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thelastofhyde · 5 months ago

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hit the road, jack!

pairing. ex!jack daniels x fem!reader synopsis. the last time you sat in jack’s infamous bronco, you broke his heart. now, a year later, you’re sitting in it with a mud-stained wedding dress and he’s driving you back to the man you left at the altar. is one night, a thousand miles, and a well-timed car radio enough to remind you of the love you shared? warnings. road trip au, exes to lovers, runaway bride!reader, mutual pining, miscommunication/no communication, idiots in love, exes in love, minor character death, infidelity, one ( 1 ) comment regarding food restriction, mentions of period, smut ( unprotected piv, dirty talk, sex in public spaces, implied creampie, fairly non-descriptive ) the reader of this fic is mostly non-descript, with mentions of having hair long enough to stick to her neck when wet and hands smaller than jack's. word count. 14.7k hyde's input. quick disclaimer that this fic was admittedly better in my head, but i tried my best :') it unfortunately never got to reach it's full potential as my friends dragged me off on an unexpected trip on friday for my birthday (which is today aka the 23rd). because of that, i've not had time to finish the last few scenes as well as i'd hoped to (it's literally 5 am as i'm editing it bc it's the only chance i've had) but i don't want to post this any later as this is my entry to the #SummerLovin'24 event, organised and hosted by @pedgito, @chaotic-mystery & @amanitacowboy , a massive thank you to them for creating such a fun event. i really enjoyed taking part and i can not wait to sink my teeth into the other amazing fics from this event. if you care to listen, here is a playlist of songs mentioned/featured in the fic.

INTRO — silver springs.

“Time cast a spell on you, but you won’t forget me.”

Stevie Nicks et al chant out of old speakers, a bass blown out over time and an intruding static that demands to play alongside the band. Perched upon the bar counter, they sit adjacent to a cash register that shakes each time it opens, a slam seemingly the only way to close it. The swish of a mop over chequered vinyl flooring and the squeaks of a waitress’ coffee-stained sneakers play to their own tune. The passing of time turns it all to background noise.

Through lunch, through dinner, and two shift changes you’ve survived. Out in the parking lot now sits only a semi-truck, its drivers, two men in scuffed boots and jeans that fray at their seams, the only other customers that remain. One tucks into a Sloppy Joe, the other has fallen asleep against the table, his coffee turning as cold as your own.

You ordered the coffee for nothing more than an excuse to sit a while longer. Time for figuring out what’s next. What you’ll do, where you’ll go, how you’ll get there. The elderly couple who’d been kind enough to take you off the side of the road, moving luggage into the trunk to make space for you in the backseats, are now long gone from the roadside diner.

It wasn’t a sorrowful departure. You were quite happy to see them leave, and take their pitiful glances and unasked questions with them. The looks still linger on in others. Each pair of eyes you’ve encountered, dragging over the expanse of your messed up hair, and your smudged eyes, and your mud-stained gown. It’s not hard to imagine the scenes they play out in their heads, of a bride scorned and abandoned on what was meant to be the happiest day of her life, a day meant for vows and first dances twisted into one of heartbroken wandering and roadside pit-stops.

You wonder if any of them know you’re not the victim, but the aggressor. The one who fled, leaving behind a bouquet of striped carnations, marigolds, and purple hyacinths.

Tires crunch on gravel as a car rolls into the parking lot. Whichever fool sits behind the wheel has their full beams on. A light flickers over your head. It’s been doing so for the past hour, an irritating reflection in the window that steals your attention back into the diner.

The waitress is eyeing you again, a weary look on her face that tells you she wants to approach but doesn’t know how. Maybe she wants to ask if you’re okay, or enquire about the events that led you here, deep in the middle of nowhere. Or maybe she just wants you to close your tab and leave.

The bell above the door rings as it opens. It’s been a while since you heard it do so. A smile comes over the waitress as she greets the newcomer. Her eyes seem to take them in, slowly. From top to bottom, and right back to the top. Innocent, if not a little flirtatious. She’d not looked at either of the truckers that way. Perhaps this is her lover, here to wait about and keep a watchful eye as she works the night shift. You can’t imagine it’s the safest place in the world for a woman to find herself working through the twilight hours, nothing but open road and sky-rise trees surrounding the diner.

A sip from your coffee. It’s as cold as you expected. Bitter too, having not found your voice in time to ask for sugar. Your stomach growls, a plea for a meal. If you’d only stayed at the venue, you’d be full of vanilla frosting, and smoked oysters, and… had it been the coronation chicken or the roast sirloin the wedding planner had gone with in the end? You can’t remember. What you do remember is her unwanted advice: just stick to some light bites, no bride wants a food-baby in her pictures.

In retrospect, you’d disliked her from the moment you met her. But you had no desire to plan a wedding. And no time either, much to your future mother-in-law’s chagrin. So out she’d gone, a cat on the hunt, dragging home some mousy-brown haired wedding planner as a sacrificial lamb. Better it be her than you who stresses over the shade of napkins, and the taste of merlots, and the seating arrangements.

Footsteps thud against the floor. Slow, deliberate, not a stumble in the way they move. You stare back out the window and spy a cowboy hat reflected in it. It belongs to the waitress’ lover, who by now is likely making his way over to pull her in real close and swoon her with a kiss only men blessed by southern charm possess.

A different version of you, a happier version, used to be kissed like that every morning.

“Are you lost, sweetheart?” The voice of a man echoes. Softly spoken, yet loudly heard in the quiet of the diner. In the window, the cowboy hat stands right behind you. You turn slowly, let your eyes dance over its owner. Like a sculpture plucked out of ancient Rome, he’s a fine art only the most delicate hands could shape. He’s brown-eyed affection. He’s an aquiline nose. He’s a well-groomed moustache. He’s Jack. “Think it’s a few miles up north they’re expecting a pretty bride.”

Leather jackets and well-fitted jeans have been traded in for a suit. Simple, classic. White shirt, black tie, a trademark cowboy hat you’d never failed to spot amongst any crowd. There’s a crinkle where a cheeky grin meets eyes framed by full brows and lashes, a scar on his right temple a reminder of the kind of man he is. Dauntless, righteous, brave. An undercover agent, posing as the CFO of one of the largest whiskey distilleries in the world.

An illusion plays out where no time has passed and his is still the face you come home to each night. A lot can change in a year, however, like the bed you sleep in, or the ring upon your finger.

He welcomes himself into the seat across from you. The protective barrier of a water-ring stained table keeps a safe distance between you both, yet you still feel his knee knock against your own as he makes himself comfortable. One arm stretched over the backrest, the other rests against the table and drums a nervous tune with his fingers.

“You’ve worried a lot of people, darliln’,” his gaze studies you. You wonder if it’s the same look he used to give his targets. The thought sours the sweetness of seeing his pretty eyes after all these months. “Runnin’ off like that, not even a hoot or a holler to let your daddy know you’re alright.”

Your dad. He’d slipped off to the bathroom, a kiss to your cheek and a promise he’d be back in time to walk you down the aisle. What must he have thought, rounding the corner to the sight of a bouquet, abandoned a la Cinderella and her glass slipper. Before you stew in guilt for too long, the rest of Jack’s words catch up to you.

He knew you ranaway. That glimpse of a cowboy hat amongst the pews had not been an illusion.

Jack was at the wedding.

“What happened?” His hand seeks you out. Warm as you remember him to be, large enough to engulf your smaller palm in his. “Why’d you run?” You stay quiet. Shrug your shoulders, eventually, and stare down as his thumb brushes over your knuckles. “You gonna give me a proper answer, sweetheart?”

Another shoulder shrug leads Jack to a sigh. There’s a pause in the quiet tension brewing between you, in the shape of the smiling waitress, pen and pad in hand. Her eyes seem to dart between you both, and you can almost hear her wondering who Jack is, if he’s the man you were meant to meet at the end of the aisle. There’d been a time when yes was the only possible answer to such a question.

“A glass of your finest whiskey. Neat, of course. And how ‘bout somethin’ to please a sweet tooth, hm?” His foot bumps yours beneath the table, calling you to look at him. You meet his eyes, watch him raise his brows in question. “Spied a pretty mean lookin’ cherry pie on my way in. That sound good to you, darlin’?” Your mute staring continues. Your stomach takes control, answers him with a disgruntled growl from within. His head turns to the side, laughing, and he nods at the waitress. “Think she’s gonna need a slice of that pie, miss!”

The right to speak returns to you at last, as you watch the glass of liquid caramel be placed down in front of him, head turning to stare out the window, a familiar Bronco sits poorly parked, obnoxious in the way it treads the line of two parking spaces.

“You shouldn’t drink and drive.”

Surprise flashes over his face, but he recovers quickly, untensing his shoulders as he sinks further into the booth. “Didn't order it for me,” he slides the glass of whiskey over to you. “Eat up, drink up. You need it.”

Though it kills you to admit it, the first bite out of the pie feels like heaven in your mouth. Tart, sweet, with pastry so golden it’s as if King Midas baked it under the heat of his own hands. A sip of the whiskey isn’t so great, but you stomach the burn and accept the erasure of nerves it promises. Your eagerness to clear the plate and empty the glass has nothing to do with the approving smile Jack watches you with.

“How did you find me?”

“You doubtin’ my skills?” He’s teasing. You know this. Still, you fall into the trap of a panicked head shake, a cough over the final bite of cherry goodness. “I stopped at a gas station. Runnin’ on an empty in the middle of nowhere ain’t on my list of wants, you see. Overheard two kids talkin’ about some bride sittin’ at a dinner a few miles down. Don’t take no Hercule Poirot to figure it was you”

“Oh.”

You shouldn’t feel disappointed by his answer, there’s no reason a man you hurt so deeply would have any vested interest in finding you.

The last you’d seen of Jack was through your car’s rear-view mirror, his tear stricken face watching you drive away, five years of clothes, and shoes, and memories stuffed into your car. He’d begged you not to leave your shared home; offered to sleep in the spare room, give you both time to work things out between you. You’d been the one to declare it useless.

“This isn’t something we can fix, Jack!”

“But, darlin’, I love you.”

“A happy coincidence, I was lookin’ for ya anyway. You gonna tell me what’s goin’ on inside that head of yours yet?” At least this time your mute stare is paired with a head shake. “Look, I mean well when I say this, but darlin’, you’re lookin’ a mighty mess. Now, a pretty mess that may be, but a mess all the same.” His hand is back on yours, squeezing with enough strength to ground you and keep you from floating off into the landscape of your own conflicted mind. “So here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m gonna take a trip to the gents, then I’m gonna square up whatever we owe this fine establishment, and then we’re gettin’ that pretty caboose of yours up'n out of here.”

Frozen where you sit, it takes a few moments for the warmth of whiskey to settle in your bones, lurching you forward when it does, a gasp and a tight grip at his wrist, holding him back before he can stroll away from the table.

“Where are we going?”

“For a drive, sweetheart.”

TRACK 1 — vienna

You and Jack are no strangers to a late night drive.

An entire love story, told within the confines of four wheels and a chassis. The very night you met, you wound up in his passenger seat, arms up in the air and the wind blowing through your hair, the charming cowboy next to you taking every joyful laugh as a plea to go faster, nothing ahead but the open road and a southern voice crooning out of the radio. Too lost in your own head, that’s what he’d claimed you to be, having strolled up to a lonely-you in a crowded bar, lamenting over a glass of bitter white wine, freshly fired and with no real clue of what you were going to do next. Never one to entertain a stranger, you’d tried to brush him off, but he flashed that smile and invited you, so tenderly as the intro to a Bruce Springsteen song began to play, to just give him one dance.

One dance led to unimaginable love.

As time passed, a relationship burst into full bloom, the imprint of you carved into the car’s leather. Jack insisted you grow accustomed to the life of a passenger princess. He picked you up from work, drove you to all your girls’ night outs, sacrificed hours of necessary sleep to drop you at airports, and train stations, and whatever other public transport your work trips demanded you to travel upon. But how could you dream of saying no when you got to ogle the view of him, one hand on the wheel, the other on your thigh, effortlessly manoeuvring his beloved vehicle.

The car came on couples' vacations, too, road trip getaways. Up north, past the Canadian borders, and down south to the skyline of Mexico City. Out west, a trail up to the Grand Canyon, the Empire State Building in the east. But the late night drives, those were your favourite. Times when life felt too much, with work stressing you out, or your parents giving you grief, or a stress headache gnawing away at your remaining sanity, Jack would tug you wordlessly out into the driveway, buckle your seatbelt, and drive off into the night. Roof down, radio on, the cool breeze clearing your mind.

The only breeze you feel now blows in through an open window.

Pulling away from the diner, Jack turned the wheels south, out into the dark of the night. Trees wall the road in, a never ending sea of pine-green lit by headlights, the looming presence of a dark, dangerous, rumbling sky above. A storm brews ahead, awaiting the perfect moment to crack open and drop a downpour on the world. Little words have been exchanged between you, most of them spoken by Jack, as he tells you about the nightmare he had checking in at his hotel, and the difficulty he had finding the venue, and just how beautiful you look in your dress, tears tracks and messy hair aside. Softly playing over the radio, Billy Joel seems to speak to you, pleading that you slow down, you crazy child.

“D’you remember our trip to Vienna?”

Your head snaps over to Jack. His eyes remain on the road ahead, and a part of you is thankful, unsure of how you’d fare gazing into them as melancholy tangles itself in their shades of brown. The other part misses how it used to feel to catch him watching you from the driver’s seat, affection incarnate as his loving gaze burned heat into your cheeks, your own voice pleading him to pay attention to the road, the light’s already green, Jack!

“How could I forget you almost getting us kicked out of Saint Peter’s church?”

“Hey, now darlin’, let’s not start playin’ the blame game!” His head turns once in your direction, a teasing smile splashed upon his rosy lips. You try not to think about how you’ve felt that very smile pressed against your mouth, memorised the shape of it so perfectly you could draw it with your eyes shut. “You knew what you were doin’ wearin’ that pretty little sundress.”

The dress in question had been a purposeful attack, an attempt at getting payback for the night prior, in which Jack found pleasure in reducing you to tears, begging for release hour after hour, after hour of edging touches. Never the best at putting up a fight against his pouting lips, pleading eyes, and filthy tongue, you’d caved into his hands the moment they skimmed their way up the length of your thigh, the watchful eyes of any Lord above be damned.

“I still dream of the garden’s at Schönbrunn Palace,” a sigh floats out of you as your brain hits play on a kaleidoscope of memories of strolling the grounds, hand in hand with a man you’d imagined yourself being with for the rest of your life.

If I asked you to marry me, would you say yes? He’d asked, as you watched a couple get engaged before your very eyes.

Promise me we’ll get married here, and I’ll consider it.

“I still have nightmares of the boat.”

“The boat!” The patterns in the kaleidoscope shift into images of a viennan skyline reflected upon glassy waters, a city cruise dragging you down the canal. “I still can’t believe you fell off it!”

“I jumped.”

“Backwards? Just admit it, you fell into that water!”

“I jumped, to make you laugh!”

“Oh, don’t worry, me and the coast guard were definitely laughing!”

A silence settles between you both. Jack drums his fingers along to the closing notes of the song, your foot does the same. It crosses your mind that this, in itself, may very well be a dream. Sitting back in the Bronco, staring over at Jack as he drives you both into the aimless night. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s visited your dreams.

You watch him inhale, deeply. With a blink, his eyes reflect the moonlight, glassy with unfallen tears, the image of him too beautiful to be fiction.

“Sometimes I wish we’d never left Vienna.”

His words cut you deep, the sorrow he speaks them with cuts you deeper. Barely a week back in your own home, suitcases still unpacked, pulling into the driveway hours after the unexpected funeral of a friend, you broke both your hearts.

All that goes up must come down and, in the very same place your relationship started, it ended. Sat across from him, rain beating down on the windows, tears trailing down your face. He begged you to stop before those words came out of your mouth, tried his best to switch the engine back on and pull out into the road. You’re just stressed, darlin’, he’d said, a deceptive whine in his voice cracking his straight-faced facade. Just need to clear your head, right? Lemme take ya for a drive. It was too late, your own hand curling back around the handle and forcing the door open, the water from outside flooding in. I’m sorry, I can’t be with you. Not anymore.

“Yeah,” you exhale, shaky. Swallowed emotions, a tight lipped smile, eyes that search for sanctuary out the window. “Me too.”

In the wing-mirror, lighting crashes amidst the sea of pine-green.

TRACK 2 — purple rain

A perfect summer’s storm.

Mother nature’s mid-June release of pent-up heat, making space amongst the skies for what’s yet to come in the scorching months of July and August, the last of any rain to be seen until September brings back the sombre skies and cooler weather. The rain falls heavily, a persistent thump-thump-thump of water that bounces off the car’s roof, bonnet, windows. In the sky, thunder roars an angry sound, each one louder than the last, followed by an even brighter flash of lighting that electrifies its surroundings, turning the black night into shades of violet, and midnight, and indigo, and purple.

“You’ve not bought any new albums? None at all?” The question comes as you flip through Jack’s collection of discs, a notable lack of change in his roster since the last time you’d sat in his car.

This lack of change is likely not without good reason, like the lack of time to go CD hunting between secret missions to save the world, or a general lack of interest in newer records. He’s always been a fan of the old fashion, after all, the home you’d once shared made up of collections of vintage whiskeys, and classic records, and faded wallpaper that he convinced you gave the kitchen charm.

“Nothin’ new since…” His eyes shift over your way, the look in them enough to wordlessly end his sentence. “You were always the one buyin’ me music. Said you didn’t want me get-”

“Getting bored on missions,” impulse seems to be what forces you to speak, an honest smile sent his way. “I remember.”

It had been a while into your relationship, with i-love-yous and apartment keys exchanged, until the truth of Jack’s job came up.

On your first date, he’d told you he was a businessman. A few dates later, he specified that he was an investor, dipping his fingers into the honey jar of some classically Texa whiskey distillery. Only a half lie, and not one that was hard to believe. Every fibre of his being, stitches and loose threads included, made sense as a man in the business of selling whiskey. The overzealous amount of Statesman whiskeys occupying the shelves in his apartment, the photos he’d send of the view from his high-rise office, the endless number of suits and ties that occupied his wardrobe, even his damn name, Jack Daniels.

Then, out came the truth.

A phone call from one of Jack’s co-workers, Ginger, lasting no more than five minutes and of which only three words mattered: Jack’s been shot.

A bullet through his head. Any ordinary man would have died. Yet there was your Jack, eyes open, a measly bandage over his temple, and standing up-right. To your own credit, you managed to keep a grasp on your sanity long enough to drive him home, cook him dinner, and sit yourself down across from him at the table. But when he pricked his finger on the tip of his knife, the rivulet of blood dripping down his finger was enough to send you over the edge. Open mouthed sobs, hands clinging to him the instant he sank down on his knees at your side, tears staining every inch of his white cotton t-shirt.

You could’ve died, Jack.

Now how could I go dyin’, when I got such a pretty reason to live for?

You begged with questions, he promised with answers. Hands intertwining with your own, a gentle voice guiding you out the apartment, the soft slam of a car door closing. He turned the key in the ignition, pulled your hand up to his mouth for a kiss, and drove you both off into the night. Under the melodic fall of rain beating down on the car, you came to terms with three facts: Jack was involved in the business of selling whiskey; Jack was otherwise known as agent Whiskey, esteemed senior agent to the Statesmen secret intelligence agency; and Jack was not often shot- at least not in the head.

Arriving home that night, with the rain falling heavy on your front lawn, you’d tried your best to dash from the car and into the house but Jack had other plans. He’d gripped your hand, and pulled you close, and kissed you under the flash of lighting. And when you dared whine that your clothes were soaked, he held you tighter and let himself guide your body into a gentle sway, two lovers under the moonlight and the storm. That night had ended with a fatal promise from Jack, your limbs entangled upon a shared bed, his lips pressing into your forehead.

I promise I’ll always come home to you safe.

“Don’t need no discs anyway, already got all I need right here,” Jack’s impeccable timing, seemingly sensing the shift in your demeanour. It’s like he knows what you’re thinking about, and trying to drag you out of the past and back to the present, his fingers stretching over to turn the volume up. A familiar set of haunting chords plays over the radio, a grin instantly appearing on his face. “Shit, they even got Princ-”

“Stop the car.”

“Huh?”

“Just pull over, Jack!”

Despite the confusion, he abides by your words, foot pressing down on the break, hands steering the wheels off-road, fingers switch the car off. Without the hum of the engine, the rainfall grows louder, the view out the windscreen suddenly blocked behind a wall of flowing water. The radio plays on, the voice of an angel singing lyrics that so aptly match the purple shades painted across the sky by the storm above. There’s a cautious echo of your name, and, for a moment, it’s easy to forget this is the first time you’ve heard him actually say it in over a year. It feels like just yesterday he was calling out to you, begging with solutions you weren’t willing to give.

Your heart beats with a longing to escape your chest, hard and steady against the cage that is your ribs. Your eyes fill with emotions from the past and of the present, as every version of yourself that’s sat within this car comes together as one. Your hand curls around the silver grip of the door, pulling it open and lunging yourself out into the pouring rain.

Under the storm's wrath, you’re reborn. Baptised by mother nature, a soul cleansed of all its prior troubles, returned to you brand new and free of heartbreak. As the rain soaks your face, your neck, your dress, it washes all the pain away. Breathing easy, head tilted back, eyes closed. It's the feeling of being alive, an anomalous euphoria found only beneath a thunderous sky. The tears that dare fall here mean little, a known comfort that they’ll mix with the rain and be swept away.

Enthralled under the moonlight and barefoot, you drift on through the trees that line these woods, chasing the sweet promise of petrichor. You’re unsure if it comes from the sky, or the trees, or Jack, but something calls your name. A fallen tree trunk becomes your own personal tightrope as you dance over the length of it, one careful foot in front of the other, arms stretched out to the heavens above. All it takes is one misplaced step and you lose your footing, slipping over moss and bracing for impact that never arrives.

“Heaven to Betsy, darlin’!” Jack’s hands, warm as a summer breeze, catch you by the waist, your shoulder socking him square in the face as you fall back into his figure. He makes no complaint of pain, taking it like a champ and placing you back down on steady ground, upon unsteady feet. “Did’ya sneak a few extra whiskeys when I was takin’ a leak?”

You open your mouth to reply, to deny, but the rain comes to a stop, and the thunder no longer rumbles, and the moonlight breaks through the parting blanket of clouds, and you’re suddenly so aware of how close you both are.

Like his hands, do his lips still feel the same? Soft as a feather, pillowy as a cloud, as sweet as a peach? It’s not something a married woman should be thinking about another man, about the man another version of her had loved.

But you’re not a married woman, are you?

Wet to the bone, it's as if your wedding dress has shrunk, possessive linen meant to warn you away from leaning forward till your face meets his.

“Careful where you point those eyes, sweetheart. Don’t go givin’ me a reason to make a dishonest woman out of you.” His warning only makes you want to lean in more, test just how dishonest he’s willing to make you, in a dress you wore for another man, upon a forest floor covered by moss, and mud, and rainfall.

He’s stepping back and holding out his hand before you can even try, saving you the trouble of mixing up your head even more.

Careful steps back to his car, where the radio plays on as Prince’s voice slowly fades out. The headlights are back on, the key sits in the ignition, and you half wonder just how quickly he chased after you, abandoning his precious car so carelessly at the side of a darkened country road, free for any Tom, Bill, or Sally to claim for themselves.

“You’re lucky I got spare clothes in the back,” Jack’s voice echoes out from where he stands, bent at the waist, and rummaging through the floor of the back seats. You want to think he’s not going this on purpose, putting himself on display so obviously, but it feels easier on your conscience to blame him for your own inability to stray your eyes away from how snugly the soaked dress pants hug his behind. “Ain’t no hope in hell I’d let you in my car, all drippin’ wet.”

“You never used to complain about me being wet in your car.”

It’s a quickfire response, the kind you don’t quite get the chance to think over before you say it. Though it may shock your own ears to hear, it seems to shock poor Jack more, the smack with which his head hits against the car’s roof loud enough that you almost feel it in your skull.

You rush over to his side, dress dragging through more mud, and more leaves, and more broken gravel. No chance to even rest your hand upon his arm, Jack’s already pulled himself out the car to face you, a splash of pink brewing across his cheeks and a hand soothing over the back of his head. In the backseats, his hat lays abandoned, knocked off in the commotion.

“Can’t just be sayin’ things like that, darlin’,” he says as he holds out a change of clothes for you, smugness in his voice yet a shake in his hand. “Not unless you’re tryin’ to give old Jack over here a heart attack.”

In silence, you both turn your back on each other. Jack does so in spare of your modesty, and you, in search of someplace dry to lay down his clothes. You do so upon the passenger seat, hands immediately contorting every manner of way they can to reach the dress’ buttons that span down the length of your spine, each more finicky than the last. You manage to free only two, in the very centre, before you sigh and wonder if the entrapment you feel in the white gown could get any more literal than this.

“Jack,” it only feels right to seek out his aid, you tell yourself, the sooner the buttons are undone, the sooner the dress will be off, the sooner you’ll be changed, and the sooner you’ll both get back on the road again, destination unknown. It only makes sense, really, so who could blame you when you say, “come help me out my dress.”

No reply comes your way.

At first, you think he’s not heard you. Then, you worry that he has, and is choosing to ignore such a request, thinking it best he keeps his hands away from any act that involves undressing you. Then, fear that you’ve given him that heart attack after all. Fingers brush wet hair off your shoulders before you can turn to check on the cowboy.

Cicadas scream out into the night, and some faceless host rants over the car radio about the rising conspiracy theory of spycams in childrens’ toys, and your heart beats louder than any set of drums could ever hope, but all you can hear is the steady breaths Jack pulls in and blows out behind you, so close you feel each exhale brush your skin. His fingers do so too, with each button they pop loose, each inch of skin he reveals.

Before you can ask him to touch you with more than just his mouth and breath, his own voice fills your ears.

“I used to dream about doin’ this someday.”

“I think we both know this isn’t the first time you’ve gotten a girl out her dress, Jack.”

“Is your mind ever anywhere but the damn gutter?” A pinch delivered against your left side, a chastising tsk accompanying his words. “I meant that I dreamt about this, me helpin’ you take your weddin’ dress off.”

There’s an audible hitch in your breath, one that perfectly tells Jack everything your own voice seems to fail to. Air stings at your eyes, yet you refuse to blink, too aware of the tears building within them. His warm hands dance back up your spine as the final button is loosened, tracing slowly over skin he’d once memorised, a missionary returning to the land it once knew.

Your dress falls to the floor.

“‘Course I never thought I’d be doin’ it on the side of the road, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

TRACK 3 — lover you should’ve come over

“Wait, are these pyjama pants?”

The realisation dawns upon you twenty minutes after you hit the road again. Confined to the small space of the Bronco with little to look at— besides Jack, his clothes still damp and smelling of summer rain, a towel laid over his seat— you’ve resorted to the finer details, picking apart the scraps of clothing he’d handed you. A plain white t-shirt that, when paired with one of his tight-fitting jeans and a corduroy-lined leather bomber jacket, becomes a Jack Daniels staple. You find it best to ignore how it smells of campfire, and sweat, and the cologne you’d bought Jack on your last anniversary. He’s paired it with a pair of blue chequered pyjama pants, loose-fitting yet tied securely around your waist by a fraying draw-string.

“Took myself and the old gal up to Alaska a few weeks back, chasin’ after a view of the Northern Lights.” There’s a flash of something hot, bright, green as you register his words, myself and the old gal, tamed and dampened only when you remember that’s what Jack calls the Bronco, his old gal. “I was livin’ out my car the whole trip, figured it was easier than trynna find some inn out in the middle of the Alaskan woods. In fact, if you check down there, pretty sure you’ll find some uneaten energy bars I packed for the trip.”

He seems to point aimlessly down at a space around your legs, hand back on the wheel and guiding the wheels around a harsh bend before you can truly pinpoint what he’s referring to. You settle on the glove compartment, sitting upright and reaching a hand out to pop it open.

Then you remember what it houses, the weapons Jack carries in there. The lasso, the whip, the pistol, the bullets. A sickness burns your throat, your eyes unable to even glance down at the opened compartment, instead searching for Jack’s own eyes that stare back with equal amounts of surprise.

“I forgot those were in there.” He steals the words right out your own mouth, a nervous chuckle following them. You’d known to never touch the dreaded compartment, for your own sake, too eager to forget about the parts of him that made him an agent, the parts of him that put him in danger. “You can read ‘em, if you want. They were written for you anyway.”

Confusion floods the soul, curiosity winning over survival and dictating that you muster the courage to turn your head, take a peak at what sits inside the glove box. When you do look, you find there’s no whip nor pistol, no piece of Agent Whiskey in sight. What is there are the energy bars he’d promised, a hiking guidebook of sorts, a map, and a stack of wrinkled envelopes.

One glance back at Jack, he encourages you to take them with a nod, and so, you do. Feel the weight of them all in your hands, do your best to not drop any as you pull them out onto your lap. They scatter all over you, each a different shade of white, unopened and all sporting a red return to sender stamp. All appear addressed to the same place, and it takes only a moment of wondering why it seems so familiar for you to realise.

It’s your old address.

“They’re all labelled with dates, I wrote the first one a few weeks after you left. Wasn’t sure where you’d moved to, I figured there was a chance you’d gone back to your old place. I never forgot about how much you loved that apartment,” he says, and you did. Leaving it behind had been hard, the first real home you’d made for yourself since moving out of your parent’s place, the first space you made your own in the world. The idea of making a new space with Jack, a place you could build together, share together, had outweighed the pain of saying goodbye to your little one-bed apartment. “Wrote the second one because you didn’t reply, and I was missin’ you. Then I just kept writin’ em, and sendin’ em, and waitin’ on you writin’ back, even if just to tell me to get lost. I got a note back, along with the letters, but it wasn’t from you. Some older couple moved in to your old place, told me they’d been keepin’ em all safe incase you ever came round to collect your old mail, but they figured it was time I stopped writin’ to a ghost.”

Attentive to his every word, you search for the letter with the earliest date. Sent two weeks after things ended, with a colourful stamp and a seal that’s slightly opened at the edges, the glue’s hold loosening with time and neglect. You tear it open completely and unfold the sheets of paper found within, eyes drawn immediately three quarters down the page.

I saw our friends tonight for the first time since you left. They asked how you’re doing and where you were. I thought they were just being cruel at first but no, they didn’t know about the break up. I told them you weren’t feeling well, that you decided to stay home tonight. I guess I just wanted one more night where you were still mine, even if it was just in the eyes of our friends. I will tell the truth next time I see them.

You feel as though you’re invading his privacy, reading over words he’d written months ago, despite being the intended audience. That doesn’t mean you have the willpower to stop, however, eyes diving deeper down the page.

Or maybe I won’t have to tell them. Maybe, next time I see them, you’ll have come home. There’s still a chance for us. I believe it because I love you. You said this wasn’t something we can fix. I think you’re wrong. There’s never been an issue we couldn’t solve by talking it through, why should this one be any different? Let’s get coffee, darling. Our usual place, our usual time, next Tuesday. We can get through this, you just have to let me know it’s something you want, that I’m something you still want.

Jack’s quiet in the driver’s seat, forgiving with the time he gives you to read over his letters. When the turning of pages and the ripping of envelopes rings too heavy in the car, your shoulders tensing up in a discomfort of disrupting the peaceful silence, he wordlessly turns the radio back up and the voice of Jeff Buckley greets you both.

You return to his letters, the second he’d sent already open in your palm.

I went to our usual spot. You never showed up. Your lack of reply to my letter should have been enough to tell me that, but I still had hope. Maybe I really am a fool. Our friends seem to think so. I told them about us and they immediately asked what I’d done wrong. There was no answer I could give them. The worst thing isn’t just that I’ve lost you, it’s that I don’t even know why.

You open the next envelope, and the next one, and the next one, paragraphs melting together into a heartbroken shape.

I tried to sleep in our bed. I lasted half an hour before crawling back to the guest room. Our room just feels too empty without you. I smell you everywhere no matter how many new sheets I buy.

Eggsy and Tilde got married. It’s the first wedding I’ve been to without you. I’m doing a lot of firsts without you recently. I hate it. Our friends (am I wrong to call them our friends? I’m not ready to just call them mine) tried setting me up with someone new. They showed me a picture and she’s beautiful, but I just kept comparing her to you. Against your beauty, she’s nothing.

Your mother was at the Statesman ground tour today. I was surprised to see her, she already done the tour years ago. I tried not to talk about you too much, I didn’t want her knowing how desperate I am to hear about you. Congratulations on your promotion, I always knew you’d get it. I’m so proud of you for finally applying for it. I heard you’ve started seeing somebody, a veteran turned mechanic. Your mother was kind enough to give me his name. I hope you understand that I don’t want to invade your privacy but I had to make sure you’re safe. The guy’s got a clean slate, other than a sketchy trip down to South America with some other vets. He seems like a good man. I want you to get your happy ending. Are you happy? I’m not.

Only one envelope remains unopened. The weight of it sits heavy in your lap, a fear settling in that has you not wanting to open it. You study the front of it, find out it was mailed three months ago. The radio moves in sync with you, it seems, the song that plays reaching its climatic moment at the same time as you do, tearing open the final letter. Next to you, Jack clears his throat and wrings his hands over the steering wheel.

This last one, you read the letter in full.

Darling girl,

Spring came faster this year. The daffodils you planted bloomed in early March. I’ve been tending to the garden, I know how much love you put into it. The flowers are coming up alright, the fruit and vegetables not so much. If only I had your green thumb.

I visited Tequila last week. I don’t know if it’s right to call him that anymore. Champ’s still not named his successor, part of me thinks he wants to retire it. That’s not what Tequila would’ve wanted. He would’ve wanted Ginger taking on the mantle. The grounds he’s on are beautiful, if not sombre. They overlook a lake, and the grass is cut everyday, and the sun shines on his grave from sunrise to sunset. I didn’t say much to him, just sat and enjoyed the view. Thought about a lot of things, and finally realised why you left.

You were scared. For me. I thought you were being selfish, breaking my heart like that, but I finally understand how awful that day must’ve been for you. We’d just buried my comrade, our friend, and you had to watch Tequila’s wife say her last goodbye, knowing it was almost me in that casket and you on the podium. That was my mission he went on, I could’ve been the one who didn’t come home to the woman I love.

I’m sorry I took so long to understand. I retired from my position at Statesman. I’m agent Whiskey no more. I’m coming to find you, and hope you give me one last real try at fixing us.

Love always,

your Jack.

“Your wedding invitation found me first,” Jack says, foot off the accelerator, eyes off the road, hands on the wheel.

The weight of his stare drags down to your lap, where the heap of papers now all sit, piled atop one another and rustling with every movement you make. Your own eyes have welled with tears that slip down the apples of your cheeks and splash the papers below, smudging the ink.

The confirmation of his invite knocks out the questions of how he wound up in the pews.

“I didn’t invite you,” you’re unsure if the truth is crueller than fiction. No part of you wants him to think you’d be so spiteful, so hurtful as to invite him to a day you’d once promised to share together. “I didn’t invite anyone. I was… busy, with work. My mom dealt with the invites, she must’ve written you down by accident.”

Your lips may be the ones to say it, but your own ears struggle to believe. Your mother’s always been a meticulous woman, practical, with her affairs eternally in order. The only mistakes she makes are the ones she means to.

“Yeah,” Jack sighs out from the driver’s seat, resignation in his voice. “I figured you didn’t invite me.”

TRACK 4 — 50 ways to leave your lover

Jack drives deeper into the night.

Out the car window, you watch as the world flies by, a blur of unlit trees and unmarked road signs. Earlier’s storm has rolled away and revealed the blanket of stars above, twinkling alongside a full moon. The road is long, and winding, and seemingly never ending. There’s no discussion of destination, no sanctuary you’re waiting to reach. You feel no urgency for it, either. So long as you sit right where you are, passenger in a car, you don’t have to take the wheel, you don’t have to choose where to go, or what to do. You can just exist within this liminal space, where no wedding lies in the balance and no hearts lay broken.

It’s just you and Jack, like the old days, going for a drive.

“Ask me,” permission comes off your tongue as you observe the driver and his less than subtle glances your way. “I can see the wheels turning in your head. Everything you wanted to know in the diner, I promise I’ll answer this time.”

“I guess I’m tryin’ to put myself in your shoes, figure out what was runnin’ through that pretty head of yours,” Jack is, at his core, a gentleman. For hours, he’s let you sit beside him, biting his own tongue and fighting back his own curiosity, a trait so vital to his existence it led him into a world of spies, and guns, and movie-esque kinds of evil. Even now, with your promised approval, he eases his way into his questioning, the part of him that knows you better than your own self dictating that this is something he must address with care. “How’d you do it?”

“I just slipped out the back, Jack,” there’s a chuckle of sorts that welcomes itself out the depths of Jack’s chest, your choice of words going hand in hand with that of the Paul Simon record reaching its end over the radio. As quick as the humour appears, it goes, leaving nothing but the unfortunate reality of the situation. “Someone left a door open, it led out onto the back gardens. The further away I got, the faster I started to run. I made it all the way past the highway on foot before an older couple pulled over. They dropped me off at a diner, and that’s where I stayed until-”

“Until I found you,” it’s a reminder you shouldn’t want, the image of Jack setting off to find you in the midst of the commotion of a missing bride. It’s not healthy for your poor psyche, already at odds with what it wants, no need for further complications brought on by unresolved feelings. You can’t help but smile at him, however, no filter strong enough to cover your subconscious’ joy. “Why did you run away?”

Your smile fades.

The promise you made is already at threat of being broken. You thought there’d be more questions, more time until he hit you with the heaviest of them all.

Why did you run away?

You know the answer. Of course you’ve known the answer, from the moment you decided to turn on your heel and sprint down the halls, in search of an escape. As much as you can pretend otherwise, and feign naivete, you can’t change the truth. That doesn’t mean you’re ready to admit it out loud, and so you refute it with a question of your own: “Why did you come to the wedding?”

It would be easy to forgive Jack for getting irate when faced with your avoidant response. He doesn’t even acknowledge it. Instead, he spins the steering wheel and shoots you a smile, the kind that used to keep you warm at night.

“I wasn’t goin’ to come at first,” comes his admittance. You can’t say you blame him, really, a picture of yourself in his shoes, receiving an invite to his wedding. The thought conjures a painful throb from your heart. “Nearly tossed the damn thing into the fireplace when I got it. A few weeks later, I met with Champ for a drink. Drank myself blind, till I started tellin’ him all about the invite. He told me I had to come.”

A lift of your eyebrows, a snap of your head towards him. There’s a desire to have his full attention on you. There’s also the awareness that the road acts as a buffer for the tensing heartache that swells and lulls between you, each exchange of words a game of painful chess. You make the choice to bring forth a pawn this once, a simple why?

“He said I’ve been livin’ with life on pause since you left, maybe watchin’ you marry another man would be the thing to help me hit play at last.”

INTERLUDE — go your own way

Like tires upon gravel, time rolls on.

No matter how easy it is to forget about the world outside, look out the window and pretend you’re simply on a train, trapped in a constant onward motion, there’s no ignoring the orange glow that begins to grow on the horizon, nor the red lights on the car radio that read 05:38. A new day grows fast upon you and, where you remain mute to it, Jack can not allow the fantasy to go on any longer.

The tires screech against the gravel and everything comes to a stop.

“Thinkin’ time’s up, sweetheart,” his hands retreat from the wheel, finding purchase on his thighs. You try not to follow their descent over the tailored suit, try not to think about the thick muscles that sit hidden beneath the black trousers. It’s not your place to think about them anymore. “Where are you goin’?”

Decision has never been something you’ve struggled with, much less when the choices are so simple and limited. Either you go back to the wedding venue, and meet whatever fate awaits you of scornful mothers, and disappointed fathers, and abandoned fiances. Or, you can go anywhere.

You make a mistake, let your mind wander to places it shouldn’t, and end up asking yourself where will Jack go. He still lives in the home you once shared, this you know. Will he go there, pour himself a drink, and try to forget this night even happened?

You can still picture it all. The coffee table Jack hand-carved, both your initials engraved on the side. The picture frames all along the wall, a mural of memories shared between you. The matching set of mugs, eternally sitting on the drying board, waiting for Jack to stagger his way down the stairs and fill them with boiling coffee. If you walked through that door again, would you find everything just the way you left it? Or, has he gotten a new table, changed the pictures in the frames, bought new mugs? Is there someone there, right now, sleeping in his bed and waiting on his return?

A bitter taste overcomes your tongue at the thought, your insides twisting up like you’ve not spent the past few months sleeping next to someone else and saying yes to proposals you weren’t expecting.

“What do you think I should do?” You don’t want him to tell you to go home, you want him to say come home.

“You can’t ask that of me. My answer’s gonna be nothin’ but selfish.” Would it really be so bad, you wish to ask, if Jack was selfish? Maybe life would be easier if he was. He clears his throat, like he clears his mind, and gone is your moment to tell him you want selfish. “I can say this, though… Your fiance’s a good man, a kind man. Kind enough to trust your parents words and let me, a stranger, go searchin’ for you. He deserves to know what decision you make. It ain’t just your weddin’, it’s his too.”

He’s right, and you hate it.

There’s no way you can tell him now that you were even contemplating not going back, of disappearing into the sunrise with him, driving till life leads you down the right roads to find a new home, your old home, Jack.

The muddied wedding dress seems to call to you from the car boot, a whispering of your name that tells you to put it back on, go back, and walk down that aisle. You owe that much to your fiance, if he’ll still have you. With him, you’ve never had to worry about him coming home safe. With him, you could live a happy enough life, keep yourself busy enough to ignore all the what-ifs your mind would try seduce you with.

Besides, that’s what Jack needs, right? To see you marry another man, a final nail in the coffin named us, so he can finally move on with his life. You owe him that much, at least.

With a nod of your head and the straightening of your spine, you set your choice in stone, “drive me back to him, Jack.”

The engine shudders to life and the radio sets itself back on course, some upbeat voice that demands you go your own way, a musical slap delivered upon your face. Jack turns the steering wheel, rerouting the car’s course with an effortless u-turn before he presses down on the accelerator, propelling you forward down the paths you’ve already travelled.

You tell yourself you’re doing the right thing, even if a familiar dread starts to settle in the pit of your stomach, brushing them off as rational nerves. Who wouldn’t be anxious when facing a man they left at the altar?

A yawn escapes you.

“We’re a few hours out from the chateau.” There’s something in his voice that weighs on him, the tone between you shifting to something of desperation. Goodbye is a few hours away. This time, for good. “Sleep, it’s late.”

“Aren’t you tired?” Pull over, you want to say. Let’s sleep. The wedding can wait a few more hours.

How unfortunate that he cannot read your thoughts, understand the intentions behind your staring as you recline your chair, turn to face him on your side, hands crossed protectively over your abdomen.

One blink, and your eyes are already fighting to stay open, dragging you down into the depths of slumber.

“I’m fine. Don’t sleep much these days anyway,” the sound of Jack’s voice fades slowly into the background, melting away with the hum of the engine, and the turn of the wheels, and the voice on the radio. “Never got used to the feeling of an empty bed.”

TRACK 5 — i’m on fire

When your eyes next open, the sun’s warmth is caressing your face.

The sound of children’s laughter fills the air, and the smell of smoke fills your lungs, and the feeling of resting against Jack’s shoulder fills you with dread. Fearful to move, you take in all of him that you can see from this angle.

There’s no suit upon him, replaced with the casualness of a cotton t-shirt and a pair of faded denims. The hat’s back on his head, the curls of ungelled hair that peak through dry as a bone. A cigarette rests neatly between fingers on his left hand, the right one grasping at the neck of a beer bottle. No wheel sits in front of him, no gear shift keeps space between you. The Bronco’s been replaced with the view of your parent’s backyard and the comfort of a well cushioned outdoor couch.

You know this memory.

You’ve lived this memory.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” just like you remember, Jack’s stubbing out the half-smoked cigarette the moment he notices your open eyes. “How you feelin’?”

“Like my uterus is trying to carve its way out of me,” your mouth plays along with the dream, speaking the same words it had years ago.

“That good, huh?” A beer stained kiss meets the corner of your mouth, another follows up to your forehead, as Jack’s free hand reaches into his pocket, reemerging with silver foil between two fingers. “Got these off your mother. Let me go get you somethin’ to eat, then you can take two, hm?”

You remember thinking that you love him. You didn't dare speak it, however, simply nodding as you took the blister packet of paracetamol out his offering grasp and uncurled your legs back down onto the floor, stretching your arms. Jack bends down, presses his lips against the crown of your head, and then he’s off, venturing over to where your father stands grilling another round of burgers on the barbeque.

Jack’s always been a confident man. He carries himself with a head held high and a careless smile on his face, no chip on his shoulder and no flare for anger in his bones. A southern gentleman, who knows his own charms and, most dangerously, how to use them. Place him alone with your father, however, and watch how he crumbles like a house of cards. To the untrained eye, it’s unnoticeable, but you don’t miss the glances he spies your father with each time he throws out a joke, nor the way his hands can never seem to relax, a nervous tic of drumming against his thighs or balling into fists as he makes conversation with the older man. He’s desperate for the approval of your monotonous father, so desperate he fails to see he won it months ago,

“Eat up, drink up, you need it,” he says as he hands you the paper plate, and his half-drunk bottle of beer. He settles back down on the couch, pulling you into him once more. “Your old man was sayin’ we should probably head off soon, ‘fore it gets too late. Think he’s startin’ to warm up to me, he’s even worryin’ bout me drivin’ in the dark.”

“Oh, he loves you,” you take a bite, break two of the pills out their casing, wash them down with a swig of bitter beer. The summer sun burns in the corners of your eyes, forcing them into a squint. “He kept looking for you at the dinner table at my mom’s birthday, you should’ve seen his reaction when I told him you were stuck in New York slaving away in your office.”

Months later, you’d come to find out he wasn’t in New York, surrounded by mountains of paperwork, but somewhere in the south of France, hunting down some billionaire wine-maker with plans to poison the crops of surrounding vineyards, leaving only his wine safe to consume.

In your memory, Jack plucks the hat off his own head and rests it gently upon your own, a shaded barrier against the bright light in the sky. You thank him, he watches on quietly as you continue to eat, gaze not peeling itself away from you the whole time.

“What? Do I have ketchup on my face? Or, in my hair?” You’d asked him, mid-chew. No answer, more staring. Panic made a debut in your mind, suddenly alert to his unusual behaviour. “Wait, is it a bug? Jack, is there a bug in my hair?”

“I love you.”

No build up, no grand-speech, no overly romantic setting.

He said it like one shares the weather, or the time, or what they’re wanting for lunch. He said it like it was something he always said, would always say, despite it being the very first time you’d heard him do so. Tears had flown in quickly, your hormones already gone haywire with the unexpected arrival of shark week earlier that morning. There’s a vague assurance that you told him you loved him too, through tears, and he teased your weepy face with kisses down your cheeks and full-chested laughter.

“Bless your cotton socks, my sweet girl, cryin’ all cause old Jack says-”

“Tell me now baby, is he good to you?”

You jolt awake.

Jack’s by your side, suit on, hair air dried, one hand on the wheel, the other rests out the window. The roof is down, letting the sun shine on you and his caramel eyes. An old Springstein song plays in the background, the very same thing that coaxed you awake. Just like the dream, he takes a few minutes to notice your opened eyes, head turning your way as another car shoots off ahead of you both, overtaking him.

“You were mumblin’ in your sleep. Were you dreamin’ of somethin’ sweet?”

“I was,” too quick comes your reply. Too honest. Nerves have you stumbling over words, scrambling to pick them off the floor of your mind and spew out the first thing that doesn’t involve Jack and his easy-going professions of love. “About the first time my fiance told me he loves me.”

You regret it as soon as you speak, the visible halt to his smile. He overcorrects it, forcing a grin that stretches the corners of his mouth so tight it almost looks painful. “Well, c’mon, don’t go keepin’ it to yourself!”

“He, uh, wrote it in the sky.”

“How romantic. Pricey too, I bet.”

“It was his best man who did it, an ex military pilot.”

As you try to reminisce on the day, little memories blossom in your mind. Instead of vivid motion capture, the day is black and white, no sound. You don’t remember where you were, what he was wearing, how you felt when you read those words up above.

It happened only two months into your relationship, that you do remember. You also remember being parked in your old neighbourhood the night before, twenty minutes spent trying to will yourself to go knock on the door to your old home. The Bronco was in its usual spot, parked outside. No lights were on as you pulled away and willed yourself back to rational thinking.

“Jeez, if that’s how he’s tellin’ you he loves you, I can’t imagine how he proposed.”

You wonder if this is as tortuous for him as it is for you, listening to you detail the life you’d gone on to live just months after walking away from five years of love. “In a restaurant,” you can’t remember the name, or what you ate, or what you wore, as if the memory is one that doesn’t belong to you, never belonged to you. “I ordered dessert, ‘will you marry me?’ was written on it in cherry sauce.”

“You must’ve said yes immediately.”

“I did.”

You leave out the part where the whole restaurant had watched him get down on one knee, or the part where you rushed to the restroom right after accepting the ring, spewing your guts out in a stall. By morning, you told yourself it was fine, you were just feeling nervous.

After all, you loved him enough to spend time with him, so why not spend the rest of your life with him?

TRACK 6 — she’s always a woman

It had been too easy to forget the thing you loved most about road trips with Jack.

It wasn’t his constant commentary of interesting facts on sites you’d drive past, or his love for taking the long-way to anywhere and everywhere, or his ever-present need to drag your hand up to his lips with every few miles.

The thing you loved most was listening to his voice, unfiltered, unashamed, outloud, singing along to his favourite songs. The voice of a crooning angel and the shyness of a bashful fox. Every so often, when he’d catch you watching him a little too fondly as he sang along, he’d throw in a voice crack, or twist up a lyric into a sickly innuendo.

In the present, it’s you who interrupts his spirited rendition of a Billy Joel classic.

“You were right, in the letters,” the leather of your seat squeaks as you fix your posture, sit yourself up straight if only to force yourself to stop observing the way his lips fall into a natural pout and, instead, focus on memorising the licence plate that drives ahead. “I’m sorry.”

“Right about what?” As though nothing has changed, his hand extends towards your own, effortlessly intertwining your fingers, beginning an ascent to his mouth before mind takes over instinct and he’s letting you go, setting you free.

You give up on the licence plate ahead, turn your face once more towards Jack and his pouty lips.

“I couldn’t be with Agent Whiskey anymore.” A relationship made up of a man, a woman, and an agent. Whiskey would kiss you goodbye in the morning, while Jack would be the one to come home to you. With the passing of time, three became a crowd, and so you removed yourself. “I didn’t want to break your heart, Jack, I swear. But I also didn’t want to let you break mine. And you did, every time you walked out of our home and left me wondering if you’d ever come back. Then, when Tequila… You loved your job. You loved being Agent Whiskey. How could I ask you to leave that part of you behind?”

“Darlin’ if you think there’s any world where losin’ you was easier than losin’ Whiskey, you’re out of your mind.” Like his first I love you, he speaks words that flow out of him as easily as an exhale, as though they carry no weight to them. As though they do not momentarily flip your world on its axis and have you wishing he’d turn the car around, driving you both off into the forever you never got.

Yet another car overtakes the Bronco, its driver angrily pressing on his horn. You both continue to ignore the speed at which Jack drives. Up ahead, everything you’ve been dreading comes into view, an unmissable billboard. Clearview Manor.

50 miles to go. 50 miles till goodbye.

“I’m hungry.”

“Those energy bars should still be in there, if you’re wantin’-”

“Jack, I’m hungry,” you say it louder, hoping he’ll pick up what you’re laying down.“Can’t we stop somewhere for breakfast?”

His answer comes in the form of a left blinker switching on, wheels cutting over gravel and carrying you off the main road. Then, as if to break your heart some more than his last declaration, he turns to you. “If it had been me waitin’ on you at the end of the aisle, would you have ran?”

You try to picture it.

Jack, in his suit and tie, hands clasped behind his back to keep him from drumming nervous fingers over his thighs, eyes brimming with tears as you take your first step down the aisle. Would the panic have settled in? Would you have felt that same wrongness as when you’d been sneaking a peak at your fiance waiting down the aisle?

Would you have ran?

“It’s not something I planned, y’know? Running. I didn’t think it was even an option,” you’re laying your final card on the table, a truth you couldn't bring yourself to admit earlier at last coming out to play. You’re unsure if it dismisses or further condemns you for your runaway crimes. “I took a peak, at the ceremony hall, while waiting for my father. I needed to see what I was about to walk into. I guess I thought the nerves were just from that, the unknown. Then I saw you, a few rows from the back. At first I thought I was hallucinating, that you were just a man who happened to be wearing a cowboy hat. But then I saw my mum pulling you in for a hug, and I caught a glimpse of your face. That’s why I ran. I couldn’t… marry another man, not with you standing in the crowd.”

“You’ve not answered my question,” it’s the first you’ve seen Jack put his foot down since he dragged you out the diner, the seriousness etched into his frowning forehead and stamped onto his lips. “Would you have ran?”

“No.”

Jack just keeps driving.

TRACK 7 — dancing in the dark

“You can’t be serious!”

Squeezed into the corner booth of a dingy, run-down bar, you and Jack sit across from one another, digging into a stack of pancakes lathered in maple syrup.

The bartender and two of his patrons glance at you both every so often, and you have to wonder how odd a pair you and Jack must make. One dressed to the nines, if you ignore the dried mud at the bottom of his dress pants and his loosening tie, the other wearing yesterday’s make-up paired with cotton pyjama pants. You prefer it to the stares you’d gained in your wrinkled gown.

“Deadly. I’m a serious tap-dancin’ student,” his fork stabs into the fluffy goodness, dragging it along the plate, soaking the pancake in as much syrup as possible. You try not to think of mornings that used to be spent like this, sitting at your own table, flour in his hair and eggshells in your own, both of you ignoring the disastrous mess in the kitchen begging to be cleaned as you tuck into your homemade pancakes. “Retirement breeds weird hobbies.”

“Before long, you’ll be playing bingo at the old folks home.”

“I just have to ask, I really do,” a dread you haven’t felt since stepping out the car— with the help of Jack and his offering hand, the other holding your door open— creeps back in. You don’t want to talk about your own current reality, not when it’s been so easy to pretend none of the wedding fiasco happened and, instead, you’re simply catching up with Jack after bumping into each other in this bar. “This fiance of yours… is he bigger than me?”

As quick as it inflates, the tension pops.

“Oh my god, Jack!” You laugh, a little too loudly, and dip your head as other tables turn their heads your way.

“What?”

“You did not just ask me that.”

“Oh, but I did.”

“You can’t just say things like that!” In mock surrender, he throws his hands up. Your own grab ahold of your knife and fork once more, an ironclad focus on the near-empty plate as you will the shameful heat away from your face, mumbling over your words. “But, no, he isn’t bigger. Happy?”

“You’ve no idea.” As though you’re being haunted by music, a song begins to play over the speakers. You’re not the only one who takes notice, Jack’s eyes lighting up with a devious look, his legs already rising out of his seat. “Think that’s our queue, darlin’.”

“Sit back down.”

“Oh, c’mon now, don’t be so uptight,” he lays out his hand, begging for you to place your own in it. Flashes of a memory, six years back, the very same song playing as the very same man attempted to coax a dance out of you. “One dance, sweetheart, then I’ll leave you in peace.”

Just like your younger self, you’re incapable of resisting his baby cow eyes, letting him guide you out onto a makeshift dance floor before it’s too late to run back and hide in your seat, the eyes of strangers already piercing you with their questioning stares. If you weren’t deemed a strange pair with your attire alone, you certainly are now, feet stumbling awkwardly along with Bruce Springstein.

“This song was playin’ when we met,” he says it like you don’t know, like you don’t remember, like you aren’t replaying that night as you speak, pretending you’re both in that same crowd of swaying bodies, young, and naive, and on the cusp of experiencing the greatest love you’ll ever know, rather than here, on an empty dance floor, stumbling blindly through the hardships of holding each other so close, mutually aware you’re dancing on borrowed time and, soon, you’ll have to go. “Knowin’ now how it ends, if I was sent back in time, I’d still ask you to dance. I’d do it all again.”

“This gun’s for hire, even if we’re just…”

He spins you, drags you closer, sways you. It’s far less care-free than the first dance you shared, no alcohol to dull the shame and a whole lot of history packed between your bodies.

The first dance had been the thing you had dreaded most about your wedding, dancing with your husband, to a whole room of loved ones watching. Dancing now with Jack— even through all the embarrassment you feel as an elderly couple point over at you— feels easier, less daunting, so much so that you can’t help the way you start to laugh, arms loosening around his shoulders, hips moving less abashedly.

The two of you inch closer, and closer, and closer as the song reaches its end. Like a happy couple finishes their first dance, Jack’s mouth lands atop yours.

A gentle kiss, innocent of sin, it begs you to give back, to press your own mouth against his. You answer its calling, hand clasping at the back of his neck, holding him safely against you, less he drifts away and reveals this all to have been a dream, a nightmare, a delusion. Like coming home after a cold winter’s day, his kiss is the comfort of knowing you’re exactly where you belong.

And it’s absolutely terrifying.

You rip away from him, flashes of your fiance’s face blinding you as you stumble off, doing what you do best: running away. You miss the way the patrons all go back to their own drinks, and the way a new song comes on, and the way Jack chases after you, stopped only by the slamming of a bathroom door.

You come up for air when you find yourself faced with the image you paint in the mirror.

Never has there been a more heartbroken girl, eyes a mess of tears, and faded eyeliner, and smudged mascara, hair a nest fit enough for any bird to build its home in, body draped in the clothing of an ex-lover. It’s almost as frightening as the image you made yesterday, wedding gown freshly laced and make-up pristinely done.

A knock rings against the door.

It’s followed by a gentle call of your name.

You switch on the tap, welcome the cold splash of water over your face. Pray that, if you scrub hard enough, you’ll wipe away the taste of him, forget the shape of his touch, purge yourself of the desire to follow anywhere he may go. Your hand slips down your face, the dim bathroom light catches on something.

Your engagement ring, a tight shackle that binds you to someone else, reminds you of the closure you owe to Jack.

He calls your name again.

“Darlin’,” it’s muffled behind the door, but the regret in his voice is all too clear. “I just got caught up, I’m sorry. Come on out and we’ll get back on the road-”

The hinges creak as the door opens, only a crack, and your hand shoots out, grabbing a hold of Jack’s tie before you can will yourself to be rational.

He lets you invade his space with little protest, mouths returning to the dance they never got to complete. Hands move, slipping off ties, and undoing draw strings, and locking doors. There’s a mumble, are you sure, followed by a moan, please.

All hope of forgetting his skin is lost, a leg hooked around his waist, fingers tangled in his hair. He bites at your neck, and kisses along your jaw, and pants into your ear, all the while his hips rock back and forth against your own, filling you inch by inch. Mouth covered by your own hand, muffling a cry of his name as you feel him brush against that spine-tingling spot inside you. Your head falls back, eyes slip shut. Jack’s quick to rectify it.

“Watch, darlin’,” he whispers, a hand tilting your eyes down to where your two bodies meet. “ Want you to see how perfectly your lil’ pussy takes me.”

You do as he says, hypnotised by the sight of his cock, glistening in your own arousal, sawing in and out of you, each thrust deeper than the last.

“He can’t fuck you like this, can he?” Despite his ego-fueled words, there’s a desperation in his voice, a soul lost in a sea of darkness, searching for a life jacket. “Tell me he can’t.”

He can’t, you tell him, clinging onto him tighter, needier, begging him to never leave.

Any minute now, you worry, someone’s going to knock on the bathroom door, kick you both out. Instead, the music that plays outside the door seems to increase in volume.

“Fuckin’ made for me, meant for me,” both of you grow increasingly desperate, fingernails digging into flesh, and mouths rejoining in a frenzy of kisses, and the tightening of an invisible string, drawing you nearer and nearer to the edge. “My sweet girl.”

An end that comes all too soon, both of you exhausted, and spent, and collapsing against one another, a sticky mess left between your legs where his hips continue to rut into you through his own overstimulation.

“I’m sorry,” his head falls against your shoulder, burrows into the warmth of your neck. There’s a press of his lips against your skin, and a million apologies that follow. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I love you, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I love you.”

“It’s okay, Jack,” you lie, sooth a hand over his back, ignore the tears you feel falling against your skin.

TRACK 8 — hit the road jack

The clock reads 13:18 as Jack brings the car to a stop.

A set of stairs lead up to a grand double-doored entrance, a sign post declaring the extravagant building as Clearview Manor. Rented for the whole weekend, the wedding party isn’t cited to leave until late Monday evening. Though all cars remain parked in the driveway, no familiar faces await your arrival.

“I hope you get your happy ending,” the two of you step out of the car in sync. A voice whispers that it’s the last time you’ll step out the Bronco, you brush it off and follow Jack as he makes his way over to the boot. “No one deserves it more than you, Jack.”

“No promises, darlin’,” he extends his arms to you, you almost move in for a hug.

The sight of your wedding dress, no longer porcelain white, stains of brown upon a greying fabric, reminds you of why you’re here. You try your best to smile earnestly as you take it off his hands, but fear it only heightens the distress that dilates your pupils. “I’ll see you inside, right?”

The boot slams shut, and it’s an awful reminder that your time together is coming to a close, Jack dons his signature smile, cowboy hat back on his head, a head that’s shaking no.

“The mighty fool that I am, thinkin’ I could stomach watchin’ you get married to another man. After this little road trip of ours… well, I guess I just ain’t ready to hit play yet.” A tongue made of lead, shoes filled with weights. Moving feels impossible, talking even more so. You want to say his name, tell him you don’t need to marry another man, crawl back into the Bronco and beg him to drive off. “Go’on, get! There’s a good man in there, waitin’ to give you everythin’ you deserve.”

Instead, you just turn on your heel, take the first step towards the rest of your life. A life without Jack.

Halfway up the stairway, the sound of Jack’s engine reaches your ears, followed quickly by the obnoxiously poignant car radio, giving its final performance for you both.

“Hit the road, Jack, and don’t you come back, no more, no more, no more, no more!”

Eyes meeting where Jack sits, back in the driver’s seat, you share one last laugh.

OUTRO — everywhere

“Thank god you’re okay.”

Two arms, strong and secure, wrap around your waist.

On the other side of the bridal suite door stands both your mother and your mother in law, ushered out by your fiance upon your return the moment he noticed the panic on your face as questions and fingers prodded at you.

You block out the thought of the scowling faces, burrowing your own into the space between his shoulder and neck, whispering your inquiry on, “how bad is the damage?”

“We told everyone you were suffering from food poisoning. All our guests think you’ve been spewing out of both ends the past few hours, but I think that’s justified for the bruising you’ve given my ego.”

“Santi,” the shape of your fiance’s name feels foreign in your mouth, the taste of it sour on your tongue, so much so that you can’t say it in full. “I’m so sorry-”

“Don’t be, what matters is you’re here now.”

Jack was right, your fiance is a nice man. A good man. A man anyone would be lucky to land in the arms of, the kind of man people dream of, and romance authors write of.

But to you, his arms just feel like a cage you’ve lost the key for. “Why did you ask me to marry you?”

“I don’t know. We just… make sense.”

“We do,” you pull apart, at last, nodding your head along to his answer. “But is that all marriage should be? Two people who make sense?” You stumble a few steps back from him, feet needing space to begin pacing back and forth as your filter slips and the word-vomit begins to spew itself out onto the pristine carpeted floors. “Do you really love me enough to spend the rest of your days with me? Because I don’t think you do, and I don’t think I love you like that either.”

Santiago is calm, collected, and completely unresponsive.

The longer he watches you pace and rant, the quicker you do each thing, as though you’re racing ahead to escape the fear of breaking his heart more than you already have, his love possibly more intense than you make it seem. He ends that fear in one foul swoop of words.

“When you didn’t walk down the aisle, I felt relieved. I also slept with someone at my bachelor party and the guilt has been eating me alive.”

“I just fucked my ex in a bathroom!” In an almost paradoxical response, the pair of you keen over in laughter, any expected animosity thrown out the metaphorical window and leaving you both no choice but to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. “God, we’re a mess.”

“Wait, the cowboy’s your ex? I should’ve known, your dad told him you were gone before he even bothered to tell me.” Santiago had little luck at winning over your dad, though admittedly it was no fault of his own but, rather, your father had yet to move on from Jack. There’s a sudden commotion as Santi rushes past you, peeling back the curtains and peering down out the window. “What car is it the cowboy drives?”

“A Bronco.”

“Well, you might wanna hurry, because he’s just pulling out of the parking bays.” It’s more than just a warning. It’s a blessing to leave. Overcome with emotion, you dive back into his arms and find there’s no fear of goodbye, not like there had been with Jack. An engagement ring that slips off with no resistance, no longer a shackle that ties you both together. You hand it back to him gently. “Go, before it’s too late! I’ll take care of this mess, see if I can spin this in a way that’s heartbreaking enough to get our deposit back.”

There’s more you want to say, but now’s not the time. Apologies and thank-yous can wait till you pick up your things from his apartment, right now you’re too busy rushing to the door.

A call of your name comes when you’ve got one foot out it, treading into the now motherless hallway. You face Santiago with a smile, ready to say that magic word.

Goodbye.

“Promise me one thing.”

“Anything.”

“Don’t invite me to your wedding.”

You make it out the double-doors, which slam loudly shut behind you, before you spot the retreating shape of Jack’s car and an anxious glee commands you to break out into a sprint, legs kicking faster than they ever have before.

Don’t speed up, you think, watching as the Bronco slowly creeps down the driveway.

“Jack!” You call out to him, hoping that, with the open roof, he’ll somehow hear you over the radio. Pushing your feet to move a little faster, your arms join the mix, waving wildly to the wind, a careless attempt to catch his attention in the rearview mirror. “Wait!”

The car breaks with a squeak, the blaring music comes to a halt, and Jack turns to face you with his own eyes, as though he can’t trust the mirrors. When you reach the car, you pull at the door handle and find he’s already unlocked it. You slide in with ease, back into the seat you’ve always belonged in: by his side.

He can’t seem to move, frozen with his eyes focused on nothing but you.

“Drive, jack,” you finally proclaim, asking him what you should’ve the moment you saw him in that diner, in the pews, in the heartbreaking hours post-burying a friend.

“Where to, darlin’?”

“Anywhere, everywhere!” You can’t help the smile that overcomes you as he pulls your hand up to his mouth, planting a familiar kiss upon it, before the engine hums back to life. “It doesn’t matter, as long as I’m with you, all roads lead home.”

Like old times, you lean forward and turn up the radio, a familiar tune filling the air as you sink back into your seat, the wind back in your hair and an open road laying ahead, ready to lead you both wherever the wheels may take you.

“Oh I, I wanna be with you everywhere.”

bts with hyde. this is just a little reflective commentary that i put down here, to avoid flooding my author's note with too much rambling. please feel free to skip this!!

this fic is a compilation of firsts for me. it's the first challenge i've taken part in within the pedro fanspace, which has been equally exciting as it has been daunting. i struggle immensely with writing on a time schedule, and so i'm pretty proud of myself for not posting this (too) late.

this is also my first time writing for jack. admitedly, i'm not sure if i've done justice to him, as his character is somehow incredibly strong and, yet, so open for interpretation that i found myself struggling to connect with him in my writing. i have no plans to write for him in any future wips, but that might change. it was definitely fun to push myself out my comfort zone and write for a new character!

something i want to praise myself for is the attention i put into smaller details of this fic. for example, each flower mentioned in this fic has a very specific symbol/meaning attached to it, fitting with the themes of the scenes in which they're mentioned. the other place i hyperfocused on very unimportant details is the playlist. it opens and closes on the only two songs fronted by a female vocalist, with my intention being that these songs are a representation of the reader's inner turmoils and thoughts in the opening and closing scenes. the rest of the playlist is full of male vocalists, giving a peak into jack's mind despite the entire fic being told through the reader's eyes.

okay, i've given myself enough delusional and unnecesary praise, i'm going to sleep now. please don't be mean if you didn't like this fic, it's literally my birthday 🫡

if you've read this far, ily, i hope you have a good day !

#summerlovin24 #jack daniels smut #agent whiskey smut #pedro pascal smut #jack daniels x reader #agent whiskey x reader #pedro pascal x reader #jack daniels oneshot #agent whiskey oneshot #jack daniels fanfic #agent whiskey fanfic

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dewdropdinosaur · 4 months ago

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HEADCANON: READER DEFENDS THE HOTEL

ALASTOR, HUSK, ANGEL DUST x READER Summary: The Reader is a bouncer at the hotel and defends it from intruders. Warnings: Cussing and implied violence. I can't remember who requested this, please comment and I'll tag you!

ALASTOR:

The Hazbin Hotel was typically bustling with its usual chaotic energy, but tonight, Alastor was enjoying a rare moment of solitude in his radio studio. The crackling vinyl records and his own smooth voice filled the airwaves as he spun tales and melodies from another era.

Suddenly, the tranquility shattered with the sound of breaking glass and frantic shouts. Alastor's grin widened as he sensed an opportunity for some devilish entertainment. He emerged from his studio, floating down the hallways with an eerie grace.In the lobby, chaos bounced off every wall. A figure clad in shadows and armed with a gleaming blade charged and stabbed at residents, who scrambled for cover amidst shrieks and curses. Alastor's crimson eyes gleamed with delight at the unexpected spectacle.

"Well, well, what have we here?" Alastor purred, his voice carrying a sinister edge that sent a chill down the intruder's spine.

Y/N the Hazbin Hotel's enigmatic bouncer known for their stoic demeanor, intercepted the assailant with a swift, unexpected move. Their grip was firm and practiced, effortlessly disarming the intruder and pinning them to the ground with an almost casual ease.

"Naughty, naughty," Alastor chuckled, his grin widening as he floated closer to inspect the commotion. "Seems like we have an uninvited guest causing a ruckus."

The intruder struggled against the Y/N’s hold, but their efforts were in vain against the bouncer's superior strength and skill. Alastor's radio microphone appeared in his hand as if conjured from thin air, amplifying his voice as he addressed the stunned guests.

"Fear not, dear listeners! Our resident bouncer has the situation well in hand," Alastor announced with theatrical flair, his tone ringing out with both menace and amusement.

The residents watched in awe and relief as the intruder was swiftly subdued and escorted away by Y/N. Alastor's eerie chuckle echoed through the lobby, blending with the grateful murmurs of the guests.

As the chaos settled, Alastor turned to the male reader with a glint of approval in his eyes. "Well done, my dear. You've earned yourself quite the applause tonight."

"You were simply marvelous, darling," Alastor chimed in, his voice a melodic blend of approval and amusement. "Quite the performer, if I do say so myself."

Y/N snickered lightly, his gaze flickering to Alastor's unnerving grin. "Just doing what needs to be done, Al.”

"Indeed," Alastor replied, his gaze lingering on the bouncer with a knowing glint. "But not everyone possesses your... flair for the dramatic."

Y/N accepted the praise with a humble nod, the stoic facade softening ever so slightly amidst Alastor’s comment. “I’ll keep in mind to put on a show for you next time then.”

“My dear, I dearly look foward to it.”

HUSK:

The Hazbin Hotel's bar was unusually quiet tonight, which suited Husk just fine. He lounged behind the counter, nursing a glass of whiskey and flipping through a deck of cards. His sharp eyes watched the room lazily, ever-ready for any disturbances. Suddenly, chaos erupted in the lobby. Husk's ears perked up at the sound of crashing glass and panicked shouts. With a grumble, he set aside his cards and sauntered out from behind the bar, tail flicking irritably.

In the midst of the commotion stood Y/N the Hazbin Hotel's bouncer known for his no-nonsense attitude and quick reflexes. The intruder, a drunk swinging around a bat with one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other, ran towards Charlie and Sir Pentious.

"Hell's bells," Husk muttered under his breath, cracking his knuckles with a grim determination. He wasn't one to jump into action unless absolutely necessary, but this was pushing it.

With surprising agility for someone perpetually half-drunk, Husk lunged forward and intercepted the intruder just as they lunged towards a frightened Charlie. His claws flashed in the dim light as he delivered a swift, incapacitating blow that sent the assailant reeling.

"Back off, buddy," Husk growled, his voice low and dangerous as he pinned the intruder to the ground. The guests stared in awe, some retreating to safety while others watched in stunned silence.

The Y/N nodded in acknowledgment, his gaze briefly meeting Husk's with a flicker of gratitude. Together, they kept the intruder restrained until the hotel's security team arrived to take over.

In the aftermath of the incident, the Hazbin Hotel's lounge buzzed with a mixture of relief and lingering tension. Husk returned to his usual spot behind the bar, pouring himself another drink with a shake of his head.

Husk grunted nonchalantly from behind the bar, sipping his drink as he listened to the commotion. He glanced over at Y/N with a rare hint of approval in his eyes. "Not bad, kid. Maybe you're not entirely useless around here."

Y/N chuckled, accepting the praise with a nod. He glanced at Husk with a faint smile, silently acknowledging the grizzled bartender's unexpected approval.

As the conversation continued, filled with laughter and shared relief, Husk allowed himself a rare moment of camaraderie with the others. In the Hazbin Hotel, amidst demons and misfits, he had found a peculiar sense of belonging that he grudgingly cherished.

ANGEL DUST:

It was a quiet evening at the Hazbin Hotel, or as quiet as it could get in Hell with the constant bar and club scene that made up the main drag. Y/N, the hotel’s bouncer, was lounging in the lobby after the bar had just closed down. After the battle with Heaven, Charlie found it important to bring on extra secuirty and Y/N jumped at the chance for free housing and good pay. Their keen eyes scanned the lobby, ensuring all was in order.

Suddenly, a commotion erupted near the entrance. A cloaked figure burst through the doors, wielding a jagged heavenly blade and shouting obscenities. Panic spread among the residents as the intruder made a beeline towards Angel Dust.Without hesitation, Y/N sprang into action. Years of training kicked in, muscles tensing as they intercepted the assailant with a swift, well-aimed tackle. They crashed into a nearby pillar, the impact echoing through the lobby.

"Get back!" Y/N shouted, pinning the intruder down with practiced ease. The residents gasped in awe and relief, some retreating to safety while others watched in stunned silence.

The intruder struggled against Y/N’s grip, thrashing wildly. But Y/N held firm, focus unwavering as he restrained the assailant until the intruder passed out.

In the aftermath of the incident, Y/N found himself in the hotel's lounge, nursing a drink amid the lingering buzz of adrenaline. Angel Dust slinked foward, leaning over a couch cushion, face near Y/N’s.

The Y?n chuckled modestly, rubbing the back of their neck. “You here to praise me too? Gosh, I am just doing my job, folks. It’s what I am paid to do and anyone else would’ve done the same.”

"But not everyone did. You're a real hero, ya know? Gotta give credit where it's due."

The Y/N nodded gratefully, appreciating the unexpected praise from the usually irreverent spider demon. “Thanks…Angel. Means a lot coming from you.”

“Oh babes, there is a lot of other things that strong body of yours could get to come from me.”

“Angel what the fuck, we were having a moment!”

#romance #hazbin hotel fandom #vizziepop #answered #radio killed the video star #request #hazbin hotel alastor #alastor the radio demon #hazbin hotel alastor x reader #alastor x reader #hazbin angel dust #angel dust #angel dust x husk #husk x reader #hazbin hotel husk x reader #hazbin hotel husk #implied smut #angel dust is so fun to write

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trulybetty · 3 months ago

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love & happiness

x. lucien masterlist | x. main masterlist

pairing: lucien flores x f!reader word count: 3,404 warnings: M | spoilers? no clue, as I've been trying to keep spoiler-free about the movie, barely edited as usual - cigarettes, alcohol, one mention of the reader wearing denim shorts, no descriptions of the reader's body estimated reading time: 18 minutes summary: it's always the same familiar dance when you run into lucien ao3: linked

... if you want to know what song is playing on the jukebox

The jukebox stuttered to life, the scratch of a needle trying to find home until it finally kicked in, and the mellow voice of Al Green filled the room. You didn’t have to look up to know Lucien was watching you, but you still did. It was impossible not to, even when you had every intention of ignoring him. He was leaning against the end of the bar, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, it’s smoke curling lazily up toward the ceiling fans.

You watched as he stubbed out his smoke in an ashtray tinged yellow through years of use, brimming with butts and drained the remaining gin from his glass, his dark eyes fixed on you before he beckoned you with a simple curl of his finger. The bar’s dim lighting, a flicker of bulbs on the threat of burning out, cast his face in shadows, the light highlighting the sharp angles of his jaw and the mischievous glint in his gaze.

You squirmed in your seat as muscle memory kicked in, the worn cracked leather beneath you cool against your thighs, a chilled shiver tracing the length of your spine. The bar as a cacophony of sounds: the clink of glasses, the murmur of slurred conversations, and the occasional raucous laugh that sliced through the haze of cigarette smoke an the scent of stale beer.

Before the internal debate of whether you should get up could kick in, you threw back the remainder of your drink, making your excuses. You stood, feeling his gaze travelling over the course of your body, and linger appreciatively as you crossed the bar.

Calling it a bar was a very loose interpretation of the place you were in that Friday night. It would be generous by any stretch of the imagination to even call it a dive bar. It was a step-down and then perhaps two more below that. The cracked vinyl on the booths, the wallpaper peeling to reveal the cover-up jobs of years gone by, the perpetual stickiness of the floor that clung to your shoes with each step, and the stale cigarette smoke smell that refused to leave—it all just combined together in a symphony of decay.

You could see Lucien swallow hard as you approached, the sway of your hips not missed as his dark eyes locked onto yours, his gaze as intense as it was unreadable. Finally reaching him he snaked an arm around your waist, pulling you close until you were firmly pressed up against him.

“Dance with me,” he murmured, his breath hot against your ear, the faint smell of gin mingling with the tobacco from his cigarette. The simple request sent a jolt through you, only magnified by the press of his body against yours.

You shivered despite yourself, your body reacting as if on instinct to the presence of his. The rational part of your mind knew this was dangerous territory. But rationality had little sway where Lucien was concerned.

You allowed him to guide you backwards to the empty tiny vinyl-tiled dance floor, the black and white squares out of place amongst the varied coloured booths, mismatched acquirements through various means and several decades. As you eyed the old jukebox in the corner, its missing buttons and cracked screen fought their way through its automatic shuffle as you tried to ignore the warning bells in your head.

The vinyl record could be heard over the din of the patrons and while its sound was scratchy through worn-out speakers, the smooth bars of ‘Love and Happiness’ filled the room as his hand pressed into the small of your back. It sent feelings you knew you had no right feeling but made the rational side of your brain syrupy, finding it harder to fight against the heat between you and against the warm summer heat that the bars aircon just couldn’t take on as you melted into Lucien’s embrace.

Out of habit and muscle memory, you rested your head against his shoulder, you could smell the heat on his skin, a balmy smell in contrast to the lingering traces of tobacco on his breath. The feight flecks of gold that ringed his dark eyes that you would only have noticed if you had studied him so closely as you had done, and you secretly hoped no one else ever would get as close to him to take note of these small characteristics.

The rough pads of his fingers against your bare skin sent a surge of adrenaline through your body, your heart pounded in your chest as the woozy blues of the guitar kicked in and the song came into its own and his lips brushed over your forehead that sent sparks shooting down your spine.

“I've missed you, doll,” he murmured into your ear, as he swayed, his body moving with a grace that didn’t match his ragged exterior.

It felt dangerously right, being back in his arms. You knew you shouldn’t allow yourself to get swept up in the moment, to fall prey to desires that would only lead to familiar heartbreak. But as the alcohol buzzed in your veins and with the warmth of Lucien’s body pressed against yours you knew you were fooling yourself into thinking there was a chance to put a stop to all of this when you were already pulled in, hook, line and sinker.

“You put this on the jukebox didn’t you?” you asked, trying to ignore what he’d said.

You felt the laugh rumble in his chest before you heard it, “What makes you think that?”

Lucien had always been a good dancer when he wanted to, his hips fell effortlessly into the beat and brought yours with it. The feel of him pressed against you, his thigh slotting between your legs as you moved was a tantalizing reminder of all the nights spent tangled together, stolen kisses in dark hallways and hushed whispers in the quiet of the night. His movements languid and so smooth that they had you catching your breath each time his thigh pressed further between your legs.

“Perhaps because you’re a predictable romantic,” you retorted as you opened your eyes to look up at him, already picturing the small smirk on his face before seeing it etched into his scruffy features, his dark brown eyes twinkling wickedly.

He chuckled, his lips brushing against your temple, “I deserve that,” he said, the smoky timbre of his voice always stoking the flame.

The heat from his body combined with the sticky humidity of the bar, created a dizzying cocktail that made your pulse quicken even more. The clamour of the bar faded into a backdrop, as if the entire world had narrowed down to just the two of you. The creaking fans overhead and the flicker of the bars neon signs outside the grimy windows cast erratic shadows masking the majority of the other patrons. Adding almost a cinematic quality to the moment as if you were watching yourself from afar, waiting to see if this would play out as tragedy or a unexpected unspecified reconciliation.

“This is our song,” you murmured against his chest, your words almost muffled by the silk of his shirt.

He shrugged nonchalantly, his hand still roaming along your back, fingers slipping beneath the hem of your top to caress the bare skin at the small of your back before they dared to skim the waistband of your denim shorts, fingers skimming the soft cotton of your underwear. The simple touch sent another jolt down your spine, your body reacted to him, the same way it always had.

“Just because it’s our song doll, doesn’t mean I put it on,” he muttered, his lips brushing your earlobe, his voice a husky whisper that sent goosebumps dancing down your skin. His hot breath sent chills down your neck, making you pull him closer.

“Liar,” you challenged, you also knew too well that he was always sentimental about the little things, like this being the song that was playing when the two of you first met.

Emboldened you nipped at his ear eliciting a guttural groan from him under his breath. His fingers tightening their hold on your hip as his other on your back managed to pull you even closer, feeling the press of him against you had you biting your lip.

The moment felt like it was suspended in time, the low buzz of the background noise of the bar fading, leaving just the two of you and the music inside a bubble. His fingers continued their exploration, drawing circles now, venturing ever so slightly further each time, testing your resolve.

“And what if I am?” he challenged, a teasing edge to his voice that you knew all too well, “What are you going to do about it?”

“You never could resist me when I was right,” you whispered, watching as his eyes closed as your fingers at his neck played with the curls he’d let grow in since the last time you saw him.

“And you always know exactly how to push my buttons,” Lucien replied, his voice a melodic seductive tone that felt like honey on your skin as his lips grazed the shell of your ear.

You tugged gently at the dark mop of curls, eliciting a soft moan from Lucien as his face burrowed further into the crook of your neck as his hands tightened their grip around you, pulling you further into the heat and heartbeat that promised so much more than just a dance.

“You're playing with fire, doll,” he warned, his voice a gruff murmur that mingled with the din of the bar.

You traced your fingers down the rough stubble on his cheek, the sensation contrasting with the slick of sweat that had begun to form, “Maybe,” you replied, your voice barely above a whisper, lost in the heady mix of his cologne and the musty air of the bar.

You could feel his laugh against your neck, a rumble of amusement that only further stirred the heat between your hips. His hand traced a path down the curve of your spine, firm and possessive, as if he could anchor you in the tumultuous sea of emotions swirling between the two of you.

“Careful,” Lucien's voice was a low whisper, playful yet serious, his smirk palpable against your skin. “You might get burned.”

You rolled your eyes as he pulled back, the glint in his eyes and the rich laugh he let out rang out above the ambient noise of the bar. Sweet and thick like a drizzle of honey on your senses, you felt the lick of the flames you knew you had no business feeling spreading between your hips.

You looped your arms around his neck to bring his face back down to yours. His dark eyes sought out permission from you, his lips ghosting yours, an intensity that made your heart skip a beat. You knew this was a dangerous game, if you crossed this line — no, you mentally shook your head, you crossed that line when you allowed him to beckon you to the floor. Possibly even so far across any semblance of a line when you first crossed paths so long ago, the two of you irreparably intertwined thanks to an inconsequential night and a blind twist of luck.

So maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was his fingers squeezing your hips like he could sense your thoughts. He always seemed to know, always one step ahead of you pulling on that string that tied you both together. The one that you both knew you could and probably should cut, but always found an excuse not to sever.

“Lucien,” you breathed out, the two of you continuing to sway to the music.

“What?” He replied the dim lighting of the bar catching the chain around his neck, St. Anthony staring back at you from the base of his neck. You were afraid to look back up, but again, with little to no protest your body moved without conscious effort, and you found yourself getting lost in the depth of his dark brown eyes. There was an irresistible invitation that lay there, and you knew you were falling again for this man whose love was both intoxicating and devastating in its intensity.

“I—” you stammered, struggling to find your voice to list the excuses why you couldn’t do this, the lies that would end this dance between you two. But when the words came to you, just there on your lips urging to be let free but before you could do anything they evaporated like wisps of smoke into the haze.

The sound of laughter and clinking glasses were nothing but a muffled echo in your mind. The muggy heat between you continued to grow along with the pressure growing between your hips you could no longer ignore the more his leg pushed between your legs, sweat beaded at your neck and trickled down the small of your back.

Your tongue heavy in your mouth you forced yourself to find your voice, sounding foreign you croaked out, “We shouldn’t be doing this Luce.”

“And yet, here we are,” he countered, his thumb tracing circles over your hipbone. His words hung in the air between you, daring you to challenge him.

But no challenge came.

His mouth was on yours, hot and insistent. Lucien tasted like smoke and the faint hint of the lime that had been in his drink.

The music seemed to envelop you, the strum of the guitar melding with the warmth and humidity all conspiring to pull you into a false sense of security. The room spun slightly, as if the earth had tilted off of its axis and you weren’t sure if it was the drinks, the heat, or just Lucien. You bit your lip, he always had this effect on you. Could always upend your senses without any effort.

His lips were hungry and held no signs of the clumsiness that should come from two people reacquainting, but your body knew how to mould to his as his did to yours. There was an ease to him; a familiarity that your body never—could never—forget, no matter how many times you told yourself to forget. A lie you whispered repeatedly into the quiet corners of your mind—you laughed to yourself internally, it was a futile effort because Lucien had always been imprinted in your deepest parts ever since that first shared fleeting glance years ago.

The pressure building between your hips was almost at a boiling point, only encouraged by his thigh that managed to slot between your thighs while his arm that snaked around your waist pulled you even closer causing you to catch your breath meaning you bit down on his lip eliciting a moan that vibrated on your tongue from Lucien.

A flush of heat spread across your body and you wanted nothing more than to melt into Lucien, give in to him as his hands roamed further down your back, his fingers tracing the line of your vertebra like stepping stones to the cliff edge of temptation. He was a flame that burnt bright and reckless, every brush of his lips stoked the fire deep within you that was past boiling point.

In that moment you wanted it all. You wanted him. You wanted to melt into him and give no care to the what haves or the what ifs. You wanted to feel his lips on the places that throbbed and begged to be touched. You wanted him between your legs, your fingers in his curls tugging when his tongue reached just—that—right—spot. You wanted the lazy sex in the morning when the two of you refused to face the day ahead.

Most of all you wanted the promise of him, of you—the two of you, that you deep down knew you couldn’t be. The universe had told you on more than one occasion, this wasn’t meant to be, the passion between you sparked like wildfire, devouring everything in its path. Flames that burnt too brightly leaving only embers in its wake and a hollow sadness that settled heavily in your heart.

“Luce,” you gasped into his mouth, your hands stilling in their entanglement of his short curls that only ever looked like he’d just crawled out of bed. He chuckled—a low warm sound that vibrated through you basking you in a warmth that you wanted to wrap yourself in. His laugh always felt like a shared secret, something specially for you and only you.

His thumbs continued to rub at your hips making it hard for you to find your voice and a sense of what was happening. Your song was still playing, yet this moment felt like it had expanded into hours. All sense of space and time blurred as he pressed closer, his hot breath sending shivers down your neck.

“You’re thinking again,” Lucien murmured against your lips and you were afraid to look up, afraid you’d be caught in the dark brown pools of his eyes and forget to breathe.

Your name was a whisper on your ear and and your final undoing.

Fuck the universe.

The song was nearing its end, the final chords playing out and with the taste of uncertainty laced with the alcohol from Lucien's tongue on your mouth—the alcohol he wasn’t supposed to be drinking, but sobriety and Lucien were two parallel lines that refused to meet. Despite the last rational thought that screamed caution, you found the words leaving your lips before you could pull back.

“Do you want to get out of here?” The invitation hung between you, bold and reckless.

You braved his eyes, dark and intense, they searched your face as if to find something in your expression confirming that this was real, just like you looking to hold onto something, anything, before you could doubt your offer. A slow, knowing grin spread across his face, one that told you he was every bit aware as you were that this was not a good idea.

“Lead the way,” he said, his voice steady, but his hand, the one that slipped into your hand your fingers entwined, the one that led you from the dance floor, trembled just enough to tell you he was just as affected as you were.

He stopped long enough to throw a couple of bills on the bar—enough to cover both your tabs—and nodded to the bartender, a silent transaction that spoke maybe of many other nights such as this. He lead you to the exit door past the jukebox that had then moved onto another song, something more upbeat drawing the attention of the bar’s patrons allowing the two of you to slip out unnoticed.

The street outside was quiet, the chaotic buzz of the bar fading into a muted backdrop as the door swung shut behind you. Stepping out into the night, the cool air hit your heated skin, a stark contrast to the stifling heat inside. But it did nothing to calm the heat that had spread and settled across your body, nerve endings firing. Nor the fast beat of your heart that pounded in your chest as you led him across the parking lot.

Aside from the dull beat of the music inside, outside of the bar the streets were quiet, eerily so, as if the universe was holding its breath watching you both as if it now had relinquished control and was just as eagerly waiting to see what would happen. He squeezed your hand tighter as eventually he walked in step with you, allowing him to pull you closer.

He looked at you, a smirk again playing on his lips and without breaking his stride he kissed the crown of your head. That smirk on his lips softened into a genuine smile, glancing back at you with a spark in his eyes that made you want to stop there and then under the street lights and commit that look, commit him, to your memory.

The night stretched before you, a promise yet to be broken. Neither of you dared speak as you walked, neither wanting to break the illusion of the reality of what that moment between you truly was.

#lucien flores #lucien flores fanfiction #lucien flores fanfic #lucien flores x you #lucien flores x reader #lucien flores x f!reader #pedro pascal character fanfic #pedro pascal character fanfiction #pedro pascal characters #the uninvited spoilers

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reachartwork · 6 months ago

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Chum 104: Patty's

"I don't care what they're up to," I murmur, low and intense. "But whatever it is, I've got a feeling our boys in blue are right in the thick of it."

Jordan doesn't miss a beat, or even challenge me – they simply nod, slow and deliberate, their mouth a hard line as the beginnings of grim determination glint in their eyes.

"And who's Captain America?" I ask, raising an eyebrow.

"Old superhero that they haven't published a comic for in twenty years. I mean, comic superhero. Not the real kind. Captain America is not a real person, but I bet this guy wishes he could be them. Like, same shield and everything," Jordan says, low and mocking. "Like, it's almost 1 to 1 if not for the fact that this guy isn't wearing a helmet."

"Gotcha," I mumble back.

The low murmur of voices carries easily across the smoke-stained interior of the dive bar, rising and falling in waves of conspiratorial whispers punctuated by the occasional bark of raucous laughter. Jordan and I keep our heads down, trying our best to blend into the cracked vinyl upholstery and sticky tabletops as we strain to make out the conversation unfolding at the bar.

"…telling you, it's the only way to get through to these snot-nosed brats," Patriot is saying, each word laced with a snide undercurrent of disdain. "They want to act like a bunch of spoiled children, throwing their little tantrums over a few broken rules? Well, it's past time they learned what real consequences look like."

#writing #alt history #web serial #sci fi #superhero #chum #chum web serial #chumpdate

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greensparty · 1 year ago

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Album Review: Huey Lewis and the News "Sports" 40th Anniversary Reissue

One of the early cassette tapes I got around 1984-85 just as I was discovering music was Sports by Huey Lewis and the News. It was the third studio album from the 6-piece San Francisco band. Prior to this album, they had a few hits, but this album really put them on the map. They were like a working-class bar band, but riding the wave of new wave (no pun intended). This was the #2 Biggest Selling Album of 1984 after Michael Jackson's Thriller. In American Psycho, Patrick says of the band "Their early work was a little too 'new-wave' for my taste, but when 'Sports' came out in '83, I think they really came into their own – both commercially and artistically. The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the songs a big boost." Very true! I became aware of their wacky and funny music videos like "If This is It" and picked up the cassette. It was power-pop complete with 80s saxophones! The album was a massive success and lasted for years. In Back to the Future, Marty has a Sports poster on his wall, and when his band plays "The Power of Love" at the battle of the bands audition (the theme song by Huey Lewis and the News), it's an old stuffy teacher played by Lewis who complains that they are too darn loud. It was winking at the audience but it worked! But I digress. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Sports, a remastered edition is being released today.

album cover

The album is one hit after another: "Heart of Rock and Roll" (like a rock and roll road map of sorts), a cover of Exile's "Heart and Soul" (I hum this song quite frequently FYI), "I Want a New Drug" (later parodied by Weird Al Yankovic with "I Want a New Duck), "Bad is Bad" (a bluesy doo wop right turn for the band), "It This is It", and the highlight of the album IMHO "Walking on a Thin Line", a rare serious song about Vietnam vets.

Shot from the "If This Is It" music video

Just a few months ago, I picked up this album on vinyl and was reminded how fun this album is. Over the years it became cool to make fun of Huey Lewis and the News. Much of that has to do with their sappy output in the years that followed like Fore and Small World, both of which had a few good songs but overall were a letdown. But for one brief shining moment they were a band you could air guitar to AND dance to. The new reissue is on vinyl in both black and olive green editions. There's no extra new tracks here (that would be the 30th anniversary edition from 2013), but since I have the BTTF soundtrack, this album is all I need for HL&TN.

For info on Sports: https://hueylewisthenews.lnk.to/Sports40

4 out of 5 stars

#huey lewis and the news #album review #reissue albums #music nerd #back to the future #american psycho #1983

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southernvangard · 2 years ago

Audio

(Southern Vangard)

Episode 355 - Southern Vangard Radio

BANG! @southernvangard #radio Ep355! While Xfinity tried their darnedest to put a damper on this weeks live Sunday night Twitch stream, we still prevailed with another banger of an episode. Remember you’re always dealing with professionals when it comes to DOE and MEEKS, Vangardians, and we will always make a lemonade out of lemons and handle of bourbon. Toast up folks you know what it is and YOU WAAAAALCOME!!!!! #SmithsonianGrade #WeAreTheGard // southernvangard.com // @southernvangard on all platforms #undergroundhiphop #boombap #DJ #mixshow #interview #podcast #ATL #WORLDWIDE #RIPCOMBATJACK

Recorded live March 5, 2023 @ Dirty Blanket Studios, Marietta, GA

southernvangard.com

@southernvangard on all platforms

#SmithsonianGrade #WeAreTheGard

twitter/IG: @southernvangard @jondoeatl @cappuccinomeeks

Talk Break Inst. - "On The Boards" - Imperetiv

"Keep Teaching" - El Maryacho X Nowaah The Flood

"Astronomical Bars" - Muja Messiah

"Wisemind" - Vic Spencer & 38 Spesh ft. Rome Streetz

"Cantaso" - Superbad Solace

"1999" - Rob Gonzales x DJ Proof ft. Tone Spliff

"Flower Bed" - Pro Dillinger & Machacha

Talk Break Inst. - "Cold Streets" - Imperetiv

"Reign Supreme" - Wildelux ft. Sadat X, A.G. & DJ M-1

"Deeper In The Forest" - Fliptrix (prod. Leaf Dog)

"Blast Off" - JustMe & Cas Metah ft. Tragedy Khadafi

"When I Hit That" - Al Skratch & Team Demo

"Grade 7" - Frank D'amato

"Gorilla Cali" - Kahlee ft Bubu the Prince & Apollo (prod. Half)

"Stone Carrying Flask" - Spit Gemz

Talk Break Inst. - "$800 An Oz." Imperetiv

"Eat Lead" - Spit Gemz ft. DJ Jon Doe

"Gem Drop" - Rome Streetz & Big Ghost Ltd

"Sleep Paralysis" - Che Noir & Big Ghost Ltd ft. Flee Lord & D-Styles

"As Real As It Gets" - Spoda x Hobgoblin ft. M.A.V.

Dead Rappers Sell More" - UFO Fev & Spanish Ran

"Bar Warriors" - Supreme Cerebral x Vinyl Villain ft. Eloh Kush & O The Great

"Property & Paper" - WATERR

"Story Exit" - Tha God Fahim (prod. Camoflauge Monk)

"When (CBD Beat)" - Eddie Meeks

Talk Break Inst. - "Under The Scope" - Imperetiv

SOUNDCLOUD

https://soundcloud.com/southernvangard/episode-355-southern-vangard-radio/

APPLE PODCASTS

https://itun.es/us/QyyX9.c/

SPOTIFY PODCASTS

http://bit.ly/svrspotifypodcasts

YOUTUBE

https://youtu.be/fReEyokxuQY

GOOGLE PODCASTS

http://bit.ly/svrgooglepodcasts

TWITCH

http://twitch.tv/southernvangard

MIXCLOUD

https://www.mixcloud.com/southernvangard/episode-355-southern-vangard-radio/

#SoundCloud #music #Southern Vangard #Hip-Hop #Rap #Boom Bap #Underground Hip-Hopradio

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flushthethrone · 2 years ago

Audio

(Southern Vangard)

Episode 355 - Southern Vangard Radio

Recorded live March 5, 2023 @ Dirty Blanket Studios, Marietta, GA

southernvangard.com

@southernvangard on all platforms

#SmithsonianGrade #WeAreTheGard

twitter/IG: @southernvangard @jondoeatl @cappuccinomeeks

Talk Break Inst. - "On The Boards" - Imperetiv

"Keep Teaching" - El Maryacho X Nowaah The Flood

"Astronomical Bars" - Muja Messiah

"Wisemind" - Vic Spencer & 38 Spesh ft. Rome Streetz

"Cantaso" - Superbad Solace

"1999" - Rob Gonzales x DJ Proof ft. Tone Spliff

"Flower Bed" - Pro Dillinger & Machacha

Talk Break Inst. - "Cold Streets" - Imperetiv

"Reign Supreme" - Wildelux ft. Sadat X, A.G. & DJ M-1

"Deeper In The Forest" - Fliptrix (prod. Leaf Dog)

"Blast Off" - JustMe & Cas Metah ft. Tragedy Khadafi

"When I Hit That" - Al Skratch & Team Demo

"Grade 7" - Frank D'amato

"Gorilla Cali" - Kahlee ft Bubu the Prince & Apollo (prod. Half)

"Stone Carrying Flask" - Spit Gemz

Talk Break Inst. - "$800 An Oz." Imperetiv

"Eat Lead" - Spit Gemz ft. DJ Jon Doe

"Gem Drop" - Rome Streetz & Big Ghost Ltd

"Sleep Paralysis" - Che Noir & Big Ghost Ltd ft. Flee Lord & D-Styles

"As Real As It Gets" - Spoda x Hobgoblin ft. M.A.V.

Dead Rappers Sell More" - UFO Fev & Spanish Ran

"Bar Warriors" - Supreme Cerebral x Vinyl Villain ft. Eloh Kush & O The Great

"Property & Paper" - WATERR

"Story Exit" - Tha God Fahim (prod. Camoflauge Monk)

"When (CBD Beat)" - Eddie Meeks

Talk Break Inst. - "Under The Scope" - Imperetiv

SOUNDCLOUD

https://soundcloud.com/southernvangard/episode-355-southern-vangard-radio/

APPLE PODCASTS

https://itun.es/us/QyyX9.c/

SPOTIFY PODCASTS

http://bit.ly/svrspotifypodcasts

YOUTUBE

https://youtu.be/fReEyokxuQY

GOOGLE PODCASTS

http://bit.ly/svrgooglepodcasts

TWITCH

http://twitch.tv/southernvangard

MIXCLOUD

https://www.mixcloud.com/southernvangard/episode-355-southern-vangard-radio/

#SoundCloud #music #Southern Vangard #Hip-Hop #Rap #Boom Bap #Underground Hip-Hopradio

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vinylwindowsolutionsblog · 6 days ago

Text

Enhance Your Home’s Security with Window Replacement in Wedowee, AL

Your windows play a crucial role in your home’s security. Old, damaged, or poorly designed windows can leave your home vulnerable to break-ins, weather damage, and other risks. Replacing your windows not only boosts the aesthetic appeal and energy efficiency of your home but can also significantly enhance its security. At Vinyl Window Solutions, we are committed to helping homeowners in Wedowee, AL, improve their home’s safety with high-quality window replacement options that prioritize security.

Why Window Security Matters

Windows are often an entry point for burglars, and traditional windows may not provide adequate protection. In fact, windows that are old or improperly maintained can become a weakness in your home’s overall defense against intruders. Security risks from outdated windows can include:

Easily Breakable Glass: Older windows may use single-pane glass, which is less durable and easier to break.

Weak Frames and Locks: Worn-out or poorly designed frames and locks are easier to tamper with, providing burglars with an easier entry point.

Lack of Proper Sealing: Gaps around old windows can make it easier for intruders to manipulate them or access your home.

Upgrading to modern, secure windows can help mitigate these risks, protecting your home, valuables, and loved ones.

Features of Secure Window Replacements

When considering window replacement Wedowee, AL to enhance your home’s security, several features are particularly important. Here’s a look at some of the most effective security-enhancing options:

1. Impact-Resistant Glass

Impact-resistant glass, or laminated glass, is designed to resist breakage. It is made with layers of glass and a tough, durable interlayer that holds the glass together even if it is struck or shattered. This type of glass makes it significantly harder for an intruder to break into your home. Even if the glass is broken, it won’t fall out of the frame, giving you more time to respond to a potential security threat.

Impact-resistant windows are especially beneficial in areas prone to storms and high winds, as they can also withstand flying debris. These windows provide peace of mind in both break-in prevention and weather protection.

2. Multi-Point Locking Systems

A secure window locking system is one of the best ways to prevent forced entry. Traditional single locks are often insufficient to deter burglars, but multi-point locking systems offer added protection by securing the window at several points along the frame. This makes it far more difficult for an intruder to pry open or force the window.

Windows with multi-point locking systems, when combined with strong frames and high-quality glass, create a comprehensive security solution that minimizes risks. These locks are available in various styles, including double-hung, casement, and sliding windows.

3. Reinforced Window Frames

Strong, durable window frames made from materials like fiberglass or steel are essential for maintaining the overall strength and integrity of your windows. Old wooden frames can deteriorate over time, making them easier for burglars to break through.

Reinforced frames not only make it harder for intruders to gain access but also contribute to the overall durability of the window, preventing issues such as warping or rotting. Vinyl, fiberglass, and metal frames are excellent choices for providing a balance of security and energy efficiency.

4. Window Grilles or Security Bars

For additional security, consider adding window grilles or security bars to vulnerable areas such as basements or ground-level windows. These provide an extra physical barrier that prevents unauthorized access. Grilles and bars can be custom-designed to complement your home’s aesthetic while enhancing security.

If aesthetics are a concern, modern grilles are available in a variety of styles that are both functional and visually appealing, ensuring that your windows remain secure without detracting from your home’s curb appeal.

5. Window Sensors and Alarms

Integrating window sensors into your home security system is a smart way to enhance safety. These sensors can detect when a window is opened or tampered with, triggering an alarm or notifying your security company.

While window sensors don’t physically secure the window, they add an extra layer of protection by alerting you to any unauthorized entry attempts. This can be especially useful when you are away from home.

6. Double or Triple-Pane Glass

Double or triple-pane windows are designed to provide additional insulation, but they also contribute to security. Multiple panes of glass make it more difficult to break through a window, adding an extra layer of defense. Triple-pane windows, in particular, offer the best protection as they have a third layer of glass, making it more challenging for burglars to penetrate.

These windows also help improve your home’s energy efficiency by providing better insulation, keeping your home comfortable year-round while improving security.

The Benefits of Window Replacement for Security in Wedowee, AL

Incorporating security features into your window replacement Wedowee, AL project can offer several benefits beyond the obvious enhancement of your home’s safety:

1. Peace of Mind

Knowing that your windows are secure gives you peace of mind, whether you’re at home or away. Modern window replacement options provide added layers of protection that allow you to feel safe in your home, even when you're not there.

2. Increased Home Value

Security features such as impact-resistant glass, multi-point locks, and reinforced frames add value to your home. Buyers are more likely to choose a property with modern, secure windows, making your home a more attractive investment.

3. Energy Efficiency

High-security windows, such as impact-resistant and multi-pane windows, also improve your home’s energy efficiency by reducing air leaks and providing better insulation. Not only does this keep your home comfortable, but it also reduces energy costs, saving you money in the long run.

4. Enhanced Curb Appeal

Replacing old, unattractive windows with modern, secure windows can boost your home’s curb appeal. Security doesn’t have to mean sacrificing style—many of the latest window designs combine security with sleek, contemporary looks, adding both function and beauty to your home’s exterior.

Why Choose Vinyl Window Solutions?

At Vinyl Window Solutions, we specialize in providing top-quality window replacement options designed to enhance your home’s security. We offer a wide range of windows with features such as impact-resistant glass, multi-point locking systems, and reinforced frames. Our team of experts can help you choose the best windows to meet your security needs while keeping within your budget.

Our services include:

Free Consultations: Our team will assess your home’s security and recommend the best window options.

Expert Installation: We ensure your windows are installed securely and efficiently for maximum performance.

Energy-Efficient and Secure Options: We offer a variety of windows designed to protect your home and reduce energy costs.

Conclusion

Window replacement in Wedowee, AL, is not only about aesthetics or energy efficiency—it’s also an essential investment in your home’s security. By selecting windows with advanced features like impact-resistant glass, multi-point locking systems, and reinforced frames, you can enhance your home’s safety and enjoy long-term peace of mind.

Contact Vinyl Window Solutions today to learn more about our window replacement options and schedule a consultation to secure your home.

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nsdetailandwrap · 4 months ago

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Tesla Vinyl Wrapping | nsdetailandwrap.com.au

Tesla vehicles are a technological marvel, but even these exceptional cars can benefit from a touch of personalization. Vinyl wrapping is a quick and affordable way to change the color of your Tesla, and it protects the original paint from scratches and UV damage.

It can also be used to add graphics, images, and messaging. In addition, a vinyl wrap can be easily removed when you want to sell your Tesla.

Customization

Tesla owners have many options for customizing their vehicles, including wrapping. Tesla Wrapping offer design flexibility and can be installed by professional installers or DIY enthusiasts. Professional installation offers a more consistent and flawless finish. However, it may be more expensive than a DIY solution.

Wraps also protect the original paint, preserving the vehicle’s condition and enhancing its resale value. As a result, a well-maintained wrap can be expected to last 5-7 years, with proper care and cleaning.

There are many color and finish options to choose from, ranging from matte or satin to gloss or pearl finishes. These finishes can enhance the look of your Tesla, with colors like matte black and metallic blue proving popular choices. You can even add graphics to your Tesla wrap, such as eye-catching stripes or a logo.

Durability

If you’re looking for a durable Tesla Vinyl Wrapping, consider choosing a high-quality vinyl material and a professional installer. They will ensure that your Tesla wrap is applied correctly, minimizing bubbles and wrinkles. They’ll also help you choose the right color and design for your vehicle. In addition, they will recommend a suitable protective sealant for your Tesla car wrap.

Tesla wraps are also resistant to UV rays, which cause paint to fade over time. This means that your Tesla will look new for longer, and you can retain its resale value. However, it’s important to remember that a wrap will require regular cleaning and maintenance. Wash your Tesla wrap regularly using a mild detergent and soft microfiber towels. Avoid high-pressure washes and abrasive cleaning tools, as they can damage the vinyl.

Safety

In the world of EV personalization, Tesla wraps are becoming an increasingly popular choice. They’re not only an aesthetic upgrade for your sleek electric car, but they also protect it from the elements. When paired with a ceramic coating, they even provide an additional layer of protection and enhance the beauty of your Tesla’s paint job.

However, it’s important to consult an experienced professional when wrapping your

Tesla. Wraps require precision and experience, and improper installation can

damage the surface of your car. In addition, the wrap may interfere with your Tesla’s warranty. Choosing the right color for your Tesla is also important, as it can impact its resale value. For instance, spring and summer wraps offer UV protection and heat resistance, while autumn and winter wraps feature textures that offer scratch resistance.

Removability

Teslas come in a limited color palette from the factory, so wrapping is a great way to express your personal style. It is also a quick and affordable alternative to painting. Wraps are also easy to maintain and can be easily removed if you decide to sell your car.

Tesla Vinyl Wrapping protect your EV from minor scratches and environmental damage. This extra layer acts as a shield, keeping your car in better condition and increasing its resale value.

Tesla wraps are also self-healing, meaning they can be waxed, clay barred and ceramic coated just like traditional paint. However, it’s important to take care of your Tesla wrapped car so it lasts longer. Make sure to park in a garage or carport and wash it by hand rather than at an automatic car wash.

Cost

A full Tesla wrap covers the entire exterior of a car, offering a dramatic transformation and comprehensive protection. It also offers a more uniform appearance and reduces the need for regular repainting. However, it is also the most expensive option.

Reputable wrap shops will provide high-quality materials and professional installation. They will also offer a wide range of colors and finishes. For instance, a full wrap can include custom prints like logos and branding. In addition, they will use pH neutral cleaners and low pressure sprayers when washing the vehicle. They will also recommend parking in shaded areas or using a car cover to avoid prolonged sun exposure.

Despite the fact that wrapping is more affordable and easier to maintain than a

traditional paint job, some owners prefer the look of real paint. But if you value customization and durability, vinyl wrapping may be worth the investment.

#Tesla Vinyl Wrapping #Tesla Wrapping #Car Window Tinting #Window Tinting

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nwbeerguide · 4 months ago

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Breweries Van Henion and Double Mountain Brewery & Cidery collaborate to release Velvet Wallpaper.

https://bit.ly/46rUld0 image courtesy Double Mountain Brewery & Cidery Press Release Hood River, OR - July 2024 Double Mountain Brewery & Cidery is excited to announce their latest seasonal brew Velvet Wallpaper West Coast IPA, a collaboration with Van Henion Brewing, a brewery they greatly respect. Despite being a relatively new establishment opening in 2021, Van Henion has made a name for itself with a selction of outstanding IPAs and lagers. When visiting Bend, their brewery is a must-see! Velvet Wallpaper West Coast IPA exemplifies the elegance and craftsmanship both breweries are known for. The breweries crafted a classic West Coast IPA using some of their favorite Pacific Northwest hops. Modern hopping techniques highlight citrus aromas, with pine and evergreen providing a well-balanced complement. This IPA is dry, crisp, and bright to boot, with an ABV of 6.3%, making it an easy summer patio pounder. The name “Velvet Wallpaper” was inspired by a serendipitous moment when Matt Swihart, Double Mountain’s owner, walked into Van Henion’s brewery and discovered the same timeless, classy velvet wallpaper pattern found in the Hood River pub, albeit in a different color. This shared aesthetic connection underscores the timeless elegance both Double Mountain and Van Henion aim to capture in every sip of this beer. Raise a glass to this exquisite collaboration and enjoy a touch of class, Oregon! Velvet Wallpaper West Coast IPA 6.3% Alc/Vol 50 BU As you step into the dimly lit room, aromas of evergreen, ruby red grapefruit, and apricot guide you to a secluded seat at the bar. Feels nice doesn’t it? Settle in, sip slow, and keep it classy. About Double Mountain Brewery & Cidery: Double Mountain is a Brewery & Cidery based in Hood River, Oregon that extends a warm welcome to all. Our brewery in Hood River boasts our original taproom where you can experience the heart of our craft. We have two additional taprooms in Portland, located in the Woodstock and Overlook neighborhoods, and a kitchen at the Aladdin theater, open during showtimes. We strive to create a living room atmosphere, where we spin vinyl, offer weekly free live music, and host trivia nights. Our food philosophy revolves around sharing moments with friends. We offer various New Haven-style pizzas, sandwiches, salads, and an array of other dishes that proudly steer clear of the fryer. We take pride in our hop-forward beers, crisp unsweetened dry ciders, and house-made n/a root beer and ginger ale. We hope you’ll stop by and share a pint with us! Our beer and cider is available at our Taprooms and throughout the Northwest. Learn more at https://bit.ly/3R0ysLu About Van Henion Brewing: Van Henion Brewing is located in Bend Oregon and specializes in making the types of beers that brewer’s love to drink: clean lagers and bright IPAs. Van Henion’s focus on German-style beer comes from a passion for clean traditional lagers. The owners and brewers at Van Henion bring with them a combined 65+ plus years of professional brewing experience. They are committed to making beers that they are proud to drink. Van Henion was founded in 2021 and is brewer owned and operated. Learn more at https://bit.ly/3WGWdv3 from Northwest Beer Guide - News - The Northwest Beer Guide https://bit.ly/4c5XOPG

#Craft Beer #Beer #News

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worldofedd · 4 months ago

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The Gang's Musical Talents

[🥤] Despite being the leader of the Hoodie Boys (TM), Edd's musical talents do NOT lie in singing. Instead he's skilled at...the kazoo.

Yup, the kazoo. No lessons or anything, just self taught (but then again it's the kazoo so...).

Being a fan of Weird Al Yankovic's work, Edd also once took up accordion lessons for a while. But couldn't commit to fully learning it (mainly due to his other hobbies, the gang's misadventures, etc). He does still pick it up and try to play a song or two on his accordion every once and a while though.

[🔷] Everyone and their mother knows Tom's musical talent: Bass. In fact, out of all of them, he's the most musically inclined. Inspired by Ska bands he grew fond of, he took guitar lessons during high school.

"Pro" may be a strong word for Tom, but those lessons certainly paid off. While Tom is unsure if he wants "go big" with it, he occasionally does small gigs for local bars and venues. He also practices playing Susan (his bass) in his room at least 2-3 times a week to keep his skills sharp.

[💜] Matt's more of a singer than anything. He does have at least a tiny bit of skill on the drums. But nothing more than the basics.

He is however the best dancer of the group, no doubt.

[💥] Tord's the only one without any form of musical skills, as his focus lies in other fields (tech stuff mainly).

Yes, technically he could make a chip filled with musical knowledge to help him play any instrument he wished. But he sees no point in it. Hence, he doesn't.

However, if you were to put his finger on a vinyl disc while it's playing and open his mouth, he basically becomes a walking speaker (like that one Lilo and Stitch scene.)

[🔥] Blaze is in a similar situation to Matt. In which she's more into singing than playing an instrument. She did take band in the 5th grade (specifically the drums)...but just so she could get a break from main classes.

#{ Headcanons | Edd 🥤 }#{ Headcanons | Tom 🔷 }#{ Headcanons | Matt 💜 }#{ Headcanons | Tord 💥 }#{ Headcanons | Blaze 🔥 }

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airadam · 7 months ago

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Episode 179 : Crate Expectations

"If you're wrong, you're wrong, and if you're right, you're right."

- Malcolm X

It's been a rough month in the Hip-Hop community, as we've said goodbye to Mister Cee, Rico Wade of Organized Noize, MC Duke, and Keith LeBlanc, all of whom are included in this episode's selection. Rest in peace to all, and thanks to them for all their contributions.

Despite spending a fair amount of time (and £) digging in the vintage crates this month, the selection is mostly a mix of exploring my existing colllection, plus a few new brand new digital releases. I will be very impressed if there's anyone who knows every track here already!

Mastodon : @[email protected]

Twitch : @airadam13 - see upcoming schedule @ events.airadam.com

Playlist/Notes

MysDiggi : Skull Island

It was a pleasure to hear the well-respected UK MC MysDiggi explain some of his approach to writing and maintaining a career at the Hip-Hop @ 50 event at the Contact Theatre in Manchester recently, and so I wanted to include a track from him on this episode! On this track from "Tip Of Da Mysberg 3", he's in full King Kong mode over an 8-bit-style beat from Manchester's Twizted Roots (now Strange Soul Music) that has demolished the room when he's played it at the WORKINONIT producer sessions. A perfect union for a literally monster tune!

[Dabrye] Bus : Keep Life Right Remix (Instrumental)

Bass and more bass, following up with another electronic track that was very popular in Manchester on the underground scene in the early nineties. The vocal version has lyrics by Scottish MC Soom-T, and if you go all the way back to Episode 55 you can hear it there - though of course, if you like it, I recommend buying a copy!

Sparkz : Buzzin

Last year's "Overload" EP by Manchester's Sparkz was a great release on High Focus records, with five tracks entirely produced as well as written by the man himself - and with a touch not seen nearly enough these days, all the instrumentals coming included as well! This is the opener and probably my favourite, with a nice relaxed bounce to the rhythm and the lyrics flowing over nice and easy...until he ramps it up with some devastating double-speed bars! I don't know if any of the vinyl copies of this are still available, but it's on Bandcamp so you can pick it up for yourself there.

OutKast : Elevators (ONP 86 Mix)

Of course there had to be some Rico Wade this month, and so I've gone back to what is still my favourite OutKast LP ("ATLiens") for the remix of the lead single. It retains some of the same spooky keys as the OutKast-produced original but overall swaps elements out for something more of a live feel, you could say - almost like a funk band putting their own spin on it.

Cookin Soul & The Musalini ft. Planet Asia : I Want It All

Mus has been cultivating his New York take on the "gentleman of leisure" lane, and this luxurious track is a standout on the newly-released "Mackaroni" album, with Valencia's Cookin Soul hooking up an Anita Baker sample for a short and sweet cut, with both Mus and guest Planet Asia cooking (no pun intended) up visions of fly living, with those Mediterranean lamb chops sounding good right about now...

Z-Ro ft. Mya : Clearer

This has been a track on repeat for me this month, great track from Rother Vandross' new "The Ghetto Gospel" LP. He's never really made a mainstream splash, but those who know him have no choice but to appreciate and respect him. Getting the legendary Mya to feature here was a big win, and Beanz & KornBread on production beautifully interpolate a Houston classic for a sparkling clean track perfect for when the sun does eventually appear!

DJ DMD : 25 Lighters (Instrumental)

I was utterly amazed to find out that I'd never played any version of this track on the show before, but with the preceding tune drawing heavily from this Houston anthem, I had to drop the instrumental at least. DJ DMD sampled the classic "Nite and Day" by Al B. Sure and hooked it up perfectly for an absolute classic which has been referenced by many within the culture - and even covered by ZZ Top!

Polyrhythm Addicts : Smash

Banging, bludgeoning Hip-Hop right here, with DJ Spinna's beat indeed out to smash everything in sight. This is taken from the second Polyrhythm Addicts LP, "Break Glass...", which saw Apani B. Fly step away from the group and the also-ill Tiye Phoenix take her spot. I think I missed this the first time round, only really hearing the debut LP, but after happening upon this it sounds like the lesser-known second album is worth seeking out.

Slum Village & Mick Boogie ft. Rapper Big Pooh and Vice : Fresh

This isn't the sound that many associate with Slum Village, but they've produced some pretty varied material sonically through the different lineups of the group over the years. The intentionally raw "Dirty Slums" mixtape by Mick Boogie featured this grimy track, with banging drums, wailing electric guitar and dirty synth bass, plus the Detroit crew bringing in reinforcement from North Carolina in the shape of Little Brother's Rapper Big Pooh.

Dungeon Family : Curtains (DF 2nd Generation)

Going into the Organized Noize/Rico Wade catalogue again, this was a track at the end of Dungeon Family's "Even In Darkness" album, and as the subtitle indicates, showcases the members of the crew who were up next after OutKast, Goodie Mob, and the rest. The one who probably jumps out to most is Killer Mike, who has gone on to have a long career as a soloist and as half of Run The Jewels, but everyone holds theirs down on this track. For those that might not have known, The Dungeon was the name of the basement studio in Rico's mother's house, where he and the rest of the crew honed their crafts and did their first recordings; it's nice that the name lives on.

Nas & DJ Premier : Define My Name

If you're a very online Hip-Hop fan, you'll certainly have heard this track already, but I thought I'd share it for those who aren't! This is the lead single from the long, long-awaited Nas and Preemo album - and as much as some people complain they wanted it years ago, things happen when they happen. Nas breaks down his actual name and then looks back over his history from the viewpoint of someone who, like the rest of us, might not have imagined that nineteen-year-old who wrote "Illmatic" still releasing heat at fifty! DJ Premier's beat is sparse in one of his signature styles, and of course his near-trademark scratch phrase hook is in effect. The wait is almost over...

[Mark B] & Blade : Sealed With A Diss (Instrumental)

RIP Mark B, who along with Blade made a great duo that even managed to get some mainstream success after years of holding it down on the underground. This track, the second A-side cut on the 2001 "There's No Stoppin' It" EP, was the answer to all those who took shots at them because of that success, with this urgent beat and Blade playing no games on the mic!

Ultramagnetic MCs : Kool Keith Model Android 406

Sound quality is a bit rough, combined with some...interesting ideas on panning, but hopefully that doesn't take away too much from this Ultramagnetic rarity! It's on a compilation called "The B-Sides Companion", but I can't seem to find what, if anything, it was ever on the B-side of - information would be appreciated. By the way, if you're looking to buy the compilation you might want to get the CD, as the overall pressing quality of the vinyl isn't great.

Malcolm X : No Sell Out

I was sure I'd played this recently, but couldn't find any record of it so I must have just been listening in the house 😆 Keith LeBlanc was the producer here (though the record is credited to Malcolm X), and he had the idea of combining spoken word samples (this back in 1983!) with a beat, after hearing Grandmaster Flash playing part of the famed Dirty Harry "do you feel lucky?" speech over a record. A drummer by trade, he built the track completely with drum machines, the cutting-edge tech of the time, and then laid quotes from the legendary freedom fighter over the top. It was controversial in some circles, but if nothing else, he ensured that he got permission from Malcolm's widow, Dr. Betty Shabazz, and that the family got paid. Love it or hate it, this was a groundbreaking record for sure, and one that preceded the Afrocentric Hip-Hop era where Malcolm's words very much came to the fore.

Big Daddy Kane : Mister Cee's Master Plan

We hardly have DJs in rap groups anymore, so the DJ track has long since sadly been consigned to the history books in all but a handful of cases. However, there was a time it was a must and Big Daddy Kane cedes the spotlight on this cut from his debut "Long Live The Kane" to his DJ, the recently-departed Mister Cee, bigging him up on the mic and then letting him cut it up on the turntables. Plan executed.

Gang Starr : Take A Rest (Take 5 Remix)

Of course there had to be some Guru this month, so here we have a remix of an old classic from the "Step In The Arena" LP. London's CJ Mackintosh gets on the boards for this one, keeping the foundation of DJ Premier's production but blending a little extra jazz into it! I picked this up on a compilation of Gang Starr rarities, but the official place to find it is on the B-side of the UK release of "Take A Rest" itself.

Sadat X : The Great Dot X (Instrumental)

The wax I got this on (a sampler of tracks from the Stimulated label) unfortunately doesn't credit the producer, but this takes an old R&B (in the original sense) dancefloor classic that was a big single in its day...and wisely, doesn't mess with it too much!

Duke : Return Of The Dread-I

We close the episode with a track from the late MC Duke, a UK pioneer who got his start when he served up the winner of a DMC MC battle who said he could beat anyone in the place! He was signed to the famed Music of Life label, on which he released two LPs - "Return Of The Dread-I" being the second. Of course, it heavily channels "Star Wars" in the way you'd expect from the title, with Double H Productions working the vocal samples into the hook of this frenetic track, with Duke himself coming with the rebel attitude like Luke Skywalker and the aggression of his father. RIP Duke.

Please remember to support the artists you like! The purpose of putting the podcast out and providing the full tracklist is to try and give some light, so do use the songs on each episode as a starting point to search out more material. If you have Spotify in your country it's a great way to explore, but otherwise there's always Youtube and the like. Seeing your favourite artists live is the best way to put money in their pockets, and buy the vinyl/CDs/downloads of the stuff you like the most!

Check out this episode!

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hannahsheppardsblog · 8 months ago

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Defining the brand:

brand background:

Belgium&Blues bar is located in Southampton, where they sell Belgian and craft beer and brasserie alongside artisan wines and spirits, beer cocktails and food. throughout the week, there are live blues performances and vinyl djs at the weekend.

Blegium&Blues are looking to release their own series of Belgian beers as this summer they are attending beer festivals like Craft Beer South and New Forest beer festival and want to draw more people in to their blues bar in Southampton as well as their new location in Bournemouth. They are also going to be hosting pop-up day blues festivals along the south coast this summer to boost the sales of their new series of beers- each of which will be inspired by a different category of blues music.

brand logo:

main goals:

to launch and promote the sale of their new series of beers

to create an experience from drinking Belgian beers

to spread the love about the uniqueness of Belgian beers

brand personality:

rustic and quirky

self confident

fun and inclusive

brand narrative:

Belgium&Blues was founded on the love for Belgian beer but from the hearts of 3 friends who wanted to get more out of a beer bar. So Belgium&Blues comes from a place close to the heart and has been nurtured into embracing anyone who wants to enjoy beer and music

This means it would make sense for the bar to partner with local breweries as a celebration of local talent, like they do with live music and comedy nights

By Belgium&Blues having their own series of beers, they will be able to craft their own beer experience for customers to experience which will be tailored around their brand core values and support the music they play to enhance their experience. This will be a unique selling point and allow them to stand out against other brands.

touch points:

range of 4 beers with different flavours and packaging

advertising assets: posters/social media posts

user flow:

discovery of the brand through advertisement assets on social media and billboards

research: find out more information on their social media and website

purchase: attending the beer festivals/ pop-ups/ bar and buying the product

consumption: experience the loving craft of the Belgian beer in relation to different genres of blues music

products:

Urban blues and Tarot D'Or:

blonde ale in a 25cl bottle and 8% alcohol

high fermentation, lambic and miture of exotic fruits flavour and aroma (mango, lime, honey melon) with a fruity aroma and characterful after taste

this mimics the urban blues because there is typically lots of instruments with a complex harmony (represented by the range of fruits and characterful after taste)

Delta Blues and Rosee:

25cl bottle

amber in colour with a full and creamy head. Flavour somes from a unique mixture of fruits and the addition of different spices to match the fruity aroma. advised to be served at 3 degrees

this matches delta blues well because they would sing about failed relationships and romance which is mimicked in the sophisticated flavours and spices in this beer.

Rhythm and Blues and pecheresse:

25cl bottle

blonde in colour and full and creamy head, which has a period of maturity where the peach flavour is added later then left to mature for months to allow the flavour to develop

this fits rhythm and blues well because the audience for this category developed and matured as the style did and ended up having a more mature aged audience which is mimicked in how the beer is brewed and the minimalistic and sophisticated peach flavour

Country blues and Rouge:

33cl bottle

dark red/brown colour with a redish head. strong aroma of cherries and light sour, dry and light bitter with undertones of barley, malt and wheat

this suits country blues well because it is the original style of blues and this is a more typical style of Belgian Beer which suits the fact they would sing day-to-day music, which is more classic, like the flavour of beer.

target audience:

People who already drink beer and have a love for it

People who want to know and experience beers better

30-60 year olds male and female

#Final major #ideation #refinement

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blacktopmemories · 11 months ago

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Playlist for Saturday, December 30, 2023

Kurt Vile - "Cool Water" Starbenders - "Poison" Moontower - "Who Knew?" Feist - "I Took All of My Rings Off" Pedro the Lion - "Yellow Bike" The Strokes - "Ask Me Anything" Foxing - "Nearer My God" Squirrel Flower - "Alley Light" The Mountain Goats - "Only One Way" Al Menne - "Saddle" Lucas Davies - "Grey" M. Ward - "Engine 5" Wilco - "Leave Me (Like You Found Me)" Elliott Smith - "Between the Bars" Limbeck - "In Ohio on Some Steps" Bad Suns - "Astral Plans" Frost Children - "Bernadette" Wishy - "Donut" Faye Webster - "In a Good Way" The National - "Bloodbuzz Ohio" The Hold Steady - "Yeah Sapphire" Mansions - "Not My Blood" Half Dream - "Ebbs and Flows" Molly Burch - "Bed" Lila Blue - "Stranger" Pocket Vinyl - "Dont" The Lonely Forest - "Pull the Pin and Forget" xo - b. To download or stream the show, click here!

#radio #college radio #the core #rutgers #rutgers university #playlists #music

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thesinglesjukebox · 1 year ago

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TAYLOR SWIFT - "CRUEL SUMMER"

youtube

TSJ Today reports...

[7.29]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: I need to get a couple things out of the way: 1) Why wasn't this released as a single during the actual Lover era four years ago?; 2) My enjoyment for this song, as I suspect it may have for many of you as well, has decreased since it turned from an secretly adored album cut to a Billboard #1 in 2023; 3) Why did a song called "Cruel Summer" go #1 during the second half of October? Who was in charge of this timing?; 4) The gaming of the charts to get this to go #1 is expected for all major artists, but still pretty craven: these remixes and live versions are... not it; 5) Love it or hate it, this is Jack Antonoff at his most Jack Antonoff, vocoders and all; 6) We were deprived of a real music video for this and I'm still annoyed; 7) Taylor's voice sounds shrill, especially when she's reaching the high notes in the chorus; 8) Tickets for the Eras tour were way too expensive and comically absurd to acquire; 9) My extreme audiophile boyfriend continues to tell me that Taylor releasing four different versions of every vinyl record is choking up the global market and causing all records to be more expensive; 10) Everyone is exhausted by the Travis Kelce media cycle already, and I'm salty that this song was written about Joe Alwyn. Now, enjoy. [10]

Alex Clifton: "Cruel Summer" is a shot of dopamine straight to the heart. It turns everything neon and demands to be screamed loudly in a car with the windows down. I want to inject it into my veins. It makes me thrilled to be alive in a way few other songs do these days. [10]

Alfred Soto: Listening to Lover before masks went on all over the world, I noted superficial resemblances to Bowie in his so-called Berlin era. "Cruel Summer" is Swift's "Joe the Lion," Bowie's 1977 desperate, almost frantic account of Berliners crawling home from bars who can't quiet the din in their heads. I liked it in 2019, I love it now. Her most easeful collaboration in years, her best single since "Blank Space," the electronic clippety-clops and vocoderized enthusiasm building to a chorus of sustained euphoria. For all the blather about her songwriting prowess, let's hear it for the instinct that left oooh-ahh-ahh as a placeholder. [10]

Will Rivitz: By far the most vibrant, well-written, and captivating single off Lover. [4]

David Moore: The unfortunate reality of dealing with Taylor Swift in 2023 is that she has dominated the few remaining metrics for gauging commercial pop success for almost the entirety of her career, in a sort of never-ending imperial phase, so it gets harder to enjoy her with each passing year even if you're so inclined. I've been writing about it a lot lately: Taylor Swift's consolidation of dying formats in old-media youth culture, like the Bain Capital of teenpop; Taylor Swift's absurdly stable career trajectory and how the only analogue I can think of with 15 years of unfettered and untroubled dominance within their milieu is "Weird Al" Yankovic; my increasing antipathy toward Taylor Swift's success, stemming from my evergreen bitterness about what happened to Ashlee Simpson; the cosmic weirdness of how Taylor Swift's gambit for world domination depended on the slow-burn success of "Teardrops on My Guitar," a song literally no one on earth has cared about since 2007; Taylor Swift's limited melodic palette and how her emphasis on rhythm and personality are of a piece with rap's melodic turn in the 2010's. And all that is just the stuff no one was already writing about! There's a full-time reporter for Taylor Swift! She broke box office records with a tour movie so dorky that the background dancers aren't allowed to dance, and the costumes look like an intern snagged them from TJ Maxx 15 minutes before the show, and when Taylor Swift doesn't have a guitar or a piano shoved in front of her she mimes every! single! lyric! with her hands (on enough occasions that I lost count, she sings the word "time" and points to her wrist)! So of course an OK summer song she didn't even bother finishing the chorus for got trotted out four years later for "impact" and it actually worked. Everything Taylor Swift does works. Taylor Swift can do whatever the fuck she wants. We can't get rid of her. No one is even trying to. We've been living in Taylor Swift's 2008 for 15 years, and we might have to walk another thousand miles to find one river of peace. [6]

Tara Hillegeist: Relistening to Lover-era Swift is the sort of experience that makes one yearn for the days when the UN actually tried to enforce the Geneva Convention anywhere outside of the Steam storefront. [4]

Katherine St Asaph: The problem with "Cruel Summer" is the problem with all of Taylor's infinite songs about supposedly dangerous lovers: I have never heard anything less dangerous in my life. [5]

Leah Isobel: Look: I am a Taylor Swift hater. It is my divine calling. The way she vocalizes "devils roll the daice" is like a needle digging into my brain. The fact that if you search "Cruel Summer" you get this and not the endlessly superior Bananarama song is a crime against pop music in general and me, specifically. She sounds like fucking Hannah Montana when she yells that last line on the bridge. All of her music comes across to me like a teenager discovering, to her disbelief, that other people exist with their own individual desires -- that being alive in the world means contending with those desires, learning how to coexist -- and throwing a tantrum about it. It's not that I don't relate, but that I listen to her music and I feel forcibly emotionally regressed, like I am eating candy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; like I am driving a Fisher-Price car to work at an Easy-Bake Oven. And yet. Listening to "Cruel Summer," trying to nail down a score, I am forced to admit that this random Pennsylvanian lady knows how to write songs. Kill me now. [6]

Oliver Maier: The sunset on the horizon beyond Reputation and a late bloomer from the only Taylor Swift record that doesn't totally scan like a coherent chapter in her narrative (though I'm hardly a scholar). One wonders what her career would have looked like had the pandemic, and Folklore, not intervened. More like this would have been nice. [7]

Ian Mathers: I don't think I ever noticed just how gonzo background Taylor sounds going "he looks up grinning like a devil!" at the end of the bridge. I'm not going to wade into trying to figure out whether it's amazing they accidentally left that in (she sounds like a goof) or it's some sort of 3D chess move to make sure yet another market segment finds her endearing or it's a key that when combined with other lore tells you the middle name of her 3rd last boyfriend (or some secret fourth thing). Even if it is calculated, it makes me laugh like a drain. I can't not hear it now. Tik Tok is good for something after all. [6]

Kayla Beardslee: This is obviously a [10]. It's been a [10] since it came out four years ago. Its fate as the hit of Lover was written in stone before the album was even released, thanks to the Secret Session whispers. This is Taylor Swift parting the impossibly wide pastel-colored ocean before her to somehow make room for her presence, dominating thanks to the sense of reckless abandon in her voice that dwarfs even the reverberating Antonoff synths. Her desperation is delivered with a wink, slideshow images heightening the drama for the sake of performance ("cut the headlights, summer's a knife"). Yet this is also Taylor Swift, whose only constant has been always being able to put it into words, collapsing into "ooohs" at the end of the chorus and admitting defeat. Her career is performance: a stab to the heart on stage will still leave a mark in her mind, sincerity betrayed in moments like the loss of composure on "If I bleed, you'll be the last to know" or her scream of "I don't want to keep secrets just to keep you!" The delicious thrill of going too fast is inseparable from her fear of the crash, sure that it'll happen just around the next bend in the road, so hold on tight right now and feel this moment to the utmost before it disappears -- but when the song ends and we're drawn back into the real world, all that's left is a soft, nostalgic smile among the pastel-pink clouds. It's the tale of a summer of girlish hedonism: sure, you got a little too drunk and fell a little too hard, but it was ultimately harmless. They were your own mistakes to make, and you had the freedom to make them. The summer may have been cruel to you, but it was only casually cruel in the name of being honest. "Here's how 'Cruel Summer' can still be a single!", went the gleeful cries of stans in fall 2019 who were still holding out hope. Nothing on earth could come along to diminish the force of this brightest-shining, joyfully hollering star of "I'm drunk in the back of the car," not even -- shit. And now it's 2023, and we're looking back at that summer through rose-colored glasses and trying to bring it back to life. No, it's not the same, but we just want to know that we were holding on for something worth it after all, and that idealism and excitement still have a place in the moments in between. Have you or a loved one lost the summer that you were promised? If so, you may be entitled to compensation. At least that compensation comes in the form of a few perfect bars of pop music that gives you an excuse to scream at the top of your lungs. [10]

Joshua Lu: "Cruel Summer" is probably the most median Taylor Swift™ song in existence, and your enjoyment of this song probably depends on how much Taylor Swift™ you've been able to withstand this year. It's largely made up by lines that sound nice and cohere poorly -- especially that chorus, which features many words that rhyme together and not much else, or the bridge, with familiar images of crying in cars and her scream-singing that's become a literal legal cornerstone of her artistry. The song's catchiness and overall dramatic charm still shine through, like many of her best songs, but in revisiting this Lover highlight, it's evident how much that era lacked a proper point of view. [6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: The fun of "Cruel Summer" has waned with every year since it came out -- even at the time, I liked "The Archer" better in terms of moody synth-pop bangers off of Lover, but every moment here that once felt anthemic has become tedious. It's a song that's become a pop hit because enough fans convinced themselves it's shaped like a pop hit -- of course it's sharp and hooky, shorn of the overly-writerly trappings of her more recent work, but every time someone accuses "Cruel Summer" of pop perfection its flaws become all the more apparent. Those verses are rough -- all that doggerel about bad boys and shiny toys -- but the bridge, and in particular its climax (you know, the big line where he looks so gritty like a devil or whatever) is where my disbelief fails. For all of the skill with which its crafted, I can't tell what sort of feeling "Cruel Summer" wants me to take away from it -- for all of the illicit thrill the lyrics glance at, Jack Antonoff surrounds Taylor with so much high-wattage synth work that none of her lines really land. It's all too much -- a grand spectacle of a pop hit that feels more inert the more closely I look at it. [4]

Thomas Inskeep: I'm by & large not a fan of Swift in pop mode (I miss her as a country artist, and think her best albums are -- cliché alert -- evermore and folklore), and I'm happy to largely blame production choices: Max Martin was a bad pairing for her, period, and Jack Antonoff doesn't generally do it for me behind the boards either. To my ears, maximalism doesn't become her. But this works, and part of it's definitely the production, particularly the Daft Punkish touches Antonoff and Swift provide. St. Vincent's songwriting contributions help too. That second verse opening line -- "Hang your head low in the glow of the vending machine" -- is so dead-on, and a perfect exemplification of Swift's lyrical prowess. Somehow, "Cruel Summer" is nearly magical, the kind of thing that more mainstream pop should sound like. [8]

Brad Shoup: Once again I'm hearing Mutt Lange where it doesn't matter (those robotic yeahs that end the track on a self-deprecating joke) but not where it does; on a chorus that could have dug in harder, and maybe have managed a not-goofy rhyme for the title. Somehow both frantic and grandiose: is there anything she can't do? [6]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Reputation was Taylor Swift's villain era, but only in the sense that any White Girl Whose Cringe Is Swag should be considered illegal. Hearing her coo "You like the bad ones too" before Future barrels through his "End Game" verse? Sublime levels of dorkery. The stilted EDM chorus in "Dancing With Our Hands Tied"? You can practically envision her stiff, awkward swaying. The strained heaving of "Take it off, off, off" on "Dress"? Well, not all of us can sound sexy when horny. She reached unprecedented levels of personable, and with this came new changes in her approach to songwriting. Most obvious was her newfound love for alcohol (She's drinking beer on rooftops! She's spilling wine in bathtubs!) but more subtle, and lost beneath all the "Taylor Swift is rapping!" discussion, was how her toplines became more flexible. Every verse on "Getaway Car" is a chance to put on voices in miniature, to stumble through lines for syllabic emphasis, and to consider rhyme schemes for their texture. That song is the blueprint for Lover's "Cruel Summer." Everything's just a little bit better -- the vocoder is tastefully incorporated, the chorus is more anthemic -- but it's all a bit too cotton candy. She's not drinking old fashioneds, she's just drunk. The shouting is more summer camp than summer romp. The vibe is undeniably "ME!" It was painful in 2019 and it's painful now. She hasn't been this uncool since. [6]

Jonathan Bradley: The lavender synth haze of Taylor Swift's Midnights first found life in the swelling pastels of Lover, so the return of "Cruel Summer" four years on fits her current sound just fine. Swift and Jack Antonoff allow the swollen chords to drift over soft and sleepy textures that envelop like a warm bed or a warm night, punctuating the verse lines with a warped and treated backing vocal murmuring come-ons in dream language. But Swift's own words are glittering sharp, hers is a summer that cuts headlights like a knife, slices to the bone, invites devils to roll dice and kills with desire. Swift sings of a tryst so forbidden that its pleasure can only be expressed in terms of panic and crisis. This is a relationship that needs to remain discrete, and the tension and thrill balanced between her marvelled "the shape of your body is new," and cry of "I don't want to keep secrets just to keep you" shifts this into the queerer end of the her catalogue. Swift's fans have memed her faculty with a bridge into dull received wisdom -- "We have arrived at the very first bridge of the evening," Swift says during her "Cruel Summer" performance in the Eras Tour film, knowing what's expected from her -- but this one spatters synth shards that pull the narrative into a sudden climax. Swift tipsy and sobbing, her careful plans and subterfuge undone, being driven home from the pub, her night miserable and magical all at once. [10]

Aaron Bergstrom: The fact that "Cruel Summer" had to wait its turn behind singles that the Jukebox (charitably) scored at [3.53] and [3.65] is the kind of decision that makes me wish you could send FOIA requests to record labels. (There were meetings! There was market research! This is someone's job!) I know Jack Antonoff's Whole Deal™isn't for everyone, but this is the Swift/Antonoff playbook run to perfection, an update on the best parts of 1989 centered on a bulletproof bridge that lets Swift debut her punk-rock snarl on a line that I mistakenly heard as "he looks so pretty like a devil" for an embarrassingly long time. (She is not at all convincing, but that's what makes it so endearing.) A [10] when it was released, and the summers have only gotten crueler since. [10]

Nortey Dowuona: It's only a cruel summer if you watch the world spin on your terms and your whims, when you're the most powerful musician in the world and massive corporations and governments need to attain your approval, when you're criticized for being so much that your most dedicated fans will silence anyone who says so, when you can stop one of the most powerful sports franchises to pay you ever more attention, when you can re-record the entire public legacy of your songs and erase the memories made with the music you made now stolen from your grasp, when anyone will pick up your call and accept your terms. It's a crueler one when you are utterly powerless in the face of all the public scrutiny. [6]

Taylor Alatorre: Is it too much of a stretch to view the belated popularity of "Cruel Summer" as symbolic of the possibilities that were either foreclosed or deferred by a confluence of events in early 2020, including but not limited to the removal of Bernie Sanders as a relevant figure in U.S. politics? Probably, yeah, but this is the kind of song that makes you want to stretch that far. It livens the spirit, it quickens your step, it justifies an album that didn't need to be justified in the first place. "You say that we'll just screw it up in these trying times; we're not trying." How one feels about that slacker-chic line, with its simultaneous wallowing and reveling in youthful apathy, is perhaps as much a barometer of 2024 sentiment as "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" [9]

Lauren Gilbert: This is how Cruel Summer can still be a single. [10]

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