#because my notifs are a mess of endless notes on a couple of my poor quality stupid phone photos from today

[ferryboatpeak]

notes from the masonic

hi, hello, here is my biased mitch-centric complete report from the first night of Harry Styles Live In Concert, aka the Treat People With Kindness Tour. Fair warning, I’m just going to stream of consciousness this out. I’ll stick a jump in there somewhere.

As previously documented, my seat was pretty much parallel to the pink scrim on stage left, which was an awesome spot because I could see the band as soon as they came out, while they were still behind the scrim. Mitch was closest to me! He was wearing the red velvet suit from the Late Late Show! Clare had on some gorgeous flowy blue patterned dress. They all came out first, and then Harry a moment later, and it was just light enough to be able to see that he was in some kind of suit that looked an awful lot like the Gucci suit from the AMAs which was VERY EXCITING TO ME.

They sang “tell me something I don’t already know” a capella or mostly a capella a couple of times and then the scrim dropped and the lights went up and I found out that instead of screaming I mostly cover my mouth and whimper in a high-pitched kind of a way. The rose-patterned suit looked FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC. Mitch and Harry kept gesturing to the sound guy to turn something up during esny and Two Ghosts. (They kept doing that for almost the whole show, but more at the beginning.)

After Two Ghosts Harry talked a bit. “My job for the next hour and change is to entertain you” was my favorite quote. And look, for all of the hours and hours of interviews and footage I have watched of Harry Styles, his speaking voice in person is deeper and richer and just MORE than I was prepared for. (Sorry if everybody else noticed this years ago, it was pretty amazing to me.)

Then Carolina, and he was having such a good time. Then he talked again and asked for the house lights to be brought up so he could see the audience. This is when he said, “Thank you for being here. Thank you for popping my cherry, as it were.”

I don’t remember whether he still played guitar during Stockholm Syndrome, but he definitely did his little shuffle-y backwards dance because that’s what I wrote down. This is probably an opportune moment to note that Mitch does absolutely nothing performative, it’s actually kind of amazing to watch how completely he closes himself off, I don’t think he even looked out at the audience once. It’s apparently a personal choice rather than a band-wide effort to keep the focus on Harry, because on the other side of the stage Adam is moving around and dancing and emoting.

When the intro to Only Angel started, Harry very deliberately walked back to the drum platform and took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves and then he PRANCED HIS ASS OFF and it was everything I’ve ever dreamed of, especially the part where he got his mike cord caught on the mike stand and tangled up, which was exactly the clumsy idiot moment you’re hoping for in a complete evening of Harry Styles. I don’t know why anyone gave him a microphone with a cord in the first place, but I am grateful.

You already know that somebody threw a rainbow flag on stage during Woman and he waved it around briefly, and then he put it back on the drum platform, and a moment later he went back and got it and draped it over the mic stand.

Mitch sounded great on Meet Me In The Hallway and that’s all I wrote down about that. We got a little bit more typically rambling Harry stage patter after that -- I didn’t write down the key quote, but I’m pretty sure it was, “I’m glad all of you are here. If you weren’t here, that would mean that nobody bought a ticket.”

Mitch took his jacket off at this point and dude is TINY, which should not be a surprise to me given how frequently I mention my fondness for his scrawny shoulders, but in a tailored shirt and suit pants it’s very noticeable that there is nothing to him.

Of course the covers were awesome, Just a Little Bit of Your Love and then wmyb, which Harry sang like he thoroughly enjoyed it, and wmyb went pretty much straight into Kiwi. He pranced and posed with his hand on his hip and flung water around and went down on his knees and it was everything you could hope for from Kiwi (except for the lack of a romper of course).

They took the briefest of breaks after that and then just Mitch and Harry came back out for From the Dining Table. Here is the ONE SHINING HITCH MOMENT from tonight: Mitch briefly touching Harry’s hip as he passed Harry to get over to his spot. This is it, this is the entire reason I came to this show, because nobody else in the world would have NOTICED, let alone CARED ENOUGH TO REPORT this single moment of casual intimacy that was probably just Mitch making sure Harry wasn’t going to bump into him but SO WHAT it is my hitch moment and I CLAIM IT.

After ftdt Harry introduced the band. He introduced Adam, then Clare, then Sarah by name only, then he said, “How many of you enjoyed the album? It would not be the same without the man to my left,” and introduced Mitch. (OK so I guess that was another pretty nice hitch moment.) Mitch gave a reluctant half-wave, just kind of halfway unclenching his fingers for a moment, still not looking at the audience. Note that Kid Harpoon was not in evidence, even though he’s traveling with them.

Then they did The Chain, then finished with Sign of the Times (Harry did the nice dragging triplet on the last “stop your crying, it’s a sign . of . the times” that he usually does live).

The only other thing I have to note about this show is this: You know the moment at the end of the Where We Are DVD, where Harry says something directly into the camera for “the audience at home” or some such and you realize that it should not have worked at all but somehow you absolutely believe he was talking directly to you? It’s like that when he waves up at your section of the balcony. Even though you know he’s not looking directly at you and couldn’t see you even if he was, you are still positively compelled to wave back as if he has personally connected with you. He’s fucking magic.

[castielslostwings]

All I Want For Christmas (Are Earplugs)

Ficlet: 3k of fluffy, explicit (at the end) Christmas-y DeanCas. 

The challenge: "Write something about Cas being stuck in the gas n sip where "All I Want For Christmas is You" plays on an endless loop for 3 months until he's nearly homicidal 😂 ...and then dean shows up and they bang in the storeroom while it's playing and the song is still awful and plays every 45 minutes but at least Cas has a positive memory to associate with it now!"

Read it on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21656614

Or check out this excerpt (cut because Tumblr will eat my smut):

Corporate doesn’t even hold off until Thanksgiving is over to move onto Christmas, not anymore. In the age of instant gratification and having everything a person could possibly want only a finger swipe away, waiting until after Thanksgiving to break out the Christmas theming would render it all relatively pointless. Thus, the day after Halloween, that’s when it starts these days. Castiel doesn’t get it, not really, especially considering the Gas’n’Sip is, well, a gas station. No one is looking to their shelves for holiday sales and the opportunity to grab this season’s hottest items before they sell out. Not unless one considers snack cakes and travel-sized tubes of toothpaste to be the perfect holiday gifts. Not that Castiel’s judging.

It’s just that those realities make the auditory horror Castiel’s subjected to for nearly three months straight all the more baffling. Why he has to suffer so the Gas’n’Sip can claw uselessly at retail relevance is beyond his understanding. It’s not as if they’re succeeding. That little “Last Minute Gifts!” display doesn’t get any sort of play at all until the twenty-third, and even then people have to grimace their way through choosing between cheap shower product sets and crappy mugs with teddy bears holding chocolates stuffed inside them. By November first, Castiel’s already practicing the most tactful ways to interrupt those poor procrastinating saps and suggest simply buying lottery scratch-off tickets.

The thing is, the decorations aren’t so bad. A little tinsel here, a few red glittery signs there, couple of candy-filled endcaps with Santa theming, whatever. Even the little Christmas tree that sits next to the register and Castiel can’t stop knocking into with his elbow every time he goes to make change is more festive than frustrating. None of those things are particularly bothersome at all. In fact, Castiel barely even notices them (aside from diving to catch the tree and keep it from crashing to the ground every ten minutes). And the twinkling, color-changing string lights that Castiel spent the better part of a day stapling around the top of the store, along the windows, and over the register are actually fairly enjoyable to look at. So much so that he strung a set around the shelves of the storeroom for when he’s stuck back there organizing or doing inventory. Very cheery.

But the songs. The songs are the worst. Well, no, that’s not exactly it either. The holiday songs on the corporate-provided CD that loops endlessly on a forty-five minute spiral in the background definitely still play in Castiel’s head long after he’s dumped the coffee, turned out the lights, and locked the gas station doors. They infiltrate his quiet moments in the evening after he’s returned home, dance across his mind obnoxiously when he should be enjoying his free time away. It’s only the beginning of December and already Castiel’s starting to lose his mind. Last night, full of a spectacular dinner and tucked warm and snug in bed with Dean squirming underneath him, Castiel was screwed out of an actual orgasm by the painfully catchy crooning of Mariah Carey relentlessly belting out those high notes in his head.

Because really, at the end of the day, it’s not all the holiday songs, it’s that holiday song. The bane of retail workers everywhere, Castiel’s sure of it, “All I Want For Christmas Is You” is single-handedly making his holiday season as un-merry as it could possibly get. A grating earworm that’s starting to feel more “nails on a chalkboard” than singing at all, Castiel’s forced to enjoy it on a repeat cycle every forty-two-point-five minutes of every single workday. And now, it’s messing with his off-time, his intimate evenings with Dean, those relax and reset moments that Castiel counts on to get him through the next day and the one after that. Retail is hard enough on a regular old Tuesday, never mind during the holiday season when everyone’s so desperate to squeeze in as much merriment as possible that they’re willing to steamroll right over people like Castiel to do it.

Most of the time, Castiel doesn’t mind being a faceless cog in the machine, hell, he enjoys it some days. There’s a quiet dignity in his job, in providing food and fuel for weary travelers just trying to get from Point A to Point B. Keeping the coffee pot full, the hot dogs warm, the cigarette cartons stacked. Perhaps other people might look down on him for being satisfied with that type of work, that type of life, but Castiel has no interest in what other people think of him. Well, anyone besides Dean, of course. And Dean loves him, is proud of him, and that’s more than enough to make his days, every single one of them, merry and bright.

So it would be Castiel’s preference that he subsists through the rest of the Christmas season without murdering the one man who makes his existence tolerable, and that fucking song is beginning to threaten that theoretically simple wish.

Today, for instance, it’s four in the afternoon and Castiel is working a double. Which means that since the Gas’n’Sip opened its doors at six AM, Mariah Carey’s syrupy-sweet caroling has set his teeth on edge going on fourteen times. Fourteen. Chinese water torture would be kinder. Two hours and two more rounds of the nightmare in G Major later, Castiel texts Nora, his manager, and begs her to let him change the music. “ Just for the today, just for the rest of my shift”, he pleads, even going so far as to say he’ll tune the radio to their local Christmas music station.

Nora sends back, “ LOL, Castiel you’re so funny”, and Castiel dies a little bit inside. Business is slow and the lackluster trickle of customers comes to a stop completely around ten PM, leaving an entire hour for Castiel to count down the minutes to the next time that awful song is going to play without any kind of distraction. When the bells tied to the doors finally jingle signaling a customer around ten forty-five, relief doesn’t even come close to what Castiel feels. That doubles when the face that appears across his countertop is Dean’s.

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel says warmly, and he’s not exaggerating when he thinks he may never have been happier to see the man. Although, it’s never unpleasant to see Dean.

“I'll have some beef jerky and a pack of menthols,” Dean replies cheekily, leaning across the counter for a kiss which Castiel gladly provides. Not the menthols, though.

“Funny,” he murmurs and then sighs heavily. “Dean, I’m going to lose my mind if I have to put up with this—” Castiel jams his finger in the direction of the ceiling speaker above his head, “ Horror show for another three weeks.”

Dean looks up from where he’s fingering the different flavors of Bubble Yum and slides a pack across the smooth surface, reaching for his wallet to pay. Castiel waves him off, grabs a couple of singles from his own pocket and runs the transaction absently. “It can’t be that bad,” Dean says and Castiel’s fingers halt mid-button-push.

“My ears feel like they’re bleeding, Dean,” he protests with a glare. “Every forty-two-point-five minutes exactly it comes on and I’m in hell.” Clocking Dean’s badly-suppressed smirk, Castiel works his jaw and folds his arms across his chest. “Perhaps I’ll call Bobby and offer him a free month of advertising in the Gas’n’Sip window. All he’ll have to do is play a particular CD on repeat in the auto-repair bay from tomorrow until Christmas.” Satisfied with the way Dean’s face pales and the smirk disappears, Castiel feels absolutely no need to remind him that approving free advertising isn’t remotely in his job description. Honestly, if Dean can’t figure that out from the knowledge that he isn’t so much as allowed to change the store’s chosen music, that’s on him.

“Don’t mess with my classic rock, Cas,” Dean warns him. “Some shit is sacred, you know.” Annoyed again, Castiel raises his hands and gestures around him emphatically. “Alright, alright,” Dean relents. “I see your point, it sucks.” Sucking his lip distractedly in between his teeth, Dean glances around the store. “So, where are your security cameras at?”

Rolling his eyes, Castiel points to several different corners and just above his head behind the register. “There, there, there, and there. Don’t you think if I could have moved them, I would have? Changing their direction sends a notification straight to Nora’s phone.”

“That’s not what I—what about the storeroom? There any cameras there?”

Castiel narrows his eyes and regards Dean curiously. “No… There was one, but it broke weeks ago and Corporate hasn’t yet responded to Nora’s service request.” With a mild hum and another glance around that includes a sweep of the deserted parking lot outside, Dean wanders over to the doors and locks them. “Dean?” Castiel doesn’t protest, just watches as Dean flips the sign that says, “Back in 5 minutes!” Castiel rarely uses it himself, but every so often nature calls and the store has to be locked in the meantime. It’s interesting that Dean remembers that.

“C’mon,” is all Dean says on his pass back through the store, reaching out to grab Castiel’s arm and tug him out from his little alcove and across the floor to the storeroom.

“Dean, what—”

“How long until that song plays again?” Dean asks as he pulls Castiel inside and shuts the door behind them.

Checking his watch, Castiel does some quick mental math as well as cocks his head to listen for whatever song is playing now. “It’s next,” he groans, but Dean just grins.

“Awesome timing,” he replies, grabbing Castiel’s waist and manhandling him around until his back is up against some stable-looking shelving. “We’re gonna play a game, alright?” Dean’s bright green eyes are sparkling and shining and Castiel definitely knows that face. He also knows he should stop him, should tell Dean no to whatever mischievous thing he’s plotting, but it is only minutes to closing time and hell, Castiel’s day has been pure, undiluted shit.

“What sort of game?” Castiel asks, unable to keep the note of amusement out of his voice as he watches Dean’s eyes dart down to his own lips. Without answering, Dean leans in, kisses Castiel’s bottom lip and then his top, pulls back just far enough to look down and slot their groins together in a way that won’t have anyone’s belts causing unwanted, painful havoc. Then he’s back, tongue poking at the seam of Castiel’s mouth, and despite everything, Castiel recognizes that this is Dean asking for permission. If he really doesn’t want to do this, in his store or at all, he need only close his mouth.

As much as he appreciates the asking, though, Castiel knew what he was getting into when he stepped inside the storeroom. Dean has a bit of an exhibitionist side, and this isn’t their first rodeo in a semi-public space. Though the likelihood of being walked in on is extremely low, there’s still a bit of a thrill Castiel gets over doing something naughty, and maybe he’s more into it than he lets on. The whole concept has him hardening up nicely and Dean’s grinding isn’t hurting either, but just as they’re setting a pretty nice pace, the first notes of The Song come on.

Growling into Dean’s mouth, Castiel reluctantly pushes him back. “I can’t,” he says, frustrated. “I don’t want to associate having sex with you with this demonic lullaby.”

Read the rest on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21656614