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hangovercurse · 4 years ago

Text

Live from New York

You’re hosting SNL and get close with one of the cast members

Request: “hi! can you do something about pete where the reader is hosting snl and throughout the week they’re flirting with each other but she’s unsure if they should date and he convinces her? maybe a combo of fluff/angst/smut? it can be whatever :,)”

Pete x Reader

Warnings: Cursing

A/N: I told myself I wasn’t going to take that long on this one and then I ended up watching an entire documentary on the making of an SNL episode because I wanted to be as accurate as possible… someone stop me pls

Word Count: 2834

Monday

Despite being a swiftly rising actress, you hated being the enter of attention. You’d always gotten anxious as a kid when a teacher made you stand in front of the class for presentations or during first-day introductions. So being front and center in a room of 30 people who were all there to study and try to impress you was not something you found pleasant.

“Hi, I’m Y/N Y/L/N.” You spoke timidly to the crowded room, people clapping from their spots on the floor or various couches around the room, “it’s great to be here.”

Lorne cleared his throat, “alright, let’s start with you, Anna.”

You looked around the room as a young woman pitched the first sketch of the night, listening intently to her ideas while trying to match faces with the names Lorne had given you earlier. Then your eyes locked with a pair of deep brown ones, the man wearing a soft smile on his face. He radiated gentle energy despite the tattoos you could see running down his arms.

The pitches continued with an air of lightheartedness and fun. You found nearly everything funny, so you couldn’t even begin to imagine how you were going to cut any of the sketch pitches.

After a lull in ideas, Lorne announced that cast members could now pitch ideas for Weekend Update character appearances. The man you’d taken an interest in earlier, who you’d since learned was named Pete Davidson, pitched a new set of characters for you and him.

“You know those weird stoner kids in high school who were always hanging out in the parking lot and acted really weird and mysterious? Those characters who just give really vague answers to anything you ask and act like they’ve seen some shit when they have the most normal home lives.”

You giggled, knowing the exact kinds of kids he was talking about. Colin and Michael also chuckled, writing the idea down with some notes of their own. Soon after that, everyone went back to pitching regular sketches, Jost and Che pitching an unusual number of sketches featuring you and Pete.

After a few long hours, the session wrapped; everyone leaving the office space except for you and Lorne, “so, what did you think?”

You chuckled lightly, “you have some seriously talented people on this show, Mr. Michaels. I don’t understand how you guys write an entire show every week.”

“We all work very hard; I’ll tell you that. Now, talk to me. Anything you really liked or really hated?”

You shrugged, “you’re the comedy mastermind, I know nothing. But I thought that weird kids from high school bit was pretty funny.”

Lorne nodded, “So did Jost and Che it seems. Sometimes the kid has a good idea.” You giggled at his reference to Pete as “the kid.” He sighed, “anything else? I noticed you liked that proposal sketch.”

“Yeah, that one was super funny. I will say, I wasn’t too in love with the dad-teacher one, but I would have no problem with it being done with someone else as the daughter.”

Lorne and you spent the rest of the workday discussing the different sketch ideas that came up and gauging what type of comedy suited you best. Before you left, he introduced you to Donna, your dresser who would be helping you out throughout the week.

Tuesday

After a quick tour of the studio by Donna, you were given a list of cast members and writers who wanted to meet with you to get ideas about sketches. You first stepped into a small room with a desk and futon, Donna introducing you to Chloe Fineman and Celeste Yim.

Chloe smiled brightly at you, “okay, so we were thinking that we could do something where I bring you to a sleepover with some friends that you don’t know. But at some point, you try to go to sleep because you have a soccer tournament in the morning but everyone else is being loud and it turns into this big overdramatic argument.”

You giggled softly, “I love that!”

After writing with them for a while, you were whisked away to room after room, finally landing in Colin Jost and Michael Che’s office, where they were hunched over a computer with Pete.

Colin smiled at you, “hey Y/N, how’s your day been?”

“Busy, how are you guys?”

The men responded with variations of “good,” before Michael spoke, “I know it’s late, so don’t feel obligated to stay longer than you’re comfortable with.”

You shrugged, “what time is it? It doesn’t feel that late.”

Pete laughed, teasing Colin and Michael, “c’mon guys, don’t you know that the young people of New York don’t sleep?”

You giggled in agreement as Colin frowned, “I’m only 38, that’s not that old.”

“I’m only 26, Colin,” you said, laughing at the men.

Michael patted Colin on the shoulder, “Jost, we’re getting old.”

Colin frowned before clearing his throat, “anyways, we had a couple ideas for some sketches with you and Pete, if you’re up for it, and we wanted to hash out your weekend update appearance.”

You smiled and nodded, “yeah, that sounds great.”

The rest of the night (and into the early morning) was spent with the three men, eventually joined by Heidi Gardner and Kyle Mooney to work them into the scripts. A majority of the writing process was simply messing around with various sketch situations until someone found a joke that worked best.

Pete watched you carefully the entire night, doing everything in his power to make you laugh. You had no complaints, doing your best to not openly flirt with him in front of the rest of the cast (and failing quite miserably).

Wednesday

Wednesday was the designated day for the roundtable readthrough. You took a place between Pete and Lorne, who began the reading, “we’ve got 41 sketches so let’s get started.”

The table read was just like any other you’d been through; Lorne wasting no time between sketches to discuss or joke. You struggled with containing your laughter throughout the reading, trying to act professionally. It didn’t help that Pete was making jokes any chance he got, eliciting even more giggles from you.

The three hours seemed to take no time at all as sketch after sketch was read out loud. Every so often you would catch Lorne looking at you with an eyebrow raised, usually after you read one of the sketches with Pete.

After everyone was dismissed, you were led to Lorne’s office with the head writers and producers. There was a large wall covered in sticky notes with each sketch’s name written on one. Lorne turned to you, “what do you think?”

You scanned the wall, listing off some of the sketches that you really liked, though most of them were great, so you had trouble narrowing them down.

Lorne let out a small laugh, “you guys noticed how she picked out the sketches with Pete in them, too, right?”

Your face went hot, immediately turning to face the ground. Colin and Michael chuckled, “we noticed,” the latter commented.

“There’s nothing wrong with it, Y/N, just wanted to point it out to you.” Lorne teased before turning back to the wall and thinking.

You giggled, “you guys suck.”

As embarrassed as you were, your anxiety was surprisingly low. You had been worried about hosting since you got the invite, but the cast and crew had been nothing but kind to you. Even just being able to make jokes like this with the writers made you feel oddly comforted.

You worked on narrowing down which sketches to keep for rehearsals and which ones were going to get cut immediately, a job that was very easy for Lorne but very difficult for you.

Eventually you got it down to enough sketches that Lorne was satisfied and he sent out the list to the cast. He led you out of his office, “you know, you have a real affinity for comedy,” he told you. “I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about sketch comedy, but from that read through you seem to know what you’re doing.”

You blushed slightly, thanking him, “we’ll see if you’re still saying that on Saturday.”

He chuckled, “have a good night.” You waved at him as you walked towards the exit, running into none other than Pete Davidson.

“Hey, you headed out?”

You smiled, “yeah, just got out of my meeting with Lorne. Did you get a chance to look at the revised sketch schedule?”

Pete nodded, walking with you to the door of the theater, “yeah, I noticed you kept a lot of our sketches in there,” he bumped your shoulder, a playful smirk on his face.

A giggle rolled from your lips, “what can I say? We’re funny together.”

He raised an eyebrow, watching as you flagged down your taxi, “whatever you say.”

“Are you complaining about having to work with me?” You asked, opening the door.

He chuckled, “oh yeah. I am just dreading tomorrow.” Sarcasm laced his words, making you laugh.

“Goodnight, Pete.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

Thursday

Donna ushered you around all day, making sure you were in the rehearsal space when you needed to be and supporting you from the side. This part of the process came naturally to you, as it was the most similar to rehearsing and filming on movie sets.

When you weren’t rehearsing a scene, you were hanging out with Pete. It was strange how easily you got along, your humors aligning almost perfectly. Not to mention he was a huge flirt and was making it more and more obvious with you. You flirted right back, earning looks of amusement from Lorne throughout the day.

The day was a whirlwind, and by the time you were able to go home, you were exhausted. Pete walked you out to the street again, talking about one of the sketches that went wrong earlier until your taxi pulled up. This time he opened the door for you and helped you inside, “see you tomorrow.”

You smiled up at him, “bright and early.”

Friday

After hours of rehearsing, you plopped onto the couch in Pete’s dressing room, where you had found yourself a home over the past few days, “I don’t know how you guys do this every week. I’ve been here for four days and I’m exhausted.”

Pete chuckled, “to be fair, you’re the host. The key is to try and only get one sketch into the show so that you don’t have to do anything during the week.”

You laughed, letting a comfortable silence fall over you. Pete studied you, taking in your tired appearance, “you’re doing great though, being a host. I’ve seen some people come in and try to take control of everything and then no one has fun. You’re really good at just letting the comedy speak for itself. Not many people do that.”

Shrugging, you responded, “I mean, I’m not a comedian, I’m just an actor. You guys come up with everything. I don’t know enough to try and control things around here, I just do what I can to make your visions come to life. I figured that’s what a host should do.”

Pete nodded, “yeah, but again, a lot of people want their SNL episode to look a certain way. You don’t seem to care.”

“I just want to have fun, honestly.”

He smirked, “are you?”

You looked up to him with a smile on your face, “definitely.”

Suddenly the speaker in the room rang out, “Y/N and Pete to main stage 1.”

Groaning, you lifted yourself from the couch, Pete watching you with amusement, “c’mon Ms. Host, we’ve got a show to rehearse.”

Saturday

The day was hectic; filled with rehearsal after rehearsal. Lorne and Donna made sure that you were comfortable all day, but you could feel the stress radiating from every inch of the studio.

Stronger than that, though, was the sense of excitement buzzing around everyone. You were fit into more costumes than you could count, all leading up to the final dress rehearsal of the night in front of the live studio audience.

Dress ran smoothly, but you could see Lorne cutting lines from sketches from stage out of the corner of your eye. Luckily, Pete distracted you from all the anxious energy. “I know Lorne looks like a psychopath, but that’s just what he does. Everything’s fine, don’t stress about it,” he said over dinner.

You chuckled, “thanks. I feel so out of my league this week.”

“I told you, you’re great. Everyone here loves you. I heard Lorne talking about wanting you back as soon as possible.”

Rolling your eyes, you responded, “yeah right, I’m never gonna do anything big enough to get me on this show again.”

Pete laughed, “you could always make guest appearances with me on the Weekend Update.”

“You aren’t sick of me already?” you joked.

After dinner you were paraded around by Donna, who got you into your style for opening monologue. She smiled at you through your dressing room mirror, “how are you feeling?”

You gave her a nervous smile, “terrified, but ready.”

The lady chuckled, “you’ll do great. I’ll be right offstage if you need anything.”

“Thank you, for everything this week.”

She squeezed your shoulders, “don’t mention it, though if you really want to thank me, go ask that Davidson boy out on a date.”

Your eyes went wide, “Donna!”

A chuckle rang out through the room, “what? I say it for your own good.”

She led you through a maze of hallways and tunnels until you were in place to walk onstage, the speaker announcing your name to the audience followed by cheers.

Exactly 90 minutes later you were gathered with the cast on stage, “thank you to Fletcher, Lorne Michaels, this amazing cast and crew, and thank you all for watching. Goodnight everybody!”

You turned to Pete, who was standing beside you and let him pull you in for a hug, “you did it!” he cheered.

You passed around the cast, giving hugs to as many people as you can before Lorne announced, “that’s a wrap on Y/N Y/L/N and Fletcher!”

Everyone cheered, clapping for you and your musical guest before heading to their dressing rooms to change into their night clothes. You went back to your own dressing room, taking a moment to bask in the feeling of accomplishment.

A knock on your door pulled you out of your haze, “come in!”

Pete entered the room, a wide smile on his face, “congrats!” You let him pull you in for another hug, “so I know that there’s supposed to be this big party after the show, but I was wondering if you’d let me take you to dinner instead?”

Your breath got caught in your throat, those words being the last thing you expected to hear from him. Of course, you wanted to say yes because you did, truthfully, really like him. But part of you was hesitant.

You’d dated your fair share of celebrities, and things always ended very publicly and typically poorly. On top of that, you couldn’t help but feel that this might be happening a bit too quick. You started to doubt that he would still have feelings for you in a week since he wouldn’t be around you nearly all the time.

And then there was the issue of your insane work schedules. Having just lived through his, you weren’t sure if you would be able to keep a relationship like that.

“Pete, I think you’re amazing and I really like you, I just-“

Pete nodded his head, cutting you off, “I know we only met like a couple of das ago, but people go on dates with literal strangers all the time.”

You sighed, “it’s not that, Pete, it’s just that…” you paused, searching for words, “things like this tend to be very public with me, and I really don’t want to have a relationship where there’s all this pressure by the media to be perfect.”

He shrugged, “I get that, but it’s just dinner. And we can go somewhere quiet and private, no one has to know. And if things go further then we’ll just keep it on the down low until you’re ready. Trust me, I know what a public relationship is like, I’m not a huge fan either.”

“Yeah, but what about your work schedule. I mean, I’ve only lived in your world for six days and I want to sleep for a month. How do you even hold a relationship on this schedule?”

Pete moved closer to you, fingers grazing your arm, “we can make it work. I promise. Just give me one date, and if it’s not the best first date of your life, you have no further obligations to me.”

You giggled lightly, leaning into his touch, “I’m only saying yes because you’re kinda cute.”

He smiled down at you, eyes twinkling, I’ll take it.”

#pete davidson #pete davidson imagine #pete davidson x reader #pete davidson fluff #snl

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cherryyharryy · 3 years ago

Note

please write something about Harry overhearing the reader’s friend tell her that Harry doesn’t spend time with her that she deserves someone better they hang up b4 the reader can say anything like angst to fluff

Thank you for requesting!

This is 80's harry lol

WC: 2.4K

Harry pauses the music on his Walkman, slipping the headphones off his ears to rest around his neck while he fiddles with the key to his apartment.

She had spent the night—his angel. It had been quite the set up, since she still lives at home with her parents while finishing college, a little white lie was passed around to cover her absence. Harry wasn’t a secret by any means, but her parents weren’t the most open minded, and a small fib was easier to handle than trying to rehash the same discussion of y/n being a grown woman. It was hard enough for her to get their approval for college...one mountain at a time.

Harry’s ears burn as he sets the groceries down in the kitchen, the thought of her still tangled up in his sheets beckoning him back to his room, is enough to drive him wild. He doesn’t catch himself zoning out until the phone rings. He untangles his music off his shoulders and yanks the phone off the wall, but y/n has beat him to it, her soft morning voice greeting Caroline before Harry can utter a word.

His brain is too slow in making the connection that he should hang up. That he shouldn’t eavesdrop on his girlfriend’s private conversation. That he owes her the respect that her parents never give her. But he hears his name, specifically, he hears Caroline ask y/n how last night was, so the phone stays glued to his ear.

“Amazing,” she purrs, and Harry’s stomach flips. “We did it like, three times.”

The girls giggle, and Harry shuffles on his feet with a veiny blush spreading all over his body. He can imagine y/n draped in his sheets, phone cord wrapped around her fingers, just a few steps away from him

“Better be nothing short of amazing,” Caroline says, “with what little time he gives you anyway. Ugh, if Tony ever left me hanging as often as Harry, I’d dump him so fast.” She smacks her gum into the phone and Harry flinches. “He tried to ditch me one time to go see Scarface with Rob, and I was like, hell no, you’re taking me skating like you promised. Honestly y/n, you can do better. You’re surrounded by college boys, go find a future doctor.”

The phone almost slips from Harry’s hand, but he catches it and hangs it back on the wall, just in time for his entire world to start crumbling to his feet.

Did he really not spend enough time with y/n?

How long has this been a topic shared between them?

And why hasn’t she said anything before?

Harry stands in the middle of his kitchen, immobilized. He can’t lose her, especially not to something he can fix. She’s been his girl since they were sixteen, there’s too much history between them, or so he thought.

He files through the memories he has of them together, trying to quantify them, trying to see where he started slipping.

Maybe it’s when he took over his dad’s business? But she knew how demanding it would be, and always supported him. Or maybe it’s because they don’t go out as much? Between him managing an appliance store, and her working towards a bachelors, they often opt for nights on the couch watching SNL reruns.

His mind is foggy, and he doesn’t catch his bedroom door creaking open.

“H?”

Harry startles back to present, gripping the counter as y/n emerges from his room wearing nothing but his t-shirt.

“You okay? Look like a deer caught in headlights.”

“Mm, no, fine.”

“I heard you come in a bit ago.” She flicks her eyes over his kitchen, looking for the breakfast he had promised to make almost an hour ago.

“Didn’t want to be too loud.”

“Oh, alright.” She smiles, attempting to diffuse whatever awkward tension has settled in his home. “Well, cook away! I can help too.”

He grabs her wrist before she reaches the fridge. “No, I’ll make it for you. Go back to bed.”

“You sure?”

He nods, forcing a smile.

She peers back over her shoulder twice on her walk back to his room, hoping to figure out what’s going on, but learns nothing.

As soon as his door shuts, Harry flies around his kitchen, grabbing what he needs to make the fastest breakfast in the world.

He’s going to spend every free second he has with her, and doesn’t want to waste any if he doesn’t have to.

***

Harry knows he’s borderline annoying. And he knows his actions are beginning to appear creepy, if not bizarre. He tags along with y/n everywhere she goes now, even at the doctor where he almost followed her back to her exam. She gently placed her hands on his chest and told him that she would rather the doctor do the job, promising she’d be out in no time.

She’s been tiptoeing around him too, not sure what to make of his new routine of gluing himself to her side, hoping it will wear off and things will go back to normal.

But she waits and she waits, and normal never resurfaces.

“H, baby, I can’t concentrate with you so close to me.”

Harry looks offended, slipping his reading glasses off his nose and closing the book he was halfway through, giving her his full attention when he asks what she means.

Y/n peers around the library, not wanting to have this discussion so publicly, but too keyed up to wait any longer. “I’ve just noticed that you’ve...been a little clingy lately? More like a lot.”

“I just wanted to spend more time with you.”

“You’re picking me up, and walking me to my classes—”

“Thought that was nice?”

“You don’t even go to this school. Listen, the sentiment is nice, but I’m starting to feel a little suffocated.”

Harry bites his cheek so hard he draws blood. “And what did Caroline have to say about that?”

“What?”

“I’m sure that nosy friend of yours had a lot to say about me when you brought this up.”

“Excuse me!”

“Quiet, please,” one of the staff members shushes y/n, “Or I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

Y/n ignores the snickers from a table of girls nearby, recoiling her embarrassment and turning it to anger. Her voice, although lowered, now drags out of her mouth in sharp tones. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I heard everything, that morning Caroline called my phone to talk to you about how crummy of a boyfriend I am.”

That morning, now a month ago, is hardly a memory in y/n’s head. She fights around for details of the conversation, but comes up empty handed. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about, and frankly, I don’t care.” She starts closing all her books and gathering her school work to shove into her bag.

“Where are you going?”

“Home.”

Harry blinks, fumbling for his next question as y/n hurries across the library. He’s quick to catch up with her, waiting until they’re outside where they don’t have to whisper. “Don’t walk, I have my car.”

He reaches for her shoulder but she shrugs it off. “I’m going home. My home, not yours.”

Harry freezes on the sidewalk. She continues on her way until she disappears around the building. A few students yell out at Harry, making fun of the guy who, from a distance, just got rejected. He flips them off and heads to his car, beating the steering wheel all the way back to his apartment.

***

“You’ve been studying an awful lot lately,” y/n’s dad comments from across the dinner table. “Do you have a big test coming up?”

“Hm?”

“You spend the night with Rayna almost every weekend.”

“Oh, uh, yeah. We have a lot of tests.” Y/n spoons a bite of mashed potatoes into her mouth, thankful neither of her parents went to college. It’s allowed for more stretched lies when she sleeps over at Harry’s. “Like a lot. Every week.”

Her mother hums from her seat, nodding to save her spot in the conversation while she finishes chewing. “We told you how hard it would be. But you wouldn’t listen.”

“That’s not—” “Shelly’s daughter just got a job as a receptionist, over at that dental office by the mattress store.” Her dad points at y/n with his fork. “You could ask her if she knows of any other places looking for a girl.”

“I’m not going to have a job where the requirement is girl.”

“You’re taking this too liberally, dear. Oh Lord, John, that school did just what you said.”

“No—”

“That’s what happens, girls go off to try and get a degree...and what for? What are you going to do when you get married and have kids?”

“Kids!?”

Her mom scoffs. “Well you’re not going to be able to raise children and work.”

“Are you two serious right now? It’s 1985, not fifty-five! Women go to college, they work, some of them don’t even get married! Or have kids!”

“When you were little you couldn’t wait to be a mom. Now all of a sudden you’ve changed your mind. That never would have happened if we hadn’t let you go off to that damn school.”

“Yes I’ve changed my mind! If it hadn’t been for that school, I never would have realized that it’s my own mind to change. It’s my own life to do whatever I want with, not yours.”

“Well I am—” Her dad is interrupted by the door bell echoing outside the kitchen. “One minute. We’re not done with this yet.”

Muffled voices stagger from the front door while y/n pushes the food around her plate. She hopes that whoever is at the door keeps her dad busy for a while. She knows her mom won’t have these types of conversations without him, which just showcases the lifestyle she is adamantly trying to avoid. One that was passed down to her parents, but y/n is determined to squeeze herself out of that narrative no matter what.

“Y/n!” her dad calls, “you have a visitor.”

Y/n peers up at her mom, both women exchanging confused glances before they go see who had arrived.

“Oh,” y/n says dully, “It’s you.”

Harry stands with his hands shoved into jacket pockets, peering at each family member before speaking. “Hey, uh, I was hoping we could talk. Privately.”

Y/n nods, and leads the way back through the kitchen to the back porch. She’s not really in the mood to be talking to him, or having this conversation, but right now he’s a free ticket away from her parents, so she accepts.

They sit halfway down the steps, just like they’ve done a thousand times before. Her on the right, him on the left. Usually his arm is thrown over her shoulder, and their knees bump together until Harry pulls her in so close that not even a breeze could fit between them, but now they’re both collected on their respective sides of the wooden step.

“Heard the new Prince song?”

Y/n rolls her eyes. “It’s been a week.”

“Exactly, a lot’s happened in a week. Prince came out with a new song, Michael Jordan’s rookie of the year, and there’s gonna be a Rocky four.”

“Did you come over to talk about everyone else’s good news?”

Harry sighs. “We’ve never gone a week without talking. Ever.”

“Well you really hurt my feelings.” She turns to look at him, tears welling up in her eyes. “I mean, you don’t even trust me, so you listen in on my phone calls—”

“That’s not—no. I picked up when you did.”

“But you still listened.”

“Okay yeah, but only because I heard my name.” He shrugs, a timid smile playing on his lips. “Wanted to hear what you thought about me.”

“I tell you what I think all the time. I’ve never kept my feelings secret from you.”

“It’s different.” He pulls his hands from his pockets and runs them through his hair, tugging on fistfuls of curls out of frustration. “But then when Caroline said all that, ‘bout me not spending enough time with you, it killed me.”

“That’s what this is about,” she sighs, more to herself than to Harry as the memory of that morning resurfaces in her mind. “You dork, what about what I said back?”

“I hung up. Didn’t wanna hear anything else after that.”

“I told her how wrong she was. How we spend lots of time together.”

“You did?”

“Mhm. She’s always bragging about her and Tony, like they’re the first two people to date ever. I totally rubbed our relationship in her face.”

Harry’s surprised by the gleam on his girlfriend’s face, and tries not to laugh. “What else did you tell her?”

“I dunno.” She shrugs, suddenly shy. “Can’t remember.”

“How convenient.” He nudges her knee with his, and she bumps him back.

Y/n exhales, dipping her head back to squint at the stars peeking out from a cloudy night. “My parents are driving me crazy.”

“They always drive you crazy.”

“Yeah but, more than usual. I got spoiled staying with you on the weekends.”

Harry hums, reaching his arm over to pull her into his side. “Maybe it shouldn’t just be weekends…”

“They would know something’s up if I stayed over on weeknights.”

“No, baby, I mean permanently.”

“Like moving in together?”

“Why not?”

She chews on her lip, trying to keep her smile hidden. “I don’t know...that’s a big deal. It’s a big step.”

“We can think about it. No rush.”

“It would be nice. To see each other whenever we wanted.”

Harry tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Wouldn’t have to ask your parents permission for anything.”

“Yeah…”

“Just me.”

“Hey!”

“I’m kidding, angel.” He kisses her forehead and takes her hand, helping her up.

Y/n’s parents are in the living room when the two are back in the house, and just the thought of continuing her evening here lights a fire under y/n.

“I’m going over to Harry’s,” she announces.

Harry drops her hand, just as surprised as her parents.

“Excuse me?” Her father turns the t.v. off and straightens in his chair. “I don’t think so.”

“Well I think so,” y/n defends. “Come on, Harry.” She takes his hand and tugs him towards the door.

“Harry!” Her mother protests.

He looks over his shoulder just as he’s being led out the door. “Oh, you can call me Rayna.”

#Harry styles requested #Harry styles requests #requests #request #harry styles fic #cherryyharryy #harry styles one shot #harry styles angst to fluff #harry styles blurb #harry styles angst #harry styles fluff

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laurelier · 3 years ago

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HS x The Little Mermaid: Harriel? Arielrry?? Either way we're all a little bit gay aren’t we.

OR: my humble contribution to the mermaidrry spiral. Get outta here and go read @ialwaysknewyouwerepunk birth of harry mermaidy analysis if you actually want to learn something today, that shit's genius boss level connections all over the place. Keep reading this wordvom if you wanna just like. Feel a little bit weird about The Little Mermaid with me for a hot minute? Idk man I'm just spouting crap about water in my corner again that's all I do.

Anyway the thing you gotta know before you read this post is. I love the OG 2D animated Disney princess movies. I love em. I do. I really do and I really hate to admit it, it is really not easy for me to be outing myself like this right now, but I do, I love them, with my wholass heart I’m such a big fan. I think they’re beautiful in a lot a lot a lot of ways and I find them really fascinating as, like, pop culture mainstays, leave me alone, I just, The Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid, friends. I am here today to soliloquize to you about the gospel of The Little Mermaid in the context of Harry Styles if you can spare a few moments of your time.

The Little Mermaid is one of the original princess narratives that really actually—I go hard for this take—stands up well to cultural critique. Personally I think some of the others do also, but this one? Watching this 15 or so years after I’d first seen it and then reading up on it…… spending far too much time, actually, reading up on it……… as I did a few months ago when I regressed back into my Disney princess hole, man, wow. My little brain was blown open about 150 different ways.

x, LOOK at that animation are you JOKING

How this post came about is a tale as old as time at this point: I asked the aforementioned beautiful Ella @ialwaysknewyouwerepunk about their reaction to Harry’s perfect FL trans-flag-colors outfit moment that absolutely turned me into a ball of just hnnnnngngngngnngng fetal position in the corner god that look made me so emotional and in their (fantastic as always) response, link here, they brought up those Harriel pics from SNL and also hi bb Ariel down there in the corner, and just. Their answer to that ask had a big time ripple effect and we all freaked the fuck out about mermaids and I don't know bro, just have one more tangent about The Little Mermaid and mermaiding and Harry and Harrymermaiding and water waterwaterwater. But do be sure to read Ella’s first. Also have this shitpost?

Light of my life harriel. Art by the magnificent @swimmingleo .

Under the cut: today we’re talking transformation and voicelessness and deals with the (kind of) devil, we’re talking appearances and self-knowledge and slivers of hope, we’re talking siren calls, we’re talking when you know you know, we’re sonar mapping the unexplored ocean floors of the self. Clearly there’s gonna be plenty of melodrama to go around so strap on your mermaid tails, let’s dive undaaathaaseeeeeaaa. (Again.)

“Silence itself—the things one declines to say, or is forbidden to name, the discretion that is required between different speakers—is less the absolute limit of discourse, the other side from which it is separated by a strict boundary, than an element that functions alongside the things said, with them and in relation to them.... There is not one but many silences, and they are an integral part of the strategies that underlie and permeate discourses.” - Foucault, The History of Sexuality

Nice to meet u mermaidrry

When asked in 2014 why he got his mermaid tattoo, Harry E. Styles reportedly gave a very simple reply: “I am a mermaid.” Which…... is one of my favorite things he’s ever said. Especially because Ella’s post has been circulating for a while now, I doubt I have to inform anyone reading this of how linked the symbol of the mermaid often is with experiences of gender diversity and gender queerness—the mermaid as a symbol especially important to many trans women, not least because she’s so heavily associated with transformation. Ariel herself, and Hans Christian Andersen’s original little mermaid before her, have both played a hand (fin?) in the development of this lovely, lovely, very nuanced link.

I’m not really going to get too in the weeds now, though, about the mermaid as a big time symbol of a transgender experience, because I’m here to talk about The Little Mermaid specifically, and Harry. And before I get into it: I’m hopeful that the fact that I’m seeing a whole lot of really really beautiful gender stuff here doesn’t read as me making assumptions about Harry’s motives or identity that I can’t and shouldn’t make—though that’s also certainly not meant to invalidate him or assume, either, that he couldn’t be purposely engaging with gender when he refs mermaids—I’m just. We gotta remember we don’t know, I don’t know, none of us will probably ever know what exactly he means and when he means it and how, and all I’m doing here is using H and Ariel and mermaids to explore a very queer little bubble that I find really captivating. Not speaking for, never speaking for; speaking about, seeing through, and also just. Standing in awe of. H, and all that he creates around him.

WHEw wee. All that out of the way……...

Harry and watery shit

……….let’s start by talking (yet again) about the fact that Harry is always drenched in water. Babymermaid is literally so wet all of the time. This is not a new idea, of course, he’s been waving this one in our faces for so many years now, but I want to highlight a few favorite examples that I think show especially well how closely interlinked H being wet/referencing water seems to be with self-exploration.

Ella, once again, has a more comprehensive list of times Harry was wet in their post, and all of these are also mentioned there. This is my personal watery Harrymermaid highlight reel, though, and there are some things that come up here that are going to be relevant later, so we’re gonna rehash this for a second. K roll the tape.

First, the HS1 album photoshoot. Just….. All of it. This was one of the first big visual impressions we got of Harry as a solo artist and—water. Everywhere. The water, right, is also opaque and pink in a lot of this—so let me just take this opportunity to float the rainbow water theory again: if being in water equals being one’s full self in H world, with all the simultaneous pain and relief of that, then I wonder if rainbow or pink/contaminated water doesn't equal difficulty accessing that real, complex person, buried underneath onion layers of shame and repression and time—and, because it’s pretty too, if it’s not also a representation of the beauty of the efforts that we make to access our deepest selves despite all that might hold us back beautiful war connection opportunity here cry cry cry bc pink water is associated with waste runoff from battles and war. Pair all that with the way so many of us read the album’s content and idk man even I almost believe myself here.

These colors......... bury me in them.

Second, Fine Line era—first up is the Lights Up music video. In this one, there’s obviously the shot of him in the FL silhouette of big pants unbuttoned shirt suspenders just like. Staring into the mirror soaking wet. And the one of him looking down at us in the water with the sun coming over his shoulder.

But, real quick, I wanna talk about those red shots where he’s kind of mirrored, looking down from above at himself floating submerged. Eerie, strange, fragmented: an H in a beautiful suit suspended and frozen above a vulnerable-looking H floating in water; H staring down at this other self that appears to be him, too, but a little bit different, significantly different, staring back up at him. And a shadow between them that serves as a dividing (fine?) line: his own shadow, reflected on the water exactly halfway between them. Jesus there’s so much in this damn frame. There are a lot of Harrys here. All of them quite wet.

Earlier, H in darker clothes, floating prone and vulnerable in the water.

Then, third, a pairing I love, two of my favorite songs from Fine Line—though really I could say that about any of the songs on that album ffs—She and Adore You. In She, right, we've got the famous he takes a boat out, imagines just sailing away / away, away / without telling his mates; / he wouldn’t know what to say, right, and then in the Adore You mv, almost immediately after letting the fish swim free, the peculiar boy does………. exactly that? He takes a boat out, the sails filled by his screams of anguish from earlier at not being seen or understood by the other townspeople, which he trapped in jars (hgngng that part always makes me so soft).

I mean. This parallel lays my ass out. He said like lemme just drop these dam kids off at school right quick byeeeeeee honey have a great day and then I’m about to go solo deep sea fishing for my soul.

And at the very, very, very end of this treasure of a music video, we get the frame above, where we can see just the hint of a friendly-looking little sea creature jumping in and out of the waves. My guess? Really, who could that be but the fish—so lemme just get real Frankenstein here for a sec and suggest that the boy and the fish represent a kind of split-in-half mermaid, a whole self in parts: if the image of the half-fish half-human mermaid stands in for the unification of the self, the transformation into and the realization of the real self, well, then. This boy is setting off in search of himself in his boat, and this other part of him that, when they’re together, allows him to feel understood, feel real—this mermaidy part (literally a fish??? please???) is visible just there almost at the horizon; like, the boy is casting out onto the ocean in pursuit of self-discovery, after having set free a part of himself that needed more room to grow? Almost like he’s following that part toward himself, like it’s guiding and guarding him as he searches.

So yes @thestylinsons I think you're 100% right and Adore You is a mermaid song. Ugh I love the tiny fish. Tiny half of a mermaid half of a self fish. I love u tiny fish baby.

TLDR: Harry really is one heavy-handed mf with the symbolism.

The most beautiful singer in all the sea

What we have here, then, is H plus a hell of a lot of water and notably a maybe-mermaid half-boy-half-fish moment and selves wet and split in half all over the goddam carpet and all that comes together and we end up with a whole ocean's worth of self-exploration. And another well-known mermaid who does quite a bit of the same is sweet fiery Ariel herself—whose story, looked at a certain way, revolves almost entirely around her self-transformation.

I want to take a second and talk about the little mermaid’s voice, because it’s such an important part of her character and, well, we’re also talking about Harry Styles here, so. In the original version of The Little Mermaid as well as in the majority of subsequent adaptations, the mermaid/Ariel, of course, is in possession of the most beautiful voice anyone has ever heard, and yeah, well—hi, Harry. Yeah hey buddy we see you there. Said not to brag or anything but.

Because my brain needs very clear bullet points to keep track of things, before we go there, we have:

H identifying himself with the symbol of the mermaid in more than one way—tattoo, “I am a mermaid”, on and on—and also—

H working aquatic and/or oceanic elements all throughout his music and accompanying visuals, paired often with—

Themes of exploring/developing the self, or the self being split in half, having distinct parts even though it’s one whole; the self breaking apart or fragmenting.

We also have the idea of the mermaid being linked heavily with queer/transgender experiences of self-inquiry and transformation.

With all this as context, I think it’s important to talk about the fact that one of the more polarizing things about the mermaid as a symbol has to do with that gorgeous voice she almost always has: the whole ~siren call~* deal, the whole—ohhhh help me I’m a helpless man and this mermaid’s voice is so beautiful that I’m gonna literally throw myself into the sea and drown myself for it and then I’m gonna blame her for the fact that I died because I was being a horny idiot, bad scary evil feminine mystique mermaid—the sexist deeply harmful wicked-woman-seduced-me shtick that’s been weaponized against women and femmes for as long as the idea of the mermaid—or just of the capital-W Woman, really—has been around. And though I won’t go too into it here because I don’t want to describe something that’s already so painful in too gratuitous detail, it’s been well documented that this notion has particularly and especially violent consequences for trans women specifically.

Despite these negative connotations, though, I think there’s still a lot here that’s really valuable, really beautiful, and really queer. A siren call is something that draws you in irresistibly, right, something you can’t ignore no matter how hard you try—and there’s a lot more to that than just Woman’s manipulation/destruction of Man, especially if we’re doing a queer reading. Like. If you think about things that pull you in, things you can’t turn your back on, things you encounter and have to follow, things that deeply speak to you—then, I don’t know, I’d think the mermaid’s beautiful voice or siren call would really only be frightening, would only feel dangerous enough to require demonization, were it heard with the ears of a Man (capital M, meaning The Man, repressive heteronormative antihuman patriarchy, etc) who didn't or couldn't understand it, or whose existence was at odds with it. What is said by a voice that something in you recognizes as true—and how it’s said, and what it does to you, how it pulls on you—that’s only threatening if you’ve been trying to silence the part of you that has the ability to hear and respond to that voice, or if you’re afraid to give in to what it’s asking you to do; only if you’ve been somehow convinced, for some reason (like the way that the world force-feeds us homophobia and transphobia), that the natural place to which the voice draws you is somewhere you should not go, or will harm you. I read the mermaid’s siren call as another confirmation of her queerness: this voice, this current, that slowly and with such certainty calls you toward some new way of being, surrounded in water at the bottom of the sea. When you know, you know.

I was listening to Fine Line while writing the first draft of this, after watching Harry sing it so beautifully in that beautiful pink and blue—and I had a little half-baked thought that the voice that goes ~weeeeeeeeeeeoooooooooo~ at the beginning and end of that song—I don’t know, I just was in this mermaid brainspace and I thought it sounded a little like a siren call? So you can imagine the volume of the squeeeeeeeee screech sound I made out of my stupid mouth when I saw that Ella also heard this.

Like, I don’t know. Maybe the end of Fine Line is just an ooooo and we’ve both just got mermaids on the mind, but whatever that angelic descant is meant to evoke, I do know that now I’m going to think about this anytime I hear it: an echo of H, of me, of H’s audience, being called toward ourselves. This beautiful song about being a fine line between; about things that we’ll never know, testing patience, thoughts going to devotion sunshine temptress her; about we’ll be all right, all that emotion in his voice—framed at the beginning and end by this lovely unearthly cry, I just. It sounds like a siren to me. Trying to get me to listen—to H, to myself.

Tagging @swimmingleo’s recent She/Only Angel/Great Gig in the Sky post here too, where we sorta kinda maybe have another kind of like. Siren song thing happening, but Pink Floyd universe? Some beautiful wordless singing and some screaming and more than a few allusions to death (which, in this mermaid siren song context, would be connected with queer rebirth) and transformation read alongside a couple of H’s suspiciously gender-y songs—.

And a beaaaaaauuutiful recent mermaidy moodboard by @ialwaysknewyouwerepunk apparently I’m trying for a record for how many times I can mention you in one of these longass essays

Gay silence gif

When you clicked “Keep reading” above just a few minutes ago, you did unfortunately sign up to read a post that’s half about The Little Mermaid, so amidst all this, we do have to talk about the big elephant taking a splash bath in the proverbial ocean here: in both the original and the Disney versions of TLM, the little mermaid’s claim to fame is that she willingly gives up her ability to sing, to make a siren call. And it’s because she hears a call of her own: the idea of being human, of finding love; a need to belong, to understand herself, to be with those like her. In the movie, Ariel sees Eric and she just. She knows. The fact remains, though, that in order to do what her deepest self is asking of her, Ariel has to give up her voice. I don’t think the weight of that has been lost on anyone who’s ever seen the movie.

I don’t know. Just—that oh my god moment A has when she sees E on the boat? It’s always felt to me (and to many others) like it holds a lot more significance than just, like, silly teenage Ariel falling in love at first sight. Obviously A is romantically interested in E, but there’s also so much identification in the moment when she first sees him, like—wow wow wow he’s so beautiful I want to be like that, I am that, that’s me. I’m not just fascinated with humans from afar anymore; seeing this actual specific human and how beautiful he is has made me realize that I need to be a human myself. I favor reading this moment as much more about Ariel’s self-discovery (read: gender) than a romantic desire for Eric. And this is reflected in the original fable as well, almost even more: the little mermaid there spends a lot of time thinking about how, if she becomes a human, she will have a chance to gain an immortal soul. Her decision to become human no matter the danger or the cost is about her own self, and the way she wants to exist in the world.

And—*overshare sirens*—this feeling of Ariel’s here, this oh shit, that should be me— to be just entirely too frank with you all, I like to imagine it’s not dissimilar to the way I personally feel when I look at Harry wearing clothes I wish I could wear in a way I wish I could wear them. The way he appears in his own self being the way I’d live in mine, if I could choose. Which sometimes I feel is me projecting to uncomfortable heights but—it’s just. It’s so powerful to see someone who, for you, for so many reasons, embodies a possibility you didn’t know existed before, a choice you didn’t know you could make.

The little mermaid is often decried as a regressive antifeminist figure for the fact that (as she reaches for what’s usually read as love/infatuation but what can be seen as something more like authenticity) she gives up her voice, of all things, to be with the prince/Eric—the main way that she is able to express herself and make herself known. But, god, if you look at it through a transgender lens, having her do that is brilliant. It’s less Ariel not valuing herself or her ability to speak and more—the little mermaid going into her transformation fully understanding that she might not be understood by the society she’s trying so hard to enter, that she needs to enter because she belongs there, it’s who she is; it’s more Ariel identifying with Eric and knowing she should be with him, knowing she should be embraced and accepted by humans, but also knowing this will be extremely difficult, because human society is cruel and transphobic, to the point that entrance into it requires the literal loss of her voice; it’s that the price she will be made to pay for what she is doing is heartrendingly, unfairly high, but her need to be true to herself is even higher. Seen this way, the problem—or the tragedy—lies less with Ariel’s choice to give up her ability to speak, and more with the fact that the humans can’t hear her.

Here’s where I start to be one of those people who says that Disney is, like, really deep actually

It’s not difficult at all to link all that to the silencing and closeting of queer people, the way the world limits and shames queer expression. Which, then, creates the necessity of hiding. Queercoding. Talking by not talking. Saying by not saying. Admission of queerness becomes a matter of omission and demonstration; queer silence begins to say a whole hell of a lot.

And you know who actually knows a shitload about this—about how to navigate an uncomprehending prejudiced world, in queer silence—in the movie version? Ursula. Ursula, the outcast sister of king big man of the entire ocean Triton, who, sure, she’s the villain, she steals Ariel’s voice and almost kills her yes ok but also—Ursula is the one who teaches Ariel how to perform her (human) gender, right before her transformation. She prepares her. She tells Ariel that, you know what, actually, speaking isn’t all that important, being seen as desirable to your ~princey poo is really all about body language, signaling. It’s all in how you perform your femininity. Give ‘em what they want, girl. Gender is performance. Thank you Ursula slash Judith Butler slash Divine, legendary drag queen Divine, on whom Ursula’s character was based, yes I shit myself when I learned that one. And—performance: god what a loaded and multifaceted term that would appear to be for someone like Harry.

Just, like. This animated octopus lady is so damn powerful to me bitch. If you look at Ursula’s character in a certain light, she’s literally—literally she is telling Ariel: you can’t use the voice that allows you to communicate with heteronormative society to become known. It won’t work. You won’t be able to prove yourself to them on their terms. But there’s a different way—many, as a matter of fact, and finding them where they are, outside the bounds of how you’ve been told you have to exist all your life, is literally life-and-death for you.

In a way, she’s saying something that sounds a little like: despite the silence that the world demands of queer people, despite the violence of that, there are ways to be known. There are ways to become known to one another, and to ourselves—and they are a matter of our survival.

POV you came here for Harry content and you’re getting a weirdly in depth emotional rant about The Little Mermaid

Second to last thing on TLM, swear. The ending. I’m gonna stick with the movie here, because the ending of the fairytale version is much darker, and less relevant, I think, to anything I can in good conscience compare to what I can see of mermaidrry’s experience.

The ending of TLM…… has always felt so unsatisfying to me. And really, I think that’s the point. That article linked above (worth a read, go do that if you haven’t already) points out that Ariel and Eric, power couple, are the ones who team up to kill Ursula (in a very phallic and dramatic way, mind, they spear her with a ship) and set Triton back on his throne as the ruler of the sea—effectively, reinstating the heteropatriarchy that Ursula destabilized by helping Ariel fulfill her desire to transcend her mermaidness and become human. Heteronormative patriarchal norm-setter lookin ass manlymanman King Triton then finally signs off on Ariel’s marriage to Eric, and it’s supposed to be happy because Ariel’s got her voice back and she’s got her man and she thinks she’s got everything she wants and there’s a rainbow even and it looks great—but the thing is, Ariel’s marrying a figurehead of patriarchal male power herself. Eric’s actually the one who drives the bow of the ship into Ursula and takes her out, Ariel’s in more of a supporting role—so he kills Ariel’s mentor, in a way, her predecessor, the one who literally taught her about the concept of gendered performance; Ariel helps him do it; and then Ariel marries him. And Ariel’s father, who originally forbid her from having anything to do with humans at all, co-signs on it—is like, yeah, great, go ahead and be human and marry this prince who murdered my sister/rival and gave me back full control of the ocean, that’s fine by me sure. Ariel’s rebellion and transformation, in short, is given a stamp of approval by mainstream human AND mermaid society both, and that’s— actually maybe kind of a sinister thing, here.

Look at Triton, man. Look at him right front and center there, his approval highlighted so we absolutely can’t miss it.

To me, just. This whole thing: it’s a deviation from repressive heteropatriarchal rules—a defiance of them, really—being softened enough that the heteropatriarchy can swallow it. It’s the connections between H’s work and queerness being wrapped up in narrative after narrative after narrative so that his image will still appeal to as many people as possible, and make as much money as possible, no matter how many rainbow flags he waves. (I’m hearing put a price on emotion; man I can hate you sometimes; I don’t want to sleep in the dirt.) It’s the way society bends and gives and accedes to certain parts of queer expression so that it can learn how to suppress it better next time, take advantage of it better next time, even more surreptitiously and cleverly; it’s homophobia and transphobia behind a mask of acceptance, or of enthusiasm, even. It’s the way the world uses one single breath to both praise and condemn Harry for being, by all appearances, more expressive of more parts of himself. How they love it when he’s camp, yet hate the daring and, frankly, subversive idea of living by a kindness that is both a) deeper than the prevailing norms of homophobic society can tolerate and b) very queer that’s so present in his music, so just there, if you’re listening for it, open to hearing it. The world a lost sailor, in a way: drawn in by H’s voice, and villainizing him for how he sings, what he sings; where his voice calls to.

Princes and glittery dresses and meeting yourself

I want to end by returning to an idea I think I mentioned first in the section on Harry and water—the unification of the self, the mermaid image being made of two distinct elements (fish, human) that come together to form a more cohesive whole, an entirely new being.

This, of course, tracks when we think about Ariel: as a human, Ariel’s entire body— in a queer reading, her gender— fits her better. We see that visually in the sparkly dress that Ella pointed out—and in the fact that with Eric, she’s feels she belongs: I’m about to do that dumb thing I do again where I read a couple as actually a representation of one person’s self and say that we’re seeing two parts of Ariel’s self being united in this sweet moment at the end when she emerges from the sea and Eric finally recognizes her.

If we’re reading Eric and Ariel as halves of one whole mermaid here, then it’s insane to me that for the longest in the movie, Eric doesn’t recognize Ariel as the mysterious woman who saved him—who he’s in love with and has been searching for, even as Ariel herself tries so hard to show him that it’s her you dumb bitch it’s heerrrrr—and literally the only reason that he doesn’t GET it is because he can’t hear Ariel speak, he doesn’t have the tools to know her. He doesn’t know who or where this lifesaving ethereal voice he’s dreaming about is, even though she’s right in front of him, because he doesn’t have the capacity to understand her presence or who she is or what she means to him, and my brain is just going sounds like She, sounds like She bitch that’s She—like god this mf is really searching for Ariel The. Whole. Time. And longing so badly to hear her voice, and she’s right there in his face, and he can’t see it because he doesn’t know how to know her, she doesn’t speak in a way he’s used to hearing, sounds like She bitch I don’t know who she is bit ch and also....... two halves in two bodies, two entities representing a whole self....... hello Adore You fish boy mermaid music video. Hello selves in two parts coming together and then splitting apart and then coming together again. Hello meeting new parts of yourself and finally, finally understanding them and falling in love with them, following them out to sea, following them out of the sea.

And this is also so interesting to me because like I mentioned earlier—that’s Eric that Ariel’s with there, that’s Prince Eric™, Ursula-killer Eric. He does symbolize, I think, when paired with little mermaid herself, a truer expression of Ariel’s queer identity. But he also, like I said, axed the mentor who taught Ariel that gender is a performance in the first place, which. Problematic. And: for him to see her...... she had to talk. His way.

How I see this: there’s something life-giving and beautiful in the love between Ariel’s two parts of herself—her gendered energies, if you’ll allow me the binaristic thinking for a moment—despite the fact that both (the Ariel half, the Eric half) are entirely surrounded in and partially shaped by patriarchy. Ursula saying things like what she says to Ariel about performance and gender threatens the norms underlying Eric’s power, so she has to die; and Ariel helps Eric kill her—in pursuit of her full self, sure, but she still does. We can’t gloss over that. E and A love one another, and they belong together, and now that they are together Ariel is closer to a fuller, queerer way of being—and so much about them will always exist in the context of antiqueer patriarchy. All of that can be true at the same time. There can be a true and solid core to self-love and self-expression, and there can also be a lot of contextual difficulties and paradoxes to navigate when it comes to actually living out these elusive things. One of the reasons I love Harry’s music so so so so much is that it so often feels to me like it’s so frank about this sentiment—though, again, what I see in H’s music is more a reflection of me than it is of him, because he’s the only one who will ever have the authority to say what’s really there.

Importantly, I don’t at all mean to say that trying to locate a relationship to the body or to gender that does feel like it fits is a futile thing, or isn’t possible or real or worth it—it absolutely is. It’s just, so often, so difficult. And complicated: I find that along my own strange little way, parts of me have tried to silence other parts of myself that shouldn’t be silenced; parts of myself haven’t recognized me; parts of myself, most frighteningly, have even asked me to profoundly transform. It is, I imagine—I’ve said this before, but: a little like learning to live underwater might be? A little like becoming a mermaid without drowning—holding out long enough to see all the beauty around you when you finally take your first breath of water.

I don’t know. I’m just grateful, as always, to ever-thoughtful, mermaid-dress-wearing Harry—for the depth of his art, for the depth of his patience, for his oceanic fearlessness.

Far out in the sea the water is as blue as the petals of the loveliest of cornflowers and as clear as the clearest glass, but it is very deep, deeper than any anchor-cable can reach, and many church towers would have to be placed on top of each other to stretch from the sea-bed to the surface.

Down there the sea-folk live.

-Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid

#rambles #mermaidrry #this is so much #this is so long #not a one of you asked for this #but #you are all my captive audience and you have to put up with this shit from me now #we're gonna #tw homophobia #tw transphobia #this one just to be safe here

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kinetic-elaboration · 2 years ago

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July 25: Nope (Thoughts)

Wrote up some notes on Nope earlier today. I was just trying to get down any scattered thought I could find, and then as I got more into it, the notes became more coherent. This definitely isn’t everything; I saw a lot of stuff from other people that was interesting, but I only added it in if it connected to some original thought of mine. Anyway, there may or may not be more to this as I think more on the film.

Lots of spoilers below.

Themes:

Viewing/Seeing/Being Seen & Its Relation to Consumption

The two ‘sides’ seem to be in a race, to see who can see the other without first being seen. The Haywoods want to capture the alien on screen, to prove that they have seen it. If they succeed, the alien will be available for ‘public consumption.’ The alien needs to see its victims to eat them. If it succeeds…it gets to eat.

The need to see as in understand is dangerous in and of itself. The auteur in search of the perfect shot is swallowed up by the alien. The TMZ reporter is more concerned about ‘the shot’ than his own physical safety. Jupe’s reckless viewing kills everyone at his theme park.

To avoid being eaten, one cannot look at the alien. Calls back to the Medusa, or to Orpheus and Eurydice: tales where breaking down and looking, perceiving, lead to ruin and death.

Animals, Animal Training, and Exploitation

OJ explains this one pretty straightforwardly: people who treat animals without respect will face violent consequences. Animals are wild, and they can never be fully trained. To ‘train’ an animal is to ‘learn its rules’ and then to respect those rules. The people on the commercial set startle the horse, in a way that was completely predictable and about which they were warned, and the horse got scared and reared. The actors in Gordy’s House antagonized the chimp with the balloons, and he went wild. Yet people can co exist with and even work with animals by respecting them and their needs.

What to make of the concept of ‘breaking’ an animal? The auteur wants to break the alien and compares it to breaking a horse, and there was something in that flashback with OJ and Otis Sr. about a horse that would not be broken (I don’t remember this well).

Ultimately, they survive by playing by the alien’s rules, but they never ‘tame’ it in any way. They capture it (on film) and they destroy it.

I feel like there’s a lot about exploitation in this film but that I’m not seeing it clearly. Obviously getting an alien on film and making money off of showing this proof to the world is ‘exploiting’ a being/animal. The Haywoods’ ancestor was exploited: he never got proper credit for his contribution to early film, and in a sense they ‘exploit’ his memory to this day; it’s a big part of their pitch and advertising.

Gazing on Trauma

(I’m proud of this one because I came up with it all on my own!)

Obviously trauma is a big part of Jupe’s story: the horrible experience of watching Gordy kill and maim his co-stars seems to be with him as strongly 15+ years later as if it had happened yesterday. He has two separate flashbacks of the event in the movie, and at the second, his wife uses what appears to be a well-worn calming technique to bring him back down. He’s also integrated this famous incident into his public persona–it’s something he exploits for profit, as much as his Western film experience.

Strikingly, he rarely (except for the flashbacks, which appear to be involuntary) ‘looks’ the traumatic experience in the eye. He’s always mediating it through art, parody, preservation. His hidden museum, close to his office but unseen, all the relics in glass. The Mad magazine cover. The SNL sketch–that one really struck me even in the theater, because Em is specifically asking him about his experience; she’s going right to the source for information, but he only goes on at length about the parody version of the events. It’s awkward and it made me feel like, well what’s the point? When are you going to get to the REAL thing? He simply can’t. The real thing makes him go blank, and he has to turn away from it.

The massacre scene is the very first one in the movie, and it’s followed by the death of Otis Sr. They don’t take place at the same time, and Otis Sr.’s death is much closer chronologically to the main story than the massacre in the TV studio. Yet the two are placed closely together and separated from all that comes after by the title card. Together, the scenes are a prologue.

They are the original traumatic events that the characters are dealing with–confronting, turning away from, reeling from, glancing at, reliving. It’s less obvious with the Haywoods, but perhaps this is because they are primarily turning away. OJ remembers his father specifically only once: another vivid flashback, that provides him with information he uses to defeat the alien. He and Em have only one conversation about their father and their past. OJ keeps the nickel that killed his father pinned to his wall: a metonymic representation of him only. Are they looking away from their own mourning? To what extent does their father haunt the narrative? They are very close to losing the ranch: Jupe wants to buy it; Em sees it as her side gig; OJ can’t run the business by himself and has already resorted to selling horses to Jupe. There is a sense of a family, and a family legacy, crumbling, precipitated by the father’s death. Unpreserved.

If the alien represents these traumatic events, and gazing directly at it leads to one’s own death, is the lesson not to directly confront one’s painful past? Maybe. But the characters DO want to perceive. They want to perceive so badly that they will risk death. They also want to capture, control, tame. The trick is to find a way to perceive and understand without getting sucked into an abyss from which you can never retreat. OJ makes the point that Jupe tried to control the wild animal without understanding it, and that they have to approach it in a different way. Jupe’s manner of confronting his pain isn’t working. But he is ultimately trying to do the same thing the Haywoods are.

One thing that makes the Haywoods’ attempts to perceive/capture the beast successful is that they have each other. In their worst moments, they see each other; they look each other in the eye. The last shot of the film is OJ appearing to Em out of the mist; her attention isn’t on the reporters (fame) she’s been chasing or on the Oprah shot she’s finally captured. It’s their relationship that saves them literally and figuratively.

#the year 2022 #2022: fandom thoughts #2022: movies

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alt-rose · 4 years ago

Text

waste love - colson baker

colson baker imagine

waste love - you’re in a bad relationship, and your ex, colson, is there for you.

word count: 5.9K (tis a lot)

WARNINGS: domestic abuse (lowkey kinda graphic), f-bombs?

please don’t read if this is a trigger in anyway, shape, or form for you.

long story short, your boyfriend was kind of a dick. everyone knew that. your friend and co-worker, Pete had told you multiple times that your boyfriend Trevor was a pretentious asshole. even your ex, Colson, disliked him, but he honestly disliked everyone you dated.

you had called it quits with Colson right before Eminem’s Kamikaze came for him. you blamed it on lifestyle differences, but in the end, you couldn’t handle him getting wasted every night. you told him that you felt like he was constantly choosing drugs and booze over you, and looking back on it, Colson had to admit that you were right. you had a right to end it, but that didn’t dismiss the feelings you felt for each other.

for Pete’s sake, you and Colson remained friends. together, the two of you helped Pete through his breakup with AG and his struggle with his mental health. however, your friendship began to dwindle after a few months. the guys started to notice you slipping away from them when you started dating Trevor.

Trevor was appealing at first. he had a stable job as a manager for a production company. he stayed out of the party scene for the most part. at the beginning of your relationship, you felt like coming home to him was a break from the world. with your busy career as a cast member on SNL, you worked long and late hours, leaving you with two options: you could let yourself fall prey to the temptations that the New York nightlife had to offer, or you could go home. you tended to choose the latter and having someone to go home to made things less lonely.

by the third month, things had taken a turn. you had pulled away from your friendships, turning down opportunities to go out with them during the week. Trevor didn’t like you going out without him. you stopped talking to Pete and Colson for the most part, but you still saw Pete at work. Trevor didn’t like you hanging out with them. it even got to the point that Trevor didn’t like you talking about them so for your sake, you cut them out of your life.

for Colson and Pete, it was a blow. they missed you, and over the course of your relationship, they watched you change. the style of clothes you wore had changed. you traded in your mini skirts for jeans or loose-fitting pants; your dresses were more modest, always covering your arms and shoulders. you started wearing more jackets and turtlenecks. your skin was always covered, which is not to say that you walked around practically naked before. you were just less daring with your clothing choices now. even your makeup had changed. you were like a reformed version of yourself, looking more reserved compared to your usually expressive self.

unknown to them, you had something to hide. the jackets and turtlenecks weren’t because you were ‘always so cold’ like you’d tell people when they asked. you stopped with your makeup because you already spent so much time covering up bruises in the morning that you would run out of time to do anything else.

Trevor not only was possessive and controlling, but he also had a temper. it wasn’t that bad at first. it started with the comments. he’d comment on your hair. he’d comment on your makeup and clothes. you brushed them off at first because you were an independent woman who could look how ever she wanted to look. the comments were then accompanied by cheap insults taking shots at your insecurities. your tough exterior began to crumble at that when you began to doubt your looks and appearance. your confidence had faded. the last straw was when he had yelled at you for the first time. you were going to a banquet for his work, and he screamed at you for the dress you had chosen to wear, it was just a simple black dress that you thought was a safe option. he thought otherwise. he said you looked ridiculous, pointing out that it made your arms look flabby and that it gave you back fat. you offered to change, but he screamed at your even more, telling you that you were already running late so you would just have to go in what you were wearing. you cried to yourself in the bathroom as you struggled to fix your makeup.

ever since then, you made changes to your appearance because he was right. you started dieting. you stopped wearing your fun and creative makeup because Trevor said you looked childish. you started dressing tamer, only in sweaters and jeans. your spirit was dwindling away.

the first time he hit you was after the Tuesday night host dinner had run late. you were out later than you usually were, and Trevor had accused you of cheating on him. you of course yelled back at him, defending yourself. he responded by swiftly smacking your head into your pantry door and calling you a “lying bitch.” your head rung, and you pulled yourself away from him. you kicked him out that night, only for him to come crawling back to you in the morning with flowers and an apology. he seemed sincere so you accepted the apology, and he told you that he loved you.

the vicious cycle repeated for months. you’d be all lovey-dovey. you were happy, and he was kind. then, something would happen, most likely something small or insignificant that would set him off. then, he’d be angry. you’d fight. he would hit you. you would kick him out, or he would quickly apologize. then, you were in this weird period of walking on eggshells around him while he acted like nothing happened. then, he would do something sweet for you, like buying you a pretty piece of jewelry or making you a fancy dinner. then, you’d be the lovey-dovey couple that you were.

the things that set Trevor off the most was when you would support your friends. Pete had his movies out, and you wanted to watch them to support him. Trevor had caught you watching The Dirt, the movie that sparked Pete and Colson’s friendship, after it had been released to Netflix. Trevor was pissed. he claimed that you were still harboring feelings for you ex. you had argued that you no longer had feelings for the rapper/actor, but Trevor didn’t believe you. in his anger, he ripped the remote from your hand and had thrown it into your TV, shattering it in the process. the next morning, he took you out to buy a new TV, letting you pick it out so he could pay for it. you had learned your lesson from that one. you couldn’t have anything to do with Colson.

the summer was rough for your relationship with Trevor. without the stable routine that you had established with him when you were working at SNL, he began to spiral out of control. now that you were working on two films and couldn’t be in the city all the time, Trevor began to lash out at you to gain some sense of control over you. he grew violent and possessive, and you were grateful when you could travel without him.

at some point, you had ended up at Colson’s album party for Hotel Diablo. you had spent the night out with your friends, finally getting to party with Pete and Colson after months of never getting to see much of them. as strange as it may seem, the man of the hour had himself glued to your side the entire night. he brought you drinks and followed you around instead of celebrating with all of his friends. he danced with you like he had on your 21st birthday, the night that had started your relationship with him. later into the night, he sat with you as you lounged on one of the pool chairs in the backyard of the house that you were partying at. you started making smile conversation with him, now that you could hear yourself think.

“how are things?” you asked staring up at the sky.

“getting better, I guess,” Colson responded.

that night he told you about his dad’s prognosis, and you held his hand as you listened to him talk. he listened to you gush about the projects you were working on, and you listened to him go on and on about how proud he was of Casie. you laughed as he told you stories about the things he and his bandmates had done.

by the end of the night, it was safe to say that you didn’t regret going to that party. you didn’t think of Trevor once the entire night, and you felt free. however, problems started to arise once the party had ended. Colson had offered to drive you back to your hotel since he didn’t feel comfortable sending you off in an uber by yourself. you let him take you since he was sober. the two of you had stopped drinking about an hour into the party, and it was about 4 in the morning now.

Colson had his hand on your shoulder as he led you to his purple Aston Martin. you covered eyes as cameras flashed as the two of you left the party. the paparazzi had found you.

Colson quickly opened the passenger door for you, blocking the paparazzi’s view of you as you slid into his car. once you were safely seated inside, Colson closed your door before quickly making it to the driver’s side. he chuckled as he watched you turn on your heated seat and plug your phone into the aux, just like you had done when the two of you were dating.

when the two of you arrived at your hotel, Colson took your hand in his.

“I’m glad you came,” he softly told you before placing his lips delicately on the back of your hand, a gesture that was foreign to you after the past few months.

“I’m glad I came too,” you whispered to him.

your faces were so close together that if you took a deep breath, your lips would be pressed against his. part of you wanted to kiss him, and part of him wanted to kiss you. however, you pulled away before you could. you weren’t a cheater.

“promise me you’ll take care of yourself?” his eyes softly gazed over your features.

he could tell that you were wasting away. despite your carefree attitude tonight, he knew that you had changed. your independent, badass attitude had diminished over time, and he only hoped that you would take care of yourself so you could return to the girl that he used to know.

you only gave him a nod before turning your eyes away from him. turning the conversation back on him, you squeezed his hand.

“I’m really proud of you, Cols,” you smiled to him. “I can’t wait to hear your album.”

he murmured a response to you before placing another kiss on the back of your hand. with that, you had pulled yourself from his car, giving him a small wave as you entered through the glass doors of your hotel.

the next morning, you were on a plane heading back to New York. even though you were broken up and you were with someone else, the pain of missing Colson was still there. it was like something deep in your soul was crying out for him.

this trip was a breath of fresh air for you, and you had clarity now. deep down, you knew one thing to be true: you would rather have a little bit of Colson in your life than not have him at all. you didn’t realize how bad your situation was back in New York until you had an outside perspective. with Colson, you had people who loved you for who you were. no one tried to change you. no one tried to tell you what to do. they accepted you for the person you were, and they loved you unconditionally.

you needed those people in your life. Trevor, you realized, was not one of those people. he had done nothing but feed you lies about yourself that made you doubt your self-worth. he never treated you with respect, and every time he told you that he loved was like a punch in the face. it hurt worse than the ones with his fist.

stepping off the airplane in New York, you knew what you had to do. you had to breakup with him, and if you managed to survive, you promised yourself that you would never let yourself fall prey to a man like that ever again.

with your luggage in hand, you made your way to the pickup line, where Trevor was waiting for you. he insisted that he would pick you up, even though you told him that you could just take a cab.

“hi,” you smiled to him after you placed you bags in the trunk.

he only gave you a nod of acknowledgement as you closed your door. the air felt thick. your smile faltered the longer you stared at him. you watched his movements carefully. he roughly turned the keys, starting the car. his knuckles were white as they gripped the steering wheel. his other hand picked at his lips. he did that when he was pissed, and it put you on edge.

he began to drive, only addressing you once you were stopped at a red light.

“how was the party?”

your blood ran cold. how did he know?

“what party?” you laughed lightly, trying to brush him off.

“DON’T.” he slammed his hands on the top of the steering wheel before looking over at you. “DON’T FUCKING play dumb with me. I saw the pictures. did you fuck him? did you let him fuck you?”

“NO,” you shouted back at him.

his fist slammed your head into the cool glass of the window. your head rung as tears prickled in your eyes.

“you’re such a bitch, you know that?”

you watched the road in front of you. the light turned green. the lights around you blurred, and you let your head rest against the window. the tears ran down your face.

you said no word to Trevor when you arrived at your building. you grabbed your bag and quickly made your way into the building. Trevor quickly caught up with you, roughly placing a hand on your arm.

as you stepped off the elevator, you ripped yourself from his arm before making it to your front door. before you could unlock it, Trevor had you pinned with his hand secured tightly around your neck.

your eyes bulged as you gasped for breath. you began to kick at him, until he let you go. you stumbled into your apartment getting as far away from him as possible.

“I want to breakup,” you rasped holding your throat.

“why? because you love him more than you love me?” Trevor laughed throwing his keys on your counter.

“no, you’re a monster.”

he seethed as he moved to close the gap between the two of you. he roughly snatched you by your arms pulling you close.

“you are not leaving me,” he growled. “you’re mine.”

“I am not yours,” you grunted out as you struggled to pull away from him.

with all of his force, Trevor tossed you to the floor. your shoulder slammed into the floor as you landed on your arm funny. pain began to splinter from your shoulder before echoing throughout your body. you moved to sit up, clutching your arm, as his boot collided with your ribs.

you gasped for air. your lungs burned. you took blow after blow, barely listening to the cruel words he shouted at you.

once he finally thought you were down, he turned his back to you. you had somehow managed to pull yourself up from the floor, swiping the bat that you kept hidden under your couch. with your weak arm, you swung at him, only landing a small blow to his back. he stumbled before taking you by your throat and shoving you into the fish tank on the small cabinet you kept in the hallway.

you heard the glass crank from the force of your body. Trevor had thrown you to the floor, and the fish tank came crashing down on top of you. you laid on the floor, covered in glass and dirty fish water. you watched Trevor’s boots as they made their way to the door. he spit in your direction before calling you a slut. the door slammed shut behind him.

your vision began to blur as you watched your beloved fish, the two angelfish that Colson and Pete had bought you, begging you to name them both after them, flop against your hardwood floor.

you opened your eyes, wincing at the brightness of your kitchen light. you were disoriented. you felt a buzzing in your pocket. gently moving your arm, you pulled your phone from your pocket.

Pete’s contact picture flashed across your screen, announcing an incoming call from him. you accepted the call before moving the phone to your ear.

“hey girl,” you heard Pete’s voice flood through your phone. “whaddup?”

Pete could hear your raspy, heavy breathing coming through the phone. whatever he was planning on talking to you about was long forgotten now.

“(y/n/n), are you okay? what’s wrong?” Pete gently asked through the phone.

his heart beat loudly in your chest as he heard your sobs.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered to him. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“(y/n), what did you do?” Pete began to scramble out of bed, looking for the spare apartment key you gave him. “where are you?”

“I’m at my apartment. I love you, Pete.” your speech was slurring. “tell Cols. tell him too.”

Pete called your name through the phone waiting for you response, but he was met with none. he called 911 as he ran from his apartment, catching a cab to your building.

the police had made it there before he had. damn, traffic. he stood at your apartment door as he watched the paramedics set you on a stretcher. you had an oxygen mask placed over your mouth and nose, and a paramedic began to tie a tourniquet around your thigh, above the shard of glass that impaled you when the fish tank fell.

as they rolled you out, Pete followed, holding the hand on your bad arm. your eyes found his face as the paramedics took you into the elevator.

“Pete,” you sighed, moving the oxygen mask away from you with your good arm.

“I’m here,” he nodded to you, stroking your wet hair. “who did this?”

you barely whispered Trevor’s name before you blacked out once more.

the second time you woke up, you were laying in a hospital bed. your body burned from the pain. your head buzzed. your neck was stiff. your lungs burned as you tried to breathe. your leg throbbed, and a shooting pain erupted from your shoulder. it took you a moment to focus your eyes, but you found your parents sitting in your room with you.

Pete had called them after the doctors rushed you into surgery for your shoulder. he also called the Mulaney’s, who had become your second set of parents. they were someone for you to rely on while you lived in New York City all alone. you could call them at any hour, and John and Anna would be at your beck and call, whether it was shopping for furniture or getting dinner. Pete felt like they would want to know.

he contemplated calling Colson, but today was his album release. Pete knew that part of you would be angry at him for bothering Colson, but he also knew that Colson would be even more upset with him if he didn’t call him. So, Pete made the call, only after you were out of surgery. your parents had arrived about a half an hour after your surgery had ended, and Colson was doing everything he could to get to New York.

you were kept overnight, but they planned on releasing you the next evening, making sure that nothing ended up infected and that your pain was manageable. your parents were out cold on the couch in your room. Pete occupied the chair next to your bed. your parents lied to the hospital staff, telling them that Pete was your brother. you could tell that the nurses didn’t believe them for a second, but no one wanted to argue with them. Pete was grateful that they let him stay, even after visiting hours had ended. after the state he saw you in just a few hours before, he didn’t feel comfortable leaving you.

from your spot in your bed, you watched Pete as he attempted to dose off with his head hanging awkwardly over the back of the chair. you saw his eyes pop open as if he could feel you staring at him.

“hey,” he whispered sitting up and stretching his neck out. “how long have you been awake?”

“not sure,” you whispered back as you picked at the hem of the thin hospital sheets you were given.

“what are you thinking about?” he asked leaning forward to rest his folded hands on your bed.

he could tell that you were deep in thought.

“I’m think about a restraining order.”

Pete gave you a small laugh.

“after the amount of evidence, the police gather from your apartment, he might even do a bit of time.”

“I don’t really care if he does time. I just want him gone, and I want him to pay for the stuff he broke,” you told him, moving your eyes away from the frayed hem in front of you.

“he will. (y/n/n) will get him to pay for all of it.”

he gently patted the top of your hand resting on the pillow the nurses placed it on to help your shoulder heal. taking a moment to flick through the tv, you grew frustrated before landing on an old concert playing on one of the channels.

“have you listened to it?” you asked turning to Pete.

“listened to what?” Pete asked glancing over at you.

“Cols’ album.”

“Ah, yeah,” Pete sighed sitting back in his chair. “it’s a banger.”

“he did good?”

“fuck yeah, Colson always does good.”

“good,” you sighed leaning your head back on the mountain of pillows.

“have you not listened to it yet?”

you shook your head.

“from the flight and Trevor, I didn’t get a chance.”

“I can play it for you,” Pete said sitting back up. “do you want me to grab some headphones or something?”

“no,” you said stretching your fingers out to stop him. “you can just play it out loud. I don’t want to listen to it alone.”

with that, Pete opened his phone before setting it on the table by the side of your bed. he hit play on the first track, adjusting the volume so that it was loud enough to listen to without bothering your sleeping parents.

you closed your eyes, letting the music surround you. you listened to the powerful lyrics in el Diablo and Hollywood Whore, taking in the struggles he had to face after the hate that came for him.

the opening to Glass House had tears prickling your eyes. you squeezed Pete’s hand as Colson sang the part about Nipsey and him. the first set of tears had slipped from your eyes. the tears were falling freely from your eyes when Colson sang about Peep, Mac, and Chester. you could feel his pain through the words he spoke. in this piece, he was completely vulnerable, open, sharing the darkness in his life and the loneliness he felt.

“I didn't sign up to be the hero but I don't want to wind up a villain. I put my daughter to bed then attempted to kill myself in the kitchen. Yeah, I should've screamed, but nobody listened. So I passed out with the blood dripping. In this glass house, feeling like a prison.”

your breath hitched in your throat. Pete squeezed your hand before pressing his forehead to your head. you let out a few quiet sobs. the emotions from the day were crashing down on you. you were exhausted. you were fucking terrified, and you wanted nothing more than to call Colson. you wanted to hear his voice. you wanted to know that he was okay, even though you had seen him just the night before.

“I think we should stop,” Pete whispered gently to you as you broke down.

“no,” you told him. your voice thick with tears. “I want to keep listening.”

“okay, okay,” he whispered, stroking your hair.

the two of you listened to Burning Memories, your heart clenched at the words he sang about his mother. A Message from the Count caught you by surprise, and you and Pete laughed gently at him and Colson messing around. the break from the heavy stuff was much needed, and your spirits were slightly better. you nodded along to Floor 13. you felt like the song was an appropriate response to the hate he received after Killshot, and you were proud of him for it. a small smile appeared on your face as you heard Casie’s outro for the song.

somewhere in the middle of the Truck Norris interlude, your parents had woken up. they gave you and Pete weird looks as they saw the position the two of you were in. Pete was awkwardly hunched over, resting his head against yours as the two of you bobbed along to Hotel Diablo.

Death in My Pocket had you in tears again. the rawness of the lyrics made your heart clench. you could feel his sadness through the lyrics about his aunt, father, and his relationship with his father. it reminded you of the conversation the two of you had the other night by the pool.

Candy was a bop to say the least, and you knew that that was going to be a fun song to perform. part of you couldn’t wait to see Colson perform on tour, but you knew that you should probably keep your distance from him for now.

Waste Love was another one that surprised you. the lyrics echoed your breakup from almost a year ago. you moved your head away from Pete, looking at him from your peripheral. your reaction had Pete lightly laughing.

“I knew it,” he nodded at you.

“shut up,” you whispered back at him.

your mom shot her head up at the two of you quietly bickering.

“what?” she asked, causing the two of you to snap your heads in her direction.

“NOTHING.”

Sunday afternoon, you sat on the edge of your hospital bed. the nurses helped you and your mom as your mom tried to help you get dressed. now, you sat with your hair pulled back loosely in a scrunchie, wearing a very large pair of sweatpants and sweatshirt that Pete had snagged from his apartment earlier that morning. your arm rested in a sling since you ended up dislocating your shoulder. your thigh was wrapped up, but you could still manage to limp on it. those were your two major injuries. other than that, you only had a few cuts and bruises.

the police had arrested Trevor last night, and as far as you knew, he was still locked up. you were relieved that you didn’t have to worry about him anymore.

now, you were waiting to be discharged so that you could go back to your apartment.

“ready to go?” your dad asked extending a hand to help you into the wheelchair.

you nodded to him, and with that, a nurse wheeled you to the exit with Pete and your parents following behind. your dad ran to get the rental car that your parents had picked up that morning. they didn’t really want to take a cab back to your apartment.

when you got back to your building, you closed your eyes as your rode up the elevator. you had been silent the whole ride home, listening to your parents and Pete’s conversation. Pete and your dad held you under your arms to support you, so you didn’t have to put all of your weight on your bad leg. they helped you hobble to your door as your mom unlocked it.

inside you could hear the hum of one of your records playing on your record player. your mom set the keys in the bowl by the door as you unlatched yourself from your dad and Pete.

on the kitchen counter, you saw a bouquet of yellow roses sitting amongst a bunch of shattered glass. on the floor, you saw the water stain from your fish tank mixed with your blood stain. your eyes flicker with tears.

“shit, I’m sorry,” you heard a voice from the sink in your kitchen. “I meant to cover that up before you got back. I talked to your landlord. he’s got a guy to fix that.”

standing in front of you was one of the only people you wanted to see. your 6-foot-4 blond giant friend. he had gloves covering his hands, and a bucket was filling in your sink.

hobbling forward, you pressed your head into his chest as you balled your good fist into the fabric of his black t-shirt. you could hear Colson take the gloves off before he wrapped his arms around you. you sobbed into his chest as he lightly stroked your back.

Colson gave Pete and your parents a look. they gave him a small smile, and your mom mumbled something about finishing cleaning up. around you, your dad took the bucket from the sink before moving it to clean your blood from the floor. your mom vacuumed your couch cushions to make sure there was no glass left behind. Pete pulled out a bottle of febreze to mask the scent of your dead fish.

you pulled yourself from Colson to laugh lightly at Pete. Colson gently wiped the tears from your face.

“where are my fish?” you ask him softly.

“they were too big to flush down the toilet, so I have them sealed in a zip lock bag for now,” he said gently. “figured you might want to do the honors.”

“thank you,” you murmured to him before hugging him once more. “your album is really fucking good.”

you could feel him lightly laugh as he wrapped his arms around you again.

“glad you liked it,” he murmured into your hair. his hands traveled up your back to cup your cheeks. “why are you crying?”

“I don’t know,” you laugh using your good hand to wipe away your tears. “thank you for being here.”

“always,” he smiled at you. “come on, I cleaned up your room. let’s get you off your leg.”

Colson helped you hobble to your room, helping you take your sling off before you laid down. he situated you on your pillows, propping your shoulder up and apologizing as you winced. he set your laptop up for you, giving you your headphones. he sat with you while you weakly scrolled through Netflix before finding the movie you wanted. The Dirt.

“you suck,” Colson smiled at you, causing you to laugh.

“I haven’t seen it yet. cut me a break.”

“alright, alright.”

he pulled himself up from your bed, placing your favorite blanket over you. as he moved to leave your room, you reached your good arm out to grab his hand. with your hand wrapped around his fingers, he turned back to you.

“did you write that song about me?” you ask him softly. your voice was so quiet that he almost missed what you said.

Colson gave you a small smile before raising your hand to his lip, pressing a kiss to the back of your hand.

“of course, it’s about you.”

“did you mean it?” you stared into his bright blue eyes, searching for an answer. “did you mean what you said?”

“(y/n), I will always mean it, and I know now is not the time to tell you this,” he paused to sigh. “I never stopped loving you, and I will probably always love you. and, I know I fucked up. I fucked up our relationship. I wasn’t around, and I was always wasted. and, I am so sorry for that. you deserved better than that, and I’m getting better. and, when you’re ready, I want to talk about us because I don’t want to live without you anymore. this year sucked without you by my side, and I don’t want that anymore. I want you in my life, and I don’t care how long it takes for you to get there. I will always be here, waiting for you.”

you had tears streaming down your cheeks. he sat back on the bed to wipe away your tears.

“you kinda suck,” you laugh as you used your good hand to wipe your eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed avoiding your gaze.

“I missed you too, Col,” you said reaching up to trace his cheek. “it’s gonna take me sometime to get there because I want to get over this mess before I jump into something else, but I feel the same way. I don’t want to live without you in my life anymore.”

Colson smiled at you before moving to kiss you on your forehead. a knock on your door pulled you out of your little moment. Pete stood in your doorway with his jacket on.

“hey, Colson,” Pete began, causing Colson to turn toward his buddy. “we gotta go now if we are going to make the store.”

“okay, I’ll be there in a second,” he nodded to Pete as he got up from your bed once more.

“where are you going?” you asked him still holding his hand.

“we’re going to go get you a new tank. tomorrow, we’ll go get some new fish for you,” Colson said.

“but, you can’t just buy a tank-”

“I know,” he smiled back at you. “your dad made Pete and I a list. enjoy your movie.” he winked at you, closing the door lightly behind him.

the next morning, you stood in Randy’s Pet Shop with Colson and Pete, staring up at the multiple tanks of fish in front of you. like little kids in the candy store, the two of them made sure to pick out the craziest looking fish for your tank, begging you to let them name them. you of course agree, and the three of you left the store with Kevin and Barracuda, your new gold and blue gourami fish.

you knew that it was going to be a while until you were going to be okay again, but at least you had the guys in your corner. no matter how far you strayed from them, they were always there for you, and you were forever grateful for that.

life could only go up from here.

i know this was a bit darker than usual. feel free to send requests - rose xx

#machine gun kelly imagines #colson baker imagine #colson baker imagines #machine gun kelly x reader #machine gun kelly imagine #colson baker x reader

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theliterateape · 3 years ago

Text

We Killed Jason Todd

By Matt Markman

In 1988 my friends and I killed a kid.

He was just a boy really. We had help it wasn’t just me and my pals. there were adults involved, lots of them. I mean we were young we were just thirteen and really couldn’t comprehend the ramification of our actions, the adults knew what they were doing. I’m painting it to sound way more sinister than it was, and in today’s society, wouldn’t trend on Twitter but maybe in the ’80s, it was probably considered quite ominous.

To set your mind at ease, it was Jason Todd. You know, Batman's sidekick, The Boy Wonder, Robin—well, the second Robin anyways. And I helped kill him.

I was big into comic books but my favorite was, The Dark Knight, The Caped Crusader, The Batman… He donned the best costume, he had all the money and was the most intelligent of all the superheroes. That last trait right there, the fact that he was considered a superhero and he had no actual super powers made him cooler than the other side of the pillow. You know how The Big Bang Theory has convinced the world it’s an Emmy-winning sitcom worth watching? I think it’s the fact that Batman was someone any one of us could actually be. Sure we needed to start with a base coat of genius followed by a splash of handsome billionaire playboy then train overseas in martial arts for several years, but if you had those things you, too, could be a vigilante. You ask me today and I'd stand by the fact that Batman would beat Superman in a fight, say ten out of ten times. This is not debatable because super beings from another planet are not real.

My favorite thing about Batman, though, is his ability to balance out good and evil. He spawned one of the greatest comic book villains and fictional characters ever created, The Joker. They have tried and tried again but in my opinion never got close to the Clown Prince of Crime—maybe Negan from The Walking Dead, he's pretty ruthless. The Joker is what would happen if a stand-up comedian became a criminal mastermind, so basically the plot of the 2019 film Joker.

My love for Joker made sense because growing up I was always more into the bad guys than the good guys. Watching and playing with G.I.Joe, I was always on the side of Cobra Commander, the twins Tomax and Xamot, and Zartan because they were always more glamorous and eye-catching than the boring ass Joes. Just once, I’d like that “knowing is half the battle” part at the end of the cartoon to have been Storm Shadow giving us kids a tip on how to fuck up Shipwreck and his stupid Parrot. Megatron, Skeletor, Shredder, Mumm-ra…

The list goes on, but the antagonists always resonated with me. they had a much better and more intriguing agenda than the good guys did. I know that wasn't the purpose, we were supposed to cheer on the good guys, like the idea of saving the world and all, but the mayhem… It’s like Alfred Pennyworth said, “Some men just want to watch the world burn.” It’s odd because the bad guys in my life were real, the bullies and I didn't like them at all. They tormented me daily unprovoked because I was short and had big ears. Perhaps my love for the dark side stemmed for my desire to be on that side because in real life there was no Superman swooping in to rescue me from the clutches of Lex Luthor.

There were two sides, and good had a lack of champions looking out for the weaker, smaller good guys. The bad guys in my neighborhood, well, they were real and never really foiled and more importantly, they always got the girl in the end. Fuck the good guys!

My admiration for evildoers achieving their agenda was tested in 1988, Batman was running a four-part series called A Death in the Family. It was your typical Batman arc. Somehow, The Joker was going to get the upper hand on The World’s Greatest Detective only to be bested in the end by Batman. But this time, the third comic decided to do something nobody had never seen in the industry. The writers were going to give the fans the opportunity to decide where they were going to go with the story, only it was an option between two different roads, one quite unconventional. Apparently a few years earlier, one of the writers, Dennis O'Neil, had seen a sketch they did on SNL where Eddie Murphy held up a Lobster—Larry the Lobster—and was asking viewers to decide whether Larry was boiled and eaten or was to be set free. The choices were offered in the form of two phone numbers both costing fifty cents a call. One number was a vote for him to be freed and the other number was a vote for Larry to be murdered, smothered in butter, and devoured by Axel Foley. Ultimately, after nearly 500,000 calls, the people voted for Larry the lovable lobster to be pardoned with a 12,000 call margin. The popularity of this bit intrigued O'Neil and A few years later he decided to implement it in his Death in The Family storyline.

In the third book, The Joker had taken Batman's sidekick, the Boy Wonder, hostage. He’d beaten him bloody with a crowbar leaving a cliffhanger to be wrapped up in the fourth book. The last page of the comic was full page and at the top read in true ’80s Do the Right Thing fashion: “Robin will die because The Joker wants revenge, but you can prevent it with a telephone call!” They even phrased it to steer you down the hero’s path, like you can literally be Batman with one phone call. Underneath the imploring verbiage were two numbers, dial one number; The Joker fails and Robin lives, Batman would once somehow saves the day. However, call this other number and The Joker succeeds and Robin dies. Gruesomely.

Wow! They were going to let the fans decide the fate of Robin, really this was one of my earliest introductions to a reality voting competition type show. In my opinion, it was a bad idea. Robin was always the worst. Go back and read through an adventure or two involving Jason Todd and tell me he wasn't always whiney and bellyaching. He was never going to be iconic or cool like Bruce Wayne or even his predecessor Dick Grayson—the first Robin. See, Dick got pissed off, decided he was tired of being in Batman's shadow, ditched the Robin costume, threw on a black blue and gold costume, moved to another city and became Nightwing. Dick was a go getter, ambitious. Grayson’s Robin was a winner, Todd's Robin was an irritating little bitch; he was not an innocent lobster.

I went to my mother and asked if I could make a call that was going to cost just fifty cents and I would pay her back or she could just take it out of my allowance. She wanted to know what it was for and mostly wanted to confirm it wasn't for an adult sex line, which costs more than fifty cents a minute, but that’s a different story. It was nothing as tawdry as phontercourse, I just wanted to help murder an annoying teenage sidekick. My mother response was “Oh, yeah, that’s fine.”

I think after it was exposed that it wasn't phone sex anything else I said went in one ear and out the other, surely she didn't think I was actually voting for a plucky comic book sidepiece to be murdered by The Joker. So that’s what I did. I cast my vote along with a majority of DC comic book fans that shared my detest for the boy wonder. Ten thousand votes were recorded with a narrow margin going to Robin dying. I think the writers never suspected that fans would go that route.

O’Neal himself voted for Robin’s stay of execution. A man of his word, Batman issue #429 was released and Robin was killed by The Joker in an explosion and we were to blame for it. Sad to say but you give a bunch of comic book nerds the power I think it would go bad every time. That day we were all proud to be The Joker's henchmen. I felt like a soldier at the end of Star Wars cheering madly while The Joker received his metal shouting, “I helped that happen!”

So many shows these days embrace our fascination with the anti-hero with the success of The Sopranos, The Shield, Breaking Bad, hell Narcos had me rooting for Pablo Escobar—Pablo fucking Escobar. I wouldn't say I was a bad person growing up. Quite the contrary, I was a shy nerd with no power to do anything but pick my books up after they were smacked to the ground. What I’m saying is don't give me the power to make important life or death decisions with your franchise because myself and the other dorks will have the bodies of Orko, Snarf, and Jimmy Olson lying in a shallow grave, just tell me what number to dial… or text.

Matt started performing standup comedy in 2004 in Las Vegas and is now a regular at every major comedy club on the Las Vegas strip. He released his first comedy album in 2016 titled Uncut available on iTunes. More about Matt and his upcoming appearances can be found on MattMarkman.com.

#Matt Markman #Matt Markman Comedian #Matt Markman Comedian Las Vegas #Las Vegas Comedians #G.I. Joe #Skeletor #Joker #Batman #Joker kills Robin #Jason Todd

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hockeyboysiguess · 4 years ago

Text

Jerseys and Dumplings

a/n: some good old friends to lovers Tkachuk for your Thursday!

warnings: swearing

word count: 6.3K

You yanked the restaurant door open harder than you’d meant to, but you were in a rush. A last minute assignment had kept you at work later than you’d planned, much later than you’d planned, and you were running later than would ever be considered fashionably late by anyone who made insane amounts of money to recite a bunch of shitty dialogue to a camera. You pulled at the bottom of your skirt to adjust it as you walked through the door before giving up. Your skirt was definitely crooked, your hair was definitely a mess, but your mother’s words played over in your head, “It’s never the job of a successful, powerful to look a particular way. Success is messy. Own the messy.”

“Hi, sorry,” you whisper-yelled to the hostess. “Uh, Hanifin? Pretty sure everyone else is already here.”

“Right this way.”

She was clearly unimpressed with your disheveled appearance and your tardiness as she looked you over from top to bottom from over the top of her glasses. You pushed thoughts of her and work out of your head to focus the evening. Meeting your best friend’s boyfriend was a hit-miss experience with Tessa as your best friend. She alternated between introducing you to immature, outrageous guys who were all about having a good time who always ended up cheating on her or guys who were basically the human equivalent of a completely dried builder-grade beige wall. This one was apparently some moderately famous hockey player, which automatically had you leaning him in the first column, but she pleaded with you to reserve judgment until you met him tonight. You were desperate for her to finally date a guy that was somewhere on the middle of her two extremes. She always countered by saying she wanted you to go on a date, any date. You brushed her off every time, telling her you were focusing on your career and yourself.

“There you are!” Tessa shouted, bumping the table harshly as she stood up to great you. “I started to think you forgot about us.”

“Sorry, babes,” you sighed as you let her pull you in for a quick hug. “I-”

“Got caught up at the office.”

You pulled back from her and glared at her. Tessa saying the words that all too frequently left your lips was just a little passive aggressive, usually your specialty. You rolled your eyes at her and she giggled before reaching out to the guy next to her to pull him to his feet.

“This,” she wrapped her hands around his forearm in a sort of death grip, “is Noah. Noah, this is the ever-discussed best friend slash somehow roommate even though I see her more out to lunch than I do in our apartment.”

“Thanks, Tess,” you mumbled. Noah offered his arms out to you gingerly and you accepted a soft hug. “Nice to meet you, Noah.”

“Really nice to finally meet you,” he smiled softly as you took your seats.

“Oh, I hope you don’t mind.” The sing-song tone in Tessa’s voice drew a groan from you because you knew what was going to come next. “Stop it! Anyway, Noah brought one of his teammates along, so you weren’t third wheeling.”

“Is he invisible?” you asked with a wave of your hand to the empty seat next to you.

“Just in the bathroom, actually.”

You turned your head and were greeted with a bright, toothy grin and mop of curly hair. The restaurant was dark, but you could tell he had a beautiful pair of baby blues to go with his dimples and sharp jawline. Tessa has clearly hand-picked this one out of the Flames line up for you. He was exactly your type. You watched as his light eyes broke contact with yours and gave you a quick once look over, lingering almost indiscernibly at your chest and your hips.

“I’m Matthew,” he said, his smile starting on a slippery slope to a smirk as he sat down next to you.

You debated calling him out for checking you out, but Tessa rapped her foot on your shin, letting you know she was ready and waiting to give you a swift kick if she didn’t like how you were acting. People thought Tessa was soft. You thought people shouldn’t underestimate Tessa, so you swallowed your comeback and introduced yourself instead. Matthew gave you a quick nod, his broken curls bouncing with the sudden movement. A smile began to pull at the corners of your lips against your will and something in your chest told you he was going to be trouble if you let him be, so you resolved not to let him be. You watched his attention shift to the couple across the table and his face scrunch up in disgust. Noah and Tessa were seeming trying to figure out if it was possible for two people to become one via their open mouths pressed against each other.

“Come on, guys,” Matthew whined as one of his hands came down roughly on the tabletop, causing the silverware to click together loudly. Noah and Tessa separated at the sound, not at Matthew’s words. “The single folks don’t even have drinks yet. Can you save the foreplay until we at least have some alcohol in us?”

“Seriously,” you joined in. If Tessa was going to set you up against your will, at least it was with someone that hated Tessa’s fondness for wild amounts of PDA as much as you did. “Please keep all tongues, hands, and arms in your own seats tonight.”

“Genitals should remain their not upright and locked positions” Matthew added. Tess blushed at his words, causing Matthew to turn his head towards you. He cocked his head to the side, a mischievous look dancing in his eyes and pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Too much?”

You answered by continuing, “Excellent addition, fellow date attendant. Fasten your seatbelts as we expect there might be some turbulence on tonight’s date.”

“Turbulence?” Tessa asked, her voice a solid octave and a half higher than normal and her eyebrows raised, daring you to continue.

“Oh yes, turbulence,” Matthew cut in. “So, Tessa, where did you grow up?”

“I’m sorry, I’m back on turbulence,” Noah jumped in verbally and physically, a hand raised across the table.

“We,” you informed him, gesturing between Matthew and yourself, “are the turbulence.”

“Yes, thank you, good blind date I didn’t ask for,” Matthew nodded to you, curling bouncing again in a way that made you have to bite your lip to avoid smiling like a schoolgirl with a new crush. “You both worked together to set us up tonight, unasked for based on just how fed up my fellow date attendant seemed by my very presence. Esteemed co-worker, can you confirm, for the record, that you did not ask for this set up and that you’re just as tired as I am of your friends across the table setting you up with people?”

Matthew grabbed a breadstick from the basket in one fist and presented it to you like a microphone. You laughed softly, making an out of character smile crack across Matthew’s face before you both pulled yourself back into the accidental routine you’d created.

“Yes, yes, Matthew. I can confirm I was not made aware of your presence tonight and I have not asked Tessa to set me up with anyone at this time,” you replied seriously, putting on your best politician impression.

“You sounded like you were doing an impression of Tina Fey doing her Sarah Palin impression from SNL,” Matthew laughed at you. He couldn’t stop smiling as he turned his attention to your friends who had no idea what monster they’d created tonight. “As my good colleague Sarah Palin just said, neither one of us asked to be here. So now, we’re teaming up to see if we really approve of this union or not. So, I repeat. Tessa, where are you from?”

The evening was filled with you and Matthew teaming up to flip the script on your friends. You grilled Noah, with Matt’s support, and you offered some direction to his probing questions for Tessa. They took in stride though and you realized somehow, some way beyond your understanding, Tessa had fallen into a good relationship for the first time since you knew her.

Just after making a two-bite dent into your incredible dessert, Tessa pulled you to the bathroom with her, the classic story of girls never being able to pee alone floating at the excuse. When you left the stall, you were greeted by Tessa, arms across her chest, one foot tapping on the ground, and wry smile on her face.

“So, things seem to be going well with Matthew,” she said with a smirk and a soft nod. “Figured it would be sink or swim but didn’t think it would go quite this.”

“Oh, shut up,” you groaned as you turned on the water for the sink to start scrubbing your hands, “we’re just being friendly.”

“Are you kidding me?” she practically shouts at you. “He literally has not taken his eyes off you once all night. He’s so into you!”

“Tess, stop,” you told her with a sigh as you shut off the water. You grabbed a couple of paper towels before spinning on your heels to face her. “Seriously, Tess, he’s not into me. We’re just getting along as friends, okay? Be happy this didn’t blow up in your face for the first time.”

“You cannot be serious right now,” Tessa whined. She reached for your arm as you tossed the paper towels away, pulling your attention back to her. She bounced on her heels a little and gave you the most frustrated look she could muster. “He is into you. Noah thinks so too. Just, can you just try? For me?”

“I don’t want a relationship, Tess,” you replied curtly. “Why can’t you just accept that?”

“He’s perfect for you!” Her frustration with you was growing with each word that she had to say as she tried to spell it out for you. “He’s your type. I know I nailed that one. I know you have to think he’s attractive, so you can’t lie to me. You have really similar senses of humor. He totally thinks you’re hot, which you are. Don’t you dare, that’s not up for debate. Come on, babes. Give Chucky a chance.”

“Chucky is a murderous doll,” you retorted, skipping over everything else she’d said. “Look, Tess, can’t you just be happy I might have made a friend tonight? That’s growth for me right there.”

“But he wants to be your special friend!” she insisted, bouncing on her heels again.

You couldn’t help but laugh at the image presented by her bouncing and her words. She was channeling herself at age six for sure, an age you didn’t know Tessa at, but from the stories her brothers and mother told you, you were kind of happy you didn’t know her at.

“Jesus, did you just say that?” you got out between laughs. You sighed as you pulled yourself together. It was time you both escaped the bathroom as the boys were bound to get suspicious soon. “Look, I’m just not really in the sort of place to put myself out there at all right now. If Matthew really does want this and he really does try, I’ll think about it for real, okay? Does that work for you?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes before saying, “I mean, no, it doesn’t because he would totally give you the good dick right here in this bathroom and probably buy you brunch tomorrow if you actually showed the tiniest bit of actual interest in him, but, it’s the best you’re going to give me, so it’s fine.”

Your desire to leave the bathroom and get back to your chocolate cake overwhelmed the desire to correct Tess. You pulled her back to the table with you, collapsing into your seat and immediately diving back into the dessert you’d been hearing call your name since you’d left the table five minutes ago.

“You’re murdering that cake,” Matthew noted. “It’s impressive, honestly. Where does the cake go?”

“Hopefully out my pores tomorrow in the stupid hot yoga class Tess is dragging me too,” you replied, halting another bite on its way to your mouth just to answer. “I wanted to watch Love is Blind and Too Hot to Handle as our new best friend activity for the month. Tessa wants to do hot yoga, so we’re doing hot yoga.”

“So, you’re the boyfriend in this relationship?” Matthew joked, gesturing between you.

You dropped your fork to your plate and reached for your almost empty drink instead before replying, “Gender roles are a completely unnecessary societal standard, Matthew, and they do not need to be enforced by heteronormative men who play an incredibly heteronormative sport. Who is the boyfriend and who is the girlfriend is unnecessarily gendered, especially considering I’m clearly the left chopstick and Tessa is the right. ”

Matthew’s nose scrunched up when he laughed, a sight you were quickly growing used to over the evening, maybe even starting to like. He shook his head softly at you as he took a sip from his glass.

“Says the girl who pitched to watch a bunch of trash Netflix dating reality shows that are all pretty heteronormative, right?” Matthew countered with a nod of his glass to you.

“Garbage is not heteronormative,” you replied. “Trash TV is just trash TV, Matthew. Don’t read too much into it. I still haven’t gotten to watch any of it though.”

“If you need someone to watch with, hit me up,” he told you. “I need an excuse to get drunk on a Wednesday night and sounds like it I would need to be incredibly drunk to watch any of that.”

“So, this Wednesday then?”

—————

Standing in front of Matthew’s apartment door with a wide variety from your favorite Chinese takeout place in one hand and a six-pack from your favorite local brewery five days later, you were beginning to regret the life choices that led you to this particular moment. You didn’t have much time for the regret to sink in though before Matthew opened the door.

“If there is something the resembles a dumpling in that bag, I will be your servant for the rest of your life,” was Matthew’s verbal greeting.

“You’re about to be my servant then, but it’ll be worth it. These are the best dumplings I’ve ever had,” you informed him as you pushed past him into his apartment to drop the bags and beer on the counter. You started pulling containers out of the bags as you continued, “I will say you should never Google this place. I’ve only ever ordered via Grubhub delivery before today. I did pick up and this place honestly looks like the architect was drunk and the builders forgot their glasses for the entire build and I’ve never been more horrified, but the dumplings are killer, so I’ve just decided to put it in a box and try to forget I ever saw where they originated.”

You heard a beer crack open beside you and Matthew’s large hand came into view as he set it in front of you. He was close to you, closer than you had thought he would be. You could feel his tall frame behind you, his loose t-shirt brushing against you as he set the beer by your hand. His arms brushed your softly, making your breath catch in your throat.

“Good brewery pick,” he complimented you, his lips near your ear as he spoke. “Also, if you give me food poisoning from your weird Chinese food place, I’m released from my servitude.”

“You know the word servitude?” you countered, trying to pull your mind out of the gutter it was sliding headfirst down with sarcasm and chirping him.

Matthew laughed lightly and shifted himself closer to you. He leaned into you, his chest gentling coming into contact with your back with each breath you took. His large hands gripped the edge of the counter on either side of you. He towered over you and you couldn’t stop yourself from wondering what it would feel like to let him bend you over this counter right here and now.

“Mm, I know a lot of things that might surprise you,” Matthew laughed in your ear.

He pulled back without warning and you released a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding. Matthew shifted over to the opposite side of the counter, grabbing a beer and popping it open on his journey. He didn’t say another word before turning on his heels and heading toward the couch. Your brows furrowed as thoughts began to swirl and bleed together in your mind. Was that just all in your mind or was that nothing that your mind turned into something? You didn’t have time for something like this. The fact that you’d found time to have dinner with Matthew within two weeks of meeting him astounding given your inconsistent hours and his season. No, you didn’t want him to be flirting with you, you decided, so he wasn’t. You came over looking for a friend, so that’s what you were here for, the only thing you were here for.

“Hope you can use chopsticks,” you told him as you sat an overly full plate of food in front of him a few minutes later.

“I play hockey. I wasn’t raised in a barn,” he threw back at you, a joking smile on his lips.

“Okay, okay,” you laughed with a roll of your eyes.

Matthew tossed the remote as you with his free hand as he brought a dumpling to his mouth with the other, dropping the entire thing into his mouth in one go. You watched his eyes go wide as he bit down for the first time. He looked at you in disbelief as he chewed.

“Holy fuck me,” he told you through a full mouth. “I want to marry whoever made this.”

“Now,” you open Netflix on his TV, “you get me, Tkachuk.”

Matthew had already shoved another one in his mouth by the time Netflix loaded the first episode. Matthew was in food heaven, shoving dumpling after dumpling into his mouth. You laughed a little as his stuffed cheeks. He looked like a curly-headed chipmunk and you told him just that as you grabbed another container of dumplings out of the bag on the counter. He almost chirped you back, but when you dropped a full container in his lap, the chirp died before it had even fully formed.

“I think you’ve ruined dumplings for me from everywhere else in the world. Also, is that guy hot? I feel like they’re just trying to convince us he’s hot when he’s not.”

You were amazed he was able to pay any attention to the show with the speed at which he was consuming food. It was equal parts impressive and disgusting.

“He’s alright,” you shrugged as you reached for your beer. “Not my type. You’d be better off asking Tessa.”

Something you’d said finally beat out the interest of the dumplings. Matthew dropped the container to the table and skewered a dumpling with his chopsticks in exchange for a beer and turning his attention to him. He raised an eyebrow at you before he spoke.

“A type, huh? I wouldn’t happened to fit that type, would I?”

He took a sip as he watched you roll your eyes at him. He chuckled a little against the edge of his bottle at your response.

“Why would you think you would?” you countered, barely pulling yourself together in time to say something within an acceptable response time.

Matthew shrugged casually before replying, “Noah asked me specifically to come the other night and after meeting Tessa, I have a hard time believing she let Noah pick whoever he wanted since that was definitely a set up and blah, blah, blah, so I’m definitely your type, right?”

“Mm,” you hummed as you took a sip of your beer to try and disguise the anxiety his question had brought on. “My type is definitely guys who are obsessed with trying to be my type. It’s so sexy how much you need my validation right now.”

Matthew’s head fell back as he laughed, curls shifting back in tandem. His mouth opened wide as he laughed a full belly laugh at your words. One of his hands came to his stomach as his laughs became breathier and he slowly brought himself back down.

“You’re something else,” Matthew mumbled through a smile, beer on its way back to his lips and soft shake of his head with his words.

“I’m a goddamn goddess and you know it,” was all you had to say to get him laughing again.

—————

“Let’s fucking go, Calgary!” Tessa screamed next to you out of the blue, jumping to her feet as she shouted, making you and several other people around you jump a little in their seats.

“Jesus,” you sighed. “Tess, can you take it down a notch or eighteen, please?”

“It’s the Battle of Alberta, baby!” she shouted in response, a wide drunken grin on her face as she retook her seat next to you with a flop.

The referee blew the whistle, stopping play, and you pulled your attention back to the game with a soft smile on your face. You looked down the ice to see someone wearing a red and black jersey tangled up with a white and blue one. You craned you’re neck to try and see who it was, your breath catching in your throat at the idea it as Matthew. Your eyes were flying back and forth between the ice and the screen, trying to see a number or part of name to figure out if it was him or not. Your racing thoughts were interrupted by a tap on the glass in front of you. You were greeted with a smile that was slowly becoming more and more familiar, just with a mouth guard hanging between his teeth, and some curls peeking out from under a helmet.

Matthew waved at you with two gloved hands, his light blue eyes crinkling at the corners as he looked at you. You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding. You were relieved he was standing in front of you, a goofy smile on his face, rather than down the ice in that fight. At least the linesman has managed to break it up by now. Matthew’s eyes broke contact from you to give you a once over. He pinched his jersey between his gloved fingers and his eyebrows furrowed down as he looked at you

“Where’s your jersey?” he shouted, though you had to read his lips to actually understand him

You just put your hands out next to you, palms up, and shrugged with a slight pout sticking out your bottom lip. You didn’t own any Flames gear of any kind, certainly not the Tkachuk jersey he was probably looking for. He shook his head at you and glared a little, just to get a small laugh out of you, before he turned his attention back to the game.

“Look at your guy!” Tessa said way too loudly for how tender she’d said it, hands stacked over her heart. “He likes you so much.”

“We are just friends,” you countered firmly, which made Tessa frown.

“He likes you! Aren’t you going over to his place after the game? You should make a move,” she nudged you in the ribs with her elbow.

“I’m picking up exactly four containers of dumplings and we’re watching exactly two episodes of Love is Blind because we’re going to finish up the episodes before they go on vacation with their new fiancés, okay?” you told her. “That’s not exactly a hot date. Besides, I don’t want to make a move. I like him, as a friend.”

“Okay, whatever,” Tessa rolled her eyes at you. “You keep denying that I set you up with a good one until you can’t anymore. Chucky is so smitten with you, he’ll probably wait for you for a ridiculously long time, like rom-com style long time, babes.”

—————

It was your new routine. Well, it wasn’t regular enough to really be a routine. Matthew would text you when he felt like he hadn’t seen you recently enough and demand you show up that same day with dumplings and your sparkling personality. You had tried to deny him, push him off a day or two due to work, but he might be the only person you’d ever met more stubborn that you were. Over garbage television shows and Chinese food, you’d made an actual friend out of him and despite Tessa’s insisting that both of you wanted more.

“Oh, suck it!” Tessa shouted as the Bruins pulled out a last-minute OT goal against Edmonton. She hated the Bruins, but you were pretty sure the only thing Tessa hated more than your insistence that you didn’t want to date Matthew was Edmonton.

You sighed, realizing you’d lost the bet you’d made with her, even though you picked that Edmonton would win to piss her off. She was shouting and jumping up and down, trying to rub her win in your face, but a text cropping up on your phone was pulling your attention.

Tkachuk: pls get five orders of dumplings and bring them right over

You: worked hard today huh?

Tkachuk: you know I fucking did. See you in 30?

You smiled softly, catching Tessa’s attention in the middle of her winning tirade.

“Is that Chucky?” She was already leaning over you, trying to get a glimpse of your phone screen. “Are you ditching me for him again this evening?”

You glared up at her and tilted your phone back, hiding the screen from her view. She stated to glare back, but then her face softened as the corners of her mouth started to pull up. You caught a mischievous glint in her eyes start to form she spoke.

“Hey, the bet was that I get to pick your outfit next time you go out, right?” Tessa asked hesitantly.

“I mean, yeah, but your face is scaring me a little bit here,” you replied, concern for yourself dripping off each word.

“And out could just mean when you go to see Chucky in a few minutes, right?” Her excitement was beginning to leak out, but you couldn’t understand why. “Because since you’re leaving, that’s going out, right?”

“I mean, I guess- Tess, what are you getting at here?”

Tessa didn’t reply. She ran out of the living room, cursing as she banged her elbow on the corner as she turned into the hallway. You heard some rustling in her room, followed by another curse, before she came bounding back into the living room. She tossed something red at you, a borderline evil smile on her face as she did so. You grabbed the red garment. As soon as your fingers touched it, you had an idea of what it was based on the fabric and you groaned as you flipped the garment in your hands. You were greeted with Tkachuk in large bold letters when you looked at the back of the jersey.

“I’m not wearing that to Matthew’s apartment,” you whined, letting the jersey fall into your lap.

“Ah, yes you are. You lost the bet. You wear what I let you to wear,” she told you, waving off your complaints. “Besides, Chucky gave it to Noah to give to me to make sure you wore it to next game anyway. We’re just getting you in it earlier than he had in mind, that’s all.”

You sighed as you stood up to head to your room where you exchanged your comfortable, worn in sweatshirt for the new, crisp jersey. When the red fabric finally hung off your body, you turned and let out a groan when you saw his last name on your back. You knew he wasn’t going to let you live it down the entire time you were with him, but Tessa’s wrath was worse than Matthew’s chirping would ever be.

Tessa was laughing as soon as she caught site of the red fabric, but you didn’t give her much time to feel satisfied with her handiwork. You grabbed your wallet, keys, and phone and headed out the front door. You paused as you sat in the driver’s seat of your car. Tessa had said Matthew wanted you to have the jersey to wear to the next game you went to, but why was he insistent enough to get Noah to give Tessa one of his jerseys? Why didn’t he just give it to you himself?

You tried to analyze the gesture as you waited in line at the restaurant. You’d taken to just coming in for pick up since you’d been unsuccessful in forgetting just how terrifying seeing this place for the first time was. You never called ahead anymore. You just showed up and the chef knew to start making dumplings for you. They were ready when you got to the counter to order, so you paid, grabbed your food, and returned to your car quickly. You decided the gesture was probably nothing, just Matthew being odd per usual, and tried to force the thought out of your mind as you drove over to his place.

The thought hung around as you parked in his spare parking spot. The parking pass had gone from being loaned out to every guest to living in your car after the fifth dumpling and trash television visit. He said you were his most regular visitor and he was tired of having to leave to put it in your car for you since you always argued that you’d brought him food, so it was the least he could do. Your mind was racing, trying to figure out if all of it added up to something, or if you were adding up things that didn’t really exist to get to an answer that definitely didn’t.

You only got one knock in before Matthew opened the door. He moaned when he saw the bag in your arms.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he said, his eyes trained on the brown paper bag his hands were reaching for the entire time he spoke like a prayer had been answered.

You laughed at him and let him take the bag from your arms before following him inside. He dropped the bag on the counter and began grabbing containers and chopsticks while you kicked off your shoes. You let out a long sigh as you prepared yourself for the chirps that were bound to come when you took your coat off and the jersey was finally in his line of site. You chewed your bottom lip between your teeth as you spun around to face him.

Matthew was frozen in place, a partially opened to-go container on the counter in front of him and chopsticks about to be ripped apart in his hands. His eyes were trained on the flaming logo on the front.

“Tessa made me wear it,” you admitted quickly. “I lost a bet and she made me wear it.”

Matthew slowly put the chopsticks down and one of his hands came up to his mouth. His hand was on his chin, thumb crossing his lips as he shifted his weight to his other hand braced against the counter’s edge. His light eyes were darker than you were used to as they scanned up and down your body. They came to rest on the number partially visible on the shoulder. He moved his hand from his face to hovering in front of him with his index finger outstretched. Slowly, his index finger began to make small circles as he looked at you.

“Oh, you’re rubbing this in now,” you huffed, hands going to your hips.

Matthew just shook his head softly before he swallowed hard, then said one word, “Spin.”

You sighed, knowing he wanted the full picture for future ammunition, but you wouldn’t get to enjoy your food until you gave him what he asked you. You slowly let your feet shift across the floor, moving you in a gentle circle, giving Matthew a perfect view of his last name across your back. You closed your eyes as you reached the point in your circling where you’d have to see him again. You didn’t need to see the smug look on his face.

You heard Matthew sigh and you knew whatever he was about to say next was going to be brutal. Instead, all you heard was his feet shuffling quickly across the floor before you felt his hands on you, pressing you back against the nearest wall. Your eyes flung open when you made rough contact with the wall. Before you could fully process it, Matthew’s head dipped down and his mouth was on yours. You almost pulled back, but he was kissing you in a way that took your breath away. You couldn’t not fall into the moment with your palms coming to rest on his chest, but you needed some sort of explanation and you weren’t even sure if this was really what you wanted, so you pushed gently on his chest and he instantly separated from you.

“What the fuck?” you breathed out at him as you lifted your eyes to look at him.

He was towering over you, his arms boxing you in on either side of your head. His eyes were even darker than they had been and while you could usually read Matthew like open book, you couldn’t recognize the expression on his face.

“I can’t be your friend if you’re going to look this fucking good with my last name on your back,” he told you. His words were so matter of fact, as if it was the most obvious thing the world. “You have absolutely no idea how bad I want you right now.”

“Matthew,” you said between deep breaths, “I don’t know.”

“You know,” he said, his baby blue eyes locking your gaze on him. “You know you know. You’ve known since that first dinner. Tessa knew too. Hell, even Noah knew, and you know how fucking thick he is. We’re not supposed to be just friends. You,” he sucked in a breath through his teeth when he broke eye contact to look down at the jersey while balling some of the red fabric in his hands, “you are too perfect for me to be my friend. God, it’s like someone took everything I ever wanted and put it all in one perfect, stupidly sexy girl, except that someone made her fucking oblivious to her own feelings.”

Matthew let out a soft laugh and shook his head as he released the fabric from his hands. His eyes rolled up to lock with yours again.

“You can’t stand her and tell me that kiss wasn’t different,” he continued. “stop being so fucking thick for two seconds and you’ll really feel it. I know you feel it. Because if somehow, I feel this goddamn strongly about someone, and they don’t feel a single ounce of something for me, then I must have really fucked up in my past life and deserve to have the perfect girl right between my fingers and feel her break my heart instead. Like, fuck, you know this is different, that this is something that stupid kinds of special. Just let yourself feel it. Let me in, baby. I’m right here. You’re not gonna fall. Nothing is going to break. I’m right here. I’ve got you, if you want me to.”

Matthew was wrong. You felt the walls you built to keep you from having to put yourself out there, from having to risk anything, start to crack under Matthew’s gaze. His eyes started bouncing from feature to feature on your face, trying to figure out what was going on in your mind since you hadn’t said a word yet. When his baby blues met yours again, the walls broke, and you felt everything. You felt everything he said and somehow, so much more. You grabbed the collar of his shirt and yanked his mouth down to yours. He kissed you back instantly, his hands reaching down to the backs of your thighs to pull you up to his height. Your legs wrapped around his waist and his hands moved to your torso, yanking at his new favorite piece of clothing you owned to get under it and feel your skin under his palms.

You broke the kiss to breathe. His mouth moved to your neck as you tangled your fingers in his curls.

“I’m going to fuck you and you’re going to wear this while I do it,” Matthew breathed out against your neck with a faint tug of the jersey, “if that’s alright with you.”

“Little aggressive,” you told him with a tug of his curls. Matthew pulled you away from the wall, switching to support your weight so he could start walking you towards his room.

“Oh, shut up, would you?” Matthew laughed against your skin. “If you actually have objections, fine, but the peanut gallery is closed for anything other than curse words and my name for the next few hours, okay?”

“Whatever you say, Tkachuk.”

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