#bandstand x reader

[acefictionwriting]

May I have a crumb of Donny Nova content?? Like a little first date drabble?? I promise I will be Very Normal and can be trusted with Bandstand content in 2024 🥺

My first ask!!!! From someone I definitely do not know since they’re anonymous and have not been thanking all night in discord!! I hope this is alright Anon!! Btw Donny is annoying here but he’s always like that so 👍🏻

Donny Nova knew what fear was. He spent Three Years and Eight months experiencing the worst sort of fear known to man. SURELY that meant he could ask out his crush. That’s what he told himself.

He told himself that it would be easier than he thought. That if half the band (David) could have a new date every night, surely he could go on one. You clearly liked him, despite being way too shy to say so, so he thought he would take the chance.

You worked at the bar they were playing at, so right after the last set, he said goodbye to the guys and walked over to you. He ignored David cheering, and Johnny’s sincere (but too loud) encouragement. He ignored everything to focus on actually walking over to you.

There you were, waiting tables and looking like heaven as you did every night. Which is to say it nearing 11 pm and you were a mess from working all day, and he still saw you as beauty itself.

“Hiya!” Donny said, in his usual greeting. You notice his voice is a shred higher than normal today, and he clears his throat in surprise at his own voice.

“Hi Donny! I’m just finishing my shift, you played great tonight! Really helped me get through the work.”

“Glad to hear it. Say… are you free tomorrow?”

“What? Why are you asking?”

“Well I just. I mean. We have a set tomorrow at The Blue Whisp, at seven. Do you wanna come?”

His thoughts were racing, did he just ask you out? He couldn’t believe he actually did that.

“I see you preform almost every night, Donny…”

shit.

“Well I was also wondering if you wanted to get dinner there after. They have pretty good sliders there, I know you like those… and maybe a drink after?

“Oh… Donny, are you asking me out?”

There was a pause, he was nervous about outright saying it. He was a music celebrity, but he didn’t compare to you. What if you said no?? He had to go for it though, another moment without being going steady with him was too many moments.

“I mean. Yeah.” He said, hoping that didn’t sound too awkward. It did, however, sound terribly awkward.

You also paused, momentarily unsure how to react.

”Alright then, I’ll see you there, Mister Nova.”

He thought he would burst right there.

The next night, you dressed up and went to The Blue Whisp. Donny had stressed all night over what to wear, and how to tell you how beautiful you were, because you were always beautiful. His hands were shaking all day with his nerves, and the band kept teasing him, asking him if he would be able to make it through the set. Thankfully, Wayne had his back, and managed to keep most of Davy’s taunting at bay.

He saw you, of course. It took him halfway through the set, but he saw you there in the crowd. He almost fumbled the verse, luckily it was a song about you, so it was hard to mess up with you in front of him when it was just all the things he wanted to say to you. He hoped you knew it was about you.

After the set, he sat down to eat with you. His hands were still shaking. You both ate your sliders, making semi-awkward conversation, with pauses that were both awkward and comfortable. Donny thought that felt right, to be awkward and just right at the same time. It was a first date after all. You both talk mainly about you, your likes, your dislikes, everything he could think to ask you that seemed ok for a first date. Donny did his best to talk about himself, and you were kind in the questions you asked, keeping them surface level. You knew Donny hated thinking about his life at all, even things as small as his favorite color were difficult to pry from him. You made note of this in slight teasing, and he finally laughed. You could always make him smile. When dinner was over, he had a plan. First, he glanced back at the stage to make sure the boys had left, he had had enough teasing from them tonight. Everyone had left except Johnny and Davy, who were at the bar together trying to get the attention of a waitress. With everyone else out of the way, he grabbed your hand and led you backstage, which was something few people got to see. It was messy and barren, but he led you right to his piano.

“Do you know how to play?”

Teaching the girl how to play piano was one of the oldest romantic tricks in the book right?

“Yeah, I actually do!” You said excitedly.

Well there goes that plan. He stared at you, absolutely astounded.

“You- you know how to play?”

“I just said I did Donny. But it’s been a while since I played.”

You took a seat at the piano as he continued staring at you in shock. He eventually stumbled over to you as you started playing one of your favorite songs. He couldn’t believe he found a girl like you, who could play just like he could. His ego said he was better than anyone but his heart said he could listen to you for hours.

Having a professional piano player watch you made you incredibly nervous. Your finger slipped, you hit one wrong note, and your hands flinched back. You immediately put them in your lap and nervously picked at your fingers.

“Oh. Like I said, it’s been a while since I practiced. Sorry-“

“What? What do you mean? That was great! I mean you could probably replace me with a little practice.”

”What- no, Donny, I-“

”Yeah, you just need practice. You know what scoot over. I’ll practice with you.”

Before you could protest, Donny had slid next you on the bench. He smiled at you and played a few keys.

“Come on, just copy me.”

“Donny I don’t think-“

“No, I could see it in your eyes earlier, you love to do this. And you did really well! Just practice with me. One song! Just one song and I’ll let it go!”

You sighed, knowing that when don’t got excited like this he wouldn’t stop. That’s why Julia joined the band in the first places. Actually it’s why most people in the band did. He was relentless.

“Fine. One song, and that’s it Donny!”

He was so glad you were letting him get a way with this, because he really thought you wouldn’t. He was desperate to hear you play again and with how nervous you were he didn’t know if you would without a little prodding.

For the rest of the night, Donny sat with you, and played at the lower end while you mimicked his playing. As the night went on, you opened up, laughing and getting more excited to play. His energy and enthusiasm were infectious. Sometimes, his hands would hold yours as he showed you proper hand placement. You both blushed at that, but he pretended he wasn’t, despite it being more visible everytime you mentioned it.

“You are… astonishing. I mean- wow! You.. you really have talent.”

He showered you in compliments like those all night. You were worthy of every one of them.

Eventually, the bar did have to close. Donny walked you home, wanting you to be safe. He also wanted to be a gentleman after you endured his more… persistent and difficult side. He wasn’t always like that, and he wanted you to know it. You walked in a very comfortable silence this time, less like dinner and more like a silence you would be ok with having everyday of your life if you could.

“Thank you, for walking me home, Donny.” You said, turning to face him as you approached your front door.

“Oh, well. Thank you for letting me. I know I was a bit, uh, pushy earlier.” He made sure not to swear around a lady. He was really trying his best to be his best self for you.

“Well, you have me a wonderful night, Donny, even if you were pushy.”

Oh thank god, he thought.

“However-”

oh no.

“It means that you still owe me a good date Donny. Care to go on another Saturday?”

This was one of many times that night you had made his jaw drop. He had lost count. You were just too astounding. Too understanding. Too wonderful. Too perfect. How did you exist?

“Donny?”

“YEAH. Um. Yeah! Yeah absolutely we can do that. I mean if you want-”

“I’m asking you, Donny. Of course I want a second date.”

“Right, yeah. I mean obviously you do. B Because you asked I mean.”

“Right. Well Donny, I think it’s time to say goodnight…”

”yeah…”

There it was again. That silence that was awkward and perfect at the same time. Then you did something he really didn’t expect. Just as he went to turn around and leave, you kissed him. He gasped, and froze in place. He turned around to look at you and ask if you really did that, but all he saw was your door closing and a brief flash of a bright red face darting inside,

He smiled. He really couldn’t believe he found a girl as good as you.

[sl-newsie]

Chapter Sixteen: Who Are You? (Spot Colon x Female Newsie)

Tha fellas didn’t get Jack oudda tha Refuge- not that I’s surprised. David said he’d been act’n a little funny. Just like I thought: a questionable cause. Now Jack’s all alone too.

So I’ll go visit him.

I quietly sneak out while the oddas are play’n a card game. Throughout tha streets, a small mist has draped over everyth’n, add’n more tension in my already-full mind. When I reach tha refuge, I can already see Jack look’n out a window behind bars.

“Psst! Jack! Down here!” I call from behind a wagon.

He looks down and sees me. “Becca? Whadda ya do’n here?! If Snyder catches ya you’ll be thrown in too!”

“I had to see ya- I didn’t want you to be alone,” I say softly.

“Don’t worry about me, Becs. I-”

“Is that Becca?” I hear a voice ask. Crutchy?

“Crutchy’s up there? Hey, Crutchy! Ya do’n ok?” I call up.

“I’m ok, Becca,” comes a happy but small voice. He don’t sound ok.

“They’s been treat’n you bad, aren’t they?”

“Just forget about it, Becca. Go back to tha lodg’n house.” Jack sounds as if all hope has been sucked oudda him.

“Ya can’t let them beat ya, Jack! We’s ain’t beat yet!” I yell up.

Jack sighs. “We was beat when we was born. Go back, Becca. It’s ain’t any good for you to be here.”

My mouth hangs open. Jack, of all people, push’n me away. But maybe that’s how ya act when you’s in jail?

“Alright, alright. G’night Crutchy! G’night Jack.”

I offer one last sad, hopeful smile, then turn and walk slowly back to tha lodg’n house. David was right- Jack ain’t himself.

Tha next day we stand in front of tha distribution center, without Jack. First Crutchy, now him.

“Morn’n, Beauty!” Spot calls. All tha Brooklyn newsies are here, and so are all the oddas! I smile, feel’n a sensation of pride.

“Good morn’n to you too, King of Brooklyn! You’s all ready to strike?” I yell.

“Yeah!”

“Stop the World!”

“No more papes!”

A wagon drives by and breaks us up, and when we’re back togedda Spot calls Race and me ova.

“Tell me I’m see’n things. Just tell me I’m see’n things!” 

I follow his gaze and see… Jack?

It’s Jack, in a suit, walk’n out with Weasel.

“Y-You ain’t see’n things,” I say, shocked. “What’s he do’n?”

“He’s dressed like a scabber!”

“Jack? Jack, look at me, will ya? It’s me, Mush. Look at me! What’re ya do’n?” Mush tries tO reach him.

“This can’t be happening…” Blink says.

“Come on, what is this?” Boots asks.

“Where’d ya get them clothes?” Race asks.

Soon Bulls are hold’n us back, then Weasel says: “Mr. Pulitzer picked them out himself. A special gift to a special employee.”

Employee?!

“He sold us out!” Spot yells.

“Look at him in his suit. Ya bum! I’ll soak ya! Ya fake!” Race screams.

Spot sneers. “Hey, lemme get my hands dirty! Come here ya dirty rotten scabber! I’ll soak ya, son of a bitch!” Tha Bulls hold him back, while I’m still star’n at Jack.

“Oh, you want to talk to him?” Weasel taunts. “Come on, come on! Sure! Go right ahead!”

David and I walk up, and I stare Jack dead in the eye.

“So this is why you didn’t escape last night?” David says. “You’re a liar! You lied about everything!”

“Oh yeah? Whaddya gonna do about it, huh?”

“How could you?” I sneer. “How could you?! Answer me!”

Jack’s face is blank. “For tha first time in my life Becs I got money in my pocket. Real money.”

I scoff. “What ‘bout us? We’s don’t got money if we’s don’t sell papes. You’s was supposed to help us win tha strike, Jack!”

“What, you’s gonna cry about it?” My eyes widen at his remark. “Lemme spell it out Becs: I’s godda look out for myself, and I can’t have you’s to deal with too.” He looks at David. “I ain’t got anyone tuck’n me in at night.”

I can’t believe what I’m hear’n.

“Ya had tha newsies,” I croak.

“What’s tha newsies ever got me? A dime a day and a black eye? Forget it, Becs! You’s just a-”

“Goil?” I finish for him. “Yeah, Imma goil, and this goil’s still on strike!”

“Good luck with that,” Jack says unconfidently. “The newsies won’t get you’s anywhere.”

My eyes narrow.

“Yeah, and what ‘bout tha promise ya made me? ‘Bout Santa Fe?” I sniff. “I shoulda known it was a lie. My whole life's been a lie! We don’t need you!”

“All those words you said, they were never yours. They were mine,” David backs me up.

“And ya neva had tha guts to put ‘em across, did ya?” Jack pushes.

“I do now,” David says confidently.

“And here’s your proof!” I yell, send’n my fist into Jack’s jaw. I give him one last glare, then turn on my heel and march away.

“Traitor!” I hear Spot scream at Jack.

“I trusted you!”

“Seize tha day, huh Jack?”

“He’s fooling ‘em, he’s a spy or something.” Les holds back tears.

Walk’n away, I choke a sob. No, Les. Jack’s gone...

I sit up against tha fountain, stare’n at my tear-stained face. I notice Spot’s reflection join mine, so I turn to face him.

“Lemme guess- you’s oudda tha strike?” I mumble.

“Sorry, Beauty. There ain’t a reason for Brooklyn to waste it’s time here-”

“Save it. I shoulda known.” Ya can never depend on nobody.

We sit for a minute.

“You’s still in tha strike?” Spot asks.

I nod sharply. “We’s still got rights, so we’s gonna fight for ‘em. Plus, I’ll do anyth’n to get on Jack’s well-dressed nerves.”

Tha odda fellas come over and sit down.

“What now?” Mush asks blindly.

“Now, we strike.” 

“I don’t know, Becs. Without Jack-” 

“So now it’s all ‘bout Jack?” I ask Race. “I thought this was ‘bout us newsies gett’n respect! We’s finishing this strike tha way we’s started it, with or without Brooklyn, with or without Jack!”

(Nobody from Bandstand)

I stand up and sing:

“You know who tells me "no"?

You know who tells me "I don't think so"?

You know who tells me "no"?

Nobody!”

Some Bulls, includ’n Jack, begin to gather nearby, with Jack have’n a disagreeable look on his face.

Race joins in:

“You know who tells me "wait"?

“You know who tells me "That ain't so great"? Skittery sings. “You know who tells me "wait"?”

“Nobody!”

We all join in, push’n our arms out:

“So get outta my way!”

David adds:

“'Specially if you don't have something nicer to say!”

“Go try to break someone other-”

Spot sings:

“Go find yourself someone else to smother!”

“No oooh, nobody no!”

I smile, then start ta sing again.

“You know who tells me "slow"?

You know who tells me "that's a no go"?

You know who tells me "slow"?”

We all scream:

“Nobody!”

Blink sings:

“You know who tells me "quit"?”

Boots joins:

“You know who tells me-”

We all sing-

"You ain't worth spit"?”

Blink asks again:

“You know who tells me "quit"?”

We all sing:

“Nobody!”

“So get outta my way!

Find somebody else

Who gives a fig what you say!”

Spot, Race, and I sing:

“Go discipline someone other!

Last time I checked

You were not my mother!” We all point at Jack, who’s still scowl’n.

Tha rest join in:

“You know who tells me "stop"?

You know who tells me

"You don't have what it takes

And you will never reach the top"?

You know who tells me "stop"?

Nobody!”

Spot and I sing togedda:

“So get outta my way!

Find somebody else

Who gives a fig what you say!

Go discipline someone other!

Last time I checked

You were not my mother!”

Tha fellas join in again:

“You know who tells me "stop"?

You know who tells me

"You don't have what it takes

And you will never reach the top"?

You know who tells me "stop"?”

Spot and I start softly-

“Nobody,

Nobody…”

We all get louda:

“No, no one tells me!

No, nobody

No one tells me!

No, nobody

No one tells me!

No, nobody

No one tells me!

No no no no no

Nobody!” We all finish, with me and Spot face’n each odda.

“Alright, break it up!” Some Bulls yell.

“Never!” We scream back, then go scrambl’n through tha streets. Spot follow us to tha lodg’n house, and when we get there he pulls me over.

“I’m with ya, Beauty. I’s truly is. But tha odda newsies ain’t gonna see it tha same way. Brooklyn’s still out.”

“I know,” I say simply. He looks surprised. “We can’t satisfy everyone, so we’s all can’t always do what we want. I’s just glad to know ya still care.”

“And I always will,” Spot says, his eyes peer’n through my soul and mak’n me blush.

“I… I godda go,” I say abruptly. “I got a performance tonight.”

“I’ll be sure to attend.”

“Thanks. You’s probably be tha only one I can count on not to make fun of me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

I give a quick smile and take off run’n towards tha theatre.

[insomniamamma]

Forever's Gonna Start Tonight: Joel Miller X F! Neurodivergent!reader

A/N: hey, you all remember how Spinner was supposed to be a one-shot? LMAO. I am incapable of one shots. I started this around last Valentine's Day and felt too intimidated to finish it. I guess most of the fandom wanted to take Joel to the big dance. So I shelved it for a bit, and then, while struggling with another WIP, I revisited this and found that I still really liked it. And you know what? Fuck it. Two cakes.

Warnings: A smidge of angst. A bit of awkwardness. Mentions of crappy people in Spinner's past. Spinner is neurodivergent. This is a direct sequel to this fic, so you should probably read that one first. Dancing. Very soft kisses. Spinner is meant to be a reader inset, but she's right on the line between RC and OC.

Ellie’s already up and  gone when Joel comes downstairs, scrubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Of all the teenage orphans he could’ve ended up with he’s stuck with one who has no concept of sleeping in on a Sunday.  A mug of herb tea waits for him on the table with a saucer placed over top of it to keep it warm, and he feels himself smile, Ellie looking after him in her way, a curled scrap of paper pinned by the mug, marked with her laborious printing. Joel frowns. Ellie likes to leave him little notes when she makes it out of the house before him. Usually a shitty pun. Ellie collects puns the way a crow goes after shiny things. He cradles the mug in his hands for a moment before making his eyes focus on the note. 

Valentine’s in two days. Ask her to the dance you pussy. Joel groans. Her. You. He’s been thinking of you. More than he expected to. Paired up with you on patrol and the weather went to shit. Bad luck and punky wood that wouldn’t do much more than smolder in the stove. Your hands were so damn cold. He knew from the moment you’d finally stopped shivering and relaxed against him and started snoring into his neck that you’d become a problem. The same way Tess was a problem, Ellie is a problem. Tommy is a problem. And now there’s you. He has to remind himself sometimes that he’s safe, that Jackson is safe, that he and Tommy and Ellie are safe here. And now you are counted into that worried toll.   

He’s been thinking of you. The way your eyes will flick up and hold his before darting away. Your eyes turn away but then you smile, just a little. a soft dimpling of your cheek, like the two of you have a secret. And you do, he thinks, that night curled together, your freezing hands cradled in his, zipped your sleeping bags together like a couple of kids on a camping trip, the feel of you going lax against him, your face, your cold nose tucked into his neck, curled his arm around you and you burrowed in closer. A thread of tenderness strung between you.

 Walked you home after he found you in the square. He knows you’re not brave, but you were brave that night, even though you shook as he pulled you up from the bandstand steps, walked you home, your arm hooked through his like he’s some old time gentleman but it made you smile even if you wouldn’t quite look at him.   This is me, your porch light flickering slightly, power from the dam isn’t always consistent, there’s so much to do, so much maintenance, so many things left to rot, and he doesn’t know what he’s expecting, but you surge forward and hug him, arms banded tight around him, feel him stiffen and then his arms come up around you, tucks you tight against him, cups the back of your head and draws you close, nestles you into the column of his neck, feels you relax in to his hold.   “Thank you,” you breathed against him, allowed yourself to be held and then withdrew, caught your cold hands in his and squeezed.  “Anytime, honey,”  Your eyes didn’t quite meet his, but your cheek curved in a smile and then you closed the door between you. 

 He thinks about the two times he’s held you, the two times you’ve relaxed into his arms, but you still can’t meet his eyes. You might never meet his eyes. Joel decides he’s okay with that. The soft arc of your smile is enough.

 He settles beside you, bowl in hand, venison chili and cornbread. Your eyes flick up to him and you nod, acknowledge his presence and then go back to eating, the cornbread is nice and grainy and sweet, the chili is thin but warm and decently spicy, more potatoes and sunchokes, tough beans than venison, this is the deep of winter and things are lean, find yourself daydreaming about Olive Garden of all places, the soup and breadsticks, so much food that you always had to take some home and you feel a nudge at your elbow. Joel says nothing but slides you a bit of paper folded into a compact triangle, and you feel yourself smile, glance at Joel and he’s busy sopping up his chili with his cornbread, looks nonchalant but you can feel the bounce of his leg beneath the table, tuck some cornbread into your mouth and chew, unfold the complication of paper, yellowed with printed blue lines, ripped out of some notebook.  Will you come to the Valentine’s Dance with me? Yes. No.  The implication being that you circle your choice and hand your answer back to him. You pull a nubbin of charcoal out of your pocket and draw a circle around the “Yes”. Hold the fiddly bit of paper in your palms, not sure how to turn it back into it’s triangle shape, so you press it into orderly thirds and slide it back to him. Steal little glances at him as he reads your answer. His leg stops bouncing under the table, and when you look at him, he’s smiling.   “See you Saturday, Spinner, Joel murmurs. And you think you hear the smile in his voice but your are never sure.

 

Saturday. Saturday. Shit fire and save the matches. You said yes. You circled yes on that stupid note, like a stupid high school kid. Your experience of dancing is limited to court dances on the Ren Faire circuit with a dash of square dance and reels. You’re not sure how to act, you’re not sure what to wear. Do you have to dress fancy? Do you have to paint up your face? You have no idea what to expect so you do what you always do when some social expectation evades you.  You go and ask Maria. Bring the tiny pair of socks you’ve been working on, still not entirely pleased with the final color, more brown than yellow, still working through different mordants. You wish they’d managed to snag a display of Rit from that Walmart, but nobody thought it was important.   “Spill it,” says Maria, knows you well enough to know when something’s bothering you.  “I don’t like the color, the mordants���“  “I know all about the mordants. C’mon. Spill.”  “Joel asked me to the dance.”  “And you said yes.”   “I said yes.”  “So what’s the problem?”  “What if he’s messing with me—“ Maria laughs but then rests her hands lightly on your upper arms, a touch that means grounding, that means truth, something you would not tolerate from anyone but her.   “Do you know that man to have a sense of humor? Other than those terrible puns he saves up for Ellie?”  “Guess not. It’s just--“ You’re not sure how to word it, did plenty of dancing at Ren Faire, carefully proscribed steps and agreed upon roles, danced at your wedding reception with your ex mouthing the steps into your ear so you didn’t fuck it up, semi-formal dance in the seventh grade your mom fixed your hair and put you in a powder pink dress with a sailor collar and you’d spent the whole evening the darkest part of the gym you could find, waiting for it to be over.  “I don’t know what I’m doing, do I need a dress because—“  “It’s not prom, says Maria, No one’s gonna be fancy. Except Tim.” You feel yourself smile. Tim with his his button down shirts and fussy little bowties, tall, whip skinny and twice the age of God. No one quite knows how he made it through the outbreak, but he knows how to make explosives so no one is in a real hurry to ask.   “Tim’ll probably show up in a three piece suit.”  “Wear something with no holes and you’ll be fine.” You frown and Maria grins at you.  “That’s not exactly helpful.”  “You’ll figure it out. You always do.”

 Through the next couple of days, Joel is there like he always is, a steady, unobtrusive presence, the two of you side by side over the deep sink in the caff, dish duty but you don’t mind. Soap and scrub and pass them along to Joel who rinses and sets them in the racks to dry.   “Joel?”  “Hmm?”  “I can’t dance.” He huffs laughter.  “I’ve seen you dance.” And you feel heat rising in your face, ears going hot. Someone had played the Chieftains on the juke in the Bison (hang out there more often now that you know Joel is there) and the bit of step-dancing you’d picked up on the Ren Faire circuit had come out.  “Not like normal people do.” Scrub the dishes and hand them off to him. Normal people, you hear him mutter, hold out a bowl for him to rinse and rack but he doesn’t take it.   “I could show you,” says Joel, “You know, so you’re not worried about it.”  “I’m not worried,” you say.  “Yes you are,” he says, wipes his wet hands on the towel slung over his shoulder, “Come here.” You wipe your soapy hands on your pants and stand facing him, lip bit in a frown, he holds up his hand like he means for you to give him a high five. “Give me your hand.”  Lay your palm against his and he laces his fingers through yours. “Put your other hand on my shoulder.”    “Like this?”  “Yep. I’m gonna put my hand on your hip,” he says, “That okay, Spinner?”  “Sure,” and he rests his hand on you, not gripping, not grabbing, starts swaying, foot to foot, back and forth and you mirror him, warm weight of his hand, gentle pressure that swings you around.  “That’s it? There’s no steps?”   “No steps,” says Joel. “Just like dancin at prom.”   “Never went to prom.”  “Really?” You shrug.  “We played Shadowrun instead.”  

 You settle on the wrap skirt, sewn from an old cotton bedsheet. Dyed yellow with a dusty box of Rit you found on the top shelf of a cabinet in the house they gave you. Didn’t turn out as bright as you wanted, but it’s still a nice yellow, like softened butter on a plate, and you like the patterns that the knotted twine made. Pair it with a rust colored v-neck, looted from the Walmart around the time you arrived in Jackson. You know it won’t hold up so you rarely wear it, but it looks nice with the skirt and clings to your curves in a way that isn’t entirely horrible, longies underneath your skirt because February in Jackson is fucking cold. 

 The caff looks different set up for the dance, long tables with their legs folded up, stacked against on wall, folding chairs around the perimeter, paper and fabric hearts hung from the rafters, all hung with old Christmas lights, cast your eyes around and worry, you’ve been stood up before, it wouldn’t exactly surprise you, and then you find him, tucked back by the DJ, cobbled together equipment from the high school’s AV club, too-rah loo-rah too-rah loo-ray-aay— he sees you and smiles, dimples sunk into his scruffy cheeks, stands and hurries to you, takes your hands in his.   “Wasn’t sure you were gonna show.”  “I wasn’t sure either.” Runs his thumbs over your knuckles. He’s beautiful in the low, shifting light, disco ball with a third of the little mirrors missing, little blots of light passing over the walls, catching the silver threaded through his hair-and Everything I do start’s playing, that goofy song from Robin Hood movie, and it’s on the tip of your tongue to talk about how ridiculously inaccurate the movie is, Kevin Costner’s accent was so bad, his hands folded warm around yours.  “Wanna dance?”  “Yeah. Okay.” And you let him lead you onto the floor, his hand laced with yours, your hand on his shoulder, just like you did by the deep-sink, close enough to feel his warmth but not quite touching anywhere beside where your hands rest, and in hand and his hand on the swell of your hip, the two of you turn and turn, Joel doesn’t push. He doesn’t dig his fingers in, just sways you side to side in a slow circle. It’s nice in the anonymous murk, he doesn’t try to dip you or change the pattern, Bryan Addams fades into Cindy Lauper, time after time, and he pulls you closer always liked this song, he murmurs into your hair and you nod, tuck your face into the join of his neck and shoulder unthinking, and then you stiffen, this is where he will push back, drag you back to arm’s length, and maybe ask you what the fuck you think you’re doing, but instead he breathes out a contented sigh and you turn and turn and tun in the broken light, his pulse thrumming beneath your ear, if you’re lost and you look then you will find me, and for a moment the world isn’t broken, and then Time After Time Fades out and the fucking Chicken Dance comes on.  “You wanna—“  “Absolutely not.”  “You don’t know the chicken dance?”  “Of course I know the chicken dance. I fucking hate it.”   “Let’s sit this one out then—“ and then Tommy enters like a meteor, grabs Joel by the arm   “C’mon man it’s the Chicken Dance!”  Joel shoots you a beleaguered see what I have to put up with look and lets his brother haul him onto the floor. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere else on the planet, but he knows all the moves, the contrast of his grim expression and the shimmy of his hips as he wiggles his imaginary chicken tail is too much for you and you laugh bright and bold, the loud bray your parents said was unladylike, your ex said made you sound like a donkey, and for a second that old fear spikes, but no one’s looking at you, no one notices. Joel glances your way and smiles before his brother grabs his hands and swings him in a delirious apple hooch fueled arc while the accordion does it’s thing.   The music changes again and Joel extricates himself and plops down in the folding chair next to you.   “No Macarena?”  “Gotta draw the line somewhere, Spinner.” 

 A string of fast songs plays and the kids take over the floor momentarily, some recognize and some you don’t, Joel rests his hand on your knee and you lay yours over his, sit back and let them have their fun, sip strong apple hooch out of pitted plastic tumblers, burns a little going down, but makes you warm inside. You lean against him and his hand leaves your knee, arm comes up around your shoulder.   “Is this what prom was like?” Joel frowns.   “The music’s kinda the same,” he says, “But everyone was dressed up all fancy. There was lots of drama. Lots of people crying about who asked who and who dumped who.”  “Sounds stupid.”  “Yeah, I guess it was. All that shit seemed so important and now—“  “We didn’t know.” Your eyes hold his, deep wells in the dim shifting light, even though it makes you want to squirm, too many times told look me in the eye when I’m talking to you, too many times told to stop staring, stop being weird, “Joel. We didn’t know.” He turns from you and stares out over the floor, nods his head, and you wonder if you’ve said it wrong, but his arm is still draped warm over your shoulder, looks troubled, but then the lights drop and a few familiar piano notes sound and the kids scatter into the dark, confused—turn around every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you’re never comin round turn around  “Oooh this is a good one—“  “C’mon, Spinner, let’s dance.” The floor fills with couples, mostly harried survivors like you and Joel, the folks of Jackson old enough to have danced to this song in stuffy school gyms hung with crepe paper streamers and balloons, Love’s Baby soft and Darkkar Noir and flop sweat.  Maria and Tommy sway with their foreheads pressed together and eyes closed, Ellie dances theatrically, mouthing the lyrics like a cartoon opera singer to the delight of a cluster of sugared up kids who’ve formed a loose ring around her. The configuration has shifted, both your arms draped around his neck, his hands on your hips, the pretense of space between you forgotten, some murky memory of the your middle school English teacher reminding people to save room for Jesus when you danced, had no idea what that meant at the time, but now you have some idea, Joel warm and strong and flush against you, gentle susurration of his breath in your hair, warm beat of his pulse beneath your ear.   “Joel?”  “Hmm?”  “You remember this video for this song?”  “There was football players or somethin. People with glowing eyes.”  “And Ninjas. Don’t forget the ninjas. I think there was an angel too.”  “And a guy in a fencing mask,” says Joel, “I think?”   “You’re right! Glitter poured out of it when he lifted it up!”    “Then she was just some professor all along, like she dreamed the whole thing.”  “Just a dream.” You whisper against his neck and he holds you all the tighter.

 Eventually the lights come up. Happy Valentine’s Day! Ez’s voice booms through the mic and you wince, for those of us lucky in love it is time to take that noble sentiment elsewhere—  god, I hate that guy.   — For those on clean up duty now is your time to shine. Everyone else needs to skedaddle. I will now play some skedaddlin music. And true to his word, that shit techno cover of Cotton Eye Joe starts playing at migraine levels, stagger out into the frigid night, clear and still and biting cold, got a bit more tipsy than you intended. Cider for when the seasons turn, applejack for the dead of winter, but Joel is right beside, hand hovered just over your hip in case you falter.   He’s walked you home enough times that it’s not a question any more. You don’t have to. I know. Got nowhere else to be, Spinner.   “This is me,” you say, you always say, faint flicker of your porch light. Power from the dam is not always the most steady. So many things left to rot, so many things to fix.  “I know,” he says, like always, You hug him, squeeze your arms around him tight.  “Thank y—“  “Stop that, Spinner. You don’t have to thank me for loving you-“  “You love me.” You draw back from him. It comes out as a statement and not a question, and here’s where he will retract, will back pedal,  say he didn’t mean it, it was the applejack doing the talking, the applejack and the music from when you were both young and none of this had happened yet.  “Yeah, I do.” And when you hook your eyes to his, they are wide and deep and dark with worry, and you can’t look at him, gaze slides to the curve of his shoulder, the shape of him against the starshot sky, so much brighter now that everything is over. His hands find yours and, his thumbs brush back and forth over your knuckles. And you have so many questions, since when? That freezing night on the trail? Before? After? Why?   “For real?” Is the question that comes out, and you hate how small you sound, how your voice wavers. Squeezes your hands in his.  “For real.”  “Since that night?”  “I think so. I don’t know. Holdin you, it felt right. Feels right. Shit. I’m real bad at this-“ You laugh, breath plumed out like dragon smoke,   “Me too.”  “Tommy used to make fun of me. Said I could never tell when girls were tryin to flirt with me.”  “I can’t flirt to save my life. Never could. None of that ever made sense to me.”  “Good thing I didn’t try some crappy pick up line, huh?”  “Very good thing. There was this one guy in high school he started walking around me like this—“ You drop Joel’s hands and start orbiting him, watch that lovely smile crawl it’s way up his cheek.  “—and when I asked him what the fuck he was doing he said, I’m part wolf, baby, we always circle our prey.”   Joel guffaws, his eyes screwed up in crinkled crescents, rests a desperate hand on your shoulder as he doubles over�� “That is. The dumbest. Goddam thing I have ever heard in my life—“  “I didn’t know whether to laugh at him or punch him. So I just kind of stared at him. And he went away.”  “I bet he did.  Look, Spinner, I didn’t mean to blurt it right out like I did but I do mean it. You don’t—“ He swipes his hand over the back of his neck, “If you don’t feel the same m’not gonna push. Shit, I’m sorry-“ You reach for him unthinking and cradle his stubbly cheeks in your palms. His eyes are big and wide and shining, he’s scared, you think, at least as scared as you are, and the words aren’t coming. In a movie you’d have some perfect come-back, something you could say that would make all the things roiling in your mind seem clear and concise. In a movie there’d be a declaration, something that would roll out of you and the music would swell, but now there’s only Joel’s warm, dark eyes and the yellow thrum of your porch light and the brittle chill in the air. You can’t say. You can’t make what you’re feeling, what you’ve been feeling, resolve into words, so you kiss him instead, press your lips to his and he kisses back, mirrors you, warm, calloused palms cradle your face.   

Not sure if it’s you or him who deepens the kiss, mingled breath and gentle touches, soft meeting of lips and tongues and hands, feels fevered and rushed and right,  he tastes like applejack and when you break for air he rests his forehead against yours.   “Wow.” He breathes against your lips.  “Yeah.” Leaned into each other, foreheads pressed together, swaying together, a bit like dancing together in the caff, no disco ball just the bright and brittle sky, a million pin-point stars stitched through the black.   “You can come in if you—“  “We both been drinkin”  “You don’t want—“  “I do, but I wanna do this right,” draws the backs of his fingers down the curve of your cheek, “I want to love you the right way, honey. We’ve got time.” You wrap your arms around him and tuck your face against his neck where it feels safe, cups the back of your head in his warm palm, cradles you close.  “Does this mean we’re going steady? Do people still say that? Going steady?” Joel chuckles, and you feel it, low rumble of laughter transmitted from his chest to yours, threading beneath the beat of his pulse in your ear.   “Yeah. I think we are.”

[blurredcolour]

Parting Gifts

[One-shot]

John Brady x Female!Reader

John Brady cannot stand watching your oblivious Department Head make continued advances towards you while he is stuck on the bandstand performing at a concert. He expresses this displeasure to you with actions rather than words as soon as he is free to do so.

Warnings: Era-typical Sexism/Misogyny Alcohol Consumption, Unwanted Advances, Smoking/Tobacco, Inevitable Historical and Military Inaccuracies, Mature/Explicit Themes [softdom!Brady, possessive!Brady, fingering] - 18+ ONLY.

Author's Note: Really not a whole lot of plot here folks, mostly just the need for Brady to do unspeakable things...and play his saxophone. Special shoutout to @precious-little-scoundrel for the Brady brain rot and listening to me scream about him a lot lately.

Word Count: 2337

-------------------------

Sioux City, Iowa - January, 1943

Leroy Anderson was going to get himself killed. Well, he would if it were possible for looks alone to kill a man, for the pure fury in John’s eyes as the frustratingly oblivious man approached you for the fifth time was unmistakable even though his cheeks inflated rather adorably as he continued to dutifully play his saxophone. You were honestly only in attendance to watch the performance of the 100th’s band, entertaining the local populace of Sioux City, Iowa in gratitude for tolerating their invasion earlier that month, and not interested in dancing with anyone other than their handsome saxophone-playing pilot Lieutenant John Brady.

You had been quite taken with John Brady since the moment you had laid your eyes on him late on January 2nd, lost in the streets of Sioux City with the address of a local tobacco shop clutched in his hand and a bewildered expression on his face. On your way from your job at the T.S. Martin Department Store to the apartment you shared with your close friend Fern Westcott, you had stopped to try and give him directions. When his eyebrows had crinkled helplessly in confusion, it had not taken long for you to decide to guide him there yourself, waiting patiently for him to make his purchase of rather fine pipe tobacco as he then insisted on escorting you home in turn. Never mind that he did not know the way and only ended up more lost on account of it.

What had followed had been a rather intense few weeks of courtship whenever he managed to escape the base, quickly learning his way around the city…and your skirts. The entire group was growing convinced they would be cleared for overseas duty any day now and your time with him was feeling precariously short, making the continued interruptions of your department head, whose advances you had been dodging for months now, all the more tedious.

Upon arrival at the dancehall, decked out with streamers in the blue and gold of the 8th Air Force and a huge banner that read ‘We’ll Miss You 100th’ you had selected a spot along the wall with a clear view of John. Fern had offered to check your winter coat and returned, briefly, with the tag before allowing herself to be swept off by one of the many handsome young men in attendance. She was a stunning blonde with green eyes and a bright laugh, fairly having to beat them off if she wanted a break – though it never seemed she did, happy to dance for hours. Meanwhile you could barely get through one song without being proposition by the nasal voice of Leroy, his shiny face inserting itself into your view. You did your utmost to remain polite and not turn him down too harshly.

“Oh maybe the next one.”

“Just enjoying my drink, thanks.”

“I’m still a little tired from work, Leroy, but thank you.”

“I’m sure Fern would love a dance with you, Leroy.”

“Almost ready, Leroy.”

You tried changing sides of the dancefloor, hiding behind other couples, nursing a drink. None of these tactics worked for very long. With each of his intrusions, you noted John’s lips growing tighter around the mouthpiece of his instrument, his grip turning his fingertips white, but he remained on the bandstand, dutifully playing out the set which, to your recollection, only had a few more songs. After the fifth rebuffed invitation, Fern mercifully intervened and pulled you out onto the dancefloor to join numerous other pairs of friends who were dancing with one another.

“You’re a lifesaver Fern…” You muttered gratefully and the pair of you tried not to laugh too loudly as you struggled to figure out who would lead.

“If that man wasn’t responsible for signing our timecards…”

You gave her a knowing huff, wishing more than anything you could firmly dismiss his advances, but to do so risked your position in the housewares department. “I put in for team lead with the mail order department since Artie left, we’ll see what happens.”

“Well we’d miss you dearly but for your sake I truly–”

Fern’s reply was cut off by the sharp tap on her shoulder by the fairly grinning Leroy, his gleeful expression making you shudder involuntarily. You had not even made it one song before he had found you amidst the sea of swaying humanity.

“May I cut in?”

To turn him down on the edge of the dancefloor was one thing, but people were already casting glances your way for the obstacle your trio was creating. If you were to refuse now it would truly qualify as making a scene, and that must be avoided at all costs.

“Certainly.” You summoned a polite smile and nodded reassuringly to Fern who immediately found another partner to whisk her away.

Keeping your arms stiff, you managed to maintain a generous amount of distance between your bodies, despite the insistent pressure of his hand on your lower back. The other hand that clung to yours was remarkably clammy and there was something sour on his breath. It took a great deal of strength to maintain a polite expression on your face as he clumsily led you through the last two songs of the set, his brassy blond hair plastered to his skull with an excessive amount of pomade as he leered at you triumphantly. You often wondered why a man like him, only a few years older than you and seemingly 1A, had yet to enlist or be drafted. If only.

You could not wrench yourself from Leroy’s arms fast enough as the band finished their final number with a flourish, flashing him a tight smile and wishing him a ‘goodnight’ before quickly making your way toward the front of the stage as the audience applauded the soldiers-turned-entertainers. It was not long before a uniform-clad arm was sliding around your waist.

“You did great, John” You rushed out brightly as you turned to look at him warmly, but he was already guiding you around the side of the stage, face still tight.

“Come help me with something, sweetheart.” His voice was taut, and his statement was not really a request, even though the words would normally have comprised one.

Chaos erupted in your abdomen, an erratic swooping in your stomach contrasting sharply with a newly familiar heaviness lower down, and all from just the tone of his voice. The promise it carried. You knew he was not annoyed with you, but the mood he was in was certainly one that usually held certain physical outcomes for you. Or at least it had the last time he had acted this way. Following without comment, John led you into the green room where all sorts of cases lay open, ready to store the band’s instruments once they returned.

So far it seemed he was the first to return here and the pair of you paused briefly for him to secure his saxophone before he resumed his progress toward a door at the back of the room which was revealed to be a small washroom. You were not afforded much time to take it in, however, as his mouth was promptly on yours while his free hand focused on closing and locking the door behind you once he had pulled you inside.

Gasping sharply, you gripped the lapels of his uniform jacket, tilting your head back to yield to his demanding kiss as he backed you against the edge of the counter, arm around your waist coiling tighter. Gripping your chin with his long fingers, he pulled back to look over your slightly dazed face with darkened eyes, pupils eclipsing his blue irises as he began to pluck at the front buttons of your dress. As he bared the skin of your collarbones and the tops of your breasts, his head bowed to possessively nip and hungrily suck along your flesh, leaving you to grasp at his shoulders, desperately seeking anchor whilst attempting to smother your noises of pleasure in the back of your throat.

Clenching your thighs together as your folds grew increasingly damp and desperate for attention, you bit your lip in a mixture of regret and anticipation as John’s eyes flicked up to meet yours, a teasing huff escaping from his nostrils across your damp skin as he had clearly caught the movement.

The hems of your dress and slip fluttered as his hands slid to skate up the backs of your thighs, his fingertips making you jump slightly as they met your skin, breath hitching in your throat as gooseflesh erupted in the wake of his touch. Reaching the waistband of your underwear, John peeled them from your body, sliding the fabric down your legs before gripping your hips to guide you to sit up on the countertop. Bending down to slip your underwear over one shoe and then the other, you opened your mouth to inquire what he intended to do with them only to be met with his tongue sliding along yours, erasing any and all thought from your mind.

Fingers sliding into the longer strands of his hair, the feeling of his palm cupping your weeping core had a needy whimper spilling into his mouth as you arched eagerly. Huffing in amusement for a second time, John pulled back to drink in your facial expression as he worked his fingers through your folds, collecting your growing slick on his fingertips before seeking the source of your pleasure. Circling your sensitive bud, yet maddeningly denying direct contact, you rocked your lower lip back and forth beneath your teeth in time to his movements, brows knit up plaintively, tiny whimpers slipping through despite your best efforts to keep quiet.

When, at last, he slid his finger across your clit, your hips surged toward his hand with such need that he pressed his lips to your nose fondly. “Feel good, sweetheart?”

“Uh huh!” You breathed enthusiastically, with a firm nod, earning repeated strokes exactly where you wanted them, making your toes curl in your shoes.

“Remember how good I make you feel when I’m gone.” He murmured and you panted, punctuating your eager nods with several soft keens of delight.

“I will, god, I will miss you so much.” You whispered, voice growing alarmingly loud as he began to slide his middle finger into your wet heat.

“I know, I know.” John soothed, pressing a quick kiss to your lips as he added his ring finger, beginning to work the long digits in and out of you in a way that had your eyelids fluttering shut. “Ah, eyes on me sweetheart.” He gently yet firmly gripped your jaw, angling your eyes to meet his as you quickly forced them open, and he smiled. “There’s my pretty girl.”

Abandoning his attentions on your clit, he began a demanding pace as he curled the ends of his fingers and worked them against a spongey spot deep inside you. Your jaw dropped open in a silent moan, hips fairly levitating from the counter as your fingers dug into his scalp. His thumb shifted from the side of your jaw to slide along your lower lip before coming to rest on your tongue. Reflexively, your lips wrapped around the digit, and you began to suck, shuddering at the way his nostrils flared in response, struggling mightily to keep your eyelids open and gaze meeting his.

Your eyes were growing glossy with need, his internal stimulation, while heavenly, just not quite enough to drive you over the edge to release. At last, John seemed to take pity, his thumb manipulating your clit in short, sharp circles that had your eyes rolling back into your skull no matter how hard you fought it as your orgasm pulled your entire body rigid before dropping you lax onto the countertop.

John pulled his thumb from your mouth with a faint ‘pop’ before leaning in to feather your face with tender kisses, gently pulling you up into his arms and rubbing your back as you rested against his chest. There was that alluring hardness in his trousers again, one that he had not let you act upon or explore to date, insisting that he only wanted to focus on pleasing you.

“So good for me, sweetheart. You did incredible.” He murmured once he finished licking his fingers clean.

“Mmmm…thank you, Johnny.” You murmured and turned your face to brush your lips across his jaw, resting against him until your body felt able to support itself once more, sitting up slowly.

“Really am going to miss you…” He muttered, brushing his knuckles across your cheek and you frowned, nodding in return.

“Not as much as I’m going to miss you. Oh! I got you a present it’s…in my coat.” Look down at the state of your dress and could only imagine the state of the rest of you. You really did want to give him the two tins of his favorite tobacco tied together with a ribbon though, particularly as there was an envelope slipped between them containing your photograph.

John smirked a little and stole a kiss. “I’ll fetch it for you, you wait here.”

You laughed ruefully and dug the ticket out of your dress pocket, sharing one last, lingering kiss before he stepped out into the green room. There were more voices out there, the rest of the band surely returned from the stage, and you slid onto slightly wobbly legs to lock the door behind him. Buttoning your dress back up, you turned to the mirror and gasped before frantically trying to sort out your hair and the lipstick smeared all around your lips.

Straightening your slip, you froze as you realized you had no idea where your underwear was. A glance around the miniscule space with just a toilet and the vanity revealed they were nowhere to be found. Perhaps John did not need another gift from you. It seemed he had already taken one.

-------------------------

Nerdy Post-Script: While everyone thought the 100th would be cleared for overseas duty at the end of their training in Sioux City they were still considered unfit. The group was split up over multiple bases across the US for further training before their disastrous training flight to California in April 1943. It wasn't until an additional twenty days of intense remedial training in May 1943 that they were finally declared fit for overseas duty.

Read the sequel - Undone Before You

Masters of the Air Masterlist

[cherubispunk]

BARK! BITE! BLEED! (INTERLUDE) - FWB!Frankie Morales x AFAB!Reader

summary: the sting of biting one’s tongue is a lesser of two evils compared to the sting of rejection.

a note from Lucy: Not really a full part but still important to the storyline. Just a little bit of a deeper look into the reader and Frankie’s relationship, their characters and their ideas of each other.

playlist | moodboard

wc: 3046

Warnings: 18+ MDNI! no use of y/n, obsessive behaviour, frankie is obsessed and it is very unhealthy, toxic relationships, age gap (reader is 21, Frankie is 27) - though not mentioned in this part, graphic smut, oral (f receiving), face sitting, p in v sex, creampie, biting, softdom!frankie, scratching, references to suicide, references to racial discrimination and othering in American school systems.

“Is it your smile I enjoy…or the parts of me still stuck in your teeth?”

Some days Frankie liked to pretend you were a map. Easy to read. The landmarks recognisable on top of your skin. The world growing with you, shifting over bone. Breathing with life. The valley of your breasts. The bridge of your hips. The high street that was your spine. At the top of the high street, just over the fleshy part at the nape of your neck, was a library. It was locked. Always. Sometimes he would look through the window to see if anyone was still there. Peer in through grimy glass to expect someone thumbing through pages of a book, folding the corners to mark a quote, or a passage that held particular resonance. Alas, they were plastered with dated newspapers and rotting boards nailed to the over closed shutters. So he wandered back down, past the railway tracks of one rib, the empty children’s playground of another. The church on your sternum. The graveyard had no flowers by headstones. Half were smothered by a thick blanket of browning moss. Others were merely so caked in grime and crumbling that names were illegible. And passed over the bridge to the empty bandstand of your navel. Where music would play if someone gave the time of day. Behind him were footprints of marks he left with his teeth. A need to show himself he had been here. I have been here.

Behind the bandstand, deeper in, on a small mound of a hill, lay a wooden gate. And beyond the gate was an orchard fenced off from the rest. Here, Frankie would indulge his selfish tongue in the sweet fruit. Between two trunks of apple trees. Bite after ripened bite. The juice was full with a sweet flavour and sticky as it dribbled down his chin. Stained his fingers with their residue when he wiped his mouth. But there was a sharp aftertaste. And before he knew it the apple rotted in his hand. Dropped to the dew dappled grass and damp dirt.

It was always quiet in that town he roamed. No train on the tracks to go clickety-clack. No child on the swings giggling ‘higher dad!’. No busker at the bandstand humming the hymn of god loving us back. Just him. Eerie and silent with only his footsteps to accompany the low murmur of the tree conversing with the blackbird. And the gutters slugged with stagnant rain. He avoided pavement cracks. His mother would save her back. He rounded ladders. It cut himself seven years of slack. Nothing bad would come of it either way. That map was his mind's creation. So he kissed you hard enough to invert you. Fucked you hard enough to invert you. Maybe then he would see what was inside. What wallowed under your skin and festered hot in the gaps between? Each atom of each cell was a stone he wished to turn over. Because there must be something. You had your walls for a reason. Maybe it was written on you like a book? Carved into flesh, a signature he could run a finger over after reading. Behind the backs of your lids, under the tips of your nails. The crook of a knee or elbow. Or he’d trace the freckles on your skin like constellations. Using them like sailors in the archaic times to pass through uncharted waters. Scylla would come and feast on his weathered ship soon enough. Drag him to Davy Jones’s locker. No vessel of good intent crossed your choppy waters before.

You both agreed that you were not a mother. A wife. A bride. Or anything else he might want you to be other than human. You were happy with your independence. You didn't want to throw anything away just yet. Not at all. Not for a long, long while. You set ground rules. Had a straightforward argument that you bought up without the need for him to ask what this consisted off.

“We tell each other when we have had sex with someone else.” Seemed easy enough to Frankie. “And wear protection with them too.” Another valid request. “But most of all, no feelings. I don’t care who you sleep with, or what you do with them, and if you meet someone who you really hit it off with then we call it quits. But if you start to feel even a shred of something more, Frankie, that's it. We call it.”

That had poor Francisco swallowing back a lump in his throat before it could choke the reply back down him. His stomach felt hot, and burned all of a sudden as he tried to digest what you had said. A knot consisting of a livewire thrummed in his gut and made his skin flush. And it irked him to no end.

Frankie remembered his years as an outsider. In a school where the white outnumbered the other. A child of immigrants, lucky enough to have skin that passed. He heard stories of a boy who sat two rows down from him in his American history class. A boy with dark skin and textured hair. Who was teased about his colour. Who threw himself from a bridge because every time he looked down at his hands, darker than those of other students, he felt like he didn’t belong. Frankie felt it too. He could memorise the names of presidents. He could recite that the capital of Texas was Austin. That the United States of America were at war with the United Kingdom from the twelfth of April 1861 to the thirteenth of May1865. But no matter how much of a textbook he would splurge out from between his lips he was always from the outside looking in. It made him wonder in silence to his pillow if he would ever belong. If any fact, or word, or story would make him fit in. He’d have even the gaps between two. He’d squeeze into it, no matter how small, and make it his to belong in. He thought the army would be his ticket in. That if he served a country he would earn his place in it. A foolish thought. For even now, looking at you, he felt the chill from the other side of the window pane. The side in the cold.

While you lay draped in bed, strewn out like the sheets, smoking a cigarette in languid drags, he thought to himself how little he truly knew. Yes he knew about America. But not a sentence about you. Your past. Yes, he knew you did your laundry on Sundays. You came home from the bar you worked in at 1:00. But nothing of note. Nothing important. Part of him liked it. Mystery left room for the mind to entertain. Often fantasy was far more intriguing than reality and it made you seem all the more interesting. A comfort to know he wasn't wasting his time on no one; But rather devoting it to someone. However, the other part— the part of him that watched smoke serpentine from the glowing end of your cigarette— hated it. The way it felt in his gut. Anxiety. He felt it before. But never in this situation. In combat he knew he didn't have time for it. It didn't ululate or linger. It was there, then he swallowed, and it wasn't. Now? Well…he had these moments between. Moments where you would light a cigarette, inhale, exhale. And he would watch as your chest rose, then fell in a pattern enough to hypnotise him. Something so simple as your breathing engaged him. Frankie wondered what it would be like; to live under your skin and have the steady up and down lull him to sleep at night. A rocking back and forth. To and fro. Up and down. Belonging. Moments where he would trace the line of your spine with his eyes. Too scared to touch what wasn’t his until he would bite his tongue and press a single finger to the dip and back down its soft curve. Earlier in the evening, when the sky started to stain tangerine, you had been canting your hips into his, dragging up and down on his length and singing his praises in a breathy chorus. Lost on the feeling of the stretch. The welcome invasion. Then you did the same with his face. Clit brushing zealously over the hooked, aquiline bridge of his nose. Your slick devoured by his wanting mouth. Frankie was the river that ran and unravelled in valleys to feed into your ocean. He hated being in the dark. Only when he fucked you did he have a chance at turning on a light.

“Read it.” He mumbled, nodding to the book in your hands, and rolling over between your thighs to part them. A classic of some century long past. One he never cared much for. But he wanted something. Needed something to tell you to do. Or just something to say. Because the silence was torture for his lonely mind.

You were halfway through stubbing your cigarette into the chipped ceramic dish on your bedside table when he spoke. “What?” You asked, tilting your head in curiosity, eyes searching his. As if the answer lay in their storm-brewing shade of chestnut. Although in the dark, under nothing but halogen street lamp glow, they looked a lot more like black. A nothingness that promised the existence of something.

“I said,” Frankie mumbled again, his voice firm, low and with a gravely finish to it that was just like him. Rough around the edges. Hard to part with. “Read it.” and then, Out loud.”

The words were smudged into the skin of your thigh as he trailed his lips over the inside of the right. His hands skimmed down the outside and squeezed plush flesh. Plump and smooth. Small divots of silver stretch marks on your flesh like ink carved into flesh. Hand painted by some deity in the sky that paid no mind to him now. When he traced his mouth higher he stuck out his tongue. You were wet and hot with his breath and his spit, his come too, still sticky between your thighs at the apex of them. Your very centre. Where his prominent, aquiline nose traced through your folds before his tongue flicked your clit once. “Frankie…” you whined, toes curling. Because you were so sensitive. So worn and stretched and aching. He hushed you, taking liberty over the time where he called the shots. When he was able to bend you to his will and have your head spinning dizzy instead. He didn't feel so motion sick when that was the case.

“Shhh…” he soothed, and pressed the flat of his tongue to your aching sex where heat melted and spread out through your limbs, seeping into muscle and unwinding tension. “Just read…”

Silence. And he thought he may have taken it too far. Finally sent you over some indiscernible edge that appeared too quickly for him to press the brakes. But then your honeyed voice filled his ears;

“Orpheus wished and prayed, in vain, to cross the Styx again, but the ferryman fended him off. Still, for seven days, he sat there by the shore, neglecting himself and not taking nourishment. Sorrow, troubled thought, and tears were his food.” You started, eyes blurring under the hazy weight of pleasure. His tongue delved a little deeper, circled your clit, flicking over the hood of it once, twice, thrice in quick laps. The tip of it pressed to a point and rolled it in careful, full circles. Your nerves thrummed like livewires, humming the same way telephone lines would in a hot summer rainstorm. Where heat lightning flashed ahead.

“Pretty pussy all used and fuckin’ soaked still.” He murmured into you slick, now in a generous shine across his chin. You whined, keening your hips up so his nose pressed to your mound and the smattering of curls there. He lay belly flat to the mattress, hips rutting slowly in tandem with the torturous, bold, and thick laps of your cunt. “C’mon, baby. Léeme a mí. Keep going.”

You read on, lips quivering, words dying by the dragging slice of a moan, a whimper, or simpering whine. Toes curling as his tongue lapped at you. “Three times the sun had ended the year, in watery Pisces, and Orpheus had abstained from the love of women, either because things ended badly for him, or because he had sworn to do so. Yet, many felt a desire to be joined with the poet, and many grieved at rejection.”

His mouth made a sinful soaking sound, wet and generous and full of your taste. “Que cosa mas linda.” He crooned into your cunt, lips smearing into your drenched sex while you stumbled over the words on your page. “Coño— tan mojado, bebita.” You whimpered again, a pathetic sound, fingers daring to curl into the thick head of brown hair at the crown of his head and press him deeper— because, god, you had never wanted something so carnally in your life. “Son deliciosas.” The glint of wanting in his eyes was like the blade of a knife catching the light. A flash of warning before it sliced tender flesh and let blood bleed red. You watched in quivering liquid smooth heat while he tasted, and favoured, and lusted over the seam between your thighs. It was such a pretty sight. Such a wonderful feeling of freedom that sat aching and twisting in your belly. The feeling of impending relief— release. A little death.

“I cant–” You gasped, legs jolting before the malleable, soft and round swell of your thighs clamped over his ears. Your core bearing down on the plane of his nose at your clit and his tongue that dipped in and out of your slick, drooling hole. Large hands, rough to touch, unforgiving and telling, pressed them back to the mattress again. He had you spread completely, open and melting into a pathetic resolve of messy sounds. He dragged his nose through your folds once more, before his lips enclosed around your bud and drew it between them in a sharp suck that had you seeing stars. Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Orpheus, they were put back between the pages of a closed book. Shimmering away into mere dust of thought. A coiling pressure replaced them. One of pleasure, and a slight pain of overstimulation. Hot like a wire in a ready-to-blow fuse. “Fuck– Frankie…” You yelped, and he replied with nothing more than a guttural groan into your centre. A lewd slurp of the slit of your cunt as if it was his last meal. Like it was divine to him. Tasted sweeter than a slice of heaven. Here he could blur into you and forget he was separate. Ignore that you ended somewhere and he started some place after. No gap between could exist with his face pressed into your pussy. Gushing all over his lips and tongue and cheeks just for him. Drenching his face in the thick shine of your slick.

And then there was the slow release of the ache; The coiling heat blooming in your lower belly. Growing with each circle of his tongue over your swollen clit. Your legs twitched from a moment, breathing heavily and staggered as you squeezed your eyes tightly shut. Your vision fizzled behind your eyelids for a moment, making opening your eyes to look down at him retreating would probably have you passing out.

“Bien hecho, chica.” he mumbled as he smeared his lips over your goose pimpled skin, hair stood on end from the tone of his crooning voice, the rough scrape of his moustache over flesh. “Good girl.”

He climbed back up the bed to lie next to you, and the two of you lay still for a while. Your mind felt dormant under the heavy guise of something dragging, your eyelids like paperweights, stinging with the need to just sleep.

“Been meaning to ask you something…” Frankie spoke up, smoothing a hand over your stomach atop the bedsheets you had slipped back under.

“Mhm?’ You asked in a voice that was hazed by the want to sleep, eyes still closed, but awake.

“I’ve got this…thing.” He started, and he watched art you opened one eye to peer at him sceptically, lips pursed ever so slightly. “And all my mates have dates because they're either married, or engaged, or have been planning to get round to proposing…” You scoffed before he had the chance to pick up the trail off of his own sentence. He couldn’t quite meet the scrutinising eyes of yours. The ones that narrowed a fraction as they watched him smooth over the top of your sheets, over a thread that had snagged there when being washed in the machine.

“What thing are you bateing me into going to, Morales?”

“Just a military thing.” He shrugged, trying to be nonchalant, but the way his thick fingers found and pulled at the same stray thread of your duvet cover said otherwise. “A formal.” There was a hint of fear settling like silt at the bottom of a river in his eyes. A flicker. If that. Maybe you could call it a glimmer from afar. Whatever you might call it, it was better left unsaid. You sighed to save him the embarrassment, rolling onto your side and propping your head up with your arm.

“And there isn’t a single soul on this planet that you know of who can accompany you other than me, hm?”

“Please?” He practically begged, rolling on top of you to speak to the skin of your hot neck, skin still slightly salty from the sweat that had previously lain there. “Just as a friend. Nothing more, I promise you.” It would would be nice to have someone there he wished to add, but but his tongue to hold it back. He hated the idea of seeming soppy. Either way, the sting of biting one’s tongue is a lesser of two evils compared to the sting of rejection.

“I suppose I better find a dress then.”

[mrghostrat]

WAS THE BANDSTAND FORESHADOWING???!?! DONT DO THIS TO ME

crowley DID try to warn u all……

“So it’ll start out a bit tetchy, and hopefully get everyone on the edge of their seats— but it’s just a bait and switch. Bit of tension, bit of a cheeky fuck you to the readers — because we love it.” [x]

[multifandomrandomgirl]

The Ropes That Bind US -Peter Tork x female!reader PART 12

Masterlist:

Taglist: @strawberry-sunset-skies

A few days had passed since Y/N and the boys had gone to the beach, they’d spent most of the time messing around the Pad. Davy gave Y/N a few of his old t-shirts which she hitched to fit better, Peter and Mike found a couple of theirs too which she could use as a dress top. Y/N, Peter and Micky had spent a lot of time playing music together, they had convinced her to sing ‘Love Me Tender’ by Elvis which had made Peter fall for her more, her voice was velvet-like whilst singing that song and he couldn’t help but be in awe of her.

They were all currently sitting at the kitchen table, Y/N had made them all breakfast, which despite having been made from whatever scraps they had left, tasted better than anything any of them could have put together. While they were eating, an envelope fell through the letterbox at the front door, Davy had gone to pick it up, and his eyes widened when he realised it was addressed to Y/N.

“Hey, Y/N. This came for you.” He passed the letter to the girl as he sat back down and dug back into his breakfast. Mike and Peter glanced at each other nervously. Y/N thanked Davy and then slid her finger under the seal of the envelope, she pulled out a piece of paper, she read it in silence before throwing it down and fleeing the Pad via the backdoor which lead straight to the beach. The boys looked at each other in confusion, Mike who had sat to the left of Y/N picked the letter up before either Davy or Micky could stick their noses into it.

Mike scanned the letter, and sure enough, he found what he had feared he would. It was a simple and plain letter, nothing much had been said.

Dear Y/N.

Nice to know you’re alive.

It’s also nice to know you’ve found friends as you may need them.

We no longer have space for you, we moved on after a month as we knew we had no hopes of finding you. Sorry, but we don’t need you back in our lives. Stay where you are if they want to keep you, but don’t come home or write here ever again.

Mom and Dad.

Mike frowned at the half-arsed note he was holding in his hand, he glanced out the windows by the bandstand to see Y/N storm across the sand, towards a rock.

“I think, we should give her some space, let her come to us when she’s ready to talk. None of you are to touch this, okay?” Michael gave his three bandmates a stern look as he put the letter back into its envelope, placing it back on the table. “I mean it if I find out one of you three so much as even breathed near it, there’ll be trouble. Now, let’s eat and wash up. I don’t want to hear anything about the letter. Don’t even ask her, let her speak first.” Michael picked his fork up once more, eating what was left on his plate. The four Monkees finished their food and cleared up in silence, Peter went to stand on the bandstand once they were done, staring out of the window in hopes he could see Y/N, Mike looked at the bassist sympathetically and walked over, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sure she’ll be back up here soon, Shotgun. Just, don’t push her when she comes back, give her time, but just make sure she’s okay, I think she may need one of your hugs.” Michael stood with Peter a while longer. Half an hour of pacing around the Pad later, Y/N returned, and all four boys’ heads snapped to look at her. Peter walked over to her slowly, not wanting to overwhelm her or scare her off. Y/N made eye contact with Peter and began to sob, the blond ran over to her and scooped her up bridal style, holding her close to his chest as he made his way over to the sofa and sat down still cradling her.

“Shh, hey, hey. It’s okay. I’m here, I’ve got you.” Peter rocked her back and to whilst stroking her hair. The other three sat down cautiously on the other sofa, they decided that leaving Peter to it was the best idea. “Hey, Y/N, deep breaths, okay? Come on, I’ve got you, you can talk to me. You’re going to be okay.” He rubbed circles on her left hand, her breathing became less rapid and eventually after ten minutes of Peter trying, she calmed down slightly.

“I’m sorry, I’m- I’ve- they’ve moved on. They don’t want me to come home, they don’t want me to ever contact them again.” Y/N burst out into tears again, Peter tried to comfort her but this time, it was no use. The poor girl was heartbroken, none of the boys quite knew what to do.

“Hey, wanna see my impression of the inimitable James Cagney?” Micky left no room for an answer as he began to put on his little act. “Okay, you dirty rat, I’m gonna get you, you dirty rat.” Y/N did not stop crying.

“C’mon man, she just isn’t in the mood. You already used that on me in that episode where I got ripped off with my song.” Mike rolled his eyes at Micky’s terrible attempt at making the girl stop crying. Micky sat back down defeated, he thought it was funny.

Davy stepped up next, he tried a dance, which didn’t work. He sang Blue Suede Shoes in a strange voice, it didn’t help either. He sat back down and folded his arms. This left Mike. Mike stepped up from the sofa and crouched down in front of Peter and Y/N, he place a hand on Y/N’s shoulder. “Hey Y/N, look, I’m sure you don’t want to talk about it, but I’m going for a walk if you want to come, see if that helps, yeah?” Michael said softly, Y/N twisted her head and nodded. She detangled herself from Peter’s arms and followed Michael to the door, the pair grabbing their shoes before making their way out of the door.

Peter’s face fell as he realised that he had failed in making Y/N feel better, his lip trembled slightly. Micky and Davy realised this and rushed to his side, hoping to prevent the boy from crying.

“I messed up, didn’t I? How is it Mike can calm her down but I can’t? Did I say something wrong?” The tears spilt from the bassist’s eyes, Davy pulled Peter into a side hug and Micky rubbed patterns on his back.

“You’ve not done anything wrong, Peter. She’s having a hard day is all, you did great earlier, and you completely calmed her down, but I think she’s struggling right now babe, she’s just been told that her family don’t want her back. I know you’re upset, but you’ve done such a good job, okay? I’m sure that once she and Mike get back, she’ll come and talk to you again, but for now, let’s leave Mikey to play the role of a father.” Peter calmed down slightly at Micky’s words. Pete nodded and snuggled into Davy more, tucking his head in between the shorter man’s head and shoulder, Davy wrapped his arm around Peter and held him as tight as he could. Micky slotted into the gap between Peter and the arm of the sofa and leant his chin on Peter’s shoulder, Peter slid his arm behind Micky’s waist in response.

-----

Mike and Y/N walked along the beach in silence for a good ten minutes before either of them spoke up.

“I’m guessing that you got me here to talk about the letter?” Y/N twisted her head to look at the Texan who had been concentrating on the sand. Mike’s head snapped up and his face flushed slightly, that had been his intention, but not in a bad way.

“Y/N, look. I’m really sorry. I read the letter this morning before you came back, the boys were probably going to pick it up had I not, and I know what them three are like. They’re sweet but a bit much sometimes. Anyway, I decided to move it, I’m sorry for having read it, I know I made a mistake in that. I was just worried about you when you ran out.” Mike rambled, Y/N shook her head and giggled.

“Mike, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I’m glad you read it rather than one of the others. You’re right, they are lovely, but I know Pete wouldn’t panic and I don’t even want to think about how the other two would have reacted.” Y/N smiled at him. “Thank you for keeping it away from them.”

“I mainly brought you out here because I wanted to ask you if you’d like to stay? You’re more than welcome to stay, we’d love you to stay, I mean it. All of us, not just Peter. It’s nice having another mature adult around the house, and obviously, we know that Peter loves having you around. Micky and Davy love you being here too, I’d rather not question why. Just, if Micky offers you any dodgy-looking drinks, don’t take it. He likes to experiment if we have to put it into a word. Just stay away from it for your safety. Anyway, I digress, what I mean is, we’re more than happy to keep you if you want to stay. The four of us boys are like an adopted family and I’m more than happy to adopt you into our strange little family. When we were writing that letter, I kept telling myself, that I had already adopted you into our family, but I knew it was selfish to think that when you were hopeful of going home. But no matter what Y/N, we’ll always have space for you, we want you here, okay? We really do, so, if you’d like, you’re more than welcome to stay with us.” Michael had stopped now, he had a look on his face which showed how serious he was about Y/N living with him and his boys for good.

“Wait, really? You’d be willing to let me stay?” She gasped, Mike nodded, trying to not giggle at her reaction. “I mean, of course! I’d love to stay, if you’re really willing to put up with me! I love living with you guys, I know it’s not been long since I came here, but it’s so great! Miky and Davy are hilarious, and I will avoid any dodgy drinks from Micky, thanks for that heads up! You’re really great, especially when it comes to wanting to have more mature conversations? I love the other three, but I don’t think they know the definition of mature sometimes. Anyway, then there’s Peter. He’s helped me so much, both here and when we were being held hostage. Peter’s so sweet, he’s hilarious and I love spending time with him, I really do.” Mike pretended that he didn’t see the blush that decorated her cheeks as she spoke about Peter. “But, I would love to join your strange little family, I’m sure you’d love another mature adult in there, take some stress away from you.” Y/N blabbered, which made Mike laugh.

“Where’d you get the idea that I’m the acting dad?”

“Well, from how you act around the boys, and from the stories Peter told me about you guys, for example, he told me about the time he was forced to copy a really famous painting and then got tied up, he told me about how you helped him, or when he got kidnapped when trying to help that Professor, he said it was all you in plotting to save him. You’re a right dad, Mike.” Y/N shook her head, laughing at the frown on Mike’s face.

“Perhaps I am. Anyway, it’d be great to have another mature adult, as you put it, around the house. But no, I am extremely serious about keeping you, you have no choice! You have to stay with us.” Mike laughed, Y/N pulled him into a hug, he hugged her back equally as tight as she was hugging him.

“Thank you, Michael. I really appreciate it, I’d love to stay with you boys!”

“It’s really not a problem! I haven’t actually discussed it with them because I knew they’d be all in your face begging you to stay, but I know they’re going to be happy. Actually, maybe we shouldn’t tell them and see how long it takes for them to clock onto the fact that you’re staying. It’d probably take them several months to realise because they’re idiots.”

“Michael! Those are our kids you’re talking about, be polite!” Y/N laughed, jokingly elbowing the Texan in the ribs, Mike rolled his eyes whilst laughing like a maniac.

“I’m not wrong though! I’m not taking it back!” Mike grinned.

“I can’t believe you! Those poor boys, what did they ever do to you?” Y/N pretended, and failed, to frown at Mike, but she was laughing way too much at this point.

“Hmm.” Mike scratched his chin, pretending to think about things the boys had done that made them idiotic. He could give many answers as they did tend to get themselves into a lot of trouble, but he didn’t answer.

“See! Our boys did nothing wrong.” Y/N really lost it at this point, she had to sit down because she couldn’t stop laughing and it was taking all the air out of her. Mike joined her, as his stomach began to hurt from the hysterical laughing he was doing.

“Mike?” Y/N managed to calm herself down.

“Yeah?”

“You really are the best dad to them, even if you’re mean about them behind their backs.” Y/N burst into a new fit of giggles, setting Mike back off.

“Oh screw you.” Mike managed to choke out in between giggles.

They slowly made their way back up to the Pad where Peter had fallen asleep on the sofa, he was still sandwiched between Davy and Micky who were still rubbing circles on his back and hands.

“We didn’t have the heart to wake him.” Micky explained when Mike and Y/N entered the room, Mike had given them a funny look. “He was a little upset and thought he’d done something wrong when you left the Pad with Mike.” Micky looked at Y/N. Her face fell and she crouched down in front of the sofa and stroked Peter’s cheek.

“I am so so sorry Pete. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just needed fresh air. I am sorry, and I hope I didn’t hurt you too much.” She whispered just loud enough for the three awake Monkees to hear. They all smiled to themselves, she’d felt so bad when she realised that Pete had been upset, and even though she hadn’t been at fault for it, she had been so quick to panic and apologise, even though it really wasn’t her fault. They could all see she did really care for him and it made them all happy.

“It’s okay.” Peter’s sleepy voice piped up, the added pressure on his skin had woken the man up, he pulled himself out of Davy’s side and sat upright, he gave a lazy smile to the girl.

“Hey Y/N, how’s about you tell the boys the good news?” Mike put a hand on Y/N’s shoulder and gave her a small nod.

“So, Michael and I talked when we went for a walk and he asked me if I wanted to stay here, and I accepted his generous offer. So, now you guys are stuck with me!” She grinned, this gained Peter’s attention, his eyes were still droopy but he clumsily tried to hug Y/N but fell onto her as she sat on the floor, she managed to stay sat upright and grabbed Peter to steady him as he landed on her knee.

“Yay! We’re keeping you!” Peter nuzzled into the crook of her neck and fell back asleep, Y/N shook her head affectionately at him. Mike moved forward and lifted him up so Y/N could move onto the sofa, he placed Peter back down so that his head was laid across Y/N’s knees and the rest of his body was laid across the rest of the sofa. Y/N ran her fingers through his hair and smiled down at the sleepy boy.

“Welcome permanently to the Monkees family!” Micky and Davy said at the same time, giggling as they hadn’t planned that to happen.

“I think you’re right Mike, they seem to share a single brain cell.” Y/N laughed.

“Hey!” The two youngest Monkees exclaimed.

“They really do.” Mike shook his head.

“Hey!” They said again, louder this time.

“Shh, don’t wake Peter up!” Y/N waggled her finger at the two boys who were now sat on the floor pouting at her.

[chipmunk-anon]

You opened your door to find Johnny balancing a large bouquet of daisies, a thermos of what was either soup or tea, and a stack of several tissue boxes. “Heard you were sick so I brought provisions.”

You let out as much of a chuckle as your stuffed up nose would allow. “Johnny, you didn’t need to do all this.” You managed the words hoarsely before being hit with several sneezes. “I’m feeling much better, really.”

“Even I can tell that’s not true. You sound awful, (Y/N) .

You nodded your head in defeat and welcomed him inside. “Sorry.” You plopped down into a large armchair littered with tissues. “I just hate being sick. 

“Well that’s why I came. I know what it’s like to be stuck in bed with a head that feels like it’s swimming and at the same time like it’s all stuffed up and about to explode

You sniffled and wiped your nose with your sleeve. “S’pose you’re right; most people get the flu real bad at least couple times during-” And then you realized that wasn’t what Johnny had been talking about. “Oh,” you said as your hands came to rest in your lap. “Johnny, I… I’m sorry. I know I say that a lot, but you gotta know I mean it every time.

“Why are you sorry? You’re not the one who made yourself sick. ‘Sides, I’m happy to come check on my girl.”

You blushed when he said this. The drummer immediately tried to pull back the little piece of sentiment. “Oh, no no, I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant you’re my friend and you are a girl… you’re my girlfriend- No! That’s wrong. That is definitely not what I was trying to say” Johnny brought his palm to his forehead. God, I am such an idiot. This always happened. He always seemed to forget something or say the wrong thing and screw things up. “I should go.”

“No, don’t!” you near shouted. “I mean, stay with me?” You smile hesitantly. “If you don’t mind being around all my germs, that is.”

“Of course I will. (Y/N), I’d stay with you if you had the plague, doesn't matter how contagious you were. I’d stay with you if you were at death’s door. I’d- I’d stay with you if I was the last healthy man on Earth!”

Your smile widened as he came to sit beside you on the arm of your chair. There wasn't anyone in the world half so wonderful as Johnny.

[retvenkos]

“you’ve always been here, in my mind.”

requested

A SOULMATE! AU? WITH DONNY NOVITSKI? FAM, THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE CONCEPTS AND IT HAS TO GO A LITTLE SOMETHING LIKE THIS...

okay, so soulmate! au where you can hear each other’s thoughts

which is honestly one of my favorite soulmate! aus

so i feel like hearing the other person’s thoughts is a gift that you have to sort of hone over time

but you were able to master it very young, and would sometimes “eavesdrop” on what your soulmate was thinking

music very often filled his mind

you fell in love with him even then, just by the music he surrounded himself with and the thoughts (always kind. always soft.) that passed through him.

it took donny a while to be able to hear your thoughts

he was very seldom quiet enough to really reach out in that way, but over the years he started to take time to adventure forth

and when he did, you were there to greet him

you were surprised to find that donny was so open to any questions you had and honestly so eager to get to know you

you had figured, after a few years, that he didn’t want to in that way - there are some thoughts that you can’t just find on your own, you have to be told 

but he wanted to get to know you, he had just never been good at being able to find your thoughts inside of his own.

and he was constantly asking you questions about yourself or things you loved

he had to make up for lost time somehow, right?

“how long have you been in my head without my knowing?”

“longer than you think.”

“then it’s only fair that i get to be the one asking questions.”

you planned on meeting up with each other at some point in your lives

you lived in new york city (the big apple itself!) and donny said that he would meet you there one day

he could be a real hot shot, there, and you believed in him

but then he was drafted

and the war turned out to be uglier than you could ever possibly imagine

he didn’t talk to you much, in those days

there wasn’t peace and quiet, there wasn’t time, there wasn’t anything beyond what was right in front of him, crumbling in his hands

he didn’t want you to hear his despair, either.

no one needed to know what happened in the dark

when you would reach out (you only did it a few times, afraid that the emptiness that filled you meant the worst) you were only met with sounds that would haunt your memories, such vivid feelings that your mind couldn’t fathom putting images to

and if you were on the front lines, too, then knowing that donny was suffering the same as you only compounded your fear and despair

and if you were anywhere else, then knowing he was suffering something you could never understand left you with a profound stillness that left you entirely saddened

plenty of people, in those days, spoke about the pain of having a soulmate in the war

and the terrible, soul crushing sadness of reaching out to only find yourself coming back to you

and when it all ended, you had the sinking feeling that things would never be the same

and you were afraid, then, to reach out

so, for the longest time, you didn’t

and what was worse - the fear that you would’ve lost him to the trenches or the idea that paralyzed you now, the fear that nothing you could say would make him forget the horrors of this world

would he want you to reach out, after everything that has passed?

“yes,” if you would have asked, his answer would have been “yes.”

but one day, you were working, and you heard a song that made you think of donny

and you cried

you thought of him and you cried

and you reached out to him and he was there, lurking in your mind the way you had eavesdropped on him all those years ago

“i’m sorry, donny.”

and you cried together

and things didn’t fix right away

things never do

but you started to reach out again

and once you made it clear that you still cared for donny, no matter what he had been through, he was constantly looking for you

“i need something to save me.”

“you’ll always have me.”

and then word of the bandstand came

and you knew that if anyone could win it, it would be him

how long had his music been swimming through your mind?

you knew that this competition was  m a d e  for him. it was a way the stars was apologizing for all it had broken and was pushing the two of you together

he would make it to new york city, and you would be waiting for him

you would stay up late at night to listen to his voice over the radio, harmonizing with julia

and it filled you with such contentment - such joy that you hadn’t felt in a long time

and by the time he made it to you, you knew the band better than some of the people you saw every day

and in their eyes you could see their crucibles, the wars they fought in and the horrors they lived through

and when you looked at donny, you could see all those thoughts you had heard for years swimming in his dark eyes and carved into the lines of his face

and in his eyes you could see yourself reflected there

and for the first time in a while, you truly believed that things would be okay

AND FLUFF ENSUES.

[acefictionwriting]

Ways Johnny Simpson is Warm

His Smile

When Johnny enters the bar you own, he is talking with Davy. However, when he sees you, he immediately smiles. His smile is warm. It makes your chest feel warm as your heart beats faster. Your face feels warm too, as you can’t help but blush as he half-runs half-walks over to hug you as a greeting.

His Hugs

Johnny’s hugs were warm. He always seemed warmer than anyone else, especially when you were entirely wrapped in his arms with him gently kissing the top of your head. You could feel his heartbeat he was holding you so tightly. So happy to see you. This happened everyday. You loved it every day. You smile up at him.

His Eyes

Johnny pulled back from the hug and looked at you with such warm and kind eyes. So in love you could see it on his whole face. His Green-Gray eyes met yours. The way he looked at you never failed to warm something in you, some emotion in you, that no one else could reach. No one else could touch that part of you, and warm it as he could.

His Voice

“Well Hey, Sweetheart! Hey, we just got done with the gig down the street, is your shift over? I feel like dancing!”

You know his shift ended an hour ago. You knew he and the boys had been drinking from the way Wayne and Davy were struggling to stand. You knew he thought they had just finished. you also knew your shift wouldn’t end for another half an hour. You didn’t have time for dancing. There wasn’t even live music in the bar tonight.

”Sure Johnny. I’d love to dance with you. I’ll put on your favorite record.”

There was his smile again.

His Laugh

You turned the music on and headed back to where Johnny was sitting with the band. He was laughing over something Davy said. His laugh was loud. He never tried to hide his laughter. He saw you and you once again his eyes brighten. He walks over to you again, and takes your hand. He kisses your hand softly while keeping eye contact.

“Hey! Do you wanna dance? The record that makes me think of you is on.”

“I would love to Johnny.” You said softly, smiling because his smile is so cute and contagious.

Bonus:

Johnny Simpson’s hands are cold. His hands shake. Both from his PTSD and his nerve damage. His hands are cold, but when he holds your hand to drag you to the dance floor, it makes you warm. Today, his hands were lightly shaking as one of his arms snaked around your waist for a slow dance. His hands were freezing against your dress, where you could feel it through the fabric. However, as his cold hands held you and sent chills through your body with how cold he was, you felt hot. Johnny Simpson wasn’t just warm. Johnny Simpson was hot.

[johnny-simpson]

Anyone Else but Me (Johnny Simpson x reader fic)

Johnny Simpson was ethereal, an angel on earth. He had a habit of just sitting and letting all the gals flock to him, and that was even before the Donny Nova Band, before he shipped off the fight for Uncle Sam and the red, white, and blue. Before his jeep flipped three times over. Before he could barely remember his name. Before you could even remember what it was like to have your heart broken. Before your world came out from under you. 

You had known Johnny Simpson since middle school, you were paired up in english class by Ms. Francis to discuss the living situation of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family, and like that, you two had become inseparable. You knew everything there was to know about him, and he knew all the bits and pieces that made up you. The whole school, including the faculty, and even both sets of parents thought you two would get hitched. And, they were right, mostly. 

A little while, in the odd space between the end of high school and the start of college, Johnny had worked up the nerve to finally make a pass at you.  Which you reciprocated.  You started dating soon after, the happiest year of your life. It was filled with moving into an apartment, going to swing clubs, dancing in your kitchen to Glenn Miller records, where now you can’t bear to live, put on the record, or listen to “Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree.” You can’t bear to listen to any of those, knowing you can’t have your lover 

When you got a telegram saying that Johnny had a semblance of recollection of his crash but nothing else, you thought your heart was going into cardiac arrest. You knew the basics and that was enough for you to cry whenever you think of it. The thought of Johnny being scared as his jeep is flipping uncontrollably makes you want to scream. After you got the telegram, you had decided to get out of his life, not making contact with him. All you knew was that when he got home, he didn’t know his own family, his home, or his, well you and his’ apartment.When you got word that he was coming home, you quickly packed your belongings, adamant that he didn’t need you in his life. 

You now live by yourself in a small house in the same area as your old apartment. The amount of times you’ve debated going to the apartment, using your key to get in, and telling Johnny the whole story. Oh, how swell would it be to be held by Johnny once again or dancing to records in the living room, to be able to fall asleep with his arms around you, to be able to laugh about nothing. 

Instead, you live in a one bedroom house, alone. You no longer fall asleep to someone else’s breathing, but to the wind blowing outside the window. You now do mundane chores around the house in silence, fearing the music on the radio could render you inconsolable.

 Ever since you heard through the grapevine that Johnny was a drummer in a swing band, you tried to make it to every gig. Asking around if you didn't know where they were playing, desperately most of the time, hoping to see glimpses of your old lover. That’s how you became acquainted with Jo and Oliver, owners of two separate clubs. They knew of your past love with Johnny and of your heartbreak, showing their sympathy

You never really did anything at the clubs. Never really dancing with anyone, mostly just sitting at a table sipping daiquiris. Sometimes accepting the drinks of men passing by looking for a shot with you. It never went any farther than small talk. You wouldn't let it. No one could ever replace Johnny.

“Thank you,” Donny said one night after finishing “You Deserve It,” a winning song, “We are the Donny Nova Band.”

The band got off stage, packing up their instruments, and as the club started to file out through the doors, you looked down at your drink, your hand gently rocking your glass to swirl the contents. You were so consumed in your drink you didn't hear someone walk up to you.

“I have seen you at every gig but never dancing or sitting with anyone, why's that,”  a voice asked that made you jump, almost spilling your almost-empty drink. You looked up to see the saxophone player, Jimmy, you think his name is, staring at you, waiting for a response

You shrugged, trying to come off as nonchalant. “Must be a coincidence, I guess.”

He let out a small but sort of genuine chuckle. “That’s what I thought the first three times, but you are always at every gig of ours without fail. Now, that leads into the other question which you've not answered. Why aren't you with a group or someone else. “ he asked, sitting down in the chair across from yours.

You looked away from his intense stare and found your gaze fixated on Johnny. Johnny looked like he was having a casual conversation with Donny and twirling his drumstick. Jimmy caught your gaze and let out a sigh.

“If you come to every gig just to catch the attention of Donny, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you're barking up the wrong tree. He has his eyes on someone else, I'm afraid,’ he said somewhat softly.

You couldn't help but let out a laugh. “No, no, no. I'm not worried about that. It’s Johnny i come to see every gig,” you said, 

“Ah, so you're a fan of Johnny’s,” he said with a sly smile. “I'm more than that,” you trailed off and before you knew it you were sharing your history with Johnny to his bandmate. “He doesn't remember me, but I know that if I come to every gig, I get to be with him, even if for only a bit.”

Jimmy gave you a look of apology mixed with understanding. “I'm not trying to sugarcoat or bullshit my way through trying to comfort you or say that it must be hard. Because, I know it is. I know what it’s like to lose your love. But you have another chance to win Johnny back, it's not all lost.”

And for the second time that night, a voice next to  you spoke, but it was different, because this time you knew the voice. You stilled,  your body frozen in a shock of some sort. It had been almost two years since he had even been physically next to you. Your heart was racing, you were sure you could feel your hands shaking and becoming clammy. Is this actually happening?

“Did you say my name, Jim,’ asked the former love of your life. His hat was perfectly on his head and once again, he's fiddling with his drumstick. Jimmy nodded and gestured to you. 

“My friend,” he paused realizing, he never asked for your name, and you realized that as well so you spoke up.

“(y/n). (y/n) (l/n),” you said, a small part of you hoping that the reiteration of your name will jolt his mind back to remembering you. It didn't, to your utmost disappointment, but you didn’t let it show. It was a silly thing to wish for, honestly.

“Yes, my friend, (Y/n), over here was admiring your drumming ability,” Jimmy said. Johnny’s face lit up at the compliment and turned to look at you. You shifted your body to face him as well, and once you made eye contact, you felt at peace, butterflies, and grief all at once. It was the most overwhelmed you have felt, save for when you had gotten word the latter had his jeep flipped three times. 

“Well, thank you,” his eyes shone with excitement and his cheeks were a slight pink, whether it was from the adrenaline of playing live or from your compliment was anyone’s guess. He held out his hand, which you took, and he brought your hand up to his lips and kissed it softly. In spite of yourself, you smiled and blushed profusely. Your fingers were buzzing after the contact and couldn't bring yourself to bring your hand back. “It’s nice to meet you, Miss (Y/n,)” he said gently, “Thank you for coming.”

You nodded at his proclaimed gratitude. looked him in the eyes, and the overwhelming feeling of love and loss was back for the second time that night. You never wanted to leave the feeling if it meant you could stare at him forever. You could feel yourself falling in love all over again and before you could make any mistakes or profess your love, Jimmy cleared his throat, snapping you out of the trance.

“I’m heading out, (y/n), want me to take you home,” he asked, knowing well enough that he had to get you out of the club immediately before you broke down with grief of what used to be. You nodded and pulled your hand out of Johnny’s calloused hand, immediately missing the comfort and warmth of your lost lover’s hand.

“It was nice meeting you, Johnny,” you brought yourself to speak, struggling to get the words out. He tipped his hat and mentioned that he couldn’t wait to see you again with a wide grin that was brighter than the lights on a movie set.

Jimmy took your arm in his own, linking them in a hurry. “Alright, I will see you all on Tuesday,” he spoke loudly, talking to the band and Julia. You gave them all a slight wave and with that, you and Jimmy headed out of the building, leaving Johnny behind with the other members.

---------------

and thats a wrap for chapter one!!!

[that-sokovian-bastard]

so I’ve determined the best workout I’ve had was tonight and it was while I was belting Broadway songs

Unrelated I wanna do a Bandstand song themed imagine between dc and marvel and it would be angsty but...i just might have to

[woildismyerster]

Hey there! So your Johnny Simpson fic was amazing and perfect and I was wondering if you’d be willing to do just one more? Maybe this one a little angsty but with a happy ending? Just so when I read the fics over and over again I can switch between angst and fluff? Of course you absolutely 100% don’t have to. Just if you want to and have an idea. Love you. Love your writing. You’re an angel.

You know, I’m not sure that I’m capable of writing angst.  I sure tried, though.

“You’re joking,” you said.  Your fingers shook a little, wrinkling the form Johnny had given you.  “This isn’t real.”

“It’s real,” he said.  He grinned at you, but there was an edge of dread under it.  That seemed about right - he was a hero, off to war, and that was as bittersweet a thing as there could possibly be.  “I’m shipping out next week.”

“No,” you said.  “You aren’t.”

He was not leaving, because it wasn’t possible for there to be a town without him.  How could you walk into the diner if he wasn’t there?  Were you supposed to look out at crowds of people, knowing that he wouldn’t be in them?  Who would mow your father’s lawn?  Who would ask you to proofread his job applications, even though you always griped about it?  Who would take you out for drives on the weekends, ignoring the girls he actually dated, so you wouldn’t be lonely watching your friends with their beaus?

“I won’t have it,” you said.

“I’ve already enlisted,” he said.  Johnny had taken you out for a drive, but hadn’t talked about what the purpose was until he had parked in your driveway again.  Maybe he was too scared to tell you.  Maybe he had worried that there would be nothing to talk about in the wake of the news.  “Y/N, I want to make the most of this last week; please don’t be mad.”

“Why on earth would I be mad?”  The question was thick with disdain.  You knew that it was misplaced; you were angry at the situation, not the man.  “Because my best friend joined the military without talking to me?  Because he’s probably going to die, and I won’t find out for weeks?  Maybe I’ll never find out, and I’ll always wonder what happened out there.  Psh, no, I’m not mad.”

“People are dying,” he said.  He grabbed your hand, and even in your anger, you couldn’t bring yourself to pull away from him.  “If I can help, shouldn’t I?”

“This ruins all of your plans,” you said.  A tear slipped out and you wiped it away before he could.  You knew that he would try, and that was too much of a blow.

“My plans will still be there when I come home.”

“If you come home.”

“And you’ll still be here when I get back,” he said.  “I will come back, and it’ll be you and me, like always.”

“Maybe not,” you lied.  “Maybe I’ll marry somebody else and move to California, or New York.  Somewhere far away.”  Fat chance.  You had decided that you wanted to marry Johnny years ago, before marriage was a passing thought in most boys.  

“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” he said, and the first note of nervousness rang in his voice.  “Can you wait?”

“Wait to get married until you get home?”  You wiped at your face again and plastered on a small, teasing smile.  “Why, so you can be my maid of honor?”

“So I can be the groom,” he sighed.

Your head whipped to the side, and your hand jerked out of his.  “What?”

“Y/N - you and I were always heading here, right?  It’s always been us, and I think I always knew it would be us in the end.”

“You’ve never acted like it,” you said.  The words were matter-of-fact, not bitter.  That didn’t lessen the sheepish look he gave you.

“We had time.  I wasn’t worried.”

“But now you are?”

“No,” he said immediately.  “I’m not worried.  I’ll come back to you.  I just want to be sure that, when I do, you know what I’m hoping for.”

You picked up his hand from where it had settled on your thigh.  “Johnny -”

“We’ll write while I’m away, and if nothing changes, I’ll want to marry you,” he rushed.  “Please.”

“We’ll write,” you said.  He looked at you, uncertainty evident, and you smiled.  “We’ll write, and we can talk about the rest later.”

“I’m not sure if I should be disappointed or not,” he teased.

“Not.  Definitely not.”  You squeezed his hand, and he squeezed you back.  “Come home, and we’ll figure it out.  I don’t want to tell my parents about an engagement without the fiance there.”

He laughed, and it sealed the agreement more than a contract ever could.

“Were we friends?”  

His question upon coming home was worse than any of his other uncertainties - worse than not remembering your name, his hesitancy to be alone in a room with you, the fact that he had to ask you how you took your coffee.

“Still are,” you said.  You took a stiff sip of coffee.  “It’s always been the two of us.”

“They said that I have a lot of friends,” he said.

“Do you not remember any of them?”

“Some,” he mumbled.  “Not their faces, but moments with them.  It comes and goes.”

You wanted to ask what he remembered.  An unofficial proposal?  Sneaking out to meet in the park?  Eating bologna sandwiches at drive in movies?  You wanted to ask him what he knew about you, if anything, but that didn’t seem fair.  That left only one thing.

“Can I help?”

“No,” he immediately said.  “No, the doctor said that this is how I am now.  After the crash, this is miraculous enough.”

You hummed, dissatisfied.

“Did you hear about the crash?  It’s a wild story - I was riding in the car -”  Johnny smiled while he spoke, and though it was beautiful, it was not the smile he reserved for you.

“You live on my block,” Johnny said thoughtfully.

You white-knuckled the shopping basket, trying not to look like you wanted to break something, scream something, change everything.  “I do.”

He gave a pleased smile.  “Good.  I’m not so good at remembering faces, you know.  Not after the car flipped three times.”

You reached out a hand for him to shake.  “I’m Y/N.”

His hand, holding yours like it was something fragile, faltered in its shake.  “Y/N.”

“Yes.”

“I know you,” he said.  His brow was furrowed.  In another time, you would have smoothed the lines with your thumb.  He would have smiled at you then, but now the brow would only have dipped deeper.  “I’m sure of it.”

“I’m your neighbor,” you offered.

“More than that.  I remember you.”

“We were friends.”  Then, after a blinding pulse of panic, “are.  Are friends.”

He gave a nod, but you saw him running his troubled fingers along the sleeve of his suit jacket.  “That’s not what I’m thinking of, but I don’t know what it is.”

You grinned, light and soft.  “We were madly in love.  You wanted to marry me.”  He stiffened, but relaxed when you shot a late wink.

“That seems closer,” he said distantly.  He shook off the uncertainty and smiled back.  “Can I walk with you?  Just until you’re ready to go home.”

You shuffled to the side.  “Be my guest.”

Matthew Morgan asked you out in high school.  You said no, and Johnny laughed about it for days.

Matt asked you out during the first winter break of college.  You said no, and Johnny joked that at least you would always have a back up.  You had been furious at him for saying so, but that didn’t stop him from bringing it up periodically.

Matt asked you out during the war.  You said no, that you were waiting for your man to come home.  You wrote Johnny about it, and he said that you would never have to worry about it again.  He said that before you knew it, you would be planning a wedding.

Matt asked you out after the war.  Johnny’s brow furrowed every time he saw you, like he thought that he almost knew you.  You said yes to Matt, and there was nobody to tell you that this was not how your life was supposed to turn out.

“Who’s the guy that keeps coming to your house?”  Johnny walked with you through the store again, carrying a basket of his own.  

“My boyfriend,” you said.  The word sat funny in your mouth.  It hadn’t when you told your parents, and it hadn’t when you talked to the friends you usually ran with.  It was just Johnny, who smiled more every day and seemed to feel more like himself every time you saw him.

“I didn’t know you were seeing somebody!”  He grinned.  “What’s his name?”

“Matt.  We went to school with him.”

“Did we like him?”

“Yeah.”  You grabbed an apple and looked it over, scanning for bruises.  “Not as much as he liked us, but yes.”

“That’s great.  Really.”  He was all warmth, all slow charm and pleasant cheer.  “Can I meet him?  Again?”

“Absolutely,” you said.  This had to be a new chapter of life.  This had to be a new start, where it wasn’t you and Johnny against the world.  This time, you would have boyfriends.  You wouldn’t pine.  “You should come over sometime.”

“I think a lot of people were worried you’d be alone forever.”  Then, with a light elbow in the side, “I never worried.  You’re too good not to be snatched up.”

Sometimes you thought about telling him everything - that he had snatched you up, that everybody worried you’d never move on.  You decided not to; it wouldn’t help anything at all.

“And the car flipped -”

“Three times,” Matt finished.  His smile was gentle, but annoyed nonetheless.  “I know, John.  You’ve told that story before.”

The two men sat at your kitchen table, sipping at coffee.  You cringed at Matt’s words.  Yes, Johnny retold stories.  That had never bothered you; he was a good storyteller, and he was an avid listener when you wanted to talk.  You had been nervous to reintroduce the boys, but now you were embarrassed at Matt’s behavior.  It wasn’t as though Johnny could help it.

“Have I?  Sorry, bud.”  Johnny’s eyes were apologetic, but they didn’t go pink the way they sometimes did when you had to remind him of something.

When you escorted him out, you scowled at Matt.  “That was rude.”

“He won’t get better if nobody pushes him, doll.”  Matt shrugged on a coat and smiled at you, eyes crinkling at the corners.  “I’m trying to help him.”

“He isn’t sick.  This isn’t something that we know will get better.”

“In that case, it isn’t like he’ll remember this next time we see him, right?”  He leaned in to kiss your cheek, but you ducked away.

“He might.  He remembers me,” you said.

“Not the way things were,” Matt said.  It was the only time he was remotely cool with you - when you brought up your life with Johnny before.  “He only knows the bones of who you are now.”

When he tried to kiss you again, you let him.  You let him, and went back to speak with Johnny.  Johnny joked more with just you, and you suspected that he may have been playing dumb.

“So,” you asked casually, “what did you think of Matt?”

“He was alright,” was the non-committal reply.  “I think you’re settling.”

“How’s that?”

Johnny shrugged, and that was all.

Johnny seldom came to your house.  Your parents didn’t know how to deal with him after everything, so it was better to spend time elsewhere.  There was also the added need to keep Matt from seeing him come over - the two of you did nothing inappropriate, but you were sure he would make a scene if he thought something was going on.  When the doorbell rang and he was the person visible through the window, you were sure that something was wrong.

“Johnny, hey!  What’s going on?”

“We should go on a walk,” he said, and a sliver of ice settled in your heart.

It didn’t seem like he had a destination in mind when he led you through neighborhoods and trails.  That made you feel even worse - this was a Walk.  Something was happening.

“I asked you if we were friends,” he finally said.

A part of you wanted to make a joke.  Which time?  

“And I told you that we were,” you said instead.

“But that wasn’t it,” he said.  He looked at you, and the ice spread when you saw the look on his face.  “I was rereading your letters.  They never made much sense to me, since I had half of a conversation that I didn’t remember.”

“Okay.”

“But there was one letter - you said that we would be talking to your father when I got home.  I remembered something when I reread it.”

You knew that letter.  You had been speaking lightly at the end, not wanting to get too sappy while you told him that you would have him when he got back.  The two of you had always known it, on some level or another, but it was the only time you said it baldly.  You would talk to your father - you would marry him someday.

“I’m sorry,” you said.

“You should have told me,” he said, and the anger in his voice was unfamiliar to you.  This wasn’t irritation when you insulted a girl he dated, or offense when you took a joke too far.  This was betrayal.  “You should have told me that we loved each other.”

“You didn’t know me,” you said.  It was the only response you could think of - nobody else had really known.  It was just the two of you, making a promise that you could no longer expect him to keep.  “I didn’t want to hold you to something -”

“So it was better to lie?  To let me believe lies about my life?”

“Yes!  Wasn’t that easier?  Would you rather have tried loving somebody who you barely knew anymore?”  Your eyes were filling with tears, but you had to dig your nails into your palm to keep your voice steady.  The tears spilled over.  “You weren’t the same.  I would not expect you to keep a promise that a different man made.”

He reared back, surprised.  “I’m still Johnny.”

“Yes.  But not exactly the same.  I won’t expect you to love a person you don’t know.”

“I don’t know that you,” he snapped back.  “But of course I love the one I have now.”

You flinched.  “What?”

“I love you.  I know that you don’t - I would never ask you to -”  He trailed off, helpless, and reached over to wipe away one of your tears.

“Stop saying that,” you said.  His hand froze, inches from your face.  “You think you love me, because you think you’re supposed to.  You don’t have to marry me now, Johnny.  I’m seeing somebody else.  All bets are off.”

He said nothing, so you walked home alone.

Johnny called you a few days later.  “I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” you said.  “For what, exactly?”

“The timing,” he sighed.  You could picture him leaning against the wall by his phone, trying to rub weariness from his eyes.  “You’re right - we’ve both changed.  I wish you had told me, but nothing would have changed.  I’m sorry for getting angry.”

“I’m sorry for hiding things,” you offered.  You had been coiled like a spring for days, but you could feel the unwinding begin.  “You were trying to find yourself, and I made that harder.  I shouldn’t have.”

“So we’re good,” he announced.  “Back to normal.”

“Alright.”  You grinned.  “You and me, good as new.”

“So we’ll keep going shopping together, right?  One of the shop girls has been making eyes, but her breath smells like something died in there, and she never makes a move when you’re there.”

You agreed to meet with him later and hung up, feeling inexplicably relieved and unhappy.  It wasn’t until later, when he was shaking a box of rice like a tambourine, that you realized that he had never said he didn’t love you.  Whether that was the good feeling or the bad, you weren’t sure.

You let yourself into Johnny’s house with the key he kept under a loose brick.  He had always kept it there, and you had always let yourself inside when you thought he needed you.  That hadn’t happened since he came home, but you hadn’t seen him in a few days.  It seemed necessary.

“Johnny?  Is everything alright?”  You walked through the kitchen, the living room, the hallway.  You knocked on his bedroom door, but didn’t feel right going in without his permission.  “Johnny?”

There was a creak by the basement door.

You crept closer, grabbing a glass that sat on a table.  It was probably Johnny.

It might not be Johnny.

You nudged the door open with your foot, jumping back when Johnny lunged through the doorway.  He held a drumstick like he had been prepared to stab you with it.  When you thought about it, he probably had been.

“Johnny!  Christ, it’s me!”

His eyes were wild while he looked at you, but he didn’t attack.  

“Johnny?  It’s Y/N.”

He blinked, and a little sense came back.  “Y/N.  What are you doing here?”

“I haven’t seen you for a few days.  I thought I should check in.”  After a quick one over - wrinkled pants, messy wife beater, purples smears of shadow under his eyes - “I think it was a good call.”

He looked down at himself and shrugged.  When he looked back up to you, the weary lines under his eyes were deeper, but his eyes stayed bright.  “There’s no need.  I’ve been busy practicing the songs Donny wrote for the contest.”

“Have you been sleeping?”

“Sleep is for the dead,” he said cheerfully.

“You’ll be among them soon,” you shot back, “if you don’t eat and drink.”

He sighed, but it was fond.  “I know, Mom.”

“I’m going to cook something,” you said with finality.  “Go to your room.”

“Mom -”

“Young man,” you warned.”  He laughed, and the smile was just right.

Johnny was already asleep when you brought a plate back to his room.  You set the food on the bedside table for him to have when he woke up and turned to go, but paused to look at the room.  In many ways, it was the same as it always had been.  Pictures and awards everywhere; what was once a collage of memories was now a shrine to who he had been.

There was a small, grubby pile of letters on his desk.  The edges were curled and dirt smudged the once clean paper, but the ink flowed as smoothly as it had on the day you wrote the contact information.  You scanned the pile, and most of the letters were from you.  Four years worth of letters, from a lover to a love long since lost.

You shouldn’t be looking at these things.  They were none of your business.

The more you looked at the room, the more of yourself you found in it.

A picture of the two of you at your high school graduation.

A scarf that you gave him for Christmas years prior was draped across a chair.

By his bed, there was a pile of scrap paper and napkins.  You told yourself that cleaning up after him would explain the snooping away.  Of course you saw his room - you had been cleaning it.  You grabbed the pile, but froze when you glanced down at them.

“Y/N is your neighbor across the street.  Your friend.  Can help you remember.”

“Y/N likes going on drives.”

“Invite Y/N to the next concert.”

Every scrap had facts about you in Johnny’s rough, spiky scrawl.  He was trying to find you again; maybe this was a buildup of everything since he came home.  It wasn’t enough, but it was close.

“That show,” you told Johnny, “was amazing.  The greatest thing I’ve ever seen, really.”  You and Matt had gone to watch the Donny Nova Band perform; it was one of the last shows before they’d have enough money to make the trip to NYC.  Your cheeks were flushed from dancing, and a few strands of hair were plastered to the back of your neck.  It had been incredible.

“Good enough for us to win in New York?”  Johnny reached over to fix your hair.  He could do it quickly, but he took his time.

“You could win any contest,” you promised.  You glanced back toward the men’s room, checking to see if Matt was back yet.  “Think you’ll stay in the city?”

“Dunno.”  He looked surprised, like it hadn’t occurred to him.  “Why would I?”

“You’d have more opportunities.  A fresh start.  Screaming fans.”

Johnny shrugged, lips quirking while he listened to some of his bandmates joyfully playing snippets of music for each other.  “I like it here.”

He twirled you quickly, calloused fingers gentle in yours.

Matt materialized next to you, grinning.  “Haven’t you danced enough tonight?  I’m done in.”

“Glad you enjoyed yourself,” Johnny said.  He smiled, but it had dimmed a little.

“You guys were great.”  Matt turned to you.  “Ready to go?”

“Sure.  Go get my coat?”

When he left, you threw your arms around Johnny’s shoulders.  His hand splayed across your ribcage, fitting into the same places they had for years.  It had been ages since you had hugged him, but it was as though nothing had changed.  “Good luck,” you whispered.

“I’ll be back,” he murmured back.  “Didn’t I promise that?  I’ll come back to you.”

And when I do, the past whispered, you know what I’m hoping for.

You held him until your boyfriend came back.  When you got home, you broke up with Matt.  You couldn’t explain it to your parents, and you could hardly explain it to yourself.  Johnny was coming back to you, and you had to be ready for him, right?

“This place is incredible,” he told you over the phone.  “The beds are huge.”

You laughed.  “The beds?  Really?  You’re in the greatest city in the world, and all you have to talk about is the bed?”

“It’s hard to describe,” he admitted.  He tried to paint it for you - bright lights, cars everywhere, crowds of people where you couldn’t blend in but couldn’t stand out.  “You’ll have to come here.  Maybe Matt can bring you someday,” he finished.

“I actually broke up with him.”

“What?  When?”

“The night of your concert.”  You absently messed with the phone cord, wrapping it around your finger until it went purple.  “I realized that he wasn’t right for me.  I was settling, you know.”

“Yeah,” he breathed.  “Yeah, he wasn’t good enough.  Not even close.”  Then, clearing his throat, “we can talk more about that when I get home.  We can go for a drive, maybe.  I’ll be able to afford any car I want, you know.”

“Yeah,” you grinned.  “Yeah, I’m not settling anymore.  I expect the best car.”

“Only the best for you.”

Johnny had parked in the driveway, and you suddenly felt five years younger.

“I feel like a queen,” you said, looking around the car he had been driving since he was seventeen.

“I may have spoken too soon,” he admitted.

“You?  Have faulty timing?  Impossible.  That would be as strange as, say, forgetting you had a secret fiance,” you teased.  

“That’s a spectacular transition,” he said.  He grinned.  “I couldn’t have planned it better myself.  Y/N, about the secret engagement.”

“Yes?”

“I think we should give that another shot.”

“It went really well last time,” you commented.

“Last time, I was leaving for something dangerous.  This time, it’s as safe as life,” he said.

“You’re leaving again?”

“On tour,” he said.  “I was thinking that we could write while I’m gone, and when iI get back -”

“You want to talk to my father?”  You grinned at your lap.  “Real original, Johnny.”

“I’ve got a good feeling about this,” he said.

“Write me,” you said, “and we’ll talk.”

You reached over the space between the seats, turned his slim face to face you, and kissed him.  It was as good a way to seal the deal as any.  

[that-sokovian-bastard]

I read this the other day and keep thinking about it. I love this it’s two of my words collaring ahhhhh

My Sister’s on Broadway [Batfam x Batsis!Reader]

Requested by anon: “Ok so I looooooved your insta edit for eldest batsis being in a Broadway show and I was wondering if you do a fic? With the same idea? Like maybe the boys going to a show? Or her patrolling after a show with them and saving a fan? I don’t know I love your work 😘 “

A/n: Sorry this took so long! I’m really trying to get back to my requests and get over this writers block. I’m not sure about this one but I hope you love it! I used Newsies as the musical because it’s the one I know the best. Hope you loves like this! (I’d love to know what you think!)

Based off of: Batfam & Older!Batsis Broadway Actress Insta Edit ______

It wasn’t often that the boys, or anyone in the manor got time off of superheroing. But a trip? It was unheard of. They never thought they’d get off, well, ever. Especially for a trip that wasn’t mission related. Though they were, the boys, Bruce, and Alfred were on the Wayne Enterprises jet and on their way to New York.

“So what is the name of this musical?” Damian asked looking away from the window. “Newsies” Dick answered from across him. Tim added, “It’s based off the newsboy strike of 1988. [F/n] is playing Katherine. A female journalist who publishes about the strike.” Damian nodded in understanding. “Who is the lead?” He asked. “The lead character’s name is Jack Kelly, he’s played by Jeremy Jordan.” Tim answered.

Jason was behind the minibar on the jet. “[F/n] have any solos?” Alfred came over and plucked the bottle of whisky from his hands. “She has one solo, a duet, and then songs with the chorus.” Alfred said as he set the bottle back on the bar. “That’s enough Master Jason.” Jason groaned before going to sit down. Making everyone but Damian chuckle.

The rest of the flight everyone went about their own business. However you had no idea of your family’s plan on coming. You assumed they would be too busy with their patrols and missions.

“Ready for opening night?” Jeremy asked as he came behind you while you were getting your hair styled for the musical. “Yeah, you?” He nodded and leaned against the vanity. “Your wife coming?” You asked and he nodded smiling. “Yeah, her and my parents along with the rest of the family.”

You had met his wife and a few of his family members at rehearsals. They were all nice and his wife was the sweetest. “What about you?” He asked, nudging your leg, “Any family?”

Chuckling and shaking your head, you adjusted your head the way the stylist said. “Probably not, too busy.” He laughed, “Really? Too busy to see you opening night on Broadway?” He emphasized. Shrugging, you nodded “It happens when your father is in charge of a large company and your brothers are always busy.”

“Well, I hope they make it. I have to go warm up.” He stood back up and you nodded. “See you on stage.”

After finishing your hair and make-up, you headed to warm-up with your castmates. Unaware of your family members taking their seats. Everyone was backstage, rushing around and getting in positions. Talking could heard in the theater, but when the lights dimmed it quieted and the overture started. You heard lines beginning to be said and waited until it was your queue to come in during ‘Carrying the Banner.’

They were all enjoying the beginning but everyone’s eyes lit up a little when you came on stage. You were stopped by ‘Romeo’ before ‘Jack’ came up to you. After his line you stepped forward. “I got a headline for you! Cheeky boy gets nothing for his troubles!” You gestured your hand like it was reading a headline and looked out toward the crowd.

Once the line was over, you and your castmate walked off stage for the song to finish. “That was it?” Damian whispered and Dick shushed him. “Just wait, she’ll be back.”

It wasn’t your time to come back on stage until Miss Medda Larkson’s part. You climbed up the scaffolding and sat down in the chair. Waiting as it moved and hearing the two girls begin to sing.

“There’s [F/n]” Tim whispered and pointed. His siblings nodded as they all watched you.

“Hello again” ‘Jack’ greeted. You looked over from your chair. “This is a private box.”

You both went back and forth with your lines. When he asked what you were doing you answered. “Reviewing the show for the New York Sun” He leaned on the railing “Hey, I work for da world.”

Turning you let your hands fall in your lap. “Oh out there someone cares.” You gasped before turning to the crowd “Go tell them” gesturing out. The crowd laughed at the sarcasm and disinterest in your tone.

“The view is betta here” He eyed you.

Damian scoffed in his seat. “I don’t like this character. I don’t like the way he looks at her.” Jason rolled his eyes, “It’s acting demon brat. He’s not actually like that.” Damian crossed his arms. “I still don’t like it.”

The family enjoyed the scenes but their favorites were the ones you were in. Nobody took their eyes off the stage the entire time. Though there was one scene that didn’t sit well with the boys. Well a couple scenes.

“Did they have to kiss so many times?” Damian grimaced as they exited their seats. Dick shuttered, “Don’t remind me.”

Bruce and Alfred chuckled, “It was just acting. It didn’t mean anything” Bruce told them.

“Well my favorite part was probably [F/n]’s solo” Tim smiled and looked down at his program. Jason shook his head “No way, ‘Kings of New York’ was way better. The tap was awesome.” He crossed his arms as Dick agreed. “What about you Master Damian?” Alfred questioned.

Damian shrugged “I liked the parts where she sassed and put them in their place.” Jason shoved him, “Why am I not surprised?” Damian whipped around “I will break your arm Todd.” Jason chuckled “I’d like to see you try.”

Just as Damian was about to lunge at him a hand was placed on his shoulder. He turned and saw you standing there. “[F/n]!”

You chuckled and looked at them all. “Gosh I could hear you guys fighting from backstage. That’s one way to pinpoint your family came.” A smile was ever prevalent on your lips. Bruce was the first to give you a hug. “You were so amazing, I’m so proud of you.”

Then followed by Dick, “I’ve got to meet your castmates and see what kind of acro they do.” Then it was Jason, Tim, Damian, and finally Alfred to hug you. “I’d love for you guys to see backstage if you want.”

“Can we?!” Tim’s eyes lit up. He always was the one to know most about theatre. Smiling you nodded before moving to give them the grand tour. Running into a few castmates and introducing your family.

“You lied to me!” Jeremy yelled jogging over. “You said your family isn’t coming.” He put a hand on your shoulder. Rolling your eyes you shoved him. “It was a surprise for me.”

Bruce offered a hand “A fine performance young man.” Jeremy smiled and shook it, “Thank you Mr. Wayne. It’s an honor to meet you.” Rolling your eyes you chuckled, “Don’t feed their egos.”

Jeremy chuckled before patting your shoulder,  “I should get back to the misses, great show tonight. See you tomorrow, it was nice meeting you” he called before running off. “You too, later!” Shouting back and waving at his wife when he reached her. Smiling she returned it.

After finishing the tour, you all went out for dinner. It made your night to hear them talking about how much they loved the show and what their favorite parts were. Laughing at how all of your little brothers hated the kissing scenes. Even the older two.

Pride swelled in you chest when Alfred and Bruce expressed how proud they were and how worth all the dance and singing and acting lessons were.

You couldn’t have asked for a better opening night.

[luminnara]

So uhh I know they are in different worlds bit like....

Marko x Reader x Eddie...

They are my doe-eyed idiots and I love them more than life

Thoughts?

*clears throat*

This is the good shit

Maybe Eddie finds his way to Santa Carla alone and meets you there. He loves the seaside town because it’s full of drifters and weirdos, and he can get anything he wants, whenever he wants it. It’s easy to make some cash selling drugs or picking up odd jobs, and there’s always live music down on the beach at night.

One evening, he catches wind of a metal show at the bandstand, and of course he has to go check it out. So he weaves through the crowd and that’s when he sees you there, looking so hot and just his type, and you’re all alone because your boyfriend is off grabbing himself a snack. But Eddie doesn’t know you’ve even got a boyfriend, of course, and he just can’t keep his eyes off of you…and when you notice, because you can feel his stare burning into the back of your head, you finally turn and see this adorable metal head who looks a little bit like he might fit in with the gang.

You hang out, and he’s so sweet and so fun, bursting with energy and constantly cracking jokes. He tells you about his hometown and you tell him about yours, and by the time things are starting to quiet down around the boardwalk, you realize you might have a little crush on him. He’s got a massive crush on you, of course, but when he offers to walk you back to the boys, he’s suddenly faced with your boyfriend.

Marko is a goofy dude. Not as goofy as Paul, maybe, but when he’s not shredding his prey, he’s just as funny as the others…so when he sees you walking up holding the hand of a guy who looks like he can’t go ten minutes without listening to Iron Maiden, he’s more curious and less pissed. He can tell you’re happy. Hell, he’d left you alone all night because he knew that you were safe on their boardwalk, and he would have felt it if you were in danger.

So even as he’s wrapping his arms around you and pressing a kiss against your temple, he’s checking Eddie out. He’s examining him, admiring the shape of his face and the rings on his fingers. He can see the confusion and then disappointment in his eyes and it makes Marko chuckle, because he knows that this guy from out of town must be thinking that he struck out and you were off limits now.

Except that’s not how things work in Santa Carla, especially not for the vampires who run things, and Marko invites him back to the cave to hang out for the rest of the night. Eddie agrees, of course, looking towards you hopefully, and then when David just shrugs because he really doesn’t give a shit what the two of you do in your free time, you all set off, racing down the beach towards the bluff.

And Eddie loves the cave. There’s so much to look at, layers and layers of decades worth of graffiti on the walls, piles of Knick knacks and things that the boys have gotten interested in and then grown bored of. It’s a treasure trove and a time capsule, a museum of all the coolest shit that’s existed in California for the past 80 years, and Eddie could sort through it for hours if he had the attention span.

And, most importantly, there’s plenty of weed.

The three of you smoke, getting nice and high, and by the wee hours of the morning, you’re a tangle of limbs that Marko is having to crawl out of in order to head to his roost and stay safe from the morning sun. When you wake up the next evening, Eddie is confused but happy, Marko is already teasing him nonstop, and you’ve got two boyfriends you get to watch kiss 😎

[sincerely-insanely-me-blog]

So are we just not gunna talk about this and how fucking precious it is