#but I think this might be the first we’ve heard about that damn stage play in years

[melrosing]

harrenhal the musical LIVES

[tobesoalive]

r u mine? (Jake Kiszka x reader)

hey guys...so this was fun to write, thank you to the kind anon who requested it! I currently have some fun (and steamy) Josh stuff in the works right now, but still feel free to send in requests! I might slow down a little with posting since my classes started, but I promise to get to every request! Enjoy my first Jake piece!

Warnings: SMUT(oral f-recieving, fingering, penetrative sex)

Adrenaline pumped through your veins as you headed down the hallway backstage, about to go out and face the crowd of thousands of fans. No you weren't a huge famous musician or anything, just their photographer. Basically the same thing right?

For the past three weeks you had been enjoying life on the road, it had always been your dream to be a concert photographer, and your work had caught the attention of a little band called Greta Van Fleet. Well, not exactly little. Their fan base grew everyday and now they were doing yet another headlining tour that they asked you to document. Over the past few months you had been in contact with the guys and their management, and you guys hit it off instantly, they brought you under their wing as if you were part of the family.

You basically were all one big family, you had gotten extremely close to the boys. Josh, Sam and Danny were like your brothers, and Jake...he was a little different.

Brother would be an odd way to describe him, seeing as you had a bit of a crush on him. Nothing super serious, you just thought he was a cool guy who also happened to be really fucking hot. You thought he might have a little something for you too, he was always asking you how you liked the show, and when he’d catch you editing the photos you took he’d sit himself right next to you and ask if you’d show him what you were working on. He was constantly complimenting your work, but that would mostly be in private, when he’d seek you out if he couldn’t sleep. You surely weren’t complaining, you enjoyed his company. You just wish he would say something, or even better, make a move. You could be taking his actions the wrong way, he does have tons of women who want him all around the country, maybe he does just think of you as a sister. Whatever thoughts you had about Jake you’d just push to the back of your mind, you had a job to do, and your work was more important than getting laid.

You went in front of the barricade and took some photos of the crowd and talked to fans. They liked to ask you questions about the guys and what it was like touring with them. You always tried to make them feel special by saying how thankful the guys were, which wasn’t a lie, to have such amazing fans.

All of a sudden you heard some of the fans start screaming wildly. They were chanting Jake’s name, and you turned your head only to briefly meet his eyes from the side of the stage where he was standing. Within a second he was gone, most likely rushing backstage to avoid any further commotion from the audience.

What was that all about? You thought to yourself. Did he sneak over there to just look at me? Maybe he wanted to talk or something. That can happen later, it was only a few minutes until the show started, so you wanted to snap a few more shots of the crowd before running all over during the show to catch the right angles.

During the show you had a great time, as per usual. You loved being right up front, taking photos of the guys doing what they loved. You went backstage to get some photos from the wings. Jake was about to do his signature move, playing his guitar behind his head, and you were ready to capture the moment. Right as you snapped the photo, Jake turned and winked at you, arms thrown behind his head, somehow managing to play the notes of “Highway Tune” whilst flirting with you.

Butterflies erupted in your stomach, and you felt an intense need for him. Quickly you ran back out to the front of the stage to capture a few more moments before the show was over.

“God fucking dammit, I’m in deep” you muttered to yourself, before heading to the green room to congratulate the guys on the awesome show. You slipped through the crew heading on stage to clean up the equipment, turning a corner and bumping directly into Jake.

“Oh sorry! Great job out there tonight!” you say, trying your best not to blush. What was wrong with you, it was like you were a school girl or something.

“Thanks y/n! Did you get some good shots?”

“No, I made sure to get really shitty photos, especially of you”

“Are you being sarcastic?! Now that is something new!” he teased you.

“I just know how much you enjoy my sense of humor! I like to give back to the fans y’know” you quip back, causing him to break out into a smile.

“Hey the guys and quite a bit of the crew is gonna head out and probably find a bar or something once we’re done cleaning up. You wanna join?”

“Thanks for the offer, but I might just keep it lowkey tonight, I’d prefer to edit the photos tonight so I can explore whatever city we’re going to tomorrow.”

“Totally understandable, well I’ll catch you later!”

“Yeah for sure!” you say as you go off to find the rest of the guys.

After about a half hour of chatting and checking in with the rest of your tour mates, you decided it was time to change into your pajamas and spend the rest of the night staring at your computer screen, trying to edit as many photos as you can before inevitably passing out.

Getting onto the bus you shared with some other crew members, you kicked your Vans off before checking to see if anyone else was around. Seems like they all were opting to go out after the show, which meant you got the whole place to yourself. You traded out your concert outfit for a pair of shorts and a hoodie, getting prepared for your lengthy editing session.

You made yourself at home on the couch towards the front of the bus, turning on your speaker and playing music as loud as you wanted, getting straight to work.

It had felt like only a minute when you heard a knock on the door, but after checking your clock you realized an hour had already gone by. You peeked out the window only to see Jake’s figure standing there.

“Jacob! What’s up? I thought you were going to the bar?” you said as you opened the door to let him in.

“That show wore me out”

“Yeah you did amazing, I mean like you usually do” you say, stumbling over your words and internally punching yourself. God you were not smooth at all.

“Seems like we are some of the very few who decided to stay back, I was getting lonely in that tour bus.”

“Well you’re always welcome here, I was just doing some editing.”

“Wow you’re a pretty big nerd aren’t you? You know you should take a break every once and a while, I feel like you’re constantly working.”

“Well it’s not that hard when you love your job” you tell him.

“I guess that's true, can I see what you’re working on?”

“Yeah of course” you say while making your way back to the couch, Jake plopping down next to you.

“Damn that’s fucking awesome” he remarks, looking at the image on your screen. It’s the one of him playing the guitar behind his head, and winking right at you.

“I know! Thanks for being such a good model” you tell him with a small laugh.

“The guys and management are really impressed with your work. We’ve already been talking about having you come on the European leg of the tour with us.”

“Are you for real?!” you ask in awe, giddy with excitement. You absolutely loved this job and the people, and the thought that you could travel the world to do it was a dream come true.

“Yeah, don’t tell anyone though, I don’t want to get my ass beat for it.”

“Oh my god Jake I could literally kiss you!” you exclaimed, before you had even realized what you said.

You tried your best to play it off before your thoughts were interrupted by Jake’s voice.

“I wish you would”

“Huh” you stop for a second before turning to face him.

“Listen y/n, I think you’re really cool, and you also happen to be really hot. Sorry, maybe I was interpreting things wrong. I just thought if you felt the same it might be fun. It doesn’t have to be anything serious, I just get lonely on the road and -”

Before he could say another word, you took it upon yourself to answer his question, leaning in to capture his lips in a soft kiss. You pull back and look him in the eyes, closing your laptop and setting it on the counter.

“God I’m glad you finally said something, I think everyone was starting to sense the sexual tension” you grin at him.

“Well all I could think about on stage was fucking your brains out, so sorry if I’m not too great at hiding it” he says before grabbing the back of your neck and pulling you in for another kiss, to which you open your mouth to let his tongue slip in.

You move yourself so that you’re straddling his lap, your lips moving perfectly in rhythm as Arctic Monkeys played softly in the background.

“Wow it seems like you were almost expecting this to happen” he teases you.

“Shut up and fuck me Kiszka” you say before he flips you so you’re now beneath him.  

His fingers find their way under your shirt, reaching up to cup your breast. He pinched your nipple before quickly tugging at the hem of your sweatshirt.

“Can this come off?” he breathed into your mouth.

“Yes please” you said before he pulled it off you, exposing your bare chest to him. You felt very self conscious, it had been a little while since you had gotten naked with anyone.

“Hey don’t be shy, you’re gorgeous” he said before connecting your lips once more before he stood up to remove his shirt and shorts, leaving him in a pair of boxer briefs. You tried your best to not look at his growing bulge, but it was hard to resist.

Suddenly he was kneeling on the ground, body in between your spread legs.

“Jake you really don’t have to” “Oh trust me, I want to, '' he says before running his fingers up and down over your clothed core, moving his fingers to the waistband of your shorts, pulling your panties down with them.

“God you’re so fucking sexy” he mutters before expertly pressing the pad of his thumb onto your clit, his other hand pushing on your thigh to keep your legs spread.

“Fuck, Jake, I need more” you groan, your arousal now dripping between your folds.

“Don’t worry baby girl, I’ve got you”

Those words alone probably could have made you cum, but then Jake entered a finger into you, causing your hands to tangle in his long hair, slightly pulling.

“Goddamn babe you’re tight” he said, looking at you in awe before adding another finger and leaning down to toy your clit with the tip of his tongue. His fingers were pumping in and out of you at a steady rhythm, and every so often he’d curl them to perfectly hit your g-spot.

“Jake you need to stop or else I’m gonna cum” you say as you pull his head back, looking him in the eyes.

“That’s okay” he reassures you.

“No, when I cum I want it to be around you” you say.

“Fucking hell y/n” he groans out in a raspy voice.

You get up and kiss him before pushing him down on the couch, his erection straining against the fabric of his boxers. You tug at the waistband, and he lifts his hips up to assist you. You took a moment to admire his length before wrapping your hand around it. He was a couple inches above average, with a nice girth to him. His head tipped back in bliss as you continued to give him a few more strokes before positioning yourself above him, running his tip back and forth across your slit. Slowly, you sank yourself down onto him, taking as much of him in as you could.

“Fuck fuck fuck Jake, you’re really fucking big” you breath out, only able to fit about half of him in you at this angle.

“Just do what you can baby” he says before softly pressing a kiss on your forehead, telling you that it was okay.

You started moving yourself up and down on him as best you could, starting to adjust more to his size. The stretch burned but slowly started turning more pleasurable.

After a few minutes your legs were starting to hurt and his length slipped out of you.

“Will you fuck me from behind?” you blurt out, sweat running between the valley of your breasts.

“I’d be honored” Jake responds, offering a smile before getting up.

He moves you so that your hands are on the back of the couch, holding you steady and your knees rest on the edge of the sofa, sticking your ass out towards Jake. You can hear him move behind you, hands finding their way to your ass, before you feel him run his tip up and down your slit once again.

“Ready?” he asks.

You nod in response and instantly feel him push his way into you, letting you adjust for a second before pushing the rest of his length in you.

“Oh my fucking god Jake” you say as you bury your head in the couch cushions, his dick hitting a spot in you that you didn’t even know was there.

“Oh god you’re doing so good baby girl, taking all of my cock.” he says as he begins to pump in and out of you, starting off slow but gradually picking up the pace.

It feels amazing, better than you had imagined. You wanted him to stay in you forever, make you see stars all the time. Within a minute you were contracting around him, nearing your edge.

“Jake I’m almost there, please faster”

“Me too baby, me too” he says as he starts thrusting even faster than before, wrapping his arm around you to toy with your clit.

All it takes is a few more pumps and you can feel him explode inside you, groaning your name loudly and leaning over your back, but still circling your clit with his fingers. It’s enough to bring you to your peak, walls contracting around him, burying your head in your arms. Once you’ve both come down you stay in that position for a minute, before he pulls out of you and collapses on the couch, pulling you into his chest.

“That was way better than I imagined” he breathes out, hand stroking your hair.

“Oh so you’ve thought about this before? That's embarrassing” you say in a sarcastic tone.

“Hey I’m sure you aren’t so innocent yourself” he says smiling down at you.

“We should probably get dressed, I’m sure your brothers and the other goons will be stumbling in anytime now.” you tell him as you get up and search for your clothes.

“You’re probably right. Hey, let's do this again sometime” he says, cheeks going red.

“Hmm...I’ll see if I can fit you into my schedule” you respond, giving him a quick wink.

These next few months surely were going to be an adventure, and you didn’t want to miss a second.

[suchalonelysunflower]

Take Your Feelings, Put Them Into a Song (A.I)

Pairing: Ashton Irwin x Wallows! Fem! Reader

Requested: yes!

Summary: Y/N Sixx, bassist from the famous band Wallows, is helping 5SOS write their latest album CALM. If only she could keep her crush on the drummer under control…

Warnings: Fluff. Language. Some grammatical errors (English is not my first language, I’m sorry)

Word Count: 4.6 k

Author’s Note: IM BACK! Remember that Reblogs, Likes, Comments and Feedback are very important! You have no idea how much they help 💕 Hope you like it and Happy Reading 🦋🌻✨

My materialist // wanna be part of my tag list?

anon: Can you do a one-shot where the reader was born on 1996 and she’s the daughter of Nikki Sixx and Brandi Brandt and it’s the bassist and songwriter of Wallows (…) and she helps 5sos write songs for the album CALM and starts dating Ashton and the fans go nuts (in a good way) with shipping? There’s no drama like it was in EUH

It was another boring day in the studio and you would literally prefer to do anything else than to listen to Cole talk about the last date he had instead of working on your new song. But inspiration was lacking between you and your bandmates and you really had no other choice since you already took that time on the studio’s schedule.

One would believe that you would be used to dull times in the studio, having spent a lot of time on them while growing up with your parents, but boredom was a cruel crime inside your head and today your patience was running thin.

“Hey, peanut!” Dylan called your attention “Everything good there?”

You were laying on the sofa, looking at the ceiling for some kind of saving grace, but Dylan’s voice brought you back to your reality.

“Are we going to get something done today?” You asked with a sigh, with your eyes still glued to the ceiling “Cause we are really just wasting time by now and I don’t think Cole’s last fling will bring any kind of inspo into our little group”

“Hey!” Cole protested, earning a chuckle from Braeden.

“Whatever,” You said, already getting up from your spot “I’m going to take a walk”

You took a deep breath once you closed the door to your private room. You loved the guys, you really do, but sometimes people can be too much, especially people who you spend every single day and hour with.

Memories from the past year started to fill your mind and you smiled when thinking about how much your little band has grown. Wallows was now everywhere, you created a name for yourself without using your parent’s influence and you were so damn proud of that, yet when moments like these come around - the moments where you just need to breathe to escape the reality for just a while - you start to reflect on every choice you made and if they were the right ones.

It’s the overthinking that got you to write those first lyrics in the first place, the ones that were put into songs and now were, somehow, all over TikTok with thousands of people relating to them. So maybe, overthinking now might not be such a bad idea after all.

“It’s a terrible idea if you think about it for more than one minute, mate”

You stopped in your tracks when you heard that voice, thinking that maybe you were finally going crazy or someone could’ve read your mind. But it wasn’t until you heard someone else answer that you realized it was a conversation.

“Well, I don’t know what to do with it anymore!”

You turned your head to the left and smiled when you saw the little sign that said “5SOS now in session. DO NOT DISTURB” And realized that your other favorite boys were back in town.

Of course you ignored the sign and knocked on the door a couple of times before opening it shamelessly.

“Well, well, well…” You said with a teasing smile as you leaned over the door frame “If it isn’t my second favorite Aussie band”

The faces of two of the members of said band light up once they realize it was you, quickly getting up to wrap you in a hug.

“Mini Sixx!” Calum said, ruffling his hand through your hair “About time you came to visit us”

You pushed him and Luke away from you “And you should’ve told me you’re back from your break! I could’ve escaped Dylan and the other minions earlier”

“Rough session?” Luke asked, seating down and patting the place next to him for you to sit on.

“Oh, you have no idea”

You loved the 5sos guys, it was impossible not to. Ever since you met them at a label party in 2015 when you were introduced to them because you were the same age as half of the group, you knew that they were made to be on the stage.

It was easy to become their friend, given their welcoming attitude and easy-going smiles even before they found out who your parents were. It was nice for a change not to be Y/N Sixx, daughter of the famous bassist of Mötley Crüe and famous Playboy doll Brandi Brandt, for a moment and just be Y/N, a bassist that had a lot to give to the world. And with the boys you didn’t even have to try to be someone you were not, with them everything was just so… real.

Just like now, where you were allowed to complain about your lovely bandmates to them and they would complain just as well, with no judgment nor responsibilities, just three friends letting out some steam due to the stress of your careers.

“-And basically we don’t know what else to do with the song” Luke finished his rant on the missing piece of their new song for their next album.

“And you have the lyrics ready?”

“Yeah, me and my girl wrote it a few weeks ago but the melody is just…”

“It’s missing something” Calum finished for him with a sigh.

You hummed “Can I see it?”

The two Australians got to work, playing the song with the piano and the guitar and you came to the conclusion that they were right: there was something big missing.

“So it’s a ballad,” You said, thinking of ways to fix it.

“Technically yes, but when you play it like that it sounds incomplete and the lyrics won’t work with another type of rhythm” Luke sighed “We’ve been at it for days now.”

You stayed quiet for a while, reviewing the lyrics and melody more carefully now, analyzing the situation with different approaches but without getting anywhere. It was a beautiful song, it truly was, but it needed something else, something that could create a “boom” sensation for whoever was listening.

Something like…

“Hey guys, have you finished with the- Oh, Hey, Y/N/N!” Ashton said, opening the door and finding you with his bandmates in deep concentration.

Bingo.

“Uh, why are you smiling at me like that?” Ashton asked you with a chuckle, but you didn’t even address him as you turned to Luke and Calum.

“It needs drums”

“What?” The three men said in unison. You rolled your eyes and snatched the notes from Calum’s lap and started to sing the melody.

“Here!” You pointed out “In this part, before finishing the first chorus: I already made, already made that…” And then you started to make drum noises and movements with your arms for them to get the idea.

In a matter of seconds, Luke got up from his seat and walked towards you, taking the notes from you and reviewing them with new eyes, smiling as he got the idea.

“Ha!” He laughed loudly, “You’re a fucking genius!”

“Thank you,” You said with a smug smile as you, Calum and Luke started to discuss the arrangements.

“Wait, hold up” Ashton interrupted the chatter “Y/N, I appreciate you trying to help and no offense and all but I think this isn’t your place to just decide something like that,” He said, pointing to the three of you.

You rolled your eyes. You’ve dealt with stubborn people before, but Ashton did take a spot on your top three and you knew just how to handle him.

“Wow,” You said sarcastically with a teasing smile “One would think that by being half of the rhythm section you would have more… I don’t know, rhythm?”

Ashton crooked an eyebrow and you and you knew you had him in the bag “I just don’t think-”

“You don’t think?” You said, getting up from your chair and walking up to him to be almost chest to chest. You looked up to his eyes and challenged him “Or you just can’t handle the fact that I might’ve had a better idea than you”

You could see by the sparkle in his eyes that he has taken the challenge to heart. He took a step closer to you, almost pressing his body completely against yours, and smirked.

“Want me to prove you wrong, princess?” He teased but you didn’t back up.

“I’d like to see you try, darling”

Ashton’s smirk widened as he took a step back, turning his head towards Luke and Calum who were watching the scene with intrigued eyes and knowing smiles “Get your asses back in the recording booth”

He followed them as they walked into the big recording space they had, but not before sending you a wink seconds after he closed the door.

You were thankful he didn’t see you blush.

Once they were all set with their instruments - Calum on the keys, Luke on the guitar, and Ashton behind his drum set - You pressed the buttons of the console that would make it possible for you to hear them at the other side of the mirrored glass.

“Okay boys, show me what you got”

*

You became an official 5SOS songwriter after that day and even Ashton had to admit that you were adding so much more to the band lyrics and melodies since you started to work with them.

Every day you would find yourself walking towards their studio after your band’s session and you start to work wherever they left off. It was a simple dynamic that worked wonders for everyone and after every session, you would get even more inspired to write your own music for Wallows, so it was a win-win situation, not to mention, spending time with your new co-workers; especially a particular drummer that grew closer to you that you would’ve ever imagined.

When you first met the band you hit it off pretty quickly with Luke and Calum, them being the same age as you and having pretty much the same interests; then came Michael that shared a similar sense of humor with you and with whom you discussed videogames with. But Ashton was always the one that you consciously tried to not get too close to.

In all honesty, he intimidated you but not in a bad way. He was smart, talented, and super funny, not to mention also ridiculously handsome. But he was also stubborn, a little bit egotistical, and the only one that could keep up with you in a battle of wits, teasing, and sarcasm. And you knew that if you mixed that all together it might mean trouble, especially when he smiled at you like that.

Of course you had a crush on him, who wouldn’t? But the fact is that you know what it is like to date in the industry and having feelings for a member of another pretty famous band might bring some tension to the table, so it was safer to play the crushing card and just stay friends. Or at least that’s what you tell yourself every day since you started to see him regularly and spend more time with him than with any other of the two bands.

Speaking of…

“Earth to Y/N?” Called Braeden waving a hand in front of your face “Is anybody there?”

You blinked a few times before pushing his hand away with a scoff “Very funny, B. What’s up?”

“You spaced out again” Cole added, fidgeting with his drumsticks “Just when we were going to start complimenting you on that bass line you wrote the other day…”

You smiled as you threw a pillow at him that he was able to easily dodge “Sorry, I was just-”

“Thinking about a particular drummer again?” Dylan teased, to which Cole added.

“I knew it wouldn’t take long for you to fall in love with me”

You searched for other pillows and started to throw them at your band members, giggling as they started to throw them back at you and starting an improvised pillow fight in the middle of the recording booth.

“Hey, Y/N/N! I was wondering if you-” Ashton’s sentence was cut short as he opened the door and took in the scene that was in front of him.

You were so busy chasing Breaden with a pillow on each hand and a devilish smile that you didn’t even notice when the door opened or that Ashton was standing there, smiling at you with his arms crossed as you aimed at your bandmate's head.

“Oh look, peanut!” Dylan said teasingly “You knight in shiny armor is here to-” But before he could say anything more embarrassing, you threw a pillow directly at his face to shut him out.

You quickly turned your head to Ashton who was fairly amused by your battle skills and smiled at him.

“Hey!” You said breathlessly after chasing down the others.

“Hi,” He smiled back “Am I interrupting something or?”

“Nah, you’re good,” You said, throwing one last pillow at your three friends that stood in a corner blowing teasing kisses and puppy eyes at the two of you “These assholes and I are done for the day” You commented before said assholes started to pout and complain, but you were already out the door before they could say something embarrassing again.

“So…” Ashton trailed off, starting to walk alongside you with his hands in his front pockets.

“So,” You said, drifting your eyes from him and praying to the universe that he didn’t hear anything or else it would make the blush on your face even pinker “You needed me for something?”

You wanted to get the topic of work right there in the open as soon as possible, not wanting him to notice how nervous you got when you were alone with him. At least when you were talking about work you leveled the ground in some parts.

“Actually, I’m going home early today” He smiled softly “Luke and the guys are working on a love song that’s just way too happy and butterflies - in - your -stomach like and I didn’t think they needed me there if I can’t bring nothing to the table”

“You’re not a lovey-dovey feeling kinda guy?” You teased by bumping your arm with his, earning a “hey” from him “I actually get it, I’m not that kind of person either”

“It’s not like I don’t like it, it’s just that-”

“You process your emotions differently, and it’s easier to write those when you think of love in other stages and/or mixed with other complex emotions because-”

“Love is not just one-sided! Yes!” Ashton celebrated, amazed that you could understand what he was saying “I knew you would get it”

That comment made your cheeks heat up as you looked at him, all dimpled smiles and light chuckled as he looked at you with sparkly hazel eyes. Oh no…

“Well,” You said, breaking that little moment “If they are going to work on that all day then I guess I would head home, too. I don’t think I’ll be able to provide anything else either”

“Actually,” Ashton said as he stopped in the middle of the hall leading to the exit, making you stop as well and turn to him “I was wondering if you would want to get some coffee with me now that we are both free. Of course, if you really are free and have nothing else to do and want to actually drink coffee or tea… or maybe not and you’re not that type of person and-”

“Are you asking me out?”

Ashton stopped his rambling and looked at you with an incredulous smile and lightly blushed cheeks.

“I- well, yeah,” He said shyly “Yeah, I am”

You smiled and softly chuckled “Look at the famous drummer all nervous” You teasingly took a step closer to him, not knowing where this confidence was coming from, and he did the same “It’s just me, you know?”

“And that’s exactly the reason why”

“Do I make you nervous, darling?”

“Let’s say that if it were anyone else, I wouldn’t have rambled like that, princess”

You pressed your lips in a thin line and smiled as you looked away from him, blushing like a teenager on her first date.

“So…” You trailed off.

“So?”

“Lead the way”

*

From that moment both of your routines changed once again. Now you took time off the studio at least two times a week to go with Ashton on those small friendly dates as he took you out for coffee or just simple but meaningful talks.

Soon enough you lost all the doubts that made you nervous around him, seeing how easy it was to talk to him and how much you had in common in more aspects than just music. You became more comfortable around him and your level of teasing and playing grew alongside your relationship, not to mention the level of teasing and playing you received from your band members and the other 3 Aussies who joined in on all the fun.

You were used to blushing and dismissing comments about your - undeniable - crush on the drummer, but Ashton didn’t seem to be affected by them at all. On the contrary, Ashton played along and even seemed like he was enjoying it. Like in one particular occasion where you were working on a song together and Michael said:

“Oh my god, date her already!”

Ashton didn’t blink an eye before responding “I’m trying! But she just wants to focus on the harmonies”

And you’d be lying if you said that didn’t put a smile on your face.

Yet, you kept it all professional while being in the studio; no need to mix your personal lives with whatever was going on down there, that’s why those coffee runs were your favorites.

It was an unspoken rule between the two of you that “work-talk” was forever banned from those outings.

“So what are we going to talk about?” You asked him the first time you went into his favorite coffee shop.

“Us” He simply answered, unaware of the butterflies he just set in your stomach.

“Us?”

“Yeah, I want to get to know you better, princess. Who is Y/N Sixx?”

“Who is Ashton Irwin?”

“I asked first”

“I asked second” You countered

Ashton smiled widely “You think you’re clever…”

“It doesn’t matter what I think” You answered, casually sipping on your coffee “I know I’m clever just like I know you like me that way”

You were testing the waters back then, hiding the shaking of your knees under the table as you longed to know how he felt about it. But the way he smiled and how he blushed a little bit made all your fears go away.

“Yeah, that I do”

Your cheeks turned red whenever you reminisced about that moment - or any moment that you spent with Ashton for that matter - which gave you the perfect idea for a song.

“I don’t want to kill my time with somebody else…” You hummed to yourself as you wrote down what you think is the chorus to a new song.

You told Ashton that you were not the type to write silly love songs or very uplifting songs; but there was something in that memory, something in that feeling that you couldn't ignore or just let it be without doing something about it. So, you started to write it.

You couldn't separate the feeling from the art, after all, feelings were what led you to dedicate your life to music. People would say it was because of your parent’s influence but they had little to nothing to do with your decision. This was you, the authentical you writing whatever came to mind and then sharing it with the world and only a few people will get it in its entirety. And surely Ashton was one of them.

“Dadadada something, want you all to myself”

“Wacha doing there, princess?”

Speaking of the devil.

Ashton smiled at you as he hunched over the table you were working on, trying to peek at what you were writing. You lifted the notebook and pressed it against your chest faking offense as he giggled.

“Didn’t your mother taught you not to sneak up on people, darling?” You asked as he walked around your workspace and sat himself down on the chair next to you “Besides, you’re late. You were supposed to meet me here like half an hour ago!”

“Aww, sorry Sixx” Ashton pouted “But there were no chocolate chip cookies left in the shop so I had to go around town to get you some” He then put a bag of freshly made cookies on top of the table with a cup filled with coffee.

“You didn’t have to do that, you know?”

“Of course I did! You always only eat chocolate chips cookies in the afternoon”

He started to giggle again, ignoring the way you were looking at him “How did you know that?”

“C’mon, Y/N/N, every time we go for coffee you order two, one for the coffee and another one for the road. And every time we cater something you never touch anything but those cookies”

“I never knew you were so observant”

Ashton shrugged “I just pay attention if I like what I see,” He said nonchalantly with a wink, making you blush instantly, but you covered it up with an eye roll.

“God, you’re terrible” You scoffed.

“I’m honest!” You shook your head and went back to writing, but Ashton was not going to let that go so easily. “Look, how else could I know that you always put an extra bag of sugar in your coffee?”

“‘Cause I always drink the same thing,” You said without looking up from your notebook.

“Yeah, a mocha latte with extra chocolate drizzle and no foam. Honestly, how can you handle that much sugar?” You were about to answer but he caught you off. “But that’s not all you drink, whenever you have a bad day you always order a cup of mango and ginger tea because that’s your mother’s favorite drink and it helps you calm down. You also don’t want anyone to know that you’re having a bad day but the minute someone looks away your smile starts to flatter until you’re back in the conversation”

You stopped the writing completely as you turned to him, suddenly feeling how your heart started to jump all over your chest as he kept talking, eyes never leaving yours as he gave you a soft smile, almost as if he was remembering all those moments with you.

“You draw flowers on the corner of your notebooks whenever you feel bored. You love the sad songs on the radio and you know every single word to Lorde’s Melodrama, yet every time you have to choose a playlist you put 2000’s pop and R&B songs because it hypes you up. You hate awkward silences unless you are the one being quiet. You help Dylan dye his hair every time he asks you to because you would trust each other with your lives, you give Cole relationship advice because you care about him and he always appreciates your advice more than anyone’s and Braeden is your best friend because you always say that he is one of the few people that could make you laugh in a bad day and you have no idea how much I want to be included in that list”

“Ashton-”

“You write better with dim light, it helps you concentrate on your work. You say you don’t believe in astrology yet you check your horoscope every day. You want to make sure that everyone has a good time and feels included, that’s why you always make conversations with Micahel about games you never even heard before or let Luke braid your hair when he’s bored or how you switched topics when you noticed that Calum was not engaging as much in a conversation. You literally take care of everyone but you never let anyone take care of you, and when we do you get all shy and you blush as you say thank you and you have no idea how fucking adorable you look”

You sat there speechless as he spoke. You felt the back of your throat dry as you tried to find the right words to answer all of that.

It was too much. The fact that he knew all of that and how he said it like he was just talking about his favorite things in the world, it was just too much but at the same time, you want to hear him say that again.

A weird sense of joy and shyness came over you as he set his hazel eyes on yours. You gave him a small smile as you averted your gaze to the floor.

“Wow, I-” You started “I never thought someone noticed all that”

“How could I not?” You heard him say “You’re all I can think about and to say that I don’t notice you is like saying I don’t notice the sun in the sky or the stars at night. You’re the brightest light out there, Y/N, you shine everywhere you go”

You noticed how he pulled his chair closer to you and suddenly you felt how your chair started to slowly turn his way until you were face to face.

Ashton carefully placed his fingers under your chin and tilted your head until you were finally looking into his eyes again.

“There she is!” He smiled when he noticed your blushing cheeks and gleaming eyes.

“What do you mean when you say I’m all you think about?” You asked expectantly, curling your fingers nervously on top of your thighs.

Ashton chuckled. “Well, if you didn’t notice, I really fucking like you, Y/N”

You looked up at him, smiling with hopeful eyes and feeling as if a weight was lifted off your chest thanks to the joy you were experiencing while hearing those words.

“You do?”

“Unless you don’t like me back and I just spilled my feelings for nothing-” You smacked him playfully in the arm “Ouch! I’m kidding! Of course I like you! Fuck, Y/N I’ve been falling for years now and I thought I was being pretty obvious”

You laughed “I thought you were just playing!”

In an instant, Ashton pulled your chair closer and grabbed you by the hip, lifting you up and making you sit on his lap as he hugged you by the waist and you placed your arms around his neck.

“I’ve never been more serious in my life,” He said, “I’ll do anything to prove it”

“Well,” You said, pressing a kiss to his cheek and knocking your forehead to his “How about you help me finish this song and then you take me on a date? Cause I’ve been falling for you, too and I don’t want to waste any more time”

Ashton hummed as he nuzzled his nose against your cheek, kissing it softly as he murmured “Will I get to kiss my princess at midnight?”

“Maybe… or you can take your chances now if you’d like”

He smiled.

“I like those odds”

And just before you know it, he softly pressed his lips against yours; finally creating a happy beginning for the two of you.

Instagram Posts

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[calpalirwin]

Permanent Vacation

Summary: Calum falls for a musician.

A/N: I just really wanted an excuse to use Arrows in Action newest releases in a fic. (They’re bangers. You should go give ‘em a listen.)

Word Count: 2.8k

And away, and away we go!

__

The sun was hot as it beat down on my neck, the line for the beerstand long, and the noises of people chatting excitedly were loud in my ears. But I didn’t care in the slightest. After the isolating shitshow that was quarantine, I was more than happy to be out at a festival with, wait for it, live fuckin’ music. The only way I could be happier was if my band was in the lineup, but this was still a pretty close second. To be surrounded by musicians and people who loved music was a breath of fresh air after so long. A breath of very hot fresh air. But still.

Behind me I heard the girlish giggling and whispers of my name, which drew the attention of the group in front of me: three guys, and a girl around my own age, two of the guys a good shoulder and head taller than the other man and girl. The shortest of the guys whispered, “Could you imagine if we got noticed like that?”

The tall brunette’s eyes went wide as he pulled a face and shook his head. “No, thanks. I think I’d cry.”

The other tall one with purple hair laughed loudly, “Aw, c’mon, that would be rad! His band’s not even in the lineup and he still gets recognized. Could you imagine?”

“He has a name, and can hear you, J,” the girl hissed with a playful eye roll. Then, she flashed me a smile before calling out in a loud voice, “Hey, man! Good to see ya! How ya been?” to me, before taking a step forward and stretching up to wrap her arm around my shoulders like we were old friends. “Just go with it,” she added under her breath. “Nobody’ll bug you for pictures and autographs if you’re with a bigger group.”

“Thanks,” I laughed at her rescue attempt. “But it’s fine if they do. I don’t mind.”

“Yeah, but they can at least let you buy a fuckin’ beer first.”

“Well, thanks again,” I said, not sure of what else to say, or do so I let her pull me up with her friends who were all staring at her with I’m sure the same look of soft shock I had on my own face.

“I’m Y/N, by the way.” She let go of me as she started introducing her friends to me. “And this is Jesse.”

“Hello,” the tall one with purple hair smiled warmly.

“That’s Matt,” she nudged the other tall one.

“Hey.”

“And this is Vic,” she finished, looking at the shortest man who waved.

“Nice to meet you guys. I’m Calum,” I said, then realized how stupid that was. “But, you already knew that, huh?”

Y/N grinned, holding her thumb and index finger close together. “Just a smidge. But it’s cool. So, any bands you’re particularly excited to see?”

“The Maine and All Time Low mostly. I’m a huge fan of The Maine, and All Time Low are friends of mine.”

“Both are great bands. And the All Time Low guys are good friends to have, for sure.”

“Oh, you know them?”

“Yeah, we worked with them a few times.”

“Worked with? Fellow musicians, huh?”

She laughed. “We’re up and comers, yeah.”

“Your cool aunt’s favorite band,” Jesse grinned at me.

Y/N laughed more at the confused look that crossed my face. “That’s one of his favorite ways to refer to us. Like we’re the band you find out from word of mouth from the cool relative that’s always discovering new music.”

“Ah,” I said, nodding in understanding. “Been there. Are you guys in the lineup?”

“Yup!” she chirped happily as we got to the front of the line. “5 beers, please,” she told the person working the counter.

“Oh, you don’t have to,” I tried to decline, reaching quickly for my wallet.

“Relax, it’s just a beer,” she told me, passing me one of the cups being placed on the counter. 

“Well, thanks,” I said, raising the cup and taking a sip. “I’ll getcha guys next time.”

“I’ll hold you to it,” she grinned around the rim of her own cup. “Enjoy your beer, Cal. See ya around.”

~~~

I took the last swallow from my beer, cursing myself for not having stopped her to get the name of her band, or at the very least her last name. But before I had a chance to get the words out, I’d been bombarded with requests from fans for pictures, engaging in small conversations with them, and by the time I was done, Y/N was long gone.

So I resigned myself to walking around the festival grounds, my head reeling. It wasn’t often a woman pretended to be my friend to rescue me from the onslaught of fans. In fact, I couldn’t recall one time that's ever happened. I also wasn’t used to being bought drinks, even if I was still fully intending to return the favor. Although that would require me to find her first. But something told me that wouldn’t be too difficult.

I was grateful I’d come on my own, and not with Ashton who would have no doubt teased me about how hooked I was on the girl. The cynic with a crush? Whatever were the odds? And was it even technically a crush when I’d only interacted with her for maybe five minutes? Okay, maybe Ashton being around wouldn’t be the worst thing if he could help me make sense of the jumble of thoughts in my head. The way that man could bounce from crush to crush almost seamlessly was enough to give me a case of whiplash. 

I sighed as I tossed my cup in the trash. Whether or not it was a crush was still to be determined. All I knew was that I liked her energy, and wanted to see her again. And… that was a crush, wasn’t it? God. Fuckin’. Damn it.

A guitar chord rang out loudly, and there was a mad dash of people running towards the stage. Slowly I pushed my way through the crowd of people towards the front, grinning when I noticed it was her on stage, and grinning even more when I noticed the instrument in her hand. A bassist? Fuck, I was definitely in trouble now.

The shortest of the men, Vic, I recalled, started singing, with the other three providing backup harmony on the chorus. Until they got to the bridge that was all Y/N, her voice ringing out “Tomorrow’s a nightmare, I’m dreaming today. And my head is haunted, the past just can’t stay. The devil you know, yeah he comes and he goes. I’m selfish, and vapid, I hide in my prose!” before they launched into the final chorus.

“What up, Anaheim?!” Vic yelled into his mic to a scream of cheers and applause. “We’re Arrows in Action, and that was our newest single, Only Be Mine. I’m Vic. We got Matt over here on guitar. Jesse’s on the drums. And Y/N’s over there on bass. We got a few more songs for you all. And if you’re an awesome crowd, we might have a special treat for ya at the end of our set. Sound good?”

We answered him in whoops of cheers and loud applause, causing them all to grin as they launched into their next song.

They played seamlessly through about three more songs, enjoying the feeling of playing live in front of people again, before Y/N whooped into her own mic. “Whoo! It’s hot! Anyone else hot? Y’all staying hydrated out there?” she asked us, before flickering her gaze across the stage at Matt who was wiping his forehead. “You good, Matt?”

“Dude, it’s like a million degrees up here,” he commented, before taking a huge swig from a water bottle.

Y/N laughed. “Right. Y’all gotta understand. Matt’s from the cold states. Then there’s Vic and I who are California natives, technically, right Vic?”

“Yeah, I was born here. But I didn’t live here as long as you did.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. So Vic and I are used to the heat. Matt, not so much. And Jesse? How you doing back there, J?”

“Me?” the drummer pointed at himself in confusion “Oh, I’m great!”

“Great enough to give this crowd a real surprise?” she asked, her voice laced with playful trouble, as she looked at all her bandmates. “C’mon, boys what do ya say? Wanna give this crowd something special before we go?”

Again, we all cheered and applauded as encouragement for whatever surprise they had in mind. “Alright!” Vic laughed. “Alright, you wanna go ahead and introduce it then?”

She smiled wide as she turned towards us. “Alright, everybody! We’re Arrows in Action. We’ve had a great time with y’all! So, as a thank you, we’re gonna play a new song that we haven’t released yet. Is that cool with you?” She laughed as she awaited the response of screaming, whistles, and applause. “Alright. This is called Permanent Vacation, which will be available on all listening platforms this Friday. Let’s go!”

Matt started playing a series of chords that sounded incredibly familiar, while the other three clapped to the beat. But right before the lyrics were supposed to come in, Vic started talking into his mic. “Wait, wait, wait!” he laughed. “I don’t know the lyrics to this!”

“So it’s just like every other song,” Y/N teased him with her own laugh.

“Nah, I think it’s cuz that one’s not ours.”

“Be rad if it was though,” she said, and I swear she shot me a wink. “Alright, alright. So, that one’s not ours. But this one definitely is. And it’s definitely called Permanent Vacation. And it’s out Friday.”

A new guitar and drum beat started up and Vic immediately started singing, again with the rest of the band providing back up vocals until the bridge where it was all Y/N. A soft build before a wild yell that would have torn my own vocal chords to shreds.

“I’m locked and loaded, fire away! Permanent vacation from my brain. Extend my stay another day. Far from home, not alone,” they all finished with a flurry of chords. “Thank you!” Vic croaked into the mic. “Thank you guys so much! We’re Arrows in Action, enjoy the rest of your night!”

With tired but happy smiles, they all bowed before exiting the stage. I moved to follow, but thought better of it, going to hit the drink stand first where I bought 5 beers and 4 waters. A small challenge, made slightly easier by the person working the stand putting the water bottles in a grocery bag for me. With that hanging off my arm, I held 2 beers in each hand, and my own in my teeth.

“Cal!” she laughed, her face flushed when I found them lounging in the grass. “You didn’t have to do that,” she told me as she rose to her feet to help me distribute the beers.

“I said I’d get the next round,” I offered up simply, setting down the bag and taking a seat with them all. “I brought you guys water, too.”

“You really didn’t have to do that,” she laughed, tossing the bottles out anyway, and sitting back down, this time next to me. 

“Shut up, Y/N, let the man do what he wants,” Jesse said, downing a water bottle in 2 gulps before turning his attention to his beer. “You’re rad. Thank you.”

“For real, man. This was really cool of you,” Vic said.

“Yeah, huge thanks,” Matt nodded.

“What they said, I guess,” Y/N laughed again, following Jesse’s lead of downing her water bottle before going for her beer. “Fuck,” she sighed. “That’s good. Thank you, really.”

“Happy to do it,” I answered. “That set was amazing, by the way. And that joke at the end was pretty clever. How long were you planning that?”

She giggled. “Uh, well Jesse and I are much more the 5sos fans than Matt and Vic are. But we’re all familiar with your music. And when we were writing the song, and settled on the title, I suggested that it would be funny to start playing your version if we ever got the chance to play it live. Which meant bugging Matt to learn the guitar parts.”

“So you’re the troublemaker of the band?” I guessed.

She shrugged, and hid behind the rim of her cup. “I mean… Depends on the day.”

We continued to lay in the grass, making small talk as we all finished our beers, before Jesse cleared his throat. “Uh… Matt, Vic. You guys wanna come with me to get a good spot for the rest of the acts?” he asked, the suggestion in his tone heavy.

Matt and Vic shared a look, before nodding. “Yeah, yeah of course,” they said, all three of them getting up.

“You assholes are just gonna leave me?” Y/N asked, looking up at them.

“Just come find us when you’re ready,” they winked. “Thanks again for the beers, Cal.”

“Assholes,” she muttered again as they all made themselves scarce. “Sorry about them.”

I laughed, waving it off. “Nah, it’s cool. And kinda nice, maybe?”

“Oh?” she asked, her eyes wide. “Uh…” her face flushed. “I mean…” she started to stammer. “Yeah. Yeah.”

I gave a half chuckle, scratching at the back of my neck. “Look, it’s fine if you’re not… I mean, I figure you probably are if they did that for you, cuz they have no reason to do it for my sake. I mean, they’re your friends and bandmates, not mine. But I know a wing man set up when I see it. But if it’s more of a meddling wing man set up, like that’s fine,” I spilled out, before realizing I was rambling.

“No!” she rushed. “Oh, no, that’s not what I meant at all!” She covered her face in her hands, groaning “Oh, this is so embarrassing…” Her hands moved to push through her hair as she took a long breath to steady herself. “Of course I like you, Cal. Like before I even met you. One of those embarrassing fangirl crush type of deals. And I mean, I’m a bassist in a punk band, so you’re also someone I idolize and take inspiration from.” Slowly her gaze lifted from her lap to lock onto mine. “And then I met you today. And  you’re everything I thought you’d be. Thoughtful. Generous. A bit shy, and quiet at times. Nice. And it makes the crush that much stronger, and harder to deal with. Cuz now it’s real. And I feel like I know you. And it’s just… Ugh, it spirals from there, ya know?”

“A good spiral, or a bad spiral?”

“Bit of both? Like the insecurities in me say that you’re an A-list celebrity, while I’m more of like… not an A-lister. My band’s not on the same level yours is. I mean, we play bars and small day festivals. You sell out stadiums and have world tours. There’s a clear discrepancy. But then, another part of me doesn’t give a shit about that. It sees how we’re like-minded. It sees all the ways we click, and all the ways we could work. And that’s where the cocky part comes in, where it sees the like-mindedness and the reasons we could work, and calls you an idiot if you can’t see it too. That, uh, screwed up defense mechanism of it being your loss, ya know?”

“Mhm.”

She sighed. “Sorry. I said a lot. Point is, I do like you. And, that’s that.”

“So the ball’s in my court?”

“Only if you want it to be. And if you don’t, then no. There’s no ball. No court. Just two people who have a few things in common.”

“You wanna hear what I think?”

“Go for it.”

“I think your friends left us for 2 reasons. 1 being that they’re loyal to you, and know how you feel about me. 2 being that they’re also guys. Which gives them a pretty good insight for how I’m feeling too.”

“Uh-huh…” she nodded slowly. “And how you’re feeling is…?”

I could have said the words. But I settled for leaning in, brushing my lips softly against hers for the sweetest of moments, listening to the way her next breath got stuck in her throat. I pulled away, smiling softly at her and shrugging my shoulders.

She traced her lips with her thumb, bewilderment written on her face. “Okay, you really didn’t have to do that.”

“Relax,” I chuckled, stealing her words from earlier. “It’s just a kiss.”

“Well, thanks. I’ll, uh, getcha next time.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

__

Tag List

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[cjsinkythoughts]

Ocean Eyes, Cherry Lips, Ivory Keys

Pairing: 40s!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 2747

Warnings: Cursing, mentions of alcohol, I think that’s all

A/N: This is a headcanon I’ve had for a while that I’ve been wanting to write about 40s!Bucky, pre-War. I kinda want to write a series about it, so that might happen. For now, enjoy this little tidbit I’ve written, with the prompt of Occasion for HBC’s Lucky in Love Day 18! (This isn’t beta’d so please excuse mistakes.)

He’s something of a celebrity. A living legend. A God amongst humans. Starting as a kid in Brooklyn, his fanbase rapidly grew, expanding to Queens, Manhattan, even parts of New Jersey, just in the past few years.

You don’t get it. So what if he’s got cool blue eyes, soft chocolate hair, and a charming smile? Who cares if he’s got smooth moves and even smoother words? He’s just a man - a human being - with flaws just like everyone else. A talented and gorgeous man, who has all of New York wanting to fall to her knees to please him, but still just a man.

James Buchanan Barnes.

Most everyone knew his name, but there was a lot of mystery surrounding the actual character. 

You just don’t see what all the fuss is about. You’ve never personally met him, or even seen him, but you know people who have. Your friend’s cousin even claims to have danced with him once. Not that that would be hard. You hear he’s never danced with the same bird twice, and, considering most start dancing in their teenage years, that’s a lot of dames.

It’s not that you’re not curious about him - if he’s actually as dashing as they say - but you’re not about to stop your life for him like some of your friends. They’re obsessed with getting his attention. With seeing if they’d be the one. The one to finally chain him down and tame him. The one he’d go steady with.

It feels like that’s all you ever talk about anymore. It was amusing at first, but now it’s just getting annoying. It’s been three years since that day in March of 1938, when your roommate ran into your room, plopping down onto your bed, before ranting and raving about the new ocean eyed piano player at her favorite bar. And since then, he’s been in your life without actually being in your life.

Speaking of, here you are. Listening to Lucy, MaryAnne, and Jean gushing over the man, trying to enjoy your milkshake.

“I heard from Sally that Thomas said that he knew the brother of one of his friend’s in high school!”

“That can’t be true! I heard from Billy, who heard from Martha, who was told by Ben, that he only had, like, one friend in high school.”

“You’re kidding, right? There’s no way a man like that had only one friend.”

“I hear he does boxing and that’s why he’s got a body sculpted like a Greek God.”

“Oh my God! MaryAnne!”

You rub your temples, resisting the urge to roll your eyes as the three burst into fits of giggles. If you have to hear one more word about-

“I heard he’s going to be playing at Georgie’s on Friday!”

Gasps echoed around the table. “No way! Georgie’s?”

You raise an eyebrow, this actually intriguing you. Georgie’s is a popular little hole in the wall, on the edge of being a speakeasy, which doubles as a pub and a dance hall in Brooklyn. It’s one of the best hang outs for kids like you and your girls, but it isn’t very high class. Maybe that’s why it’s one of the best. “Isn’t Georgie’s a little…cheap for him? He’s been playing at the best bars and restaurants for a while now.”

“It’s a classic in Brooklyn. Near his home, probably.”

“Do you think he lives near there?!”

“Ooo! Maybe we could find out!’

You scoff. “That,” gesturing to Lucy with your glass, you take a sip of your milkshake. “Is called stalking, my friend.”

Jean waves towards you dismissively. “I think he lives near Tin Pan Alley. That’s where he plays the most, after all. Georgie’s was probably just an old hang out for him and his pals.”

“Wait, wait,” you shake your head, a thought popping into your head. You turn to Lucy, confused. “How’d you find out he’s playing at Georgie’s anyways? Isn’t part of his whole act not telling anyone where he’s playing?”

Giving you a smirk and a wink, Lucy shrugs. “I’ve got my connections.”

You roll your eyes again, turning your attention back to your milkshake. “So?!” MaryAnne squealed. “We’re going on Friday, right?”

“Hell yes!”

“Absolutely!”

“Not.” You mumble, causing the other three to stare at you incredulously.

“Not?!”

“I’m not wasting my Friday night going to see some fella you all have a crush on. Especially when he might not even be there.”

Your friends groan, exchanging glances. “And what’re you gonna do?” Jean crossed her arms with a pointed look on her face. “Sit down and read a book like you always do?”

You huff. “I like reading, sue me. I don’t get a lot of time to myself. You know that new girl’s been gumming up the works and I’ve had to stay late to fix her mistakes all week.”

“This is exactly what you need, then! Come out, have a drink, jive a little-”

You look up at that, an amused kind of smirk on your lips. “Jive? Me and my clumsy ass?”

You all laugh. “Okay, so maybe not dance, but c’mon! It’ll be snazzy, you’ll see!”

���Fine, fine.” Standing up with a sigh, you collect your things, smoothing down your dress with your hands. “I’ve gotta scram.”

“We’ll see you on Friday, right?”

You give a small smile, shooting them a wink. “I guess I can make it.”

***************

Friday comes a lot faster than you anticipate. You dress up; a navy blue dress going to your knees with white, heart shaped buttons and a bow around the waist. The shoes you’re wearing are your nice black and white Mary Janes. Lips painted deep red, and hair pinned back in loose curls, you glance over yourself in a mirror. You’ll admit; you look damn good. You don’t wanna go, but you might as well try to have some fun since you are.

It’s a cool evening, early May meaning the summer humidity hasn’t hit just yet. You didn’t even think about bringing a coat, but you start to regret the decision as you start walking. MaryAnne, who you actually room with, already left, being way too excited to stay put.

It doesn’t take you long - you live on the border of Queens and Brooklyn - but your feet are more sore than you’d like when you arrive.

“I knew you’d come!” Lucy grins, coming up besides you and linking her arm in yours. MaryAnne comes up on your other side and does the same to your free arm.

“Where’s Jean?”

“Where do you think? She already found a Joe to swing with.”

You laugh. “Of course she has! So is your dreamboat here?”

The grins that are immediately on their faces answer your question and they quickly drag you inside.

It’s hot and crowded and dim. Skirts with their beaus, guys with their broads, swinging and dancing to the lively music of the band on stage. Smoke from cigarettes, pipes, and cigars is evident in the air as they neared the bar portion of the building, mixing with the boisterous sound of laughter and chatter.

“Everyone’s talking about it! He’s here, but he hasn’t played yet. We’ve been trying to catch a glimpse of him, but we think he’s in a back room.” The dramatic sigh MaryAnne gives makes you laugh a little.

“Okay, khaki whackies. Let’s get a drink.”

You, just as you thought would happen tonight, are left alone at the bar by your friends who quickly found partners to dance with. A few men asked you, but you have never been a good dancer.

You’re lost in thought, running a finger gently around the rim of your cup, when a voice sounded besides you, pulling you out of your thoughts, a slight rasp to the otherwise mellifluous voice.

“You gonna drink that, doll, or just stare at it all night?”

You raise an eyebrow at the jest, turning your head, only to have your breath hitch. What a specimen. Ocean blue eyes, fluffy brown curls, cherry pink lips. A white dress shirt is pulled over his broad chest, gray dress pants hugging thick thighs, matching suit jacket across wide shoulders. He has a blue, black, and white plaid tie around his neck and you can see the edges of his blue suspenders under his blazer. He’s put together, but it’s nothing special, a normal Sunday best suit, that much you can tell.

“Uh, not all night.” You look back to the drink, before looking at the clock with a hum, tilting your head playfully. “Maybe another hour.”

He chuckles, gesturing for the bartender. “Tell me this, sweetheart. What is a beautiful dame like yourself doin’ drinking alone?”

“I’m not very good on my feet, I’m afraid.” You laugh nervously, taking a sip of your drink.

“Don’t come here often, then?”

“Only for special occasions.”

“What’s the special occasion this evenin’, sugar?”

You shrug. “My friends dragged me here. They’re practically in love with this guy who’s supposedly playing the piano tonight. James Barnes. Have you ever heard of him?”

He chuckles, a grin pulling his lips upwards. “Yeah. Yeah I’ve heard of ‘im. Not a big fan yourself?”

“I’m sure he’s fine. I just don’t understand the fascination with him. Let the man be.”

“I agree.” He hums with a nod, grabbing the glass of whiskey the bartender set in front of him. “I actually know him.”

“Really?” You look at him in interest.

He tilts his head with a smile towards you that makes you melt. “Yeah. He feels the same. He just likes playin’. That’s all. He didn’t want all the attention. He gets enough without that.”

You raise an eyebrow, finishing off your drink. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I’m Bucky by the way.”

You eye his hand, grabbing it after a second, letting him bring your knuckles to his lips. “Y/N.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, mama.” He shifts his body more towards you, running a hand through his hair. “You said you ain’t fond of dancin’?”

Shaking your head, you quickly defend yourself, “no, no. I like dancing. I’m just not very good. Got two left feet.”

He smirks, tongue poking out to run over those plump lips of his. “Well, with the right partner, it doesn’t really matter.”

“Are you asking me to dance, Bucky?”

“Not if you’re gonna say no.” He responds with a toothy grin, leaning his elbows on his knees.

You sigh and shake your head. “I’m afraid tonight’s not your night, pal. I just can’t seem to get myself in the mood.”

He hums, leaning back. “Is it the music? Too fast for you?”

“I wouldn’t mind if they slowed it down some, I suppose.”

He smiles cheekily. “I can help with that. Hold on.”

You grin at him, nodding. “I’ll be here.”

Watching him stand and make his way over to the stage, you quirk an eyebrow. He seems to know the band well, if the handshakes and the claps on the back have anything to say about it. He says something to the lead, who nods with a grin, shooting him a wink. Bucky laughs, but you can see a tint of pink dusting his cheeks, making you wonder what they were saying.

He makes his way back over as the band shifts tones, the animated swing changing to a slow jazzy number. Bucky beams at you, holding out his hand as he approaches. “Care to dance?”

You purse your lips, narrowing your eyes, but taking his hand anyways. “How’d you do that? Do you work here?’

“Uh…somethin’ like that.” He states vaguely, leading you to the dance floor with the other swaying couples. Pulling you as close as appropriate, his hands resting politely on your waist, he starts moving you side to side. 

“That’s not ominous.” You place your hands on his shoulders, following his lead as you stare at your feet.

He chuckles, hooking a finger under your chin to lift your gaze. “I’ve gotcha, doll. I won’t let you fall.”

“I’m going to step on your feet.” You explain.

“Nah. You’re doin’ great. You just need to get outta your head. Relax a little. Tell me something about yourself.”

You hum. “Like what?”

“Anything.”

“Uh, okay…I have a roommate who is one of the girls who begged me to come, I’m a secretary - I know, boring - and…I dunno. I like reading.”

His eyes lighten at this. “Reading? Whaddya like to read?”

“Different things. Depends on my mood. I’m re-reading The Hobbit for, like, the twentieth time right now.”

“I love The Hobbit.” Bucky grins, making you smile back. “I read it almost as soon as it came out.”

“Me too! I was planning on reading it tonight but,” you gesture around. “Here I am.”

Bucky lips pull up softly, his hold on your waist tightening ever so slightly as he pulls you closer. “Well, as much as I love that book, I’m glad you came out tonight.”

Giving him a little tease, you tap your chin thoughtfully. “Eh…I think I’d rather be at home.”

He pinches your side gently, making you squeal and squirm. “That hurt, sugar. That physically hurt me. C’mon, mama, your gonna say you aren’t havin’ a good time?”

“I just met you ten minutes ago.”

“Well, sweetheart, if you think we’re movin’ too fast, I won’t introduce you to my folks just yet.”

You laugh, blinking up at him. “That’s very thoughtful of you, Buck.”

The two of you rock for a little while longer, before the band stops, announcing they’re taking a break and a special guest is going to play a little something.

“Maybe James Barnes is here.” You say, a bit of intrigue lacing your tone, trying to see through the crowds of people who started gathering around the stage to catch a glimpse of the charming pianist. “I see why he would be over the attention.”

“Yeah.” Bucky sighs, almost sadly, giving you an apologetic look. “Listen, I’ve gotta go work for a bit, but I’ll be right back.”

You smirk. “So you do work here?”

“Um…kinda. You’ll see.”

You raise an eyebrow at his words, but he’s kissing your knuckles and walking away. You frown, but can’t think more on it when three young women are on you, babbling about their dates.

“Who were you dancing with, Y/N? He was cute!”

You roll your eyes, feeling yourself heat up, and not because of the many bodies in the vicinity. “Just…some guy.”

“C’mon, c’mon! We’ve gotta get a good spot to actually see him!”

You huff, letting the drag you through the crowd, shoving their way towards the front just as a familiar deep voice spoke. 

“Thanks for comin’ out, everyone. I hope your havin’ a good night. Let’s get this hop started, yeah?”

Your eyes widen when you finally catch sight of the man sitting at the piano with a polite smile on his features. He catches your eye and shoots you a wink, before his fingers start flying over the keys. The beam that he gets while tickling the gleaming ivories, his azure eyes lighting up, and you can’t fight the smile you get. He looks so relaxed, so invigorated, that it makes you happy just watching him.

“Oh my God! Weren’t you dancing with him?!” Lucy shook your shoulder obnoxiously, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care, mesmerized with the way he played like it’s the only thing he wanted to do with his life. Which, as you remember his words, ‘he just likes playin’. That’s all.’ you figure it is the only thing he wanted to do with his life.

You just danced with James Barnes…and he’s just as perfect as everyone says.

You’re still trying to wrap your head around it, your friends jumping around you, trying to get every little detail of him from you, when your heart skips a beat and your brain malfunctions. Bucky had started up another song, slower and more intimate, and he’s looking right at you. 

You find yourself doing something you never thought you would; you’re swooning over James Barnes, smiling like an idiot, heat blooming up your neck and flaming your face. And yes, he’s just a man - a human being - with flaws just like everyone else. But he’s a talented and gorgeous man, who has all of New York wanting to fall to her knees to please him.

And now that includes you.

[onwesterlywinds]

PROMPT #26: Break a Leg

"Stop picking at the cape."

Ahtyn had not known she was picking at the cape until Alma Velius came up behind her to make her final adjustments. Thanks to her short stature, the revolutionary - reprising her backstage role as a tailor for the debut performance only - had to stand on her tiptoes to reach the spot near the hood that Ahtyn had started to unravel purely as a casualty of her anxious energy. To better free her hands for the fastening of pins, Alma handed Ahtyn the newspaper she'd brought with her: the Mythril Eye.

"Is this it?" Ahtyn breathed. "Our first review?"

Alma nodded.

"I'm surprised Thavnair didn't get to the previews first," she said, and snapped the paper open. "Or even the Harbor Herald; I was kind of hoping we'd get that hometown lo- Oh."

As she had expected, the headline bore no reference whatsoever to the Majestic, let alone the show itself. What she had not expected was the level of disaffection in every inked letter: WARRIOR OF LIGHT MUDDLES THROUGH THEATRICAL DEBUT.

"What the fuck," she whispered.

"Mmm," came Alma's only response. Whether the noise was one of genuine sympathy or because she had pins between her teeth, Ahtyn could not tell.

"Well," said Ahtyn, skimming the first few paragraphs of the damning review, if only to do something about the lump in her throat one way or another, "get this: my script is 'middling.' And my 'usually distinct presence' is 'bogged down by an altogether static stage direction.'" She lowered the page, conscious not for the first time that night of the multitude of voices from behind the red curtain not so far away from where they stood. "This might be the meanest thing anyone has ever written about me, and I read what they wrote when I wiped in Halatali twice in a row."

"What are you doing!"

The cry came from the younger, even smaller Alma, clad all in blue, who snatched the newspaper from Ahtyn's grip with such force that it nearly tore in two. "It's five minutes until we go up, and you're reading your critics?!"

Alma Velius let out a louder laugh than any Ahtyn had heard from her before.

"Listen," said Ahtyn. "I thrive on spite."

"You look like you're about to cry," Alma Lexentale pointed out, then helped Alma Velius pluck a loose thread from the velvet cape. "Right, that should do it. And please remember: I think your play is spectacular, no matter what the critics say."

The sincerity on her face - and the blue-feathered headdress she wore - brought Ahtyn's tears to the fore. Without thinking of the havoc she might wreak on either of their costumes, she reached out and wrapped the girl in an embrace.

"Thank you for doing this," Ahtyn said. "I'm so glad we've come this far."

Without a doubt, the youngest Lexentale made for a wonderful Starbird.

[imaginesfora3]

Doorstep [Sakuma Sakuya/Reader] [NSFW]

(Also posted here on Ao3! Please enjoy my ramblings)

You’re surprised to see Sakuya on your doorstep.

Your boyfriend had been quite busy lately, juggling a part-time job as well as spending all his nights rehearsing with his troupe. If he had the energy left he’d text you a goodnight and an apology, to which you always responded that you understood perfectly well why you couldn’t see him. It left you feeling a little empty inside that it had been so long since you’d even gotten to lay eyes on him in person but there was nothing to be done about that, there was no way you were going to say that over text and make him feel bad for things outside of his control. You had been wary about not triggering any potential abandonment issues since you knew of his past, not wanting him to think you’ll up and leave him if he doesn’t bend to your will.

You were proud of him for finding a place for himself in the world, and you wanted him to retain that happiness while also having a little safe haven with you.

You were in college yourself so it’s not as though you weren’t busy, you had paper upon paper to finish, and the time you had left was good to recover what was left of your sanity. Would Sakuya being there make you feel better? Absolutely! But again, you didn’t want to push that pressure on him when he was already busy. Sakuya deserved someone who wasn’t selfish, he deserved someone who would only encourage him to keep living his life to the fullest and who would support him, stand by him, no matter what. You wanted to be that person because you loved him that much, Sakuya had been the only man to ever make you feel like you were walking on clouds, you couldn’t diminish how important he was in your life.

That’s why you just don’t get how this phone call went so sour when you were doing nothing but speaking the truth.

“Do you miss me?”

“Sakuya…” Ooh, that was a direct hit, it hurt to hear the way his voice cracked when he asked that. He couldn’t possibly imagine how badly you missed him, how much you just wanted to see him again, but for some reason those words won’t come out. You don’t want to pour your heart out to him over the phone, again worried that you would just be guilting the poor boy. You just don’t realize how unwanted you’re truly making him feel.

“You don’t miss me?”

“Of course I miss you! It’s just… It’s just okay that you’re busy, is all. We’ll see each other again. Got the rest of our lives, yeah?”

It didn’t sit right with Sakuya.

It’s not like he wanted someone to obsessively control or demand his time but to have you acting as though you didn’t care… It made his heart feel heavy in his chest. The odd amount of indifference made him feel on edge, like you weren’t being honest with him, but about what? Did you really not want to continue this relationship but you didn’t know how to break up with him? Sakuya just didn’t get it. He didn’t know how to confide his thoughts in his friends without seeming like a fool, this was his first real relationship after all and he wasn’t quite in the mood to hear that there were other fish in the sea.

“Sorry, I’m really tired tonight… I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to rehearse?”

“I was going to come over for a bit before we started, is that… not okay?” Sakuya is gnawing on his bottom lip nervously, his heart sinking further, wondering what you might say next. The few seconds of silence that followed after made his heart ache, made him want to sob into his pillow, but he bit back those overwhelming emotions since he didn’t want to attract Masumi’s attention.

“It’s okay, Sakuya! I look forward to it! So just get some rest and I’ll see you then, okay?”

You’re cursing yourself after hanging up, wondering why you couldn’t just say what you wanted to. You wanted to say that you loved him, that you missed his cute face, that you couldn’t wait to shower him with kisses. You wanted to tell him he’d be lucky if he ever left your house again because you were willing to take him hostage for a day or two if it meant getting him all to yourself. So selfish of you to think like that, you couldn’t help but scold yourself over it, laying down and hoping these weird feelings disappear once you finally see your boyfriend again.

They don’t.

Sakuya doesn’t greet you with his normal cheery smile or a hug and you don’t move in, sensing his odd mood immediately. You invited him in and watched as he went right to sitting down on the couch, hesitantly closing the door; you might’ve contemplated for at least a solid two seconds about running out so you didn’t have to deal with the heavy conversation that was sure to follow.

“You don’t have to hide things from me.” Sakuya said with a pout on his face, the little frown he gives after looking out of place. “I want you to… trust in me. If you don’t care about me the same way…”

“I do trust you it’s just…” Sakuya is frozen, face growing pale as he realized you completely ignored his second statement. Did that mean…?

“You don’t have to walk on eggshells around me! We love each other, right? So, if we love each other, we can make it through anything!” He must’ve been reading the more romantic plays lately to spout out such an ideal without blinking an eye but it was so endearingly him, to the point where you couldn’t stop yourself from holding Sakuya’s face in your hands. Tears were beginning to gather in the corner of his eyes, likely from frustration, and you began to realize that all you had done to ‘protect’ Sakuya had only put up a wall between you.

“I do. I do love you, very much. You know that, right?”

“I don’t know how you feel!” Sakuya cried out, “You won’t tell me!”

Another direct shot but probably a well-deserved one. You hated seeing the pain you were putting him through, wondering if maybe breaking up would be the best. You clearly weren’t adept at relationships either if you managed to let things get this bad, to the point your boyfriend was in tears in front of you

“I remember the first time I ever saw you on stage… It was before the company became an actual company again. And you weren’t very good…” You swiped away a stray tear with your thumb as Sakuya nodded, “But I was invested ‘cause I thought you were so damn cute. I’m really glad that you got a chance to really act and that you’ve grown as much as you have. Getting to see you up on stage with the others makes me so happy because I know how happy you are up there.”

“…I’m happy with you, too.” His voice is soft, almost too quiet for you to hear but you’ve leaned in close at this point, your body naturally drawn towards him. “I like being able to see you in the crowd when I’m on stage. I know if I look at you too long I’ll forget my lines but just that glance is enough to make me feel confident! I want you to feel that way about me.”

“I do feel that way about you… Ugh.” You leaned forward, forehead resting against his as his big, puppy dog eyes looked into yours. “It’s not you doing anything wrong, Saku, it’s me. I just don’t want to bring you down…”

“I’m stronger than you give me credit for, you know?” Sakuya is pouting again, “I know you met me when I first joined the company but so much has changed since then. We’ve both changed since then. I just want us to grow together and not apart; I promise that I can help! Or at least support you!”

“I’m sorry I’ve been so stupid, Sakuya. Can you forgive me?”

“I love you.” Sakuya sounded breathless, the look in his eyes changing within seconds; it was something a little different now, a look you hadn’t known your boyfriend was capable of making before you first had sex.

His lips pressed hard against yours, practically knocking you back on the couch with the intensity. You heard him mumble out some type of apology but you’re too lost in his touch to care, your entire body screaming that the emotional stress had to be worked out somehow. That whole kidnapping plan might become a reality if he kept this up, how were you ever supposed to give him up after this? You needed him here to heal your heart and you had to make sure all the damage that had been done closed up on him as well, arms wrapping around his neck to keep him plastered against you.

“Bedroom?”

“Right here, please.”

Still so polite even while having a raging hard-on after a fight, the tears completely dried from his eyes now as he gave you a look of pure lust. The mood had switched so quickly once the air had been cleared and you were grateful for that, grateful for a chance to get rid of these sad feelings and replace them with a sensation that would make you both feel better. You’re both desperately stripping clothes but you’re faster, getting the jump on him as he’s just taken his pants off. You’re thankful he wore boxers for easy access because you can’t wait another moment for him to be inside you, straddling his lap while his hands rose to touch your hips.

“You’re so beautiful.” Sakuya smiled up at you, looking as if he was meeting a Goddess for the very first time. “I love you.”

“I love you even more.”

You both let out a gasp as he slid inside you, his head thrown back, revealing his throat to you in an act of submission. You’re pleased that he’s making your job easier for you as you leaned in to pepper all the kisses you could over it, giggling as he bucked his hips up in desperate need for friction. It had been so long since you had touched yourself let alone had sex, there was no doubt that Sakuya was in the same boat. You remembered the wide-eyed look he gave you after you asked if he even masturbated since he had to share a room, basking in the way your heart fluttered at how cute a totally red-faced Sakuya looked.

He was still noisy, just how you liked him, moaning at each movement and kiss you gave him. His head was only full of thoughts of you, just like they had been the past week. But these ones were more positive, full of happier memories, full of a hope for the future of your relationship. He could feel how much you loved him each time he thrust into you, your lips brushing against his ear as you whispered sweet nothings into them. He had been afraid that he’d mess up the first time you ever had sex and you had promised to keep him calm, giving him quiet encouragement while taking the lead. He discovered that, while he did want to make you feel good, he liked it better when you took the lead and allowed him to follow. He liked hearing your voice directly in his ear, he liked hearing you whimper his name and tell him how perfect he was at making you feel good.

“Aah- I don’t think I can last much longer…!” Sakuya is starting to sweat but is still making noble attempts to keep a steady rhythm, his arms wrapping around your middle to bring you close to him. “Can we come together? I want to-”

“Mmm, yeah we can, I’m really close…” You reached down to touch yourself to help you along but Sakuya beat you to it, looking up at you with half-lidded eyes and another smile; you couldn’t resist him any longer, leaning in to lock lips with him again as you both come. You feel the desperate twitching of his hips, the way his fingers are digging into the soft flesh of your hips but never enough to so much as leave a mark. He was always gentle with you even within the throes of passion and you truly loved that your body was such a naturally kind, caring soul.

“I love you.”

Again, those three little words are exchanged.

Again, you return them, meaning them now more than ever.

You’re no longer surprised to see Sakuya on your doorstep because you’ve come to one simple realization.

You are his home.

[eyrieofsynapses]

Okay okay okay, so, I know everyone’s been posting the promo art, but I’m looking at this and I have some immediate observations to make before I go bounce over to today’s Leverage panel. 

Y’all, I’m screaming, this is absolutely gorgeous. Anyway:

This is set entirely in space. There’s been a lot of stuff going on off of Earth ever since the second season, but we generally aren’t away from it for too long, even in Outsiders. Does this mean we’ll be spending even more time off-planet this time around?

That’s a boom tube opening behind Nightwing, isn’t it? Given that that’s the favored method of traveling in space, I think that might be some support for the “lots of time off-planet” theory. There’s also a few more planets in the background that don’t look like they’re from our solar system.

Look at the two largest planets. Earth’s on the left, and I can only assume Mars is the one on the right. Now, we know that M’gann and Conner are going to Mars, but the positioning is... interesting. M’comm already messed around with Earth in the third season. If I remember right, we don’t know why M’gann and Conner are going there. This is a bit of a stab in the dark, but could this mean we’re going to be seeing some inter-planetary conflict? 

Those globes in the background are awfully interesting! I can think of a lot of things they could connect to, like Halo’s powers, buuut the thing they most remind me of is the typical setup for DC’s multiverse. We often see multiple versions of Earth overlapping and interconnecting in art for things like Infinite Earths. Maybe each of these represents another dimension? Again, big stab in the dark, but, well, we are hoping to see Wally again, and alternate dimensions would be a way to handle that. 

There’s also the matter of the Legion of Superheroes character at the very end of Outsiders. They could be timeline-related instead of dimension-related. (That would also help tackle Bart’s backstory.)

Only the original team is featured in the poster. I repeat: only the ORIGINAL TEAM is on the poster. This is a dramatic change from stuff for Invasion and Outsiders. We’ve been promised more of the original team for this season, and I have to wonder... does this mean they’re going to take center stage again and put the newbies to the back? Because if so, yes please.  That isn’t to say that I don’t like the new kids. But look, I love the original Team, and frankly the show’s been incredibly overwhelming with all of the new kids. They need to put some characters on the backburner. In fact, I’d say it’s time to let the original Team wrap up some of their arcs. If they get a season to do their final stuff, the new kids could take over full-time in a theoretical fifth season and get the focus they deserve later.

As lots of people are pointing out: ROCKET!!! The radio-type play we heard last year already had her as a bigger focal point, but for her to be on the major poster is big. Is she finally getting the attention she deserves? Pleeeaaaase can we get an arc for Rocket?

And Zatanna! With any luck we’ll be getting some focus on her arc with Doctor Fate. 

(Just for the record. I wonder if this is the first YJ poster we’ve seen with more women than men on it.) 

I have no idea what those little cyrstals up in the corner are, but I get the sense they’ll be pretty important if they’re positioned in such a highlighted spot. Does anyone know what those could be? 

Also: NEW SEASON STREAMING SOON! It’s soon, y’all! It’s finally happening!

And that’s about it for first impressions. Once again: damn this is a beautiful poster. There’s not a ton of info here, but it’s enough to be notable. I kept forgetting that YJ was actually coming back this month (look, Leverage: Redemption has been more than enough on my plate), but jeez, I’ll definitely be thinking about it now. Phantoms is looking more promising by the minute.

[untraceable-ace]

Thoughts on “In case I make It” as I listen:

Gonna be a long one folks, I’ll put it under the cut

Tomcat Disposables: Tomcat Disposables my beloved you make me cry every time “What’s the moon made of?/Meet me there after I’m gone” SOBBING

Becoming the Lastnames: The piano gives me the same vibes as the piano in the Camp Here and There full songs (like MBYT and Venetian Blind Man) I love it

Cicada Days: Tied w Tomcat Disposables as my favorite single, literally so in love, forever happy that the intro is just kinda white noise mimicking cicadas and not actual cicada buzzing my spd is happy “and then my sponsor said do nothing, nothing works/and then my doctor said dont do that if it hurts” feels like a weighted blanket directly on my chest it’s wonderful

Euthanasia: Instrumental intro reminds me of a Days n Daze song; main verse melody is literally so haunting I love it

Falling Up: WOAH that felt like a curveball after Euthanasia oh DAMN the chorus slaps the acoustic makes the song feel really like, full bodied? Oh god after the falling up lyric it temporarily becomes a country song I’m not sure how I feel about that I just kinda had the mental image of a dude falling up the stairs the whole time during the chorus and tbh it’s a good one to have

That’s Enough, Let’s Get You Home.:  Oooh, I have a feeling I’m gonna love stim singing to this one once I get a chance to listen to it a lot more; OH I KNOW WHAT THIS REMINDS ME OF it reminds me of Cecily Smith from Fly By Night!!!

Um, it’s Kind of a Lot: I’d been thinking this one might have some sampling from Everything is a Lot (the song, not the album), but from what I’ve heard, there’s not any sampling from the song, but I think the piano parts are inspired by the album? Or at least it feels that way The piano def reminds me of the album piano vibes. Damn, Mr Wood has an obsession w tourniquets oh SHIT bridge/breakdown hits HARD hell yeah. Also, first appearance of brass so far on the album I think?

Half-Decade Hangover: omg guys he said the name of the song that’s the name of the song!!!/j OH SHIT SELF-ish REFERENCE This feels like something you’d hear at a bar w a piano on the stage for people to go up and play on

Vampire Reference in a Minor Key: Same thought process as Um, it’s Kind of a Lot; the title got me thinkin “o shit vampire culture reference?” But again I think I was wrong; Guitar do be bangin tho OOH he just did like a lil riff that reminded me of 6up 5Oh I wanna do a tango in a tight fitting red dress to this song

You Liked This (Okay, Computer!): it’s.....it says things??? Uhhh good commentary on society ig?? LMAO its not a song sorry yall

The Main Character: JAZZY AS FUCK WOAH I already wanna dance to this I think this might be my favorite song from the album “So god forbid I’m seen as an average human being” fuck man r you coming for me or what

Against the Kitchen Floor: FUNKNY ASS BASSLINE OH DAMN this one is literally so fun? I wanna swing dance w someone to this LMAO the end spoken bit I love when songs do that

Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll: I feel like I’d listen to this one when I’m sad, feels like a good one to listen to when I’m crying

Big Fat Bitchie’s Blueberry Pie, Christmas Tree, and Recreational Jell-o Emporium a.k.a. “Mr. Boy is on the Roof Again” (Feat. Pasta by Sneakers McSqueakers) [From the Motion Picture ”B.F.B.’s B-Sides: Bagel Batches, Marshmallows, and Barsh-mallows]: LMAO we’ve made a brief return to 30-word long song titles for this one fellas okay wait what the fuck is this LMAO wait okay okay vibing vibing 48 seconds of song for a 34 word long song title lets mcfucking go LMAO

Willard!: Feels like the main character’s power ballad in a musical; Wow yeah actually this is like- SUPER musical theater vibes damn oooh and I love the piano version of the Tomcat Disposables melody at the end

White Noise: The vocal melody on the chorus is muah muah chefs kiss This was a really good one to be the closer tbh AND OH OH the build up to the second chorus?? GOD that goes hard

Don’t worry everyone I’m sure I’ll be shitposting about at least one of the new songs later this week when I get a chance to hyperfixate on one or two

[xerxia31]

the Big Bang - an Everlark ficlet

Inspired by a story I read on CNN, that I couldn’t get out of my head. A warning - there are shades of dub-con here that may be disturbing to some readers. Rated M.

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Peeta Mellark was fit to be tied.

“I don’t know what you want me to say here, boy,” Haymitch drawled. “You knew where these characters were heading when you signed on.”

“Come on, Haymitch,” Peeta growled. He was standing in Haymitch Abernathy’s office, holding the week’s script while Haymitch, head writer and executive producer of the hit series The Arena, in which Peeta starred, stared at him from under a mop of greasy, overlong hair. Until now, Peeta had loved working on the show, loved the ensemble cast, loved the interesting storylines and well-written scripts.

But not today.

“They’ve been growing together slowly for three damned seasons and now, this week, bam!” Peeta clapped his hands for emphasis, “out of nowhere you have three fucking sex scenes in the script.” For three seasons the show had been teasing a relationship between the character Peeta played, macho FBI agent Barley St James, and his shy, brainy colleague, Allium Winterland. It was a fantastic story, well paced, the dialogue between them always fun. Nearly three years they’d been teasing the audience with it.

And now this week’s script turned everything on it’s head. “You’re just screwing with us.” There was no way the timing was coincidental. Because the actress who played Allium, the actress he’d be stripping down to his skivvies and dry-humping with on national television? She was none other than his now-ex-girlfriend.

Haymitch glanced away. Peeta thought it was in shame until Haymitch spoke.

“You might as well come in, Sweetheart,” Haymitch said, and Peeta spun to look behind him. “We were talking about you.”

Katniss Everdeen was standing just outside Haymitch’s open door. It was the first time Peeta had laid eyes on her in the flesh in two weeks. Two fucking weeks! He hadn’t seen her since the night she walked out of their house.

He knew where she’d gone though, the whole fucking world did. All of the gossip rags, and even the more reputable news sites, were reporting how her on again off again affair with one Gale Hawthorne, star of multiple movie franchises and People magazine’s sexiest man alive 2018, was definitely on again. 

“Story of my life,” Katniss muttered as she walked the rest of the way through the door, schooling her expression into a dispassionate scowl as she did. Peeta had no idea why she went into acting, he could read her every emotion through the impassive mask. He always could. Today was no exception, her mask might be in place, but her eyes were flashing with fury, and something that looked suspiciously like hurt.

She didn’t acknowledge Peeta at all, striding into the room on silent feet and stopping a solid six feet away. Her arms were crossed protectively over her chest, but her copy of the script was clenched in one fist. No doubt she’d been planning on storming in here to blast Haymitch. But Peeta beat her to it.

“Save your breath, Sweetheart,” Haymitch said. “Like I told the boy, you knew this was coming.”

“It’s fine,” she said, shooting a cool look in Peeta’s direction. “I’m a professional.” Then she turned, and strutted back out the door, back straight, long, black braid swinging. He could only watch, jaw clenched.

“Brrr,” Haymitch said. “You two have got a lot of warming up to do before showtime.” He was right, of course, and Peeta knew it. The audience would be expecting a pair of lovebirds. Not two people who could barely look each other in the eye.

“Whatever,” Peeta grunted. She wanted to play it that way? He could be cold too.

o-o-o

The table read went smooth as silk. Katniss sat on one side of the room, chatting lightly with their costar Delly Cartwright between scenes, Peeta sat on the other, joking with Cressida Faulkner, who was directing that week’s episode. Most of the cast had no clue Peeta and Katniss had broken up, because most of them never knew they’d been an item at all. Haymitch had figured it out somehow, clearly, but none of the other cast noticed anything was amiss. 

The following day’s rehearsal, not so much. Rehearsals were always in costume and filmed, so that the production team could splice in any good bits that came out of them. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence in TV, especially in a weekly series where time was tight. Peeta was used to it.

His first few scenes were fine, his lines came easily, he hit every mark. Then came the first scene he and Katniss shared that week, the one that led up to the first of the three fucking sex scenes. 

She walked onto the set, and Peeta’s heart did a slow tumble in his chest. She was utterly beautiful, her hair loose and flowing, and wearing a dress patterned with autumn leaves. Soft orange, his favourite colour.

The colour of heartbreak.

They both stumbled through their lines, avoiding each other's eyes, interacting stiffing and unnaturally. Cressida halted the scene over and over again. It was a huge drag on the rest of the cast, slowing down everything.

Peeta’s only solace was that Katniss looked as miserable as he felt.

Peeta left as soon as rehearsal ended and headed for the gym. The call sheet had them both in an evening meeting at the studio, and he was going to need to work off some steam before he faced her again.

He should have asked, though, what the meeting was about. Because when he got back to the studio he found Katniss, dressed in leggings and a tiny little tank top, her face bare and so pretty, sitting cross-legged on a gym mat and chatting with a willowy brunette who gave off crunchy granola vibes. “Did I miss the memo about mandatory yoga?” he drawled. 

Katniss scowled, but the brunette smiled beatifically. “Hello Mr. Mellark,” she said softly, her voice like windchimes, musical and irritating. “I’m Annie Cresta, your intimacy coordinator.”

Peeta was too confused to make a joke. “My what now?”

Annie laughed. “Intimacy coordinator,” she repeated. “It’s my job to choreograph simulated sex scenes for actors.”

“I think we know how sex works,” Peeta grumbled, and Katniss flushed, obvious without the stage makeup caked on her skin, then looked down at her lap. But Annie was undeterred.

“Of course,” she said gently. “But it’s about more than just choreography. It’s about helping you both to be comfortable, about navigating respect and consent and keeping the set safe.”

Peeta had heard about this, once before maybe, in the wake of the #metoo movement. But he’d never worked with one before. Katniss must have requested it. Figured she couldn’t even trust him to be a professional on the set. “With all due respect, Ms. Cresta,” Peeta said. “I don’t think we need this. We’ve both filmed scenes like this before.” Not with each other, but that was a minor point.

Katniss, to his surprise, looked inclined to agree. Annie just smiled.

“Not negotiable, I’m afraid,” she said. “All of Panem Entertainment’s productions must have an intimacy coordinator on set.” Peeta frowned, they were in the third season of filming, he’d never seen Annie before. As if reading his mind, she nodded. “I worked with Thresh Watts and Rue Lamonte last year.” That scene had been filmed on a closed set, Peeta had seen the finished product, but not any of the lead-up, and it hadn’t occurred to him at the time to ask about it.

Peeta sighed, and resigned himself to having a stranger teach him how to have fake sex with his real ex-girlfriend.

“Have a seat,” Annie said, indicating the mat beside Katniss. Peeta gritted his teeth, but he sat, his knee brushing hers.

She didn’t react.

“Now,” Annie said. “Communication is key.” Peeta snorted, and Katniss scowled at him. Communication. With the woman who had spoken a single word to him in the past 15 days. Sure. "The most important thing is that the people involved feel safe.”

“Why would we feel unsafe?” Peeta interrupted. There was a Cubs game on TV tonight, he’d rather be watching that.

Annie was unperturbed. “You're revealing a lot in a scene, you're going to places where you're vulnerable, and that requires an awful lot of trust," she said, looking pointedly between Peeta and Katniss. He wondered with some annoyance just how much Katniss had revealed to Annie about their situation before he’d walked in. “I have the script, and an outline of how your director wants it to look. But you two will need to talk with each other and with me and say, 'What are you comfortable with? What are you not comfortable with?'”

“I don’t want kissing,” Katniss blurted, then flushed again. “I mean,” she amended, “I’m not sure I can concentrate on both that and lines and choreography.” Peeta knew that was bullshit, in three seasons he could count on one hand the number of times Katniss had forgotten a line or missed a mark. 

She just didn’t want to kiss him. And it stung. 

Annie nodded. “We can work around that,” she said. “There will need to be some close up shots of you kissing, but they can be filmed separately from the simulated sex.”

Great, Peeta thought. Their characters had kissed a lot over the past three seasons, but that had been easy. They were both professionals, and kissing Katniss for the camera had been no big deal. Fun, even, in a comfortable, familiar way. Never sexual, there was always too much lipstick and stage makeup to worry about for there ever to be more than a peck. But steady, and comforting.

He doubted it’d be like that now. Or ever again.

“Let’s start with directorial expectations,” Annie began. “I’ve been given a timeline for the scenes and an outline of the specific angles that are expected. The most challenging part, from an intimacy perspective, is likely to be the third, which will be shot side angle with you, Peeta, on top of Katniss and no sheets to shield anything. We’ll have to block arms and leg placements carefully, and it’s likely you’ll both feel very vulnerable.”

Peeta didn’t see how that would be difficult, yet when Annie positioned him kneeling between Katniss’s thighs, a ridiculous little brocade cushion between their bodies, it was incredibly awkward. Katniss couldn’t hide in this position, with their faces only inches apart, and he couldn’t ignore, looking into her silver eyes, just how much he’d lost.

Two hours of rolling around on the floor, blocking arm and hand and leg movements sucked any sexy out of the scene. It felt robotic and contrived and awkward as hell. Katniss, for her part, looked fucking miserable. “Well,” Annie said finally. “I’m sensing some discomfort, so I think we should close for the evening.”

Peeta rolled onto his back on the mat and stared at the ceiling. Why was this so fucking hard? He was an actor, for god’s sake. He’d filmed sex scenes before, and none of them felt this shitty.

“I think we could do with a couple more rehearsals,” Annie said. “I’ll ask Cressida to schedule some.” Just fucking great, Peeta thought.

Annie floated away like an ethereal being. Katniss hung back, maybe to talk with him, maybe just to avoid Annie. But he wasn’t in the mood. He’d been subjected to her stony silences for two days, his heart hurt and his pride was dented and he just needed to get out and lick his wounds.

“Peeta,” Katniss said softly. Peeta held up his hand.

“Not now,” was all he said.

She scowled. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

Peeta almost leapt to his feet, his exhaustion morphing into rage. “Look, you haven’t said a damned word to me in weeks, you haven’t even come home for your things, and now you want to talk?” Peeta spat, cringing internally at his use of the word home to describe the house where they’d been living together until two weeks ago.

Katniss looked puzzled, under all of that anger. “Jo said you threw everything away.” Johanna Mason was a mutual… well... not quite friend. Peeta had often accompanied her to awards shows, in the early days of her career when she was concerned that if it got out that she preferred women, it would stop her from getting leading lady roles. She didn’t need to worry about that anymore, she was a bonafide A-lister these days, and her relationship with an adorably bubbly talk show host was in every magazine. But Jo generally had her own unknowable agenda and sometimes she liked to stir up shit just for fun. 

“You think I’d do that?” he asked, voice deceptively soft. He might have thought about it, fantasized about it really, when he found out who she was staying with. But he had more dignity than that, and she damned well should know it.

In fact, everything was exactly as she’d left it when she stomped out of their home, out of his life, 15 days ago. Her toothbrush was beside the bathroom sink, her favourite sweater on her favourite chair. A shabby silver-framed picture of her parents nestled between their awards. All of the homey pieces of her life, all of her simple treasures, abandoned. 

Katniss shrugged, like she didn’t care, like his worth, his honour, the life they’d built together, was inconsequential, and it just pissed Peeta off more. He hated her ice princess routine, hated how fucking above it all she was. She’d always been good at freezing him out, at making him chase her, but no more. He didn’t have to put up with her stone cold shit.

“Get you crap or I will toss it,” he seethed, walking away. She didn’t call after him, but then she never did.

o-o-o

Haymitch dropped two of the three sex scenes from the script. Peeta should have been relieved, he was relieved. But he also felt sick about it. Like he was destroying his career.

The tension on set was obvious and palpable now, and he knew it looked like he was the cause. Katniss, always quiet, remained quiet. But Peeta couldn’t fake it, once the cameras stopped. Cold didn’t come naturally to him, and too often he veered into mean and snappish. 

He had to figure out a way to get past this, to get past his anger, his hurt, and work with Katniss again. But he had no idea how.

Peeta leaned back in his favourite club chair, in the cozy den at the back of his house, and allowed himself to relive that day, the day it had all come crashing down. Until then, he’d thought he had it all, had the world in the palm of his hand. A great job, a comfortable home and the most radiant woman in the world in his bed every night. 

Katniss Everdeen had been a child star on a hugely popular sitcom. He knew her only by name when she showed up to screen test with him. He’d been expecting a cute little moppet. Instead, she was a silver-eyed stunner. And right off the bat, he was a goner.

They clicked, in almost every way. Working together was a joy, chatting together between takes a delight. He loved her intelligence and wry sense of humour. They moved from friends to more at breakneck speed, but it never felt too fast.

She was insistent that they keep a lid on their relationship, even when they eventually moved in together. He understood it, her previous relationship, also with a costar, had been documented to death, she’d been hounded and harassed by the paparazzi constantly, even now they followed her everywhere. He didn’t love keeping them a secret, but he loved Katniss, so he acquiesced. 

And that day, the day it all fell apart? It was supposed to be a good day, a great day. The first day of their two-week mid-season filming break. They had grand plans to do nothing but each other. Peeta had run a few errands, then stopped by his agent’s office to sign a couple of endorsement contracts.

That’s when the shit started.

“I figured you’d want to hear it from me first,” Finnick Odair, the best agent in the business, said with a grimace. He handed Peeta a tablet. Loaded up was the National Enquirer, his mother’s smirking face beside a promotional shot of Peeta and Katniss, and the headline, ‘It’s Real’. His fucking mother had struck again. It wasn’t the first time she’d sold Peeta out to the tabloids.

“Shit,” Peeta murmured. Not because the headline wasn’t true, it was. But Katniss guarded her privacy with clenched fists, and for two years, they’d barely let anyone in on their secret. Finn knew, but he was very discreet and like he’d said when Peeta had first hired him, he couldn’t protect Peeta unless he knew all of his secrets.

“She’s going to be pissed, huh?” Finn said sympathetically.

He didn’t know the half of it.

Peeta was in a foul temper and all he wanted was his quiet house and a couple of fingers of scotch before he had to deal with Katniss, who was sure to be furious. But no, he wouldn’t even get that. Because Rye was standing at his front door when he arrived home. Peeta groaned, and parked in front of the house, instead of pulling into the garage, where the door he generally entered by was. They’d chosen this place because the gated community was supposed to offer them more privacy and security. He was going to have to talk with the guard at the gate again. Just because Rye looked like his brother didn’t mean Peeta wanted him here. 

“Peet,” Rye said genially as Peeta unlocked the seldom-used front door. 

“What do you want, Rye?” Peeta really had no time for his brother’s bullshit, not that day of all days, and he hadn’t bothered hiding his annoyance.

“I can’t just pop by to see my little brother?” Rye never came by unless he wanted something. Often it was money. Rye seldom worked, preferring to live off his association with Peeta There were a lot of people in LA who would wine and dine the families of celebrities, looking for an in. Rye had brought him a few abominable scripts over the years from people who’d promised him a big finders fee if he could get Peeta to sign on.

“Cut to the chase, Rye,” Peeta said impatiently. There was a small liquor cabinet in the living room closest to the front door. Not that they ever lived in this room. It was only for show, the place where outsiders were held, away from the parts of the house where they actually did their living.

“Fine,” Rye laughed. “Tell me it isn’t true, little brother,” he said. There was no point pretending Peeta didn’t know what he was talking about. Rye was a terrible gossip hound. Peeta shook his head. “Thank god,” Rye said. “You can do so much better than that. She’s not very big, and definitely not hot.” 

Peeta sighed. Rye’s taste in women only included girls who fawned all over him. Katniss would never make that list. 

“Where did Mom come up with that idea anyway?” Rye asked, eyeing the single glass Peeta poured with interest. Peeta was not going to offer him a drink. He wasn’t going to do anything that suggested Rye was welcome to stay. “It’s pretty fucking crazy, even for her.”

“I don’t know,” Peeta grumbled. He knew exactly where. She must have listened in on one of Peeta’s calls with his father. His dad was his best friend, Peeta just couldn’t keep secrets from him. But the old man wasn’t always careful when he talked to Peeta.

“Katniss Everdeen. As fucking if. You have much better taste than that,” Rye laughed. “Remember that chick you were with a couple of years ago? The one who was in Playboy?”

“Cashmere Solomon,” Peeta muttered half under his breath. He’s gone out with her twice, and she’d been a nightmare, only interested in what he could do for her celebrity.

“She was hot,” Rye nodded. “I hooked up with her, after.” That was more than Peeta needed to know.

“Look,” Peeta started, an attempt to get rid of Rye, to get back to his plans for a few quiet minutes before Katniss got home and he’d have to have another, very different conversation on this topic.

“Mom’s a mental case,” Rye interrupted. “Like you’d ever stoop low enough to fuck that Everdeen chick. Stuck up little bitch like that? You’ve got more pride.”

“Are we done?” Peeta was bone weary, and not at all in the mood to listen to one of his brother’s diatribes. “I’ve got a lot of stuff to do tonight.”

“Right, right,” Rye said. Peeta didn’t give a damn whether his brother believed him or not. He started to guide Rye back to the entryway. “I don’t know how Hawthorne puts up with her, “ Rye said. “Rumour has it she’s completely frigid.”

Peeta laughed, he couldn’t help it. Katniss was the furthest thing in the world from frigid, she was a live wire in bed, far and away the best sex of his life. And she had broken up with Gale Hawthorne some four years earlier, but the media still wrote about them as if they were just taking a break.

“Listen,” Rye said, though Peeta was already shepherding him towards the door. “I know this girl, Glimmer her name is. Tits for miles! She’s working on a pilot.” Working on a pilot was LA code for unemployed. “She’s so hot,” Rye continued, oblivious to Peeta’s irritation, “spend a little time with her, I’ll get my pap friend to follow you. That’ll make the Enquirer story go away. Kill any hint of association with that little piece of work.”

“Bye, Rye, Peeta said, pushing his brother through the door.

“Call me,” Rye said, and Peeta slammed the door in his face, flipping the bolt. Idiot. He exhaled slowly, then turned.

Katniss was standing behind him. Shit. How much of Rye’s crap had she heard?

“How could you let him talk about me that way,” she asked, her voice low and dangerous.

Peeta cringed. Evidently most of it. “What was I supposed to say? You don’t want him to know we’re together.”

“We have to be together for you to defend me?” Katniss asked, incredulous. “Women are only worth defending if you’re fucking them?”

Peeta rolled his eyes. “Don’t give me that bullshit,” he said. “You know I’m not like that.”

“Do I?” Katniss was pacing, little mincing steps that would fit on a pie plate. “Sure as hell didn’t sound like it.”

“What was I supposed to say?” Peeta was yelling. He flung his arms wide, expensive scotch sloshed over the edge of his glass, splashed his watch. Just great.

“How about ‘Katniss isn’t a stuck up little bitch’ for starters?”

“Jesus, Katniss, why do you even care? You know he’s an asshole.”

“He said awful things about me, in my own home, and you just stood there and nodded, like you agreed,” Katniss snapped. “That was a total dick move.”

“Well excuse-fucking-me,” Peeta said, “but it’s not even your house.” She lived there, but the lease was in his name. Her official address was an empty condo in Van Nuys, so that people wouldn’t figure out they were shacked up together. He hated the cloak and dagger bullshit, but she’d insisted.

Katniss froze, face twisted in disgust. “You’re right,” she said quietly. “It’s not.”

Before Peeta even had a chance to respond, the door was slamming behind her.

Peeta knew, even before she’d gotten to her car, that he was wrong. But he was angry, angry with his mother, angry with his brother, and pissed as hell that Katniss insisted on hiding, like he was some dirty secret instead of the man she’d been dating for two years.

She didn’t come home that evening. Peeta wasn’t completely surprised. It wasn’t the first time she’d frozen him out. He’d give her the night, then apologize in the morning.

But when morning came, his phone had blown up with texts. TMZ was running a spread of pictures, grainy and obviously through a long lens. Katniss, standing on a balcony, and not alone. With her was Gale-fucking-Hawthorne, her ex. She was locked in his embrace wearing only a robe, while he was in boxers. The gossip sites were having a field day, former lovers reunited.

Peeta, still in bed, dialed his phone. She answered on the second ring, voice hoarse. “Are you with Gale?” Peeta asked with no preamble.

There was the slightest of pauses. “Yes,” Katniss said.

“You couldn’t fucking wait to go rushing back to his bed?” Peeta yelled. “Or maybe you never really left?”

The line died in his hand. It was the last time they’d spoken, until now.

o-o-o

Katniss made no further attempt to talk to Peeta, outside of what they said on the soundstage. She’d doubled down on the ice princess routine, speaking to him in cold, overly formal tones when the cameras weren’t rolling.

 Working with Annie Cresta hadn’t gotten any better either, but at least they’d managed to memorise a routine—hand here, thigh there, twist this way, arch like that. Annie insisted it would look a lot more natural than it felt. Peeta wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t care. He just wanted the thing done.

The scene was set for late afternoon, after the rest of principal photography was done for the episode and the lion’s share of cast and crew had left. “Saving the best for last,” Cressida chirped, but no one really believed that.

Katniss had a rider in her contract specifying no nudity, Peeta knew that. He hadn’t bothered with one himself, he didn’t care who saw him, but Katniss had always been uncomfortable baring everything. In other scenes, the production sometimes used a body double for Katniss. But this scene, the scene, would be her and him, on a bed, doing choreographed dry humping. It had to be her, there wasn’t any other choice.

Haymitch wasn’t on set, something Peeta suspected was Katniss’s doing, but he appreciated it. The crew was at a bare minimum, to make it easier for the actors, but it was still a lot of people. Cressida was directing, busily setting up the scene. Two female grips he’d never met before were behind the stationary cameras, two of his favourite camera guys—Castor and Pollox—had the handhelds. Two more grips had the boom mics, a gaffer adjusted the lights, and a set designer, Octavia, was fussing over the bedding, rumpling it in an artistic way that Peeta knew from rehearsal would last about twelve seconds before they destroyed it. Annie, strangely, was nowhere to be seen. He’d thought that, as their intimacy coordinator, she’d be there to coach when they actually filmed. Apparently not.

“Let’s get this show on the road,” Cressida called out, affecting a carefree tone. Peeta knew it was an act, an attempt to get all of them to relax. The antagonism and animosity between the two leads wasn’t exactly a secret, not anymore, and the mood on the small soundstage was tense. No one was looking forward to this.

Katniss had seen him naked a thousand times, had touched and stroked and tasted every inch of his body. Still, it was strange, even on a closed set, to be standing in front of her wearing nothing but a sock tied to his dick. She was clutching the edges of her pink silk robe so tightly her knuckles were white, and looking everywhere but at him.

Cinna approached and helped Katniss out of her robe, careful not to disrupt the cascade of windblown curls Peeta knew had likely taken an hour and several cans of product to achieve. Katniss’s hair was naturally pin straight, yet they were always curling it in the show, and she hated it. So focussed was Peeta on her hair that he didn’t notice what she was wearing until Cinna stepped away, leaving Katniss standing beside the bed in a pair of pasties and an adhesive pad that covered her pubic hair and not much else. Peeta couldn’t help but stare. It was far less than he was expecting, Annie had told him Katniss would be wearing a pair of flesh coloured panties and a little tube top over her boobs. “The sides of her underwear showed in the test shots,” Castor muttered in his ear. “Haymitch insisted on that instead.”

For half a minute, Peeta felt really bad for Katniss, knowing her discomfort, knowing what it was costing her to stand under the lights and in front of so many people wearing little more than three bandaids. But then she sighed, and barked, “can we just get this over with?” and any sympathy Peeta felt for her evaporated like spring snow.

The scene opened with them both on the bed. They’d practiced the routine, both on floor mats and on a set bed. But in rehearsal, they’d been clothed, pillows between them to minimise contact.

No longer.

Now, they were essentially naked, skin pressed to skin, staring wide-eyed at each other. She was so soft under him, fit him so perfectly. Her breath—sharp, nervous little pants—caressed his jaw, his throat. Her hands, small but so much stronger than they looked, clutched at this back.

His dick twitched and hardened, he couldn’t fucking help it. They’d fucked a thousand times over the previous two years, he’d always been insanely attracted to her. His dick didn’t know that this time it wasn’t real. He clenched his teeth and kept going. There was no way, positioned as they were, to prevent her from feeling it. 

Katniss smirked at him, just a fleeting little hint of amusement, but coupled with his embarrassment at getting turned on when the ice fucking queen clearly felt nothing it was too much. Rage flooded his veins like venom. He sneered down at Katniss, uncaring if the handycam caught his expression. Then he deliberately rocked against her, rubbing his hard cock against her core, only a little strip of fabric and a glorified sock between them. 

Her breath caught, a choked little sound. 

“Like that, princess?” he spat, lowering his mouth to her ear. “You like knowing that you can still get me hot?”

She moaned softly. It just made him angrier. Was she acting, or actually responding? Was she thinking about Gale while he was grinding against her? Had she always been thinking about him?

The few lines he was supposed to say flew out of his head. “Does your boyfriend get you hot like this?” he groaned instead, anger and lust combining. “Do you moan for him like you did for me?” Her hands, which had been moving through the choreography much more fluidly than in rehearsal suddenly froze. “Does he fill you up as good as I did?”

“Peeta,” Katniss whispered, a hint of warning in her tone. But he was too mad. Mad and heartsick and wildly turned on, it was a potent brew. He couldn’t stop. He ground harder against her, his chest rasping against her breasts, bare but for a pair of stickers. He nipped at her earlobe with sharp teeth, and her gasp was loud over his harsh breaths.

“Do you melt for him, ice princess?” She said nothing, but he didn’t care. He angled his hips and thrust hard, the way he knew she liked. He rocked over and over again, forgetting about the others in the room, lost in Katniss, however fake it might be.

“Do you want to give them a show,” he growled against her throat. “Take off the guard? One last fuck, for old times sake?”

“Stop,” she said, so faintly it was barely a breath. “Please.” Peeta pulled back. Beneath him, Katniss’s eyes were screwed tightly shut, tears leaking from the corners. The anger rushed away, leaving him horrified and utterly ashamed. 

He rolled away and climbed off the bed. “Need a break,” he grunted. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Katniss had curled onto her side, facing away, naked and vulnerable. The need to comfort her battled with the sick feeling in his gut over how cruel he’d been. How completely unlike himself.

Cressida called out to him, but he didn’t want to hear whatever she was going to say. Couldn’t stay another minute on that set.

He pushed past Castor who was staring open-mouthed, the camera on his shoulder still blinking as it ran, and stomped to his dressing room. There, he sank into a chair, the leather sticking to his bare ass. He pulled the modesty bag off his now-deflated cock and dropped his head into his hands.

How had it gotten to this?

How had he gotten to the point where he was tormenting the woman he loved more than life with fake sex on their job site? Bullying her to tears in front of their crew. 

He was disgusted with himself. That wasn’t who he was.

He needed to go to Katniss and apologise, for more than just the scene. 

Fifteen minutes later, he’d calmed down and thrown on sweats. Katniss’s dressing room door was closed, but he knew she wasn’t in there. He walked past the small set and the little office Annie had used, but he knew she wouldn’t be there either.

Down the hall, past craft services stood the door to the electrical room. It was never locked. Peeta pushed inside. Past all of the clutter and detritus of broken light stands and boxes of cables was another door, narrow and unmarked. A steep set of metal stairs lay beyond it, and at the top a door he had to duck to walk through.

Then he was standing on the roof, a soft Burbank breeze ruffling his hair.

It wasn’t anything special, this part of the roof, gravel-topped and housing the building’s HVAC system. But it was their spot, a place no one else ever went. A place they could find some measure of solitude in the midst of a busy studio. No one ever disturbed them up here.

Katniss was sitting on the low ledge that bisected the roof, wrapped in a robe, her pink silk clad back to him. He knew she must have heard his approach, the gravel beneath him crunched with every step. But she didn’t move, didn’t react as he straddled the cement to lower himself beside her.

She didn’t turn towards him, but she didn’t need to. Her profile said everything: smudged makeup, red nose, puffy eyes. The breeze caught loose tendrils of her hair, blowing them around her face but she was still and silent save for her uneven breaths. An island in a tempest. Her eyes remained fixed on the horizon, past the endless parking lots and low studio buildings to where the sun was sinking low, bathing the sky in soft orange. Her silence wasn’t icy tonight. Pain radiated from every line, every curve.

“I’m sorry,” Peeta started. Katniss nodded, her posture otherwise unchanged. “I was a complete dick in there, and you didn’t deserve any of that. It was inexcusable.” He took a deep breath, steeling himself. “I don’t want to go on like this. Making out for the cameras, then ignoring each other when they’re off. I was hoping that if I stopped being so, you know, wounded, we could take a shot at being friends?” It would certainly make their jobs a lot easier.

“I’ve never slept with Gale,” she said softly, and Peeta startled. That wasn’t even possible. She’d run right back to him, was living with him again.

As if reading his mind, Katniss continued. “He’s been a good friend to me, a brother in some ways. But we’ve never had a physical relationship.”

“Bullshit,” Peeta sputtered, conciliatory tone gone. “You were with him for years.”

Katniss glanced at him then, a half smirk twisting her lips. “You were with Johanna for years too,” she said.

“You know that wasn’t real. And Gale isn’t gay.”

Katniss shrugged, and turned back to the horizon. 

Peeta continued to watch her. He knew all of her expressions, her every tell. She wasn’t lying.

“Why,” he started, then stopped. That wasn’t the question he really needed an answer to. “You let me think you were together.”

“Maybe I wanted to hurt you,” she whispered. “Like you hurt me.”

Mission accomplished, he thought. He’d been in fucking agony since he saw the TMZ pictures, and the ones that followed; Katniss and Gale riding in his convertible, Katniss and Gale leaving a trendy LA cafe, Katniss and Gale sipping wine on the balcony of his oceanfront estate. It had been a form of masochism, adding her name to his news alerts and reading the day's gossip about her blossoming relationship with Gale Hawthorne.

Could it really have all been fake?

Katniss and Gale had been on the same sitcom as children, had played cousins. So when, years later, they moved in together, of course everyone assumed they were together. They’d certainly never done anything to contradict it.

“You never mentioned that before,” Peeta said quietly. Not that Gale’s name had come up often in their time together, but they’d talked about past relationships, and she’d never said that Gale had been nothing more than a friend. She’d really never said anything about her years with Gale, and that had always made Peeta insecure, wondering if she’d still harboured feelings for him. If she kept their relationship a secret not from the world, but from Gale Hawthorne. Katniss shrugged.

“I didn’t think it would matter. You’re in the business, you know how often dating is just for show.”

He did. But he’d been upfront with Katniss about Jo, he’d never let her think there was anything there. That she hadn’t given him the same respect, hadn’t trusted him, was gutting.

“He kissed me, once,” Katniss said, and Peeta’s stomach clenched in inappropriate jealousy. “I was seventeen. It was the summer after we’d both finished filming Seam Street, but before he got his big break on that superhero movie. Back when we thought we might still be normal.” She was smiling sadly, lost in the moment. “We both gagged,” she continued, and Peeta’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. Katniss laughed softly, but it wasn’t at Peeta. It was at whatever she was remembering. “All of those childhood friends to lovers tropes, it definitely wasn’t like that for me and Gale. Kissing him was…” Katniss trailed off, shuddering. “I love Gale, he’s mine, I’m his. But not like that.

“But it didn’t matter. Once the media decided we were together, they invented stories. Every time we went anywhere together, they took pictures and manipulated them to fit whatever story they’d decided to write about us that week.” Katniss sighed, and rubbed her eyes. “We couldn’t have a life, outside of each other. Anytime either of us was seen with another person, the tabloids went crazy. I got my own place, tried to put some distance there. But it didn’t stop.

“And after he started dating Claudia, it all got worse,” she said. “The media, and fans who decided that he and I belonged together, they couldn’t let it go. They hounded her incessantly, called her a homewrecker and things far worse. Trolled her on social media, harassed her family, and anything either of us tried to get them to back off only made things worse. When she finally broke things off with him, he blamed me, at least a bit.” She paused, and sniffled. “It’s why we’ve barely talked over the past few years. First because it bothered Claudia, and then because Gale was so pissed off. It came close to destroying our friendship.”

Peeta sat in stunned silence as realisation washed over him. “That’s why you wanted to keep us a secret,” he said. “You were protecting me.” 

“Private,” she said. “Not secret. And that’s what you and I do, protect each other. Or did,” she added softly. 

But he hadn’t protected her. Not on the set, and not from his brother’s vitriol.

“I’m sorry,” Peeta said. “I shouldn’t have let Rye talk shit about you. And I shouldn’t have been all defensive when you rightly called me on it.”

She nodded again, but didn’t turn towards him. And he didn’t know how to bridge the gulf. He’d been wrong, on so many levels. But she hadn’t trusted him, and still didn’t. She could have eased so many of his insecurities just by being honest. But she hadn’t.

He wanted to fix things. He wanted to be with her again, this time with more openness and honesty. To build a better relationship, one they both deserved. He wasn’t sure if it was possible with so much hurt between them. But he wanted to try. He just needed to get Katniss on the same page, and he knew from experience that wasn’t likely to be easy. 

“We should go back,” Peeta said what felt like an hour later. The sun was almost gone, and though the air still held the perpetual California heat, Katniss was shivering in the breeze. “I’m done being a wounded prick, I promise.”

Katniss turned to him, finally. She still looked so sad, with her red eyes and ruined makeup. His heart clenched. “Cressida called shooting for the day,” she said. “Didn’t think either of us was in a good place to continue.” Haymitch would doubtless be pissed, any disruption in the schedule was tens of thousands of dollars wasted. Peeta sighed, but he knew it was the right call. 

“Probably for the best,” Peeta said. “We’re a mess.”

Katniss laughed, just slightly, and Peeta grinned at her. When he extended his hand to help her up, she took it, and it felt so good to feel her fingers entwined with his again, not for show but in actual friendship.

They walked back to the dressing rooms together. “Do you maybe want to get dinner together?” Peeta asked, and he knew he sounded small and uncertain. But to his surprise, Katniss nodded.

“I’d like that,” she said.

They walked out to the lot thirty minutes later, and Peeta led her to his car. She was wearing jeans and a little tank top, her hair pulled back in a no-fuss braid and a pair of sunglasses shielding eyes that still bore traces of the evening’s emotions. She was in every way Katniss, the woman he loved. But he could feel her holding back, feel the stiffness and uncertainty in the way she looked at him, spoke to him. Not intentional, simply reflexive, like she was trying to keep her heart safe. From him. The wall between them loomed large. It was going to take a Herculean effort to break it down.

There was a restaurant, Sae’s, not too far from the house they’d shared. It catered to people like them. The front was nothing so much as a shabby little diner, but in the back were private, windowless rooms where they could have a meal without prying eyes.

Peeta ordered pasta and Katniss got her favourite goat cheese and apple panini. But the way she pushed the food around on her plate spoke to how distressed she still was. Katniss typically ate with gusto, like she was afraid she’d never see food again. 

He left her be, keeping conversation light, trying to ease her back into being comfortable with him. Joking with her, the way he always had. She smiled, but it felt hollow. If anything, she seemed to get more sad as the meal wore on. Peeta’s spirits flagged.

He paid the bill, and they headed out the back door. There, he stopped, and pulled Katniss to stand in front of him. 

“Talk to me,” Peeta said, voice gruff with guilt.

“About what?” She wasn’t being flippant, if anything, she sounded defeated.

“Katniss,” he sighed. She looked up at him, eyes unfathomable, dark pools in the lamplight. He could tell she was trying to psych herself up to talk. So he leaned against the restaurant wall and waited.

“I’m sorry, okay,” she said finally, and it wasn’t what he was expecting. “I’m sorry that keeping us a secret hurt you. It was never my intention to hurt you.”

Peeta opened his mouth, to say he understood better now, but she pushed on.

“And it didn’t mean I loved you any less.”

“Loved?” Her use of past tense gutted him. “Not anymore?”

In the deep shadows of the single street light, he could see her face crumple. She wrapped her arms around her body, as if shielding herself from another blow. “Does it matter?” Her words were choked, he could hear she was fighting tears again. “I know what you think of me.”

“Katniss,” he said, the word regret-soaked. 

“Frigid little ice princess,” she parroted, but there was no anger. Only pain. 

“I didn’t mean it,” Peeta said. “I know that’s not you.” She played at being cold sometimes. But underneath, she was a flame, burning bright.

“Everyone thinks that about me. They always have.”

“I don’t,” Peeta said, and he let the pleading come through in his voice, let her hear his own pain. “I know you’re not cold. You’re the girl on fire.” Katniss’s lips twitched at the old nickname, one she’d gotten as a teenager in an action movie. But her heartbroken expression didn’t change. “I was angry, and wounded, and I lashed out. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” she said, then she was wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. Peeta pulled her in close and buried his face in her hair. It was the first time he’d felt whole in more than two weeks, like the broken piece of his soul had returned. 

Her little body shook against him, he knew she was crying. “Shhh,” he said, stroking her back. “Shhh. It’s going to be okay.” It was. He’d make sure of it.

“Just missed you so much,” she muttered. His heart soared.

“I love you,” he whispered. “Please come home.” 

She didn’t say anything. But he felt her nod against his chest. And it was enough.

He took her back to his place, to their place. They were both exhausted, emotions raw, and had an early morning call, to redo the evening’s ruined scene. But she climbed into bed beside him, and he held her all night.

They were quiet the next morning, tentative and uncertain around each other, but they were together, and Peeta was committed to making things better, for both of them. He’d be patient. He’d communicate better. He’d lost the love of his life once, he wouldn’t let it happen again. 

They climbed back into his car, since hers was at the studio, but as soon as the garage door opened Peeta saw Rye there, waving his phone. Beside him, Katniss tensed, and shrank down into her seat. He could almost smell her pain. Just fucking great. The moron had to show up now, when they had barely started patching things together. 

“I’ve been calling you all morning,” Rye said as soon as Peeta stepped out of the car. It was just past eight, Rye didn’t typically get up before noon. Peeta suspected he hadn’t yet been to bed.

“Go home, Rye,” Peeta said. “This isn’t the time.”

“They’re saying this is you and that Everdeen chick,” Rye insisted, shaking his phone in Peeta’s face. Sure enough, on the screen was a dark and blurry shot of him, holding Katniss in his arms. Her face wasn’t visible, but her long black braid and sweet little ass were perfectly recognisable. Fuck. He thought they’d be safe at Sae’s. But he’d been wrong. Again. “I already told the Hollywood Reporter it was fake, that you wouldn’t slum with the likes of that—”

“Shut up!” Peeta roared, and for once, Rye stopped talking. “Katniss is the woman I love, and I won’t listen to you disparage her anymore,” Peeta said. “Now get the fuck out of here and stop fucking talking to the media about me.” Peeta was seething. He was going to make sure that security guard was fired. Maybe his boss too. And his boss’s boss.

Rye backed away, hands held up in supplication. “Sure, yeah,” he said quickly. “I’ll just get out of your hair. We’ll talk more later, yeah?”

Peeta didn’t dignify that with an answer. He spun on his heel, to head back to the car. But Katniss was there already, standing just behind him. She must have heard everything they’d said, and worse, Rye would have seen her there. He flinched, but she just smiled at him, then walked straight into his arms.

“Thank you,” she said. 

Fuck. She didn’t need to thank him for defending her, it’s what any decent person would do. “I should have said that last time,” he admitted, tightening his hold on her.

“You said it this time,” she said. Then she stretched up onto her toes, and kissed him.

Relief and disbelief and so much love flooded Peeta. He cupped her ass in his hands and hoisted her into his arms, his lips never leaving hers.

He knew Rye was watching. Knew that some of their neighbours could see them too. “We should go back to the garage,” he whispered between kisses that were growing too hot for the street. “People are watching.”

“Let them,” she gasped. “I don't want to hide how I feel about you. Not anymore.”

He laughed against her lips, and kissed her more.

o-o-o

She was sitting in her favourite chair, a mug of camomile tea forgotten beside her, when Peeta got home. He glanced at the television glowing on the wall and groaned. “Access Hollywood? Really?” Katniss, his Katniss, was watching the creme de la creme of shitty tabloid TV. 

Their relationship had been dissected endlessly by the gossip shows in the four months since they’d been outed, first by his attention-seeking mother, then by a slightly risqué public display of affection in front of their house that had been captured on cellphone video by multiple sources. Peeta understood so much better now why Katniss had tried so hard to avoid unwanted exposure. He was sick to death of the coverage.

But they were handling it together. 

“Shhh,” she said, grinning. “They’re discussing whether we really did the deed while shooting Allium and Barley’s big scene.” Peeta glanced back at the television. The banner read 15 Times 'Love' Scenes On Screen Were Real.

“Oh my god,” Peeta groaned, and sank into the chair beside Katniss’s, covering his face with his hands.

The day after their disastrous first attempt at filming, they’d gone back to the set and found Haymitch waiting for them. The crusty old bastard had actually apologised for putting them in such a shitty position, and told them he’d take the scene out, make it a fade to black.

“No,” Katniss had said, silver eyes brighter than they’d been all week. “The script needs the scene. Our fans need it. And we’re ready this time.”

The second attempt had been so much better. It was still awkward, the choreography still felt strange. One of her pasties came unstuck and ended up caught in his chest hair. Twice they had to cut filming when Katniss started giggling. 

Peeta had been loath to watch it, once it’d been edited. Afraid to reopen the barely healing wounds. But the end result, just as Annie promised, looked real. The cameras caught their very real joy at being reunited, their very real love for one another. And those things made the very fake sex look like something more.

They’d filmed several more sex scenes over the course of finishing the season, each easier than the last. Communication, it turned out, did make the scenes less awkward. And it helped with their real relationship too.

But the first scene, the one that Peeta still cringed thinking about, that episode had aired just days ago.

The television sound cut off abruptly and Katniss burst into laughter. Peeta peeked out from between his fingers. Frozen on the big screen was a shot of Peeta’s ass in all of its hi-def glory, and Mario Lopez was pointing to a spot just between his thighs where apparently a hint of nutsack had been caught by the camera. 

Well that brought unwanted exposure to a whole new level. 

Peeta groaned. “I’m putting a nudity rider in my next contract,” he mumbled.

[masqueradeball]

How about number 3? Like, tell us all about it if you want :)

Oh my gosh 🥺 thank you so much for giving me my first ask! 💖 I'm eternally grateful I get to spill all my pheels out.

3. What is my favorite Phantom tv/film adaptation?

My absolute favorite Phantom is the 1925 Lon Chaney silent film. He just embodies everything that I like about Gaston Leroux's Erik for me and he is both horrifying and pitiable. I dislike the ending but I can live with it given it's what test audiences wanted at the time. I truly love his Red Death costume. You can find it on Youtube and the Tubi app for free.

My first runner up would be Claude Raines in the 1943 because his Erique so soft and tragic in that film I cannot help but love him. This was one was my grandma's favorite 'classic monster' movies that she loved, so I have a special place in my heart for this one. I love his hair and appreciate that he was one fine silver fox before the revenge and jealousy issues set in. The opera parts are a little boring, but the costumes and the sassy diva rival to Christine are worth the watch. We get 2 handsome Raouls who end up going to dinner together at the end of the movie and a Christine who gets to bask in the limelight of her career while not choosing any suitor, which is the best possible outcome for her. Double play for the win in my book! You can watch it for free on the Peacock app.

My next runner up is a 3 way tie between Robert Englund, Gerard Butler, and Charles Dance.

I honestly enjoy all their performances because they each bring something unique to the role.

I cannot stress enough how violent the Robert Englund version is if you want to give it a go, but Erik Destler is insane, twisted, and fabulously murdertastic in this. I love the creepy, evil vibes the man gives off. Think of this film as a time travel AU of the original novel. I feel like he nailed Leroux Erik's darker, snarky personality that some people tend to forget he had and the gothic horror parts of the original novel are there. Bonus: they keep the Faust parallels like in the novel!

I'm gonna say it: I love the Charles Dance miniseries. I know it's not the best, but damn, he is so dry and sarcastic I cannot help but enjoy his performance. I want to pinch his cheeks and smother Cherik with the love his father never gave him everytime I see him. Again, this one focuses on the operas a lot, and for me it's a bit boring. But the backgrounds, settings, and props in this thing are fantastic and the costumes are wonderful too.

That leaves Gerard Butler in the 2004 movie. No he is not the world's greatest singing Phantom, but I don't care. I absolutely love his facial expressions and body language. The Phantom is an emotional, expressive dude and the Red Death costume scene is pretty good. I love how kind and sincere Emmy feels in this film and I appreciate she's not overracting and doesn't feel fake compared to some other Christines *coughSierracough* Being the film version of the ALW musical, this Phantom story focuses on the romance and Gerard excels at that. When he and Christine are singing Past the Point of no Return, I FEEL THEIR PASSION! And that's what counts more so than hitting the same notes we've all heard a million times before.

Now for the versions in the 'I will eternally like this' category 😊 :

The Phantom of the Paradise from 1974. This is also a very violent and dark film so fair warning if you haven't seen it. It's a bizarre rock musical, but if you're weird like me and enjoy Rock & Rule or the Rocky Horror Picture Show, this might be a film you'd like too. I don't want to spoil it too much but the Faust/devil parallels are here too, as is various pop culture references. His teeth and mask are terrifyingly cool, and so is the electronic voice box he uses. It makes sense Daft Punk was inspired by this film. Maybe G1 Soundwave was inspired by this film too, but that's a debate for another day 😉

Next is the animated 1988 film. This one features animation on par with other 80s tv cartoons of the time. I love that they kept the Persian and the torture chamber from the novel. The Phantom's death scene is pretty damn epic. Christine is kind of a flake, but animated Leroux Erik is hilariously insane and terribly charming, especially when he calls himself a Don Juan. It's worth watching just for his antics and his dialouge.

You might not expect a Goosebumps episode to do a Phantom story any justice, but here we are: 1995, The Phantom of the Auditorium is a spooky fun take on the story and honestly, I'd like to see the full play the kids at that school are putting on cause it looks better than some of the live Phantom stage scenes I've seen. Both young boys playing the Phantom are fantastic actors and the plot twist at the end is great.

I absolutely have to give a shout out to Wishbone's Pantin at the Opera. He is the best, cutest, most adorable Raoul de Chagney ever and I will fight you if you dare talk smack about this version. I'm not even a Raoul stan by any means but like, this dog is precious and I enjoy this episode so much.

Also in the animated category and cute dog category is Scooby Doo Stage Fright made back in 2013. This movie is one of my fave Scooby Doo films (yes I own almost all of them on dvd) and there are multiple Phantoms, a reality tv show contest, and Fred and Daphne finally kiss each other! Lots and lots of hidden Phantom references in the background and lots of voice acting talent for those of us who appreciate that.

Now for the versions I intensely dislike 😏

The 1962 Herbert Lom version. UGH where to start. The sets are so small and everything looks dirty and of the wrong time period. The color in the film looks washed out. The clothes look too modern somehow (maybe it's their hairstyles?) and it bothers me. It feels low budget in a bad way and it shows. This phantom is not likeable or pitiable even though his backstory is similar to the Claude Raines version. He has no romantic interest in Christine, so it feels off. This guy is such an old a$$ piece of sh*t, he literally slaps Christine as she's singing for him for no damn reason. His paper mache mask looks like a Kindergartener's botched art class project. His personality is like somebody locked up cranky grandpa in the basement and he's PMS-ing because y'all forgot to give him his daily prune juice. This squatter's lair lacks creepiness, and his bizarre sidekick is annoying and yet somehow more interesting than the Phantom. The pervert manager trying to bang Christine aggravated me and simultaneously made me want to vomit. Raoul is the only likeable character in the whole damn movie. The Joan of Arc opera scene makes up for some of the film, but it's still terrible.

Next on my meh list is the 1983 made for tv movie starring Micheal York and Jane Seymour. Now, this one has some likeable and applaudable scenes: the various murders and general creepiness of the Phantom, and the lair scene when she wakes up in his bed and the Phantom gets all up in her face is so intense and so Leroux I absolutely love it. The rest of the film is a jumbled hot mess at best, but Jane Seymour is 🔥 and she gets some damn good sex, so hell yeah to that!

And lastly, I do not like the Royal Albert Hall 25th anniversary recording. I should preface this by saying it is Sierra I don't like. I like Ramin, I love Hadley, everyone else is wonderful but I cannot stand Sierra. She tries too hard to make Christine a Disney Princess- and that doesn't fly with me. It comes off as insincere or mocking the source material at best, and at worst it makes Christine look like an airheaded ditz. Apparently Sierra played Ariel at one point which is hilarious because of all the Disney princesses, I dislike her the most. But that's a different rant for another day.

And finally, the one I hate most of all:

The 1998 Argento film. This is the worst Phantom adaptation I've ever seen. It is a whole lotta nope for me. Between the rats, the unecessary and pointless telepathy, the r*pe scene, and the unfunny weird vibe from the murder going on in this film it's a disaster from start to finish. Honestly, it's the rats and his hair that bother me from a visual standpoint alone and it's beyond disgusting the way this a$$🤡 treats Christine. I don't like any of the characters in here and for good reason. It's not worth watching and if you do, be ready to bleach your brain afterwards.

💖 Sorry if this was a long read! Thanks again for giving me an ask and I will cherish it forver!!!! 💖

[itmighthavebeenintentional]

We've Got Tonight - Ch 6

Summary: “It’s not your job to do this, Andy. You make people happy. I was in the diner all of ten minutes, and you knew exactly how to get me to smile. You do normal, real things like garden and sing karaoke. Saving the world is my job, Sam’s job. Sometimes it’s even Cas’s job, but it’s not yours.”

Inspired by Bob Seger’s “We’ve Got Tonight”

Warnings: Major Character Death, More Major Character Deaths (sort of?), higher than show level violence, blood, light smutting, language, demons, apocalypse, inferred suicide, cult activity.

18+ ONLY, MINORS DO NOT PROCEED

Author’s Note: Image and major edits by the incomparable @there-must-be-a-lock . Heavy editing and cheering by @thoughtslikeaminefield . Thank you both so much.

The next chapter is the last part. I'm truly sorry.

In case you missed it: Chapter 5 ItMightHaveBeenintentional’s Masterlist

We’ve Got Tonight

Chapter 6

“Cas, you’ve got to listen to me.”

“I’m sorry, miss, I think you have me confused with someone else. My name is Agent Michael Jagger.” Castiel’s bewilderment is so endearing and familiar that Andy nearly loses her composure.

She grabs his hand, pulling him uncomfortably close, and she can see suspicion dawning amidst the confusion. She tows him to the back area of the restaurant, technically for staff only, but she doesn’t figure petty rules like that matter just now.

“Listen, Miss, you’ve shown interest in my partner and scheduled time to socialize with him later. While I do understand that you are traditionally attractive, I really-“

“I need you to listen, and then I need you to look. Do you understand?”

“Not even a little.”

“That’s okay, hun, neither do I.”

And then she tells him everything. He can only stare at her silently afterwards, his mouth working as if he’s lost the ability to speak.

“Read me, Castiel. You can see if I’m telling the truth. Hell, go deeper and see what I’m telling you. Please, it won’t hurt anything if I’m lying, and if I’m telling the truth, you and I can save them. Please, please, I’m literally begging you. Just look.”

Castiel gingerly slides his fingers into her hair until the heels of his hands are resting on her cheekbones and his thumbs rest on her temples. His eyes slide shut, his face going just a little slack, and then he’s there with her in the memories, memories that faded with the sunrise but seared themselves permanently on her brain the second she saw the three of them again. She knows the moment he sees his own death because his body convulses ever so slightly, but he holds on until the scene plays out and she takes her last breath in the dream.

His eyes snap open and unerringly find hers.

“How is this possible? Who are you?”

If she didn’t have those weeks of memories, she might be afraid of him right now.

“Cas, you know who I am. You saw me. I have no more idea why this is all happening than you, but we’ve got this second chance, and we have to take it.”

He eyes her cautiously, but his mistrust is beginning to fade. “I’ve been fooled before. You could be hiding something, I suppose, but...I don’t think you are.”

Relief floods over her, though a bitter tinge underlies the sweetness.

“You believe me?”

He nods reluctantly, his dry lips thinning unhappily. “I saw your plan. Are you certain this is what you want to do? Do you think it will work?”

“Well, Cas, you can see I don’t have the best track record with plans. Can you think of anything better that leaves the world intact and you, Sam, and Dean all standing?”

Even though she knows what his answer will be, her stomach still drops a little when he shakes his head.

“Yeah, me neither. It was worth a shot.”

He searches her face without suspicion this time, only a deep, genuine sorrow. “I wish I could have had those weeks with you, Andrea. In the vision, you were a good person to spend time with.”

“Call me Andy, Cas. I swear, I never could get you to call me Andy.”

“But your name tag-”

She cuts him off with a kiss to the cheek. She holds back everything else she wants to say to her friend-that-never-was. It wouldn’t make any sense to him now, on this side of their non-existent time together, and it wouldn't make either of them feel any better. She hands him a piece of torn paper from her order pad, this one larger than the one she gave Dean.

“Check the memories you read off me to be sure, but I remember the ritual starts at midnight tomorrow night. They took me from the Brass Monkey not long before then. You can investigate if you need to, but I would bet that they’ll be at the first address I gave you a few hours before then, say eight or nine o’clock, getting everything set up before they come to snatch me. You know what you and the guys will need to take them out; without my blood and the ritual, they’re still dangerous, but they’re only human. Tell Sam and Dean whatever you need to get them there, but...I don’t think you should tell them what you saw. I think everything would get too muddled, and we’d end up right back at the same crossroads with Crowley.”

“Are you sure it’s wise to still meet up with Dean tonight? What if-”

“Everything has happened the same way so far, Cas, down to Sam nagging Dean about vegetables. And I’ve got to give myself something,” she says, her laugh a little more desperate and hysterical than she intended. “I can’t just...Look, just give me this one night, okay? I think I deserve that. I think Dean deserves that.”

He glances from her to the scrap of paper in his hand. She notices that his lips move a little when he’s reading, and she thinks that little quirk suits him just fine.

“Why is there a second address?”

Thanking whatever higher power gave her this second chance and the ability to keep the fallen angel out of even a few of her thoughts, she turns away from Castiel, moving towards the sink to start on some dishes that someone has let pile up. She’s under enough strain right now that she can’t disguise her expression anymore, and she honestly doesn’t think she can handle the sadness in his eyes for one more second.

“I’m going to keep myself out of the way this time; I have no intention of starting another apocalypse. I’ll stay in tomorrow night and triple lock every entrance to my apartment until you tell Dean to call me and give me the all clear. That’s where you’ll find me when the job’s done. And, Cas?”

He pauses in the doorway, looking back at her with a tortured expression she never sees.

“Remember, we can’t leave any loose ends this time. That’s how you get more apocalypses.” ...

She’s ready and waiting for Dean when he walks in the bar. She can tell he’s taken a little effort with his appearance: his hair is freshly styled, he’s wearing a button-up that isn’t a flannel, and - wonder of wonders- he actually shaved. Having spent an extra minute or thirty on her own primping, she is pleased when his eyes go a little wide as they rake over her seated form.

“I already know I look good, but damned if you didn’t just make me feel edible,” she quips.

She is rewarded with the warmth of his smile as he takes the stool next to her. She’s pleased (but not surprised) when he brushes a kiss on her cheek in greeting. She sips her drink as he orders one of his own, and then they turn on their stools to survey the crowd. He leans a little closer to say something, and she hears him inhale when he gets near.

“You smell amazing. What is that?”

She grins behind her glass. Dean Winchester is not one to comment on a woman’s scent, at least, not in such an innocent, non-sexual way. And yet, both times around, he does just that.

“Lavender and clover blossoms from some boxes on my balcony. I clip some fresh bits sometimes and rub them on instead of perfume. Smells cleaner, less suffocating.”

“I like it.”

They talk about little nothings and nonsense for the next few minutes, favorite bands and movies and foods and anything she can think of just to listen to him talk, to experience him a little more. She doesn’t remember being able to make him laugh this much before, and she thinks maybe she’s doing just a little better time around.

“So, what’re you gonna wow me with?” he asks, gesturing towards the stage with his half-full glass.

“I was thinking ‘Making Love out of Nothing at All,’ but you could probably talk me into ‘Lonely Is the Night’ or even ‘All out of Love’ if you get me tipsy enough.”

He laughs, a bright, weightless sound that cracks her heart in half. She can’t help leaning in and kissing him then, and he leans right back, blissfully unaware of the burden she’s struggling more and more to hide. She pulls away, and he opens his mouth to say something, but she pecks him on the lips again just long enough to stop him speaking.

“You don’t. But you could.”

There’s that smile.

They sit in companionable silence for several songs, sipping their drinks and listening to the other singers. She’s just about to go put her first song request in when he looks over at her, freezing her utterly with one side-long glance.

“How long?”

She can’t have heard him right.

“I’m...I’m sorry?”

“How long have we got? Do you turn into a pumpkin at midnight, or can I keep you out later?”

Oh. Oh, God, Dean, why?

“You know what? I think I might actually go for some Bob Seger. Come help me pick one out.” ...

Chapter 7 (end)

[fairytalesintheend]

Punk Rock Ezra

Word count: 1520

Warnings: mention of suicidal thoughts, small mention of a suicide attempt, adult content, mentions of smut and cockwarming, language, I think that’s it but please lemme know

A/n: alright kiddos I have no idea what this is. Unedited, unbeta’d, barely revised, fully self indulgent Punk Rock Ezra. Inspired by the wonderful punk ezra hc’s from @rae-gar-targaryen’s beautiful brain. Loosely inspired by Punk Rock John by Neil Hilborn. Enjoy or tell me if it sucks😘 p.s. formatting might be fucked cause I copied from drive and pasted on mobile lmao

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The first time you saw Ezra he was crowd surfing up to the stage. You noticed the blonde streak in his hair and you watched it until it disappeared into the sea of people in the pit. At the next show the same streak caught your eye. Then the show after that and the one after that too. Ezra and that damned blonde streak were almost expected at any show you attended and you’d be kidding yourself if you thought it hadn’t become some sort of a comfort.

The first time you met Ezra, he’d pulled you up from the floor at a show. He’d asked if you were alright, brushed the dirt off your clothes then told you “Protect your face, birdie. If you get pushed, push back. You’ll be fine.” Then he threw you back into the pit.

One time he found you about to punch someone and grabbed you around your waist, pulling you back into the crowd. You were angry. At everything and nothing. You hated your life and the world and everything in it. You’d tried fighting him off of you but he held you firm against him. “Don’t start shit you can’t finish, birdie. You don’t know who their friends are, you’ll get yourself killed. Don’t be stupid.” He spun you around to face him but kept his grip on you. “We’ve all felt the way you feel, birdie. That’s why you’re here.” Ezra helped you protect yourself and let go at shows. Jumping and dancing and screaming your anger away instead of trying to take it out on some metal kid who wasn’t worth the time. He took your hand and showed you that this was a safe place. That everyone in the room had gone through shitty things and that you weren’t alone. That this was a place you belonged. He looked out for you and you looked out for him too. Which made falling in love with him all the more easy.

Ezra usually wore jeans that were cut off at the knee and ratty band t-shirts, most of which had the sleeves ripped off. His dirty black Chucks were the only shoes you ever saw him wear. He had tattoos of constellations and geometric designs that were scattered all over his arms. There were doodles and random pictures inked on his thighs that he’d done himself in high school. He also had a phrase in Latin on the left side of his neck. Astra inclinant, sed non obligant. “The stars incline us, they do not bind us.” He told you one day what it meant. “Fate can guide us birdie but we can’t let the stars do everything. It’s our job to be responsible for us and what we put into this world.”

He had a nose ring and his ears were pierced in three places. All he’d done himself over the sink in his bathroom. One time he offered to pierce your nose for you and while you declined at first, three weeks later you found yourself sitting on Ezra’s bathroom counter while he brought the hot needle to your face.

He had a scar on his cheek. Almost crescent moon shaped below his eye. The first time he told you how he got it he told you it was from a knife fight. Later on you’d find out he was trying to impress you when in actuality it was from falling off his skateboard when he was 17.

He’d ask you to touch up the blonde streak in his hair. He really could do it himself but he liked when you did it because he was convinced you did it much better than he ever did.

He talked all the time, about everything. Music, art, science, literature. He went on long rants about injustices in the world but they sounded more like monologues from your favorite play. You couldn’t do anything but stare, breathing him in while he strung together the pieces of his life for you. His voice wrote journal entries on your bedroom walls. He forced you to talk as well. “There’s a storm brewing in that head of yours. Can’t hide those eyes from me, Nightingale. They tell more stories than I do. Talk.” Sometimes you listened to him. You would talk about anything and everything or nothing at all. Whether you’d liked to admit it or not, it worked. Better than any other therapy you’d tried. Other times you’d turn away from him and cross your arms, curling into yourself. You’d hear him let out a long breath. Then he’d be at the stereo. He would pick a cd then turn up the volume almost as loud as it could go so you couldn’t hear your own thoughts anymore. He’d make you stand on the bed with him and sing. Scream the words as loud as you could until you felt better. “The church of punk rock is always open, birdie,” He told you once. “This is how you pray.”

You never thought you could love a sound more than you loved the sound of music until you heard Ezra moan your name against your neck as he moved inside you. The grunts and whines that fell from his lips creating a symphony that you wanted on repeat forever. The way he moved in you felt the closest to holy you were ever going to get. Oh how he worshipped you. And you him. You could spend hours here, the sanctuary of each other’s bodies. Hands, teeth, and tongues making their mark. He would stay inside you for a while after. Holding you, scattering soft kisses anywhere he could reach. Sometimes you’d fall asleep like this then wake up the next morning to worship each other all over again.

Ezra was a survivor. You knew that the first time you saw him. Everyone in that dirty basement was a survivor. Ezra talked about his entire life with you but you knew there were some things he kept hidden from the world. Not that you blamed him. You had your fair share of things you’d never told anyone. Of course, that changed over time. You both came to each other for confession. Whispered admissions of sin in the dark of Ezra’s bedroom. He told you things that made your heart ache. How could he be so gentle? So forgiving? When the world had done so much? Would you ever be? So forgiving of this world, so gentle toward yourself and this life? Or would this anger you held inside you always be there? You’d asked Ezra one night. “I am not as healed as you may imagine, Nightingale.” He said. “I do my share of praying more than you’d know.”

You took care of Ezra and in turn, Ezra took care of you. He’d saved you from yourself on more than one occasion. One night was particularly bad. You’d locked yourself in the bathroom with a kitchen knife. When Ezra showed up at your place he’d knocked on the door and you yelled at him to go away. To just let you do this. It would be better. So much better. But instead he broke the lock on the door when he kicked it open. He held his arms out to you with caution. Coaxed you to listen to him and let go as he moved closer to you. He’d pulled the knife out of your hands and pulled you into his arms. You fought him at first, wriggling in his arms until he backed against the wall and held you so you couldn’t move. The two of you sunk to the floor. You sobbed into his chest, hiccuping every few moments. Your breathing was still rapid. For the first time ever, Ezra just stayed silent. He ran his hand over your hair and held you tightly against him. He only spoke after your breathing wouldn’t calm down. “Shhh, shhh birdie I need you to slow down okay? Just breathe with me.” You stayed on the cold bathroom floor in his arms for what seemed like hours. Then Ezra picked you up, made you some food and sat with you on your couch. He didn’t try to get you to talk. He just put in a cd and turned up the volume. He kissed your forehead and then your lips. “One day we’ll leave this place birdie. I promise you. I’ll get you out of here.”

He kept his promise. Years after the first time you saw Ezra, he stands in your kitchen with your daughter on his hip. He’s making breakfast and singing to her while he stirs batter for pancakes. You’re not angry anymore. You take meds that work for you and you even have a therapist you don’t completely hate. Your life is so different than it used to be. You don’t need to pray as much as you used to but in times of trouble Ezra will still pop in a cd and turn up the volume and you can hear the first thing he said to you. “You’ll be fine.”

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Tags for fun: @rae-gar-targaryen @qveenbvtch @steeeeeeeviebb @zeldasayer @ithinkhesgaybutwesavedmufasa @fleetwoodmactshirt @cinewhore @lokiaddicted @pascalplease @krissology @frannyzooey @mostly-megan @flightlessangelwings @voteforpedropascal @pettyprocrastination @artemiseamoon @justanotherblonde23

[thearvariblues]

Valdo Marx Plays Matchmaker

AKA Geralt has to deal with the fact that Valdo Marx isn’t quite as he had imagined him. To begin with, he’s not, in fact, a he. 

*

“She’s a woman,” Geralt announced, his yellow eyes wide with disbelief.

Jaskier snorted, staring into his beer.

“Thank you for the information, I had no idea.”

“No, I mean… A woman.”

“Yes, Geralt, you’ve already said that.”

“You never told me she was a woman!”

“Shut up. I must have.”

“Never,” Geralt said firmly, shaking his head.

“I must have referred to her by a pronoun at some point, you just never listen to me.”

“I do listen to you, Jaskier, and you never did.”

Jaskier took a large gulp of beer and shrugged.

“Well, now you know. So what?”

“So what? I always thought it was some old, wrinkled… ballsack from Oxenfurt! A pompous prick, you always said, an insufferable cockalorum–”

“Yes, and?”

“And now I find out that he’s… she’s… That Valdo fucking Marx is a…”

“Woman, yes, Geralt, we’ve been through this!” Jaskier moaned, desperately trying to ignore the ridiculously boring music and the high, melodic voice that filled the air.

“It’s a shock, that’s all I’m saying,” Geralt grunted.

“Yeah, well, whatever. Finish your fucking beer, I want to get out of here.”

“Writing a new song?” Geralt smirked. “Because that rhymed.”

“Fuck off,” Jaskier groaned.

Geralt took a drink, contemplating.

“You know, I don’t even know why you hate her so much. She’s quite good, actually. Reminds me of you.”

“She is nothing like me!” Jaskier hissed.

“Well, if you listen carefully–”

“Don’t you ever dare comparing me to Valdo Marx!” Jaskier growled. “I have enough of it every fucking time I go home to Lettenhove. Oh, Julian, have you heard Valdo’s new composition? It’s so good, don’t you think? Julian, couldn’t you be more like Valdo instead of following a Witcher around, it’s so unbecoming of a young man like you. Oh, Julian, have you heard that your sister–”

“Wait, your what?” Geralt blinked.

“Sister, Geralt, try to keep up.”

“Trust me, I am. Desperately,” Geralt said. “But you don’t make sense, Jaskier. You talk about Valdo one second, and then you start about your… Hold on. Are you telling me that Valdo Marx, the troubadour of Cidaris, is…”

“Is, in fact, my sister Madeleine, yes.”

“Your sister Madeleine,” Geralt repeated. “Fuck.”

“I’d rather if you didn’t,” Jaskier sneered.

“Are we talking older or younger here?” Geralt asked, eyeing the troubadour on a tiny makeshift stage. She was wearing a plain, dark blue dress made of some kind of a glossy fabric. Her skirt was so long it brushed the boards of the stage with her every movement, but it didn’t look like she cared, she just played her lute and sang and had no idea how entrancing she was. And she did remind Geralt of Jaskier.

The bard muttered something unintelligibly.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“For fuck’s…” Jaskier sighed. “Twin. My twin sister.”

“Oh.”

“Older by three fucking minutes, and she’ll never let me forget it.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” Jaskier snorted. “Always better than me, our Madeleine. Born first, learned to walk first, learned to read first… The only thing I started to do first was playing the lute and singing, and what does she do the second I decide to travel and become a bard? She follows in my footsteps, trying to outdo me once again. And she fucking succeeds!”

“That’s not true, Jaskier,” Geralt smiled, placing a hand on Jaskier’s forearm. “She might be the more… artistic one of you two, but she will never be a better a´performer. And I can’t hear people singing her songs like they do yours, can you?”

“Well… If you put it like that… Oh, fuck.”

“What’s wrong?”

The song had ended a few seconds ago, Geralt realized. And Jaskier was now staring, utterly terrified, towards the stage.

“She’s noticed us,” the bard mumbled. “She’s coming here.”

“Oh,” Geralt said. “Fuck.”

*

Jaskier huffed, watching as Geralt pulled a clean shirt over his head.

“What?” Geralt grunted.

“Nothing,” Jaskier muttered, looking away.

He was sitting on a bed in their shared room in the tavern and trying his very best not to brood. And he knew very well that he was failing spectacularly.

“I had to say yes, Jaskier,” Geralt sighed. “It would have been impolite not to.”

“And you’re all about politeness,” Jaskier mumbled. “Like every time you show up covered in blood and guts and brain occasionally–”

“That was one time.”

“Well it’s not very polite to barge into the room, tell my lovely date to go fuck herself and immediately start taking off your filthy clothes, is it?! The moment she saw your impossible, muscular, god-like torso, I stood no chance!”

“Is there any point to this babbling, Jaskier?” Geralt sighed.

“Well, yes. That you should have said no to my fucking sister when she asked you to have dinner with her!”

Geralt smirked.

“Are you jealous, bard? Did you want to have dinner with her yourself?”

“No, I wanted to have dinner with–” Jaskier started before promptly cutting himself off. “It’s just so… Madeleine, you know?!”

“What is?” Geralt frowned.

“She always has to steal what’s mine!” Jaskier groaned, letting his body fall onto the hard palliase. “My success in music, my parents’ affection, and now my Witcher.”

“She won’t steal me, Jaskier,” the Witcher in question said. “I would first have to allow myself to be stolen.”

“Yeah, wait until you’ve talked to her for five minutes. I bet you’ll like her way more than you like me.”

“Nonsense. There’s no one I like more than I like you.”

Jaskier blinked in confusion, raising his head to look at Geralt, who was, for some reason, blushing.

“What did you just say?” the bard asked.

“Fuck,” Geralt muttered, fleeing the room.

*

Valdo Marx was nothing like Jaskier had ever described her, that was the first thing Geralt realized.

She wasn’t pompous. She definitely wasn’t insufferable. And she wasn’t a, well, cockalorum.

She was quite nice, actually, and she really did remind Geralt of her brother. She was intelligent, she was funny… And well, she was pretty, he had to give her that.

Not nearly as pretty as Jaskier, though, his traitorous brain put in, and Geralt nearly choked on his beer.

“Are you alright?” the woman smiled. “I’m not boring you, I hope.”

Geralt shook his head.

“No. Please, go on.”

Oh, and she spent the entire evening talking not about herself, like Geralt had expected, but about her brother, about his songs, about his successful students from Oxenfurt… About their childhood. And Geralt, who had never heard a single word about Jaskier’s life before Posada, was beyond fascinated.

“Well, as I was saying, Jaskier’s always so competitive,” she chuckled. “Everything’s a race for him. I don’t know how many times I told him, dear heart, we don’t have to be enemies, but he just doesn’t listen.”

Geralt nodded solemnly.

“I know. He even accused you of trying to steal me from him.”

“Dear, I would never,” she said. “I know how madly in love he is with you, I couldn’t–”

“He’s what?!” Geralt gaped.

Valdo’s eyes went wide and she covered her mouth in shock.

“Oh, my. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that out loud, it just slipped,” she gasped. “Please, don’t tell Jaskier that I revealed his secret so carelessly!”

But Geralt was already rising to his feet, finishing his beer on the way up.

“Excuse me, madam,” he croaked, slamming the tankard on the table. “I need to go and speak with your brother. Right fucking now.”

*

Valdo Marx was busy wolfing down the boiled eggs and sausages she was having for breakfast when, suddenly, a shadow fell on her table. Before she even managed to lift her eyes up, her brother unceremoniously plopped himself down on the bench opposite of her.

“You traitorous bitch,” he growled.

“And good morning to you too, Julian,” she grinned at him. “Sausage?”

“I hate you,” Jaskier muttered, grabbing one from her plate. “You did it on purpose, didn’t you?”

“Of course not. What do you think of me, little brother?!”

“Only the worst.”

She chuckled.

“It was mother’s idea, if you absolutely need to know,” she muttered with her mouth full of scrambled eggs. “She told me to do anything to make you pull your head out of your arse and finally confess to that Wolf of yours.”

“Lies. Mother would never say arse.”

“Right. She said backside. My bad.”

“Hmpf,” Jaskier hummed. “May I remark that making me confess and telling him about my feelings, making it seem like an accident is not the same thing?”

“You may not.” She shook her head, sighing. “Besides, it’s not my fault you’re both denser than cousin Amelia, is it? Look, I tried. I wrote that romantic ballad about him, claiming it was a new song by the famous Jaskier–”

“Oh, of course. I should have known that complete atrocity was your doing! That sloppy excuse for a ballad that could have ruined my reputation!”

“Jaskier, one of your most popular songs is about a girl wanting to jerk you off.”

“Your point being?”

She laughed, letting him steal another sausage.

“Nothing, my dear. How was your night, anyway?”

“I think you know damn well,” Jaskier said, smiling. “Actually, I think the whole town knows.”

“To be honest, I think our mother in Lettenhove knows that your Witcher loves and desires you back. He wasn’t exactly trying to keep his voice down.”

“Believe it or not, but he was,” Jaskier grinned. “He just wasn’t very successful.”

She nodded, finishing her breakfast and getting to her feet.

“Well, my work here is done, dear brother. Will you pay for my meal? I think I deserve it for what I’ve done for you.”

“Always so humble,” he said. “I still hate you, Madeleine, you know?”

“I love you too, Julian,” she winked. “Oh, and by the way, mother sends her love and demands that you bring the Witcher the next time you come to visit. She said there is a monster in Lettenhove that desperately needs to be slain.”

“Well, if it’s urgent, I could try convincing Geralt to…” Jaskier started before pausing. “Right. She meant grandmother, didn’t she?”

“I’m afraid so,” Valdo chuckled, grabbing her cloak. “Well, I’ll be on my way. See you around, Jaskier.”

“See you,” the bard replied, trying to hide a smile. “Valdo Marx.”

[iztarshi]

My Murderbot Musical

This is so dumb, but I started out thinking about how a novella so focussed on Murderbot’s interiority and voice would make a better musical than a film and then before I knew it I had 2,000 words of how I’d adapt All Systems Red into a musical if I knew a damn thing about writing musicals. Murderbot would probably have Pin-Lee sue me for making this too sappy.

I’m putting it up anyway though, because if I can’t post my dumb ideas on tumblr, where can I post them?

The stage is divided into four, the front of the stage and three platforms behind it with a screen behind each platform.

The show opens with the novella’s opening lines. “I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don't know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.”

The lights then rise on Mensah standing at the front of the stage with a Company representative standing behind a desk across from her, behind the Company representative stands Murderbot, in full armour with the faceplate blanked and perfectly still. The first number, Sanctuary (Moon) takes place with Mensah and the Company representative arguing in the foreground about why she doesn’t want to take a SecUnit with her. This fills us in on a lot of background about what SecUnits are and what Mensah would need one for and also shows us that despite arguing that what’s done to them is wrong Mensah is still falling into treating the actually present SecUnit like it’s unaware. In the background clips from Sanctuary Moon and other shows play on the screens, while characters from it act out scenes on the three platforms. They frequently take over the song with a much fuller and brighter song about fictional events. We can see that this is the inside of Murderbot’s head, that it’s playing media on the feed while the humans argue about its nature in front of it. The song ends with Mensah giving in and leaving and Murderbot being packed into a crate as the lights go down on the stage.

The lights rise with Dr Bharadwaj and Volescu in the crater, Murderbot standing by. There is a clip from Sanctuary Moon playing silently on the screens, which is suddenly superseded by images of the monster coming out of the crater. The song Client Retrieval Protocol starts, a fast, rhythmic but not frantic song. Murderbot sings the instructions to itself, to the systems as code flashes on the screens, and describes what’s going on in rapid, professional, but also witty commentary (basically its narrative voice as a patter song). There’s a discord when the HubSystem tries to send the abort command, and we see it on the screen, but it’s rapidly dismissed by Murderbot. The music softens when Murderbot takes its helmet down to reassure Volescu but once again we get caught back up in the rapid patter of its divided attention and things it needs to do. The song ends on the big “No!” to Ratthi as he tries to retrieve the bags and the hopper takes off just in time.

Murderbot’s cubicle is represented by a small white platform in the middle of the front stage. We see it shed its armour, pull an emergency blanket around itself and sit down. Despite not being small, it looks alone and vulnerable like this. Mensah enters, following the trail of blood-stained armour it’s left across the stage, and sings a short song, You Didn’t Leave, thanking it for staying with Volescu when the MedSystem was telling it he would be fine by himself. Murderbot’s responses are spoken rather than sung and obviously awkward as it looks anywhere but at her.

The next song, Too Much Media, shows Murderbot, still not in its armour, walking through the scene with Volescu as it rewinds and replays it, now seeing what it actually said to Volescu and wondering what the hell it was doing. It sings to him, asking questions about his family, and we see the family on the platforms as Volescu sings his answers. Murderbot’s questions are sung very tentatively, in contrast to the parts of its song sung in its own head. The song breaks for a while as Mensah calls it to answer questions and offers to let it stay in the crew area. The song resumes for a few lines as Murderbot curls up in its cubicle again, regretting how much it’s given away to the humans both with its questions to Volescu and with its terror at being offered a place among them.

It’s Not Right is sung by the humans as they try to figure out whether they’ve been sabotaged or whether the company is just cheap and also try to figure out how to treat their SecUnit now they know it’s a person. The humans are shown arguing among themselves during the mapping expedition, up on the platforms while Murderbot is with another group on the stage, although Gurathin doesn’t join in. Ratthi’s attempt to talk to Murderbot about its feelings is moved to the way back rather than the trip to DeltFall, with Overse and Ratthi singing their argument. Murderbot gets its one line in the song “Dr Mensah, a message” as it sends the clip to her and the song ends with her telling Ratthi to drop it. When they return to the habitat, Volescu tells them that DeltFall can’t be contacted and Murderbot insists on coming with them when they check it out.

We open at the DeltFall habitat, deliberately spooky in design and lighting. Murderbot sings Murderbots (it’s what we do). We’ve heard it use the name for itself in its own songs before, but here it’s referring to the rogues it believes have wiped out DeltFall. Flashes of unrealistic and murderous SecUnits from media play across the screens, along with contextless flashes of a mine. The song is angry, Murderbot singing about its intention to hunt down these rogues who killed their humans, no matter what the humans might have done to deserve it.

We see the fight, Murderbot taking down other SecUnits and getting hurt in the process, and we see Dr Mensah coming to rescue it. Murderbot tries to convince her to go with You Have To Leave (You Didn’t Leave Reprise) as she refuses and drags it out with her. Finally it realises what the combat module is, tells her to kill it and then grabs the gun itself as the stage goes dark.

Murderbot is on the white platform again, this time lying down with all the humans gathered around it. Gurathin tells them about the hacked governer module and he and Volescu start arguing about whether Murderbot is dangerous with It’s Not Right (Reprise). Murderbot suddenly joining in by singing “the company isn’t trying to kill you” is as startling for the audience as for the humans. From then on it joins the song, for the first time singing with the humans the same way it sings in its own head, as it falls into the rhythm of the song and argues for itself. There’s a brief musical callback to Murderbots (it’s what we do) when Gurathin brings up the mining incident, but it’s subtle. The song ends with Murderbot grabbing Gurathin and Mensah interrupts the increasingly frantic rhythm they’ve built up by saying her next line.

Gurathin and Pin-Lee leave to shut down HubSystem, Bharadwaj and Volescu go to check the download package, and Arada, Overse, Ratthi, Mensah and Murderbot sing EvilSurvey as they work out that there might be a third survey group on the planet out to get them. Murderbot is more subdued now and won’t face the humans, but it’s still singing its lines and gets lines like “the company could be bribed to conceal the existence of several hundred survey teams on this planet”. It’s a group song and Murderbot is part of the group now.

After leaving the habitat and finding a place to camp, Mensah talks to Murderbot about leaving its helmet down and asks if it’s okay. We then get Because You Need Me a distant duet between them sung to the audience rather than each other. Murderbot considers what it means to be seen as a person who wants to help and chastises itself for forming an emotional connection to a client. Mensah thinks about how much it means to her that someone who has so many reasons to distrust humans is starting to open up to her and her guilt at leaning on someone who’s in such a bad situation themselves.

Murderbot finds out who Mensah is and that she’s Preservation’s government from Ratthi before leaving with Gurathin to retrieve the drones. Gurathin prodding it about the mine and whether it wants revenge on humans becomes  a reprise of Murderbots (it’s what we do), this time much more sarcastic as Murderbot rejects the idea of revenge killing sprees as a human thing.

We see the video play on the screens as Murderbot watches GrayCris’s message and then the lights go down as Murderbot announces it has a plan.

We follow Murderbot’s approach to GrayCris and conversation with them up until they demand Mensah accompany them and Murderbot has to disguise itself as a Deltfall SecUnit. As the plan falls apart Murderbot starts to sing There Is No Fucking Protocol (Client Retrieval Protocol Reprise) as it talks us through the plan and what it’s doing the way it did back then but with full acknowledgement of how out of its depth it is. We see the other humans on the platforms, in Murderbot’s awareness thanks to drones. The song builds up, getting more and more frantic as Murderbot knows the launch is coming closer and Mensah’s still too close, before ending as it grabs her and the explosion knocks it over. We see it give the “this unit is at minimal functionality and it is recommended that you discard it” message and Mensah respond “shut the fuck up, we’re not leaving you” before the stage lights go down.

Murderbot wakes up on the platform again, but is swiftly retrieved by Pin-Lee and Ratthi. When it rejoins the humans they’re in normal clothes. They’re more colourful than their work clothes, and the environment is prettier now too, echoing the fictional characters in Sanctuary (Moon) earlier and the way they were bright and colourful then. The humans cheerfully sing Preservation as they tell Murderbot about their world and about how it can come home with them now. Murderbot is no longer singing with them, only speaking when it responds.

Murderbot sings You Didn’t Leave (Final Reprise) about how astonishing it is the humans didn’t abandon it, that they even bought it, and yet how confused it is at the idea of being somewhere it isn’t needed. It moves to talking about not wanting to be owned, not wanting to be told what it wants, and gets up and starts walking through the port as it does, stealing a rucksack and slinging it over its shoulder. Its last few lines make it clear it’s leaving a message to Dr Mensah and then it ends with “that’s why I had to leave” as the stage goes black.

[flymyhp]

Dirty dancing with Draco Malfoy

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x reader

A/N: it's been a minute! That's because I've been working on this wonderful 80's themed collab with @quadrupledeckertaco @probably-peeves and @melody-studyblr. Thank you to these lovely people for letting me join in. Hope you enjoy!! And absolutely check out their work because they're all very talented. Much love!

Green. Everything seemed that way except for the sky, a bright blue with a glowing sun beaming down through the windows of our car. My father was driving, talking to my mother who was sitting petitely in the passenger seat, mumbling small compliments to my sister Hermione who was beside me in the backseat singing.

“I am improving, aren’t I? You’re right mom, this summer is going to be the best I’ve had.”

That was the summer of 1963—when everybody called me Baby, and it didn’t occur to me to mind. That was before President Kennedy was shot, before the Beatles came, when I couldn’t wait to join the Peace Corps, and I thought I’d never find a guy as great as my dad. That was the summer we went to Kellerman’s.

Kellerman’s was a resort in Virginia, with a big lake and entertainment every night. My father was friends with the man who owned it, and this summer I would have the gross pleasure of meeting his son Blaise, who I’d heard so much about on the way.

“We’ll get settled and unpacked first, this way to our cabin. Then to lunch!” My father said with his and mothers suitcase in hand and sunglasses propped up on top of his head.

Hermione skipped behind him and our mother with her bag over her shoulder and long frizzy brown hair bouncing half bunched on top of her head. I watched as she spun around, admiring the view of the resort.

It was pretty, very pretty and natural. Trees overlapped our cabin that was just coming into view up the stairs on the side of a hill and there was a perfect view of the lake from our porch.

“I’m taking this bed, baby. I want the window view.” Hermione chirped as the four of us entered the cabin.

“Fine with me.” I sat my bag down on the bed with a sigh. I was excited to be here, not as excited at the idea that I might see Blaise at lunch. Or any time throughout the vacation for that matter. “Hey Mione, have you met Blaise Zabini?”

She furrowed her brows in thought. “Is he the dancer? I’ve heard he’s really good, he performs the final dance with Pansy Parkinson. I’d love to be in her shoes, I bet I could do better than she does.” She droned on and on about the wrong person.

“The owners son, I mean. I don’t know any of the dancers.” I interrupted her, annoyed.

Hermione’s always been talkative and perky. You’d think she was rude if you didn’t know her, but she just can’t help it.

“Oh! I’ve met him on one of daddy’s golfing trips.” I gagged at the word ‘daddy’. “He’s very nice and a proper gentleman, not my type but he’s heard a lot about you.” She giggled and faced the window, bouncing on her toes impatiently.

I wondered what she meant by that. I’d heard a lot about him too, he’s not my type either from the sound of it. A spoiled rich kid who takes what he wants. I also wondered about the dancers Hermione was talking about.

Everyone was unpacked and settled in nicely, so we headed to lunch in the main hall. We sat down at a four person table and waited on a server. Small talk was on its way, I turned my head to look at the hall in order to avoid it.

A voice raised a few tables down. I turned my head to look.

“Draco Malfoy. The dancer I was telling you about.” Hermione giggled beside me. He had blond, almost white hair and was leant over a server, who was a good size smaller than him.

“You’re the entertainment, Malfoy. You have no right.” The brown haired server whimpered out.

“I could get you out of here in no time.” Draco snapped. “Get the damn orders right.”

I didn’t want to stare, but I couldn’t look away either. Why did he care so much? I hadn’t noticed him look at me until a figure right next to my face snapped me out of my trance.

“Blaise.” Hermione whispered to me. With a glance her way, she was smirking.

Great.

“Mr. Zabini.” My dad nodded his head at Blaise.

“Mr. Granger. This must be baby.” Blaise looked me up and down grossly and held his hand out to me. I hesitantly took it. To no surprise, he kissed it. I worked wonders not to show my uncomfort. My father and Blaise talked for a few minutes about the resort and how much money his family has until he eventually left, shooting a wink at me.

I let out a sigh as he left. My head turned back to where Draco Malfoy had been standing, he wasn’t anymore.

“He’s a nice boy, baby.” My father looked up at me.

I forced a small smile, not looking up. I wanted him to drop it. The last few minutes of lunch I sat with my head down hoping no one would say anything else about the subject.

I walked around the resort with Hermione for most of the day. Eventually I found myself just watching her swim with some people she’d met. Mother and father had gone golfing with some of their friends and left us to find something to do, which you wouldn’t think would be hard here.

Six came up on us pretty quickly, Hermione said goodbye to her friends for the day so we could get back to the cabin and get ready for dinner in the hall. Hermione dressed up more than I did, which is always expected. We met our parents at the entrance of the hall and sat down at a booth with them. We got our food ordered and I did well to hide from anyone I didn’t want to speak to, Blaise.

I held a decent conversation with my family as we ate, nothing too special. We were mainly just waiting for the show like everybody else.

The lights dimmed and most of the room went silent. The music that was playing changed and grew louder as a spotlight landed on two people on the stage in front of us. Draco malfoy with Pansy Parkinson's hand in his.

My eyes widened as I stared. Pansy had a beautiful muted pink ball gown dress on, and Draco was wearing a white dress shirt and black formal pants.

They took the first step as the music stopped getting louder and a steady beat formed. Their feet followed along to it.

Pansy knew how to work the crowd. It wasn't a formal dance, but it wasn't too vulgar. Her hands worked the skirt of her dress flawlessly and Draco worked with her perfectly.

He lifted her into the air effortlessly, her chest slid against his seductively as he set her down. She spinned like a top with her skirt following her as the room cheered them on.

The final step of the dance led them to the stage with pansy's leg posted up on Draco's shoulder, his hands on her hips as she leaned back and the lights shut off.

I couldn't hear it but I knew the room was going crazy. Well, as crazy as a bunch of rich middle aged couples could get.

That was the wrap up of dinner for the first night. I knew my parents would want to stay and talk to some of their friends so I stood up with Hermione and took her arm.

"Let's go back to the cabin before they start tying us into arranged marriages." I giggled at her and she agreed.

I couldn’t sleep that night. Everything called to me except the bed I was in. Careful not to wake a sleeping Hermione up, I pulled the covers up and slipped out of the cabin. The night was the type of quiet it should be, trees rustled with the singing of cicadas. A boy was walking my way when I got to the bridge leading to the main hall. He was carrying three watermelons, and then he wasn’t.

“Shit.” He did his best to pick them both back up. I jogged closer to him and picked one of them up. “Thanks. Kitchens just up this way.”

“Do you know Blaise?” I asked him without thinking. I realized I probably should’ve started off slower, but I guess my head was filled with gross images of what had happened at lunch.

He scoffed. “Yeah. I know him. A real asshole. He has a thing for getting us to seduce the women that come in on vacation.”

I rolled my eyes at the thought of him. "And what about Draco Malfoy?"

"He's put together, strong-headed but he's got a kind heart. What's your name by the way?' he asked.

"Baby. That's what everyone calls me."

"Well baby, I'm Vincent. Everyone calls me Crabbe." He gave me a smile.

We got to the kitchens of the main hall. Through the windows I could see the Zabini's socializing with their guests. I tried to keep my head down.

"This way, baby." Crabbe passed me. I set the watermelon down with the other two. Then I wasn't sure what to do. "You want to see something?" He gave me a smirk.

"Depends."

"It'll be fun. Follow me."

He led me out of the kitchens and down a path behind the building. It was a bit of a walk but through some trees there was another building that looked like a cabin. Muffled music came from it.

"Do you know how to dance?" Crabbe asked, nudging my shoulder and opening the door.

It was unlike anything I'd ever seen. The place was small but so many people were packed into it, dancing under the fluorescent lights. Not ballroom dancing like at the nightly shows, it was hot, and I knew I couldn't dance like this.

"This way." Crabbe took my hand. My feet worked on their own as my eyes wandered from the people in front of me.

"Crabbe!" We stopped. Standing in front of us was Draco Malfoy. "What are we going to do about the final show?"

Oblivious to the conversation, I looked at the girl beside him. She was leaning up against a post in the room. She was tall. Dark brown hair and a look of disgust on her face.

"Who's this." She interrupted the boys conversation, looking directly at me.

I looked away from her and lowered my head.

"This is baby. I told you already, Draco, I haven't found anyone yet. The final show isn't for another week. We've got time." Crabbe argued. Then, he looked to me and smiled. An idea flickered in his eyes. "Actually, maybe I have."

"Her? Does she even dance?" Draco looked me up and down, but not the way Blaise did. The opposite.

"No I don't-" I started.

"She does. She can learn." I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't feel like lying to these people, I didn’t even know them. But I also didn't feel like dancing, or learning.

I remembered what Hermione had told me. Draco performed the final show with Pansy. Was she Pansy?

"Pansy? Why can't you do it?" I asked.

Draco rolled his eyes and gave Crabbe a look of idiocy.

"Something came up. Go back to your playpen, baby." Pansy snapped and turned her back.

"Just give her a shot, Draco." Crabbe seemed too trusting for his own good. I was certain I couldn't do it.

Draco pushed past him, grabbing my hand and stomping his feet to the center of the room. I was awestruck. I couldn't do this.

He grabbed my waist when we stopped. His hips moved to the beat of the music blaring through the room. His finger tapped my waist and he nodded at me.

"To the beat, c'mon." His eyes never left mine.

I did my best to move my hips the same way he was. It was difficult. I'd never done anything like this and I'm sure if my family could see me they'd drop dead.

"Good, good. Now like this." He moved his hips the opposite way and held my chin to keep eye contact.

I could feel Crabbe and Pansy's eyes boring into me as I attempted to keep up with Draco. This whole situation felt so odd. Two minutes prior he would barely look at me.

The song ended and he stopped. "My cabin, top of the hill. Every day at 8." He sauntered back over to Crabbe and Pansy.

"Gave her a shot. If this doesn't work out you're dead." Draco spat at Crabbe.

I stood awkwardly in the center of the floor. My feet no longer worked on their own, or at all.

"Better get to work, baby." Pansy shouted at me. I looked at her, she shook her head with a shit eating grin on her face and followed Draco.

My feet suddenly had feeling in them again. I had no idea how this evening had even happened. Something got me out of bed tonight and something else tells me I shouldn't have.

I ran as quickly as I could past everyone in the room. Eventually making it out the door I found my breath. How was I going to get away with this? How was this even going to happen?

My feet carried me back to my cabin. All I wanted to do was hide under my covers from everything outside. Blaise, Draco, this dance I was now forced to learn.

The next morning I found an excuse to get away from my family and find Draco's cabin. It was fairly easy considering my parents would be doing the same thing every day and Hermione had found her own group yesterday.

I hiked up the hill behind the main building to Draco's cabin and stopped at his door. I lifted my hand to knock as I remembered why I was there. Nerves shook in my stomach. Getting out of this would be easy. All I would have to do is avoid Draco, Pansy and Crabbe for the remaining six days and keep my head down at the final dance.

That wasn't me though. Even though I had no say so in this ordeal at all, I felt like I had to fix this for them.

I said fuck it and knocked. Heavy footsteps drew closer to the door and it swung open.

Draco stepped to the side to let me in. He let the door close behind him.

"Where do we start?" I asked him as he fiddled with a music player sitting on the floor.

"Footwork. You have to get the fundamentals down and this dance relies heavily on it." He started in front of me and put his hands on my hips.

I took a deep breath in preparation for the rest of the day.

"Stop stepping on my feet, baby."

"Arms up, stay in your circle. This is my circle. Stay in yours."

"Good, again. Not like that."

My feet were sore by the end of the day. He wasn't too awful, I had thought the night before that he had something against me but I think it's just his personality.

The next day was the same as the first. Footwork. Don't step on me and stay in your circle. I was getting less and less critiques as we went on, though.

The third day was a little different. We started on the first steps of the routine. He was getting easier to handle day after day. He was still cold and irritable, but I saw him smile for the first time the third day.

I'd attempted the first spin about 10 times and stumbled every time, or missed his hand I was supposed to grab. Finally, he spun me and pulled me back to him, and my hand caught his.

Our faces were inches from each other. He was pretty. I hadn't really noticed before that day, he was very pretty. His eyes flicked down to my lips.

"Perfect." He startled me.

Me?

"We start on the jump tomorrow." He let me go.

Of course not.

The first three days had to be rushed so we could start on the jump as soon as possible. When I got to his cabin the fourth day I was running from the rain. He was leaning up against his door waiting for me.

"Let's go." He said when I reached him.

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion as I followed him down a path behind his cabin. "Go where, exactly?"

"You'll see."

He stopped at a large creek in the woods where a tree had fallen over crossing it. He offered his hand to me.

"No way. You're serious?" I took a step back.

"We have to work on balance, baby. I won't let you fall, I promise." He took my hand this time.

We stopped in the middle. He placed his hands tightly on my waste.

"Now, jump"

My eyes felt like they were going to pop out of my head.

"It's raining, Draco, I'm going to fall." I retaliated.

"You are not, baby. Trust me and trust yourself."

"Fine." I huffed. I jumped just enough to get my toes off of the tree.

"And, down." His hands didn't leave my waist like they normally would. "Again, try higher this time."

I took a deep breath and jumped harder. My feet were unbalanced when I did and I felt it. His arms wrapped around me as he caught me, trying not to fall over himself.

"Can we just go back to the cabin?" I shook with nerves in his arms.

"We'll go to the lake. Can't have you breaking your neck in the cabin either." He held my hands as we got off of the tree and headed down to the lake.

I don't think he realized he hadn't let go of one of them.

"Right, love. This will be easier. Don't worry about falling." He said absentmindedly as we entered the lake.

There was still a downpour as evening grew to night. We started out small. He could easily hold me, it was about my ability to balance myself.

"Now, you'll go above my head and hold." I nodded my head at him.

I jumped with all I had. My eyes were closed in anticipation of my face meeting the water again, but it didn't.

"Hold, baby." Draco said from under me.

And I did. My sides were killing me, but I held it until he tapped my thigh with his fingers. I let myself fall back in front of him and my head fall.

"I think I'm done for tonight. That's starting to hurt." I told him.

Hands. His hands were on my hips.

"Of course. We'll perfect it tomorrow and finish it the next. You're doing perfect." He said. I started to shiver from the rain and cold lake water.

"Oh, baby. I'm sorry. I should've known. I'll get you back, let's go." He said, but he wasn't moving.

"I don't really want to go back to my cabin." I managed to force out.

"You can't stay in the lake all night." He chuckled.

I looked at him. I couldn't believe how intoxicating he looked.

"I said I didn't want to go back to mine." I had no idea what had gotten into me.

His hands on my hips moved to my face. I had no idea what had gotten into him, either.

"Then stay with me." He whispered. I nodded slightly, impatiently.

His hand went to my neck and he pulled my head closer, kissing me.

My mind had completely left my body. This had to be a dream. I knew it wasn't when he lifted my legs up to wrap around his waist, deepening the kiss.

"Perfect." He said as his forehead pressed against mine. "I meant you." My heart stopped working at this point. "Let's get you to bed. My bed."

Nothing happened that night with Draco, other than being completely sure I was in love with him. I just didn't know if it was because I was tired at the time.

The last few days I had pushed it out of my mind. My nerves focused more on the dance than they did about my feelings for Draco. The final dance was here.

"Follow my lead, and if you forget anything just improvise from what you've learned." He held my hand from behind the curtain.

It lifted and the light hit me. I knew my parents were here and I would probably be killed after this, but I couldn't let Draco down.

The music started and so did we. I moved in sync with him, and did my best not to look stiff during my parts.

The jump was seconds away, and my heart had nearly bursted from nerves and from Draco's eyes on mine the whole time. I flicked my dress back and forth with my hands and ran to Draco who had his arms out waiting to catch me.

I flew over his head and held myself in place. The room erupted into cheers just as it did the first night when Pansy was in my place.

Our last few steps were perfect, and the lights went out. Draco grabbed my face and kissed me all over.

"Perfect, baby. Absolutely perfect. I'll have to replace you with Pansy." He joked.

My face fell.

"Don't worry, baby. I'll take care of your folks and Blaise. Leave it to me."

"No, Draco. Pansy. Aren't you and Pansy?"

"No, baby. Of course not. That's for show. She has a guy. And I found my girl." He kissed me again. I kissed him back. His girl.

Hermione had been right on the way to Kellerman's. This was the best summer I'd ever had.