things wrong and saying the wrong thing and doing the wrong thing. I'm trying to let go of the worrying thing, and that's what I've loved the most about this album, rather than the first one. I think I had a lot of fear — whether it was conscious or subconsciously — just about getting it wrong. When I listen back to the first album now, although I still love it so much, I feel like I was almost bowling with the bumpers up a little bit. I can hear places where I was playing it safe.

I think with this one, after touring with an album that wasn't necessarily a radio record and people came to see the show, I realized that the only thing that people really want is for you to do what you want to do. Ultimately, I think if people believe in you, you can make a bad record, you can make a bad song, and people will still come to a show if they're interested and they want to come see you. I think the only time people go "You know what? I'm done with this," is when it stops being authentic. You can't really blame people for that. If there's an artist I loved and I felt like they were faking it, I can't say that I'd keep going to the shows. I think that was a big thing for me, just trying to worry less. The worst thing that can happen is that I make a record that I think everybody else wants to hear, and then it doesn't do well. And you sit there going "Well I wish I'd just made the record that I wanted to make." I think if you're making what you want to make, then ultimately no one can tell you you're unsuccessful, because you're doing what makes you happy. That's the biggest thing that I learned this time.

You dress amazingly. You wear suits, but they're patterned and florals and you had that blouse that got all the attention at last year's Met Gala. I noticed you're wearing nail polish, and you do wear clothing that blurs traditional lines sometimes. What are you hoping people take from that? Is it just "This is what I want to wear, deal with it" or are you trying to send any kind of message?

For me, it's not like doing it to send a message. Part of being on the last tour, when people came to watch the show, I realized "Oh, these people just want to see me be myself, and I'm telling them to be themselves." And I just didn't want to be a hypocrite. I do it when I'm not working, so to me it doesn't feel like it's "Oh, I'm sending a message with my nail polish." I just put a lot less weight behind it, I think. And sometimes I forget, because I'll go somewhere and someone will be like "Have you got nail polish on?" I'm lucky that I work in an industry that allows you to be creative and express yourself, and I'd encourage it to anybody.

Can you tell us about a favorite song on the album?

My two favorite songs on this album are probably "Cherry" and "Fine Line." "Cherry" is the fifth song on the album. It's one of my favorites, mostly because of how it came about. When I started making this album ... I felt like it had to be big. The last record wasn't really a radio record: The single ["Sign of the Times"] from it was a 6-minute piano ballad, so it wasn't the typical formula. So I felt a bit of pressure that I wanted to make something that worked. I was trying this stuff one night in the studio, and I was worried because I just wasn't really liking anything that I was doing. I felt like I was trying too hard. That's when I make the music that I like the least, is when I'm trying to write a pop song or I'm trying to write something fun.

Everybody left for the weekend, and it was me, Tyler Johnson, who I work with, and Sammy Witte. It was two or three in the morning, and we were having a drink and just talking. I was saying how I have all these records that I'd love to make, I love all this kind of music and in five years I want to make this kind of record, and in 10 years I want to make this kind of album, and then I'll get to make the music that I really want to make. And Tyler just said "You just have to make the music that you want to make — right now. That's the only way of doing it, otherwise you're going to regret it."

And "Cherry" was the result of that?

Yeah, so we stayed and Sammy started playing the guitar riff, and we did it through the night and recorded it. Everybody came back in the morning and listened to it ... I heard it when it was finished and was like "This is the kind of music I want to make."

How did you write "Fine Line?"

"Fine Line" I wrote [during] a gap in the tour. It was January 2018 and I was at my friend Tom's house, who I work with, and we just started strumming this thing, and we started layering these vocals, and it turned into this 6-minute thing. I had it for a long time and I kept listening to it during the tour, like I'd listen to it before I went to bed. Just sonically I loved the song, and I loved the lyrics of the song. When we wrote it, I kind of knew it was the last song of an album, and we ended up taking it to Bath, in England, where I was making this record for a while. I wanted it to turn into something else at the end, I wanted like a big crescendo ending. While we were in Bath, Sammy started playing this little thing on the piano, and I tweaked it a little bit and I was like "That has to go at the end of 'Fine Line.' " Now when I listen to it, it's one of those things where I'm just proud that it's mine, I'm so happy. It's one of those songs that I've always wanted to make.

[dryadsbubbles]

First Kisses

All the first kisses Gilbert and Anne experience together before they experience their real first kiss.

---

(aka forehead and nose and cheek and hand kisses. so soft. so beautiful)

no season 3 spoilies

(ao3 link)

He finds her in the woods. She’s crumbled under a willow tree, the setting sun streaming through the leaves. She looks like a dream. An angel sent from heaven. But he pushes away these thoughts. Now is not the time.

He knows what she’s going through. Understands her grief, pain, and tears. It’s been a few years since his father passed but he still feels a pang in his heart whenever he thinks about it. Looking at her now, his heart breaks in pieces. Her back is turned to him, her shoulders shaking from the heavy sobs coming from her. She of all people, does not deserve this, he thinks. It isn’t fair that she has to deal with the death of the only father figure she’s ever known, at so young. He wants nothing more than to take her pain away, but he knows it’s not possible.

Softly, he approaches her and kneels down next to her. He places a tentative hand on her shoulder.

“Anne?” He whispers.

She takes a breath and slowly turns her face to his. He can tell that she’s trying to keep herself together now that she knows he’s here, but her red, tear-stained face gives her away.

“Oh, Anne” He sighs sympathetically.

With that, she breaks down again. She launches herself into his arms. Her arms wrap tightly around his neck as her sobs start coming freely again. He draws her close to him and gently rocks them back and forth.

“I’m so sorry Anne. I’m so so sorry,” he whispers over and over into her ear.

“It’s not fair, Gil,” she cries into his neck. “Why is this happening? Why now? Why me?”

He feels a lump in his throat and tears spring to his eyes from her heartbreaking words.

“I don’t know Anne, I’m so sorry Anne.” He says, his voice cracking.

He doesn’t know what else to do so he squeezes her even tighter and places a gentle, lingering kiss on the crown of her head, hoping that that will be enough, for now.

---

He doesn’t know how he got so lucky.

They were spending the day together. It was their first day of summer, the day after they found out about the Queen’s Academy Examination results. Tied for first. A result better than he could ever have imagined. So, naturally, he had proposed a day together. She had been quick to say yes and the next morning they were off down the road, arm in arm, towards the river.

They had gone for a row in the water and had a picnic with sandwiches especially prepared by Gilbert himself. (Or at least, that’s what he told her. Really, he had been too excited about the day to focus long enough to make sandwiches so Mary had to step in and finish them. But Anne didn’t need to know that.)

Now, after the picnic, they’re strolling along the river shore, soaking up the sun and walking in contemplative silence. It isn’t long before Anne gets bored and attempts to push him into the river. But he has fast reflexes and grabs her arm, pulling her down into the water right beside him. As soon as Anne’s head emerges, she’s ready to scold him.

“Gilbert Blythe!” She exclaims, trying to keep a serious face.

He lets out a loud laugh as Anne scrambles to the shore. He knows she’s not really mad, so he chases after her. Once he catches up to her, his arms go around her waist and he lifts her up, spinning her in the air. He hears her let out a surprised squeal. She’s still laughing as he gently puts her down. She turns towards him with twinkling eyes and a large smile. She stares up at him for a minute, slightly out of breath, before she reaches up onto her tippy toes and places a sweet kiss on his cheek.

“Thank you Gilbert,” she says sincerely, “This is the happiest I’ve been since...since…”

He squeezes her hand.

“I know,” He responds.

She stares up at him for one more second before she quickly turns and yells, “Race you back to the picnic basket!” over her shoulder.

It takes him a second to react, still processing the fact that she had kissed his cheek. But he soon comes to his senses and takes off after her, feeling a little bit of hope in his heart for the first time in a while.

---

He hears her laugh before he sees her. His eyes search the room, looking for any flashes of red hair. Sure enough, he finds her in the far corner, talking with Jane Andrews and another gentleman he doesn’t know. He thinks she looks absolutely angelic. She’s wearing a soft blue dress trimmed with white lace and a darker blue bow around her waist. She’s wearing her hair up tonight, something that he’s been noticing her do more and more. He stunned with the realization that she’s grown up, they’ve grown up. They’re not the young teenagers they were when they first met, they’re young adults, in their last year at Queen’s now, the future so much closer than it once seemed.

Another laugh breaks his thoughts. He realizes that she’s laughing at something that the unknown gentleman beside her is saying. He feels an uneasy twist in his gut. He understands why it’s there. It’s been a long time since he’s accepted his feelings for her. Still, the twisting feeling in his stomach never gets easier.

He can’t help but make his way over to her. She spots him almost immediately, and her face lights up as she beckons him over. He easily slides into position at her side as she makes introductions.

“Gilbert, meet Hubert Johnson, Jane’s beau, she says to him.

All he feels is relief as he reaches over to shake the man's hand. After proper introductions and a few minutes of small talk, Jane and Hubert make their way over to the dance floor. He and Anne stand together, surveying the crowd for a minute before Anne turns back to him and asks,

“Well? Are you going to ask me to dance?”

He lets out a soft chuckle at her upfrontness.

“I was just getting to that,” he replies easily.

He holds out his hand for her and once she takes it, he leads her to the middle of the dance floor. They dance a slow waltz together, exchanging pleasantries and commenting on people around the room. After a moment, Gilbert says,

“You know, you and I have come a long way Anne.”

She gazes up into his eyes for a moment before replying with a simple,

“Yes. We have.”

They don’t break eye contact until the song comes to an end. She curtsies to him and he bows to her. He then takes her hand and lifts it to his mouth and softly kissing it.

“Save me the last dance?” He asks.

She can feel his light, warm breath on her hand before he drops it gently.

“Of course,” she says softly.

---

He watches her from his spot across the room. She’s sitting on the couch scribbling notes down onto her notepad. It’s their last study session together before their final set of examinations at Queens. He’s going to miss this. Watching her nose scrunch up as she tries to memorize the poems she needs to recite for one of her English courses, or watching as she huffs and grumbles her way through a geometry problem. Honestly, he gets far less studying done when they’re as he’s always too distracted by her to even pay attention to his books. But he doesn’t mind.

He hears her gasp and sees her mouth fall into a frown.

“What’s the matter?” He asks.

“My pen has broken,” she sighs, “And I didn’t bring another one with me.”

“Here, use one of mine,” he offers, tossing one through the air to her.

The pen soars right through her outstretched hands and hits her squarely in the nose. She yelps.

“Oh Anne, I’m sorry!” He exclaims, rushing to kneel in front of her. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

He puts his hands on either side of her face to examine the spot that he hit. She holds her breath, very aware at how close they are. It only takes a second longer for him to realize it too and he stills.

“You’re a real character, Gilbert Blythe. Throwing that pen at me and maybe ruining the best part of all my facial features,” Anne whispers, in order to break the silence that has been stretching on between them.

Unable to stop himself, he pulls her head forward ever so slightly and places his lips on the tip of her nose. He hears her sharp intake of breath and he pulls away, hands still on her face.

“Better?” He asks

“Yes,” she breathes.

---

He finds her under the willow tree, just as he did all those years ago. This time, she’s sitting down with her back leaning against it, eyes closed.

He steps on a branch and it snaps. Her eyes open wide and she jolts slightly upwards, but when her eyes meet his, her body relaxes and she smiles softly at him. She stands up and brushes her skirt off, walking to meet him.

“Marilla told me I’d find you here,” he says. “How are you feeling?”

“Scared, nervous, excited, everything” she tells him honestly.

He smiles down at her, taking her hand in his and squeezing it.

“You’ll do just fine. You were born to be a teacher. Especially here in Avonlea.” He reassures her.

“And why should I believe you, Dr Blythe?” She asks slyly.

He chuckles. He was nowhere close to being an official doctor yet. He still had four years of schooling left. But Anne had already gotten in the habit of calling him Doctor, and after a while he stopped correcting her.

“Because I know you Anne Shirley-Cuthbert, you’re intelligent, passionate and caring. Plus you charm just about everyone you meet. I should know. You were able to charm me just by breaking a slate over my head.”

“Oh Gil,” she says, as she takes his face in her two hands. She reaches up on her tippy toes and she kisses him softly, passionately. He pulls her closer to him and sighs.

Finally.

---

[hmel78]

In conversation with Raphael Doyle ...

A few weeks ago my attention was drawn to a video in which Tom Robinson [Tom Robinson Band / presenter on BBC radio] spoke about a project he’s working on with his old friend, Raphael Doyle. Now, Crowd Funding has become the ‘in thing’ and many people pay it no mind, but this pledge was different. And why? Because there’s real a story behind it - This is not just about a band expecting their fans to donate money in return for a signed photo, or a cheesy ringtone, thus ensuring  the next album is made. From what I’ve heard, the album is going to be something special musically - but not only that, this album is a genuine work of LOVE; not for profit. but for the sake of creativity, for the music ; it’s about old friends, and new, coming together to be a part of Raphael’s album - And they’re against the clock  (for more than one reason) which makes it all the more compelling. I was, of course, interested to know more about Raphael, who along with Tom Robinson and Hereward Kaye in the late 1960’s, formed the trio ‘Cafe Society’.

I should imagine you’re already familiar with Tom, and perhaps Hereward too [from his days with The Flying Pickets], but Raphael has clearly managed to remain off the radar - until now! Born in Northern Ireland, Raphael absconded to England when he was 15 - An unconventional teenager, but a keen songwriter and poet - he found himself at Finchden Manor in Kent, before carving a career, one way or another, in music. ‘Cafe Society’ enjoyed a relative amount of success but it was short lived, and following the break up of the band in 1976, Raphael’s  biography states that he was, at that time “Painfully short on confidence and increasingly dependent on drink”. By the time he was 19 Raphael had already married Rose. Over 40 years later, through thick and thin, and with a clan of four children, they’re still going strong! When I first spoke to him he was telling me about his return to living in the North East of England, having been lucky enough to buy back the very same house he and Rose had lived in as a young couple ; add to that his return to making music, and it would seem that there are many aspects of his life that are coming ‘full circle’.   “Never Closer” is the title of the album - Raphael sings us through a number of extraordinary tracks inspired by “a messy life encompassing darkness and recovery pain and love”,  but at the end of it all, quite contentedly  concludes - “The whole journey has definitely been worth it” ... You can keep up with Raphael’s story, and the pledge campaign, as it unfolds via his website and social media, but in the meantime, we thought we’d attempt to extract some more of his memories about those early days as a musician.

HR : If you’re open to talking about it Raphael, I’d like to go back to 1968 - to Finchden Manor**, where you met up with Tom Robinson - what was life like there?

Raphael Doyle : Well, I was 15 when I arrived at Finchden. I'd come from Northern Ireland where I'd had unhappy fallings out with a couple of schools.  I was clashing with the conservative, Catholic environment of my upbringing, and I was a fledgling hippy in the world that didn't like that. Finchden was like another world entirely - suddenly you found yourself somewhere where you weren't in the wrong all the time - where you could be yourself. It was very unstructured. Your time was your own.

HR : Were you encouraged to be creative?

RD : It wasn't so much that you were encouraged to be creative, but more that you were given the space to be yourself. So some people got into making things, some got into gardening, lots of us spent a lot of time talking. And there was a great spilling out of creativity, whether music, art, pottery, poetry. Whatever people had in them. Just in the time that I was there, there was Matthew Collings scribbling away amazing cartoon-like drawings, who has gone on to become a very highly regarded artist and art critic. There was Mike Medora who was playing searing blues guitar and he went on to do the festival circuit with Global Village Trucking company. There was Danny Kustow, still a much loved guitarist, who became famous beside Tom Robinson in TRB. There was the amazing and eccentric Robert Godfrey who went off to form the Enid, a legendary prog rock band, and he took with him a bunch of other boys, notably Francis Lickerish, another brilliant guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. And there was Tom and me, writing songs, putting groups together- and I guess we were encouraged, yes. We used to be brought out to play to visitors… I remember us being taken off on long journeys in George Lyward- the founder -in his old car to visit Lord and Lady somebody or other in a mansion, and he would give a fundraising talk, and Tom and I would sing a couple songs, and then wander outside where we chanced upon this old guy in ancient corduroys tending a rhubarb patch, who turned out to be the Lord himself. Very PG Wodehouse!

HR : Actually it sounds like fun,  despite being a difficult time ... There’s a great quote from Hereward [Kaye] about your songwriting, he says “The lyrics were all his own and smelt of trouble. How I longed to be deeply troubled like him!”     What was it about music, and songwriting that engaged you? Is it fair to say that without music, you may have strayed onto a very different path?

RD : Well, Hereward was right. I was a troubled young man. We all were at Finchden. But even before I went there, back in Northern Ireland, music and writing had become my escape valve. I came from a little seaside town, and a Scottish wild card called Colvin Hamilton took over the swimming pool cafe and turned it into a venue -  The Scene  - and he would bring down bands from Belfast. This was at the height of the early 60s R&B boom. ‘Van Morrison’ and ‘Them’ were the big name. I was too young to be let in but I'd spend the weekend nights with my ear pressed to the blacked out plate glass window, listening to that raw, rough earthy music. And at home, and in friends’ houses, I was listening to Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Nina Simone, Ray Charles, Buddy Guy, Robert Johnson, John Mayalls blues breakers ... So Music was already my landscape. It didn't stop me getting into trouble though!  So it was arriving at Finchden, having a place of respite , the chance to heal and grow, and there to get together with Tom and start honing my musical instincts - that's where my direction became set. I became a musician at Finchden.

HR : It was Tom who introduced you to Hereward, in Middlesborough - what happened in the interim before you eventually moved to London and formed ‘Cafe Society’?

RD : Tom's family were living in the north-east and I went up there with him for a holiday. A neighbour of his decided to introduce us to some other arty young folk she knew of from Middlesbrough, and that's where Hereward came in. We just clicked - it wasn't so usual then to meet others passionately into writing and making music. Hereward in Teesside and Tom and I in Kent would make reel to reel revox recordings of each new song and post them to each other, then when we'd meet 2 or 3 times a year and we'd have long sessions playing the songs to each other and trying out harmonies. So then when we finally got together in London it was natural to get into a bedroom or a cellar and just spend hours playing and arranging and practicing.... We were buzzing on it.

HR : From what I’ve read, many people were buzzing about it, including Alexis Korner. You had a really strong connection to him - how did that come about?

RD : Alexis had been at Finchden in his youth - he was an 'old boy'. While we were there his daughter Sappho stayed for a while ... I remember Alexis and Sappho singing the country blues song “Trouble In Mind” together. This was when Tom and I would be wheeled out to play for visitors and there were some powerful times when Alexis and us would play in a packed Oak Room to visitors and wild eyed disturbed adolescents ... So Alexis got to know us and became something of a mentor. HR : Alexis was really big on the music scene, especially with  ‘Blues Incorporated’ - how connected  were you to all of that?  

RD : I remember staying at his place in Queensway and meeting John Mayall - I was a bit dumbstruck. It wasn't that long before that I'd been standing in the dark in a blues club in Belfast watching the ‘Blues Breakers’ with John Mayall and the new guitarist Peter Green playing stunning music, and here was the man standing before me. I don't know what I mumbled but I think it was embarrassing. Another time I was sitting in Alexis' front room with Andy Fraser who was someone Tom and I both loved very much. We'd been to see ‘Free’ at the Redcar Jazz club - the place of been jampacked and heaving and the band were incredible. And here was Andy talking to Alexis about what to do now Free had broken up. He put together a band called Toby. A little while later Hereward and I nicked his drummer Stan Speake, for the band we were putting together while we were waiting for Tom to come to London.

HR : So when Tom arrived, and ‘Cafe Society’ formed properly, what attracted you to the folk scene above any of the others?

RD : We didn't really choose the folk scene. It was just that we were three guys with acoustic guitars, a focus on harmonies, writing our own songs. In those days you either put together a band and played places like the hundred club, or you went to the booming folk circuit. So we began there ...

HR : You landed a residency, as a 3 piece, at The Troubadour coffee house - what do you remember about those first performances?

RD : As far as I remember we had a residency at Bunjies first. We were playing around a lot of clubs- The Rising Sun in Tottenham Court road was a good one. But the Troubadour had the cachet; it had a more serious reputation. We used to go down there and do floor spots on other people's nights and gradually we were building up a following. So then we got a night of our own-Tuesday nights.   It was a wonderful time, a very atmospheric place to try out new songs, to practice our harmonies. We had a captive audience in a little space and it became a shared experience. I think we had a very distinctive blend.   Tom was serious about the nuts and bolts of arrangements and song structure. Hereward was a showman, flamboyant in his songs and performance, and I would escape into the music and let my soul pour out. It made for a dynamic blend. And we were all fans, we all loved music, for us the people we listened to were our heroes and we wanted to join them. HR : And it wasn’t long before you did, was it? RD : No - By now we were trying to get a deal. That was the big Next step in those days. First you build up a bit of a following, then you got management, then you got a deal. We got a manager. Hereward knew John McCoy who ran music venues in and around Middlesbrough where he came from. John went on to become Chris Rea's manager and got him signed and started on his career. We used to go up and play at the Kirk, the most happening club on Teesside at the time, which John owned and ran. He listened to our stuff and wasn't quite sure what to make of it but he agreed to manage us, and one thing led to another and it resulted in Ray Davies of ‘The Kinks’ coming down to the troubadour to check us out. It was the same night Alexis was headlining for us so there was a real buzz in the air. Ray did a bit of a floor spot with us standing alongside not quite able to believe what was happening. Ray saw something in us, I think, that chimed with his own sense of song. He signed us up to his new indie label Konk -the first one in the country-and he himself produced our first album.

HR : Presumably that opened a few doors?

RD : Sure. From playing the London folk clubs, suddenly we were getting support act slots on national tours. We supported ‘The Kinks’ a whole bunch of times,  which was a bit odd because we were this very well mannered acoustic trio in the middle of the stage set up for this raucous pop rock band and the audiences were kind of looking for a good time. But we went down surprisingly well on those tours.  HR : Didn’t you also open for Barclay James Harvest? RD : Yes -That was a bit weird because they were a full blown prog rock band with colours and smoke and atmospherics and everyone took the whole thing very seriously!   I think for some of them a support band was just a necessary evil so we felt a bit sidelined. But luckily a lot of their audiences were the listening kind and enjoyed what we did. Also I have to say that Woolly Wolstenholme was a really sweet guy and he was always very encouraging and would make time for us. We learned a great deal on all of those shows. Sometimes it's when you're not doing your own show, but having to make your mark in someone else's, that you can learn most about holding true to yourself and standing firm as a performer. Then I remember we did the Alan Hull solo album tour. Alan was big at that point as the singer songwriter of Lindisfarne so it was a much better match for us as an acoustic trio. He did the whole tour solo and the audiences were great for us.  Mind you the dressing room was a place to be .... A parade of beautiful people hobnobbing with the latest thing ... Eh, that'd be him, not us!

HR : So as things progressed, and you were having this amount of success as a trio, what prompted you to add more members and form a ‘proper’ band, changing the dynamic, and presumably the sound?

RD : Well, as I said, we weren't really a folk group. We did love people like Neil Young,  Paul Simon, Dylan... We used to finish with a James Taylor song “Lo and behold” . Tom always really liked Richard Thompson. I remember at The Troubadour we used to sing the Fairport song 'Meet on the Ledge'. But really our folk credentials were accidental. We always saw ourselves as a band. Hereward and I had both been in blues bands, and played the raunchier end of R&B pop. Tom's musical interests ranged really widely. He was a big fan of early ‘Manfred Mann’. He and I were besotted with ‘The Band’, “Music from Big Pink”. So really we were just waiting for the chance to expand and go electric - unfortunately it happened just as Ray Davies was making the first album with us. He signed an acoustic trio, but while Ray was supervising recording us at Konk, a process in which we didn't feel we had much say, we were off down the road when not needed in the studio, doing our own demos in a little place in Holloway with a drummer and a bass player and a keyboard player. We abandoned the folk circuit and started to play the pub scene. The Golden Lion in Fulham, The Three Kings in North End Road where the unknown Elvis Costello was forcing himself on the attentions of a bemused audience! Upstairs at Ronnie Scott's. There was a new buzz around and we wanted to spread our wings. So with one thing and another the Konk relationship fizzled out.

HR : ‘Cafe Society’ were dubbed band of the year by Sounds magazine in 1976, but the same year saw  the arrival of ‘The Sex Pistols’ and a whole new scene - what impact did Punk have on you and the rest of the band?

RD : We had built up an expanded following as a band and it felt like we had lots to do. But Ray Davies brought in a production team to work on our second album, who were nice guys but they were not about new music. We were trying to make a go of it with them, and Hereward and I were both newly married and putting a lot of time into that side of things - so the impact of punk, for me at least, Was Tom turning up one night to visit me and sitting down in the front room and telling me how he had been going to the hundred club and seeing  this group - ‘The Sex Pistols’ - and that everything was changing. Tom was going out nights and seeing them and ‘The Clash’, the new bands, and he knew that the album we were recording was redundant.   And he did the right thing. He went off and he dived into the deep end of this new wave. A few short months later Hereward and I were standing at the back of the Lyceum on the Strand looking in disbelief at this mass of thousands of people all with their backs to us, Facing forwards, arms raised and yelling to the rafters for TRB. We didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I think we did both, but very proudly.

HR : It seems at that point, Tom was destined to go a different route - did you and Hereward plan to continue?

RD : When Tom announced he was leaving I didn't want, for myself, to carry on. But Hereward really wanted us to finish the album, which was looking more of a Hereward album anyway. So we continued. But it was without any real sense of ownership or involvement or hope. Really, it was over when Tom left.

HR : What direction did you take musically after the band broke up for good?

RD : I put together a band doing mostly my songs and some of my favourites. There was still a healthy pub rock circuit in London and we were playing places like the golden lion in Fulham and the Stapleton near Crouch end where the Jam were making their mark. There was a buzz - EMI were interested. Robert Plant came down to check us out. But the truth is my confidence was in bits ... I would be sick and need a drink before going on. I couldn't handle the business side - promoters, A&R men. Aargh. It freaks me out just remembering it. You either have the balls to be a good self promoter or you don't. I didn't. I carried on writing songs and playing in many different settings - clubs, in pubs, in schools, and made a couple of albums with a  gospel rock band in England and in the states. Later I returned to the blues with an old friend Paul Davey on guitar. I always loved Paul's playing and he has a quality to him which is very authentic. He is not flashy, he's like The early Peter Green I saw all those years ago in Belfast. But essentially I think I'm still what you might call a soul/folk singer. I love to make contemporary music that is now on the surface, but plunging deep into the timeless in the feel

HR : Some 40 years later there seem to be a lot of things that are coming full circle in your life ... in music particularly ...

RD : Yeah - Really when I look back my life has been about life, but music is a thread that runs through it either in the actual doing of it or in the yearning for it. I absolutely love making music. And that special magical thing of making music with really good musicians, where an unspoken understanding happens and creates a platform on which something even better then you know how to make, actually suddenly happens. A moment outside time. I remember seeing an interview with a very respectable English poet John Betjeman  - he was old and in failing health and he was asked rather respectfully if he had any regrets. And he said "yes. I wish I'd had more sex ". That's how I feel about that level of music making. And that's why am so blown away with what's been happening. Everything I've hungered for has come to me this year.  Making a new album, working with great people, and a really special night at the Troubadour. HR : Oh yes - the show at The Troubadour - how did it feel to perform there again? Was the atmosphere the same?

RD : Actually, the atmosphere was even better than before! I've just been listening to a recording of the opening song, “Give Us A Break”. It's a song of Tom's he and I used to do back at Finchden and we did it acoustically to start the night and it was magic. Then a series of great artists doing floor spots, then me with a spot-on young band, and Tom and Hereward getting up to join in. It was a 10 course meal by candle light! And the audience .... They might as well have been on stage, we were all so involved together.

HR : You remained friends with Tom, and Hereward - as you say they played with you recently, and have teamed in for your Solo album “Never Closer” - how does it feel to be back in their company on a creative level?

RD : Well you know we haven't been strangers to each other.

Hereward and I are brothers in law as well as friends so there's always been opportunities for us to get the guitars out and play together.  My song “Feet on the Floor”, on the new album, wouldn't be the same without Herry's harmonies.  And he's put a lovely, subtle keyboard part on “Kiltermon”, one of the most important songs for me. Tom though, his part in this has been crucial. He says he sees himself as executive producer, just making sure it happens but leaving the music up to me. The truth is he is much more than that. Looking back to the beginning, I wouldn't even be a serious musician but for Tom. And so to be doing this album in partnership with him is just fantastic.

The sense of coming full circle, of completion, of fulfilment is really strong in my life this year. This album is a big example of that, and Tom and Hereward and myself getting up on stage together at the troubadour, and being in the studio together looking into each others eyes, listening to each other, singing together, is deeply wonderful for me.

HR : You’ve said recently, that the recording process took the magic out of the music in the early days, so what has changed for you with this solo record?

RD : The heart went out of the music in the recording process in the 70s for us because it was an artificial environment and a rather autocratic structure. Music is about musicians sharing from their souls together, and that sharing combining, meeting in the air and combining into something extra. That just can't happen in a compartmentalised and splintered and structured and often rather heartless recording process. It's not always like that of course, but too often it has been. We need to get back to the magic of creativity. With this album it's very different. I suppose it's not too strong to say that this album is an act of love. And everybody involved in it is acting with creative integrity and with mutual regard. It's a great thing to be part of.

HR : What was your inspiration for putting these songs together, now?

RD : Back in the spring I noticed that I couldn't grip the plectrum when I was playing the guitar. That led me to check some things out, and I was diagnosed with motor neuron disease in April. I've had a good long summer since my diagnosis, holding the condition at arms length, and it's been great - But it is increasingly something that I am living with day by day so it is a big part of the reality of this stage of my life, and will only continue to be so, and more so ... So it's true to say that all this has come about in response to my diagnosis: Tom and my son Louis started looking at the songs that had never really seen the light of day, and talking about making an album - they were both very much spurred on to bring this about with me because time is an issue.  I wasn't sure  ... I certainly didn't want to make an album just for the sake of it. I wanted it to exist primarily as a piece of work in its own right, and have not wanted my health issue to be a dominant factor in what I've been doing - but the reality and beauty and urgency of this project has come about in trying to get these tracks down while it is still possible. Every stage of this process, of building this album, has been full of surprises.  It's incredibly alive. It's the story of a life. And it's a great collaboration between creative artists - not just me, but Louis, the brilliant Gerry Diver, Tom and everyone who's contributed..

HR : As you say there, the album also features your son Louis - what does it mean to you to be able to have this creative relationship with him, and your other children?

RD : It's been brilliant doing this with Louis. I always say he outstripped me musically a long time ago. The work he's done, from his early band the Cadets, to Slides, and now the Spare Room is often amazing. When he and I started looking at the songs for this album we started to get some of those shivery moments, like I used to get rehearsing in the cellar in Clapham with cafe society. I remember the rehearsal before the troubadour, we got the band together at the Music Room in New Cross and I had Louis on one side of me and my other son Jess on bass guitar on the other side, and we were all blasting out harmonies and it was like something in me just took off and flew up into the air. To be doing this together, at The Troubadour, and in the studio, and at such a wonderful high standard, is something that it's hard to explain. It's just beautiful.

HR : When are you hoping for it to be released?

RD : We are making the album with crowd funding - pledge music - so people are pre-ordering their copies and that helps pay for the cost of making it. The aim is to release it in January - hopefully on the 6th, my birthday - when I'm 64! 

HR : And what can listeners expect? RD : Well, the answer to that changes every week and every time we go back in the studio. It was going to be a good album, but there is all kinds of magic brewing in the cauldron. What can I say. I'm blown away by some of the things we've done. Gerry Diver is doing some extraordinary work on arrangements and production. Louis has written some great music, played brilliant guitar and found lovely musicians and I, I promise you, am singing my heart out. I tell you, I'm a happy man. But there's lots of previews on the PledgeMusic page, with some videos of different songs from the album or the Troubadour - keep watching.   It's at  http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/raphael-doyle-never-closer , and my Facebook page raphaeldoylemusic

https://www.facebook.com/raphaeldoylemusic/?fref=ts

“I Come From Ireland” - a spoken word track is currently claiming worldwide acclaim, having made it to a feature in the Huffington Post!

The album - Songs Of Experience - can be found here http://www.raphaeldoyle.co.uk/

[Sadly Raphael passed away in March 2018. It is with huge thanks to my friend Ian Donald Crockett, that I had the pleasure of knowing Raphael for that short time].

[justlightlysedated]

there’s a hole inside of me the shape of you

for @bisexualalienblast and @fraudulentzodiacs, for being lovely in general 💖💜💙

***

Michael only gets detention when he's tardy three or more times a week. He tries really hard to be on time, but sometimes he can't help but be late.

Mr. Gutierrez always has an old thousand piece puzzle set that he leaves out for Michael to kill time if he doesn't have any school work to finish.

Michael spends two hours finishing up the entire puzzle, only for it to be missing a piece.

He searches the entire room and asks Mr. Gutierrez, but he shrugs and tells him that it probably fell somewhere.

Michael frowns at the puzzle for a full five minutes, feeling a niggling feeling in the pit of his stomach.

A knock on the door startles him to look away from the empty space to the door to see Alex Manes.

He walks to Mr. Gutierrez and hands him a stack of papers before he looks up and over to where Michael is still staring at him like an idiot.

Alex's eyes dart away as soon as he makes contact, looking to the puzzle and furrowing his brow.

Mr. Gutierrez thanks him and Alex nods his head before he walks towards Michael.

Michael holds his breath, but Alex doesn't even look at him as he reaches into the front pocket of his jeans and pulls something out too small for Michael to see.

He leans forward over the puzzle reaching out with his hand and then he pulls back and smiles at Michael.

"Looks like I had your missing puzzle piece."

Michael’s eyes fall from Alex to the puzzle to see that he’d placed the puzzle piece in place, a red splotch of flowers that literally draws your eye directly to it.

When Michael looks back up to thank him, Alex is gone.

Michael looks back at the puzzle and tries not think that it’s significant somehow.

**

Michael fails miserably in that aspect, but he tried really hard.

The universe really just seems to be conspiring against him.

Forming any type of anything with Alex Manes has bad idea written all over with starting with how very much he doesn’t want to fly under the radar with the way he dresses and his inability to back down from a fight and ending with the fact that he belongs to an Airforce Legacy family.

And yet-

And yet.

**

Michael is searching frantically for his notebook, the one that has all of the schematics for the spaceship, and all of the information grid by grid to every section of the crash he’s already checked and what he’s found.

Even if anyone finds it, it’s unlikely that they’ll be able to decipher it. But there is always the possibility that someone will find it who’ll know exactly what it is.

He’s about to empty his locker all over again when someone clears their throat behind him.

He turns and freezes when he sees Alex.

Alex smiles sheepishly at him, and waves his notebook in the air.

“Looking for this?” he asks, and just tightens his fingers on the book when Michael just continues to watch him. “I found it in my bag. I must’ve taken it by accident during English.”

And Michael remembers then that they’d been sharing his AP Literature textbook this morning since Alex had forgotten his at home.

AP English was his first class of the morning, and Michael was more often than not half asleep during it.

Michael turns completely, and reaches for the notebook.

Alex hands it over easily and stuffs his hands into the front pockets of his jeans rocking back on his heels.

“Thanks,” Michael says grabbing his bag and stuffing the notebook inside.

Alex just smiles, that same smile from before, eyes bright and lips just slightly curled at the edges.

It feels like it’s just for Michael, and it’s thoughts like that that Michael should be avoiding.

“Anytime.”

Alex leaves with a wave of his hand and Michael watches him go.

**

Michael considers maybe that he’s the one responsible for this, without meaning to.

He doesn’t know how else to explain it.

Over the next couple of days, Alex appears with his book bag the exact second he realized that he’d lost it, saying that he found it in the bathroom, hands Michael a bandaid casually, during English when he gets a papercut looking through the notes Ms. Johnson left on his essay, pulls Michael’s spare AP Chemistry textbook out of his own bag, saying that he found it on top of the table at the library, and he drops Michael’s favorite hoodie on top of his head when he starts shuddering while they’re watching a documentary in AP History, a hoodie that Michael had thought he’d lost months ago.

The final straw comes when Michael is brooding into his lunch because he lost his lucky guitar pick and he was positive it meant he was going to fail his Chemistry and Anatomy finals and lose his scholarship, and Isobel is doing a really bad job attempting to cheer him up.

“Hey,” Alex says, interrupting Isobel mid sentence. She makes an affronted noise, but Michael’s attention is completely caught by Alex who ignores Isobel to smile at Michael.

“I’m positive that this is yours,” he says and drops something from his hand to the table.

Michael’s lucky guitar pick bounces slightly on top of the table.

It’s black and cracked at the tip and has the faded neon green imprint of an alien, but Michael has never failed a test while he’s had it stuffed into the front pocket of his jeans, and the overwhelming relief that he feels at seeing it is nothing compared to the feeling that sweeps up from the pit of his stomach and makes his heart beat fast in his chest, and the air catch in his lungs as he looks back up at Alex.

Alex freezes, eyes going a little wide at the look on Michael’s face, and he licks his lips and looks to the side blinking rapidly.

Michael swallows hard and grabs the guitar pick.

“Thanks,” he says voice hoarse and low.

“Anytime,” Alex says, voice equally low as he walks away.

Michael clenches his fingers tightly around the pick and he waits all of five seconds before he turns and sees Alex walking out through the cafeteria doors.

“You’re an idiot,” Isobel says when he just continues to stare even after the doors close.

Michael turns to look at her, furrowing his brow in confusion.

She just rolls her eyes, but doesn’t say anything else. When he looks at Max, Max gives him the same confused look back.

Michael stuffs the guitar pick into the front pocket of his jeans and he wonders if he takes something from Alex, if Alex will come find him to look for it, or will he wait for Michael to magically appear with what he’s looking for.

**

It’s only when Michael’s fingers wrap around the cassette tape as he’s searching for his wallet on the floor of the truck that Michael remembers how he’d woken up that morning feeling a little bit nostalgic and wanting to listen to one of the old mixtapes that Alex always left lying around the music room.

He pulls wraps his fingers around the case and pulls it out and he knows he should feel surprised to see Alex’s familiar handwriting, but he’s not, not really.

He laughs when he realizes that it’s the same mixtape that he’d been thinking about that morning.

He sets the mixtape down on the passenger’s side and keeps looking for his wallet.

**

The envelope is taped the door of the Airstream when Michael walks out.

He’s a little pissed and a lot late because he’d been searching for his car keys and wasn’t able to find them, and even though he technically didn’t need keys to get wherever he wanted, Isobel was going to kill him if he’d lost the spare key to her apartment again.

He stops and stares at the envelope feeling all of his anger seeping out of him.

For one crystal clear second, he thinks that maybe Alex is dead, and the thought makes his stomach clench, and he feels dizzy and nauseous for a second before he remembers that even if Alex was dead, Michael would be the last person to know.

He inhales deeply and then grabs the envelope, ripping it open like pulling off a band aid.

His car keys fall to the floor in a clatter, and Michael’s laughter startles him into even more laughter as he leans down and grabs the keys.

He looks at them, and passes his finger over the shiny new keychain, shaped like a dog tag, Alex’s name stamped across the front.

Michael stuffs the keys in his pocket and ignores the warm feeling that threatens to fill him up, dousing it with the cold feeling that spreads through him at the thought that Alex was in Roswell, and he hadn’t come to see him.

**

Isobel is getting married and Michael’s tux was apparently shipped to the wrong address.

Michael walks out of the tuxedo place and takes deep breaths so that he doesn’t accidentally explode some windows with his frustration.

He doesn’t know how he’s going to tell Isobel that he doesn’t have a suit to wear when she’d paid a lot of money for the tux that was on its way to Albuquerque.

Especially when her wedding was in less than eight hours.

Michael drives to the ranch needing at least a few hours to himself before he has to break the news to her.

He doesn’t know why it surprises him when he jumps out of the truck to find the black bag with his tuxedo hanging from the door of the Airstream.

There is a note taped to the front of it addressed to him in Alex’s familiar handwriting, and Michael thinks that six years should be more than enough time for him to have gotten used to this.

But he doubts he’s ever going to get used to this.

He flips open the folded note and snorts at the message.

Tell Isobel I’ll never forgive her if she doesn’t get at least a dozen pictures of you in this.

At the bottom in small print, rushed, like Alex had written it as an afterthought, anytime.

Michael crumples the note in his fist and grabs the tux.

Well at least he won’t be ruining Isobel’s day after all.

**

“What part of I don’t even have an ID, did you not understand?” Michael asks as Isobel stands in front of his door looking at her watch and giving him an impatient look.

“The part where you can easily go track down one of your unsavory...buddies and as them to make you a fake one?”

Michael gives Isobel an incredulous look, but before he can say anything else he realizes that there is an envelope taped to the driver’s side window of his truck.

“Did you do that?” he asks, pointing at it.

Isobel shakes her head at him.

“It’s Airforce, though,” she says and jumps out of the way when he charges past her towards the truck. “I figured it would be a warning because you were caught trespassing, again.”

Michael ignores her, and tugs the envelope away from the window.

He shakes it, and hears the sound as the plastic edges of an ID slide around the inside of it.

Michael sighs and tears open the envelope and sure enough it’s an ID.

One that looks really real, and even has Michael’s name and address and birthday, and current weight and height right.

He bites down on his lip hard so that he doesn’t smile and gives Isobel a look.

“Looks like we’re doing this after all, just give me a few to make myself presentable.”

“Just don’t wear anything that has holes in it and you’ll be fine,” she calls after him as he closes the door behind himself.

Michael tosses the empty envelope aside where it lands on top of a pile of others like it.

**

Michael is freezing.

His lips feel like two icicles and he knows he’s probably going to have frostbite if he doesn’t get in soon, but he needs to finish mending the fence for Mr. Pratchett or else he can look for another place to spend the rest of one of the coldest winters they’ve had in a while.

He drops the materials he came back to town for into the back of the truck with a clatter, wanting to get into his truck even if the heater sucks, and stops short at the scarf wrapped around the side mirror.

It looked thick and warm, and familiar.

Michael thinks he had one that looked just like it back in high school.

He debates whether or not he should grab the scarf when a strong gust of wind blows and his mouth feels like it’s tearing apart.

He grabs the scarf and wraps it around his neck and covers his mouth and nose, and inhales deeply, surprised at the smell, something piney and smokey and warm.

He thinks about Alex, and closes his eyes for a few minutes before he gets into the truck and heads back out to the ranch.

**

Seeing Alex after ten years of nothing but random items appearing whenever Michael needed them was a shock to his system.

Michael spends the rest of the day feeling like he took a misstep somewhere this morning and ended up in an alternate universe where Alex is actually close enough that Michael can touch him, but still so far away.

Still, he’s not planning on going to the reunion until he gets into his car after buying his dinner at the Crashdown and sees the thin silver chain hanging from around the rearview mirror and feels his gut clenching.

Thinking about Alex inevitably leaves him thinking about things he’s lost and found, and he remembers vividly the last time he saw this necklace, wrapped around Alex’s neck as Alex’s father dragged him out of the tool shed.

It was Michael’s necklace, one that he never took off, but that Alex had slipped from his neck and around his own saying that he’ll give it back when Michael decides that this thing between them is over.

Michael had been thinking about it since he’d seen Alex that morning. Not about getting it back,  but about how Alex had looked wearing nothing but that.

He carefully moves it from around the mirror to his neck and wonders how he can give it back to Alex without Alex being able to give it back to him.

**

Michael hadn’t really been expecting Alex to be there when he woke up. But it still stung when he opened his eyes to find that Alex had disappeared during the night.

Michael spends a few minutes looking up at the ceiling of the Airstream, settling into the soreness he can feel in his hips and thighs and sighs before he pulls the sheets off himself and heads for the bathroom.

He’s toweling his hair dry, looking over the equations on his desk and written on the wall, when he spots a piece of paper pinned towards the end of the equation.

It’s a napkin with the Wild Pony logo on it.

Michael vaguely remembers a burst of inspiration that he’d lost immediately a few months ago, but he hadn’t remembered seeing Alex around.

He looks at the numbers and feels the same jolt of inspiration he’d had that night, he pulls the paper away from the wall and rushes out of the Airstream and to his truck.

He needs to get to his lab, now.

**

Michael thinks he might be going out of his mind.

He misses Isobel so much, and he thinks that maybe it’s frying his brain.

She’s always been about fifty percent of his impulse control, and he doesn’t know how to act like a normal person when she’s not around.

He’d been searching through her office for a picture that he thought maybe he’d given to her for the reunion, but it wasn’t in the box of pictures she had pinned together with the names of who she got them from.

He's heading to his truck, and stops short when he spots the envelope tucked beneath his windshield wipers.

He looks around, but there was no one, not even a car passing through, or parked suspiciously.

He already knows what he's going to find when he opens the envelope, and he doesn't know why he thought that whatever this thing was would disappear once Alex had in an official capacity broken up with him.

But no.

No.

He tears the envelope open and there are two pictures tucked inside.

The one he was looking for.

The first picture he'd ever taken with Isobel and Max. They had their arms wrapped around each other, smiling widely at the camera.

They looked so young.

The second picture makes him freeze, eyes wide open in shock as he stares at it.

He can vaguely remember the first field trip he took here in Roswell.

He'd just forgotten that Alex had been his buddy the whole time since his two best friends where buddies with each other and Max and Isobel had partnered up immediately.

The picture is of them sitting side by side on the bus seat. He has his arm wrapped around Alex's shoulder, leaning into him and smiling widely as he looks at the camera, and Alex is laughing with his head thrown back.

Written in the back of the picture in Isobel's curly handwriting is, Michael's First Friend in Roswell.

Michael swallows hard and wonders what exactly Alex is trying to tell him when he hasn't spoken to Michael in weeks.

**

Michael is thinking of a way that he could open up the bottles with his powers when today was supposed to be an Anything Alien Related Free get together, when he notices the alien head shaped bottle opener resting on top of the tailgate of his truck, anchoring a piece of paper down.

Alex's name pounds through his head like a heartbeat and he already knows that he's not going to be able to keep his promise of no alien stuff.

He grabs the opener and tucks it in between his fingers holding the two beer bottles and unfolds the note one handed.

Alex signs off on the bottom of the the official looking statement of arrest with his name all over it, Come find me as soon as you can so we can go over your options.

Michael stuffs the letter into his pocket and goes back to the others.

He doesn't look at Maria as he makes his excuses, and hands the beers to Max giving him a significant look.

Max inclines his head and distracts Liz and Rosa as Maria purses her mouth and gives him a look.

He just smiles and tells her that he'll be back, something just came up that he needs to take care off, promising that it's definitely not alien related.

She doesn't look like she believes him, and he's only getting into his truck when he hears Rosa say, "Hey, isn't that Alex's bottle opener?"

He starts the car and drives away before he can hear what anyone else says in response.

**

The toolbox that Michael has been searching for all morning is sitting on top of the bar of the Wild Pony when he walks in to have lunch with Maria.

For one second, he thinks that maybe, Maria found it, a small part of him hoping that maybe whatever makes Alex find whatever he needs somehow transferred to Maria, but then he sees Alex walking out of the bathroom.

"Make sure that Michael doesn't know I found it okay? I don't want him to kno-"

He stops when he finds Michael standing right in the middle of the bar.

He hadn't even known that Maria and Alex were talking again, much less having conversations about him.

"Too late," Maria says sounding half amused and just a little bit worried, like she always does when the fact that Michael and Alex used to date is made crystal clear.

Michael swallows hard and puts his hand on top of the toolbox, “Thanks,” he says glad that his voice doesn’t come out hoarse.

“Anytime,” Alex says automatically, and then looks at Maria and then back at Michael and then up at the ceiling. “Okay, I’m going.”

He leaves before either Maria or Michael can say anything, and Michael looks down to the floor so that he doesn’t watch him go.

**

Michael walks out of the floral shop and feels the anxiety that’s been eating at him all day ease up a little.

Just because he lost the gift that he was planning on giving to Maria for her birthday didn’t mean that all hope was lost.

He heaves the giant sunflowers over to the side to fit them into the front of his truck and freezes when he sees the small pink gift bag resting in the passenger seat.

Michael swallows hard, and feels his stomach clench.

He drops the flowers into the seat, and closes the door a little too hard.

When he gets to the Wild Pony, he leaves the gift in the front seat of his truck, along with the flowers.

What he needs is a drink. He’ll figure out the gift thing later.

**

Michael isn’t exactly sure what it is that he needs, but alcohol isn’t cutting it, and drinking enough acetone to numb himself to sleep isn’t an option, and falling into a sex coma is out of the question when Maria has other things to do that don’t involve staying in bed with Michael all day.

It’s not until Michael can’t even drown himself in work, that he’s thinking about heading down the bunker to see if he can do anything there to kill his restless energy that he spots the vase of flowers set right in front of the Airstream, that it hits him with the force of a thousand bricks.

The explosion in Caulfield happened one year ago today.

And Michael didn’t even remember the date, probably because he’s been too busy trying not to remember it.

If he thinks about it he can trace the restless feeling back to a few weeks ago, when it started getting cold again.

And the thunderstorm last night gave him nightmares full of fire and pain that he vaguely remembered.

The arrangement is beautiful and expensive looking, roses and lilies and chrysanthemums and tulips.

Michael picks it up carefully, and the note sticking to the front of it has address written in Alex’s handwriting.

An address that Michael knows without looking it up, will take him to the Roswell Cemetery.

**

Michael leaves Max’s house with a squeal of tires and tries not to feel betrayed that Max would kick him out because Liz is comforting Maria.

He thinks that what he needs is a drink, and has to stop the car and pull over when he realizes that he can’t go to the Wild Pony anymore, or at least for a while.

He leans back in his seat and takes a deep breath and thinks that it’s been too long since he’s had to steal some liquor from the store, but it should be just like riding a bike.

He laughs a little, self deprecating remembering the last time he’d stolen a bottle from a liquor store.

He looks down to his glove box wondering if he has enough cash in there for at least a small bottle and his eyes drop to the space beneath and his heart leaps to his throat when he spots the two bottles of whiskey and small bottle of acetone wrapped together like a gift waiting for him.

Michael thinks about not reading the note taped to it, wondering if he really needs the second heartbreak today, but he unfolds it anyway.

Anytime, I mean it Guerin.

Michael swallows hard, and when he pulls back onto the street, he takes the road that leads him out of Roswell.

**

Michael is pleasantly buzzed on whiskey and the fact that he made Maria smile and she didn’t kick him out when he started a fight with the guy who kept hitting on her and wouldn’t take no for an answer when he gets home to find that his Airstream is out of place revealing the manhole down to his lab.

The pleasant feeling gets even warmer at the thought that Alex is here.

For the past couple of weeks they’ve been getting closer, becoming friends, finally, and sliding into something comfortable that Michael thinks is one day going to naturally conclude in him pushing Alex into a stable surface and kiss him until he can’t think about anything else ever again, but right now, he’s enjoying the fact that Alex is always getting into Michael’s space like he owns it, and encourages Michael getting into his space.

He has a brand new key attached to a brand new keychain that had appeared the last time that Michael had lost his keys that opens the door to Alex’s cabin.

He drops down into the bunker, only slightly losing his balance and turns with a wide smile and spots Alex leaning back against his lab table looking at the alien console with a lost look in his eyes.

He doesn’t notice that Michael is in the room with him, until Michael leans against him, bumping their hips together.

Alex jumps a little and gives him a sheepish smile.

“You’re welcome by, anytime,” Michael says before Alex can apologize.

Alex licks his lips nodding his head and looks back to the alien console.

Michael watches him, letting the warm feeling spread, and he frowns when he sees the lost look sink back into Alex’s eyes.

“I’m never going to finish it you know,” Michael says, and gives Alex a half smile when Alex turns to look at him with wide eyes. “I’ve searched the entire crash zone square foot by square foot for years, and all the pieces that I’ve found are right here. So either the government has it and I’m never getting my hands on it, or the pieces are too small to be found, and I’ll never be able to get my hands on it.”

Alex swallows and looks back to the alien console.

Michael pushes from the lab table and puts his hand on the console watching the ripples as they spread.

“I’ve broken it apart and put it back together in so many different ways, but no matter how hard I try or how many times I do it, it’s just never finished.”

He smiles at Alex who is looking at him with wide eyes. “Guess, it just isn’t meant to be.”

Alex still has the lost look on his face, and Michael really doesn’t like it so he does the first thing that pops into his head.

Letting the alcohol ease any of his worries, he steps forward, pressing Alex into the lab table with his hips and kisses the lost look off his face.

As soon as their lips touch, Michael feels it like something vital that he’d been missing just slot into place right in the middle of his soul.

He grins when their lips part, and Alex kisses him again, hard and messy before Michael can say anything.

**

Two days later when he spots the black bag that Alex never takes off when they go off on their missions, leaning against the table where the alien console is resting, he knows exactly what he’s going to find when he opens the bag.

He leaves it alone and heads out of the bunker and back to the fire pit with the bottle of accelerant that he’d been sent to look for in his hands.

The piece that he’d been missing in the puzzle that was his life was waiting for him by the unlit fire pit, freezing his balls off, and Michael was in no rush to let him go any time soon.