#but spotify has slowly but surely been pissing me off in the last year

[astuteobservations]

i'm considering going from spotify premium to apple music

[amidstnamjin-and-binchanlix]

how long can you stand the heat || ot7

Warnings: Uhhh, none I think? Non-graphical smut and slight angst, but that's pretty much it for now since I'm still crafting the next part, and some curse words lmao.

I won't control you, but MDNI. This is not for you, please.

Pairings: OT7/(F) Reader, Jackson Wang/(F) Reader

Plot: The one where your soulmates don't want you in their life, so you give them what they want and stay out of their way.

Genre: not really unrequited love (but they're all idiots), mutual pining, angst, denial of feelings, poly ot7

How do you think I'm going to get along

Without you when you're gone?

You took me for everything that I had

And kicked me out on my own.

Are you happy? Are you satisfied?

How long can you stand the heat?

Out of the doorway the bullets rip

To the sound of the beat.

mixtape: all i have left to give - part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - ending 1

I originally posted this on ao3 last April but I've just recently thought, "why not post this on tumblr now that i'm using it again after a few years?"

this fic is v self-serving, and was brought to you by my ✨maladaptive daydreams✨

first fic i posted here. idek what im doing but lezzgawwww

Title obviously came from AOBTD. Thank you, Sir John Deacon. You are heaven-sent for making this iconic and legendary bop.

This will be a part of a multi-fic series and i've already crafted 80/90-ish% of the next part im so sorry my mind isn't cooperating rn

✨️

God must be testing your patience.

I mean sure, you might not also be sure that there is indeed a god out there somewhere. However, you must have pissed off some deity or you had pissed on some old man of the mound. Either way, you don't care. You're pissed off now, too.

You see when they rejected you and asked (read: avoided you like the plague until Sejin spoke with you) not to speak or interact with them, you respected their wishes. It stung, but it's not really surprising.

It's not a secret that the seven of them are soulmates, polyamorous soulbonds not even a rarity in and out of the industry. However, it's also not a secret that they're very exclusive and don't let too many (if any) other people in their circle because of the things they had to endure as a group. It makes sense that they wouldn't want a new person intruding and messing with their dynamics, soulmate or not.

(deep down you want to say it doesn't make sense. you're their soulmate, why can't they accept you like that? but there's still nothing you can do, isn't there?)

And so, you delegated all your tasks related to their group to your most trusted employees completely and avoided them at all costs. And by 'at all costs', you mean everything. You even deleted all their songs on your playlists and blocked them on social media (even on Spotify). You can co-exist with them without interacting, although it makes your chest ache through the bond because of the soul rejection like a 24/7 acid relapse.

It's fine. You can ignore all that. You can handle rejection. You've been used to this since you were a kid; adult you can handle this.

Soul rejection side effects? Nothing meds and doctors can't fix. Technology has never been more advanced and all that jazz.

You're a mature person, and you pride yourself on that. You don't like confrontations that much and would rather step back as much as you can to disengage. If your soulmates don't want anything to do with you, then you'll back off.

But you sometimes wonder if they can feel it too, the soul strings fraying and slowly decaying. After shit went down, it's bouts of nausea and dizziness, and constant chest aches for you. That's not even half of it. It'll take a whole day for you to list all your symptoms.

If they do feel it, does it add to their list of reasons why they hate your existence? You mean, they had been borderline antagonistic since your first meeting, cold but civil at best.

It was a contrast to the way the tiny soul marks on each of your fingers glowed on your first meeting even until after Taehyung and Yoongi fled in what you can guess is disbelief and refusal, the others following suit. The warmth in your hands felt scorching, and you had never wanted to scrub them with water in your life then more than you ever did, your chest beating hard and painfully. You remember feeling like someone slashed your insides with a hot knife, and it has never stopped being in pain ever since.

What else were you supposed to think other than they hate you?

Not wanting to risk another embarrassing conversation with Sejin (bless his heart), you decided to book an appointment and signed up for the relatively new soul-scraping therapy. It's still in its human trial stages and is slowly being recognized as a way of severing soul ties, albeit not approved and sanctioned by the government. Anything to give and honor their wishes. They're your soulmates, and it's innate in you to give people what they want.

(or was it really just that?)

All of that and everything else, you can take. You live and abide by your life motto to stay out of drama, so you take all of it in stride and with dignity because it's all you have left at this point when it comes to them.

This is where you got pissed off, though. This day takes the cake, this sodding party.

Attending the party was certainly not your idea. You're tired from the long-ass meetings you had today—JYP's team asked for a meeting for your agreement with Day6 since Sungjin got discharged a few months ago with Younghyun following suit in a few days. A party is definitely not on your to-do list. If it's up to you, you'll be going home to your phone and fics.

(and if they're bangtan fics, nobody has to know. this, you can let yourself have—you were advised against going cold turkey from them by the doctors handling the soul-scraping therapy, after all. if you can't have them, maybe you can at least indulge in fictional them.)

You have been minding your own business since you arrived at the bar. It's laughable how socially inept you are despite handling your business and meeting the entertainment industry's biggest names and leaders regularly. When being put in parties and other gigs that force you to socialize just for the sake of socializing, you're back to being the fat loser kid that avoided making new friends because the ones you previously had in childhood (if you can really call them that) can't understand how your brain and mouth work. Frankly, you don't, too, so you just preferred to stay in one corner until it's socially acceptable to go home.

"Hey." Jackson squeezes your hand in his and smiles worriedly at you. "You doing okay?"

Jackson had been a long-time friend and is someone you trust your whole life with. Jackson had seen you through your bests and worsts, but had never once turned his back on you or betrayed you as many people did.

Yeah, you would trust him with your whole life. Your panties too, but don't tell him that.

(there's no need to because he knows; he did lots of times before, with his face between your thighs and your undies in his pocket.)

"I'm good." You don't even bother smiling, knowing it won't convince him too much. He knows your stand on parties; you're his polar opposite, after all. "I just really wanna go home."

"Can I come with?" he asks with a salacious smile.

You roll your eyes.

"Stop being horny for five minutes, please."

"You shouldn't have worn that dress, then." He rakes you with an assessing look. "On second thought, that's the best decision you did tonight so far. If you're not going home with anyone tonight, my room's open."

"You up to be my wingman?" you ask.

"Sure. I'll sit with you all night so we can look like a swinger couple scouting for a third we can take home." He waggles his eyebrows.

You snort at that with an amused chuckle, oblivious to the glare(s) directed your way by—who else?—your soulmates.

They (Taehyung) heard from Manager Sejin and Noona Ae-cha that you're not sure if you can come. They didn't know why the two were talking about you, but Taehyung tried to act immersed in his phone while eavesdropping.

Apparently, you had been stuck in the boardroom almost all day with the back-to-back meetings, and you even had to cancel your doctor's appointment. For what the appointment is for, he didn't know. It explains your absence that day, and he files the information away at the back of his head. He can't for the life of him understand why he can't stop trying to spot crumbs about you.

(he does know, but he's in denial about why—and he'll deny both.)

He then told his hyungs and Jungkook, which they just nodded at, seemingly uninterested. But if Namjoon's faraway serious look at times is anything to go by or the way Jimin picks at the skin on his lips as he's lost in thought, he's pretty sure they are also subtly trying to figure out if you're coming.

(but they'll all deny that if asked.)

They haven't seen you that much since they started actively avoiding you months ago and shut down whatever soul link you have with them, and you are damn good at trying to stay out of their way.

It surprised them, they're not gonna lie. They expected you to put up a fight, but all Manager Sejin told them was that you agreed. You never interacted with them ever since unless it was really needed, and you were always wearing your rings and not making unnecessary eye contact even once.

(and that somehow pisses them off and itches under their skin because how dare you not be interested?)

And now you've been here for the past hour or so, Jackson Wang in tow. Or rather, Jackson has his arms alternately snaked around yours or slung around your shoulders. It makes Jackson look like a frat douchebag.

(and it makes taehyung look jealous and interested in you which he is so not, no.)

Hoseok was the first one to spot you arriving, Another One Bites The Dust thumping through the dancefloor that was bathed in red lights. He nudges Namjoon from his seat in their secluded and swanky VIP room that was separated one floor above the bar proper.

"There she is", he says then, gesturing towards you as all seven pairs of eyes land on you as you enter with Jackson. "She's with Wang."

With varying levels of internal turmoil, they all watch as Jackson led you through the throngs of people, presumably to another room like theirs. They see you shake your head and point to the bar, and Jackson's face light up with a wide smile before redirecting your steps.

Yoongi asks himself why you have to wear that dress or why Jackson has to clutch at your hands like a little kid, the others having a similar train of thought. Does Jackson think he's going to be lost in this bar? Is he that plain stupid to be lost in this bar, really?

And why are you letting him?

Jimin tries not to let his eyes wander on your legs, tries not to let his mind wander back to the thought of being choked by your thick supple legs and ripping that off-shoulder dress off you and—

Oh. Woah, there.

Stop it! he thinks to himself and shakes his head.

(this is not the first time he's thought of this, darling. when he first saw those smooth and lovely-looking plump thighs, he knows he was fucked.)

Jin is no better, but he hides it better than the others. After all, it was not his idea to shut you out like that. He was opposed to it and tried to talk some sense into the others, but they didn't listen. He thought back then that Namjoon would at least be reasonable and give you a shot but nooo, the kid was stupid enough to listen to others.

Let them have what they want, then.

(he can feel the pit and longing in his chest some nights and thinks that maybe he can let the others do what they want but still do what he wants too. but he takes a look at the six men who had been there for him through thick and thin, and he can't lose them. he sends you an apology mentally, hoping you can at least feel it through the bond.)

"Calm down," Jin tells them levelly, trying to pry the glass off Namjoon's hand, lest he crushes it and injures himself. "You're crushing the poor thing, Joonie. Don't wanna end up in the ER, do you?"

Jackson's the one to end up in the ER if he doesn't unwrap his arms from your shoulders, that's who, Namjoon thinks to himself bitterly before he can stop himself.

Jin leans back on his seat and watches as you laugh with Jackson, arms slung around your shoulders as the latter listens to you talk. They all wouldn't have to seethe in barely contained anger if they just listened to him though, so who's at fault here?

Aish, these brats.

"I'm going to get more drinks," Jungkook suddenly says, disentangling himself from Taehyung fluidly.

"You can just ask them," Namjoon says, pointing towards the glass doors where their security detail is posed out of the room. "There's no need to go out."

"I'm going to get more drinks," Jungkook repeats firmly, ignoring him. Namjoon's jaw clenches. "Come help me, Jin-hyung?"

Ah, this conniving brat. Jin wants to kiss his pouty lips for this.

"Sure," Jin says easily, much to Namjoon's annoyance. He pats Namjoon's cheeks gently. "No breaking the glass, Joon-ah. We have a photoshoot tomorrow."

He pulls Jungkook out of the room before any of them can disagree further. He loops his arm around Jungkook's petite waist, nodding once to the man stationed at the door.

"You're not just getting drinks at you, aren't you?" Jin asks as they descend the steps.

"I don't know what you're talking about, hyung." Jungkook's smile is sharp. "I just don't wanna get roofied and end up on the tabloids tomorrow, is all."

"You don't have to lie to me," Jin says, kissing his hair. "I wanna see her, too."

Jungkook's smile turns sad at that.

"I just don't understand. [Name]-noona seems like a nice person. They're all being stupid."

Jin has to agree. "But you know why we have to, right? I don't like it, too, but we have no choice."

"But we do!" Jungkook insists. "We can be friends, even."

"Friends don't fuck friends." Jungkook snorts at that. "There's nothing 'friends' about wanting her with us, Jungkook."

"Friends don't fuck friends, my ass," Jungkook mumble mockingly. "That didn't stop Jackson-hyung at all."

Jin stops momentarily, pulling Jungkook to a stop. "Excuse me?"

"They were having sex last week, hyung. When Jackson-hyung came over last Wednesday."

"Was that why...?"

"Yeah." Jungkook takes his hand as they walk again. "I felt it through the strings, too."

Jungkook is suspiciously not meeting his eyes.

"Jungkook-ah."

"What?" he asks innocently. Jin's lips pull into a smirk.

"You naughty cat!"

"I—what? No!" but Jungkook is still not meeting his eyes. "I didn't watch them."

Jin gasps delightedly.

"This is so much better. I didn't even say anything yet!"

Ah, fuck.

In Jungkook's defense, he hadn't meant to listen in. But he had been on his way back to the practice room from relieving his screaming bladder when he heard it. The warmth and arousal that was definitely not his he had been ignoring since that lunchtime was not helping his curiosity.

"Ah!" And oh shit, it's someone moaning and it's you.

That explains the arousal he's been feeling. Oh, and the jealousy now (his), too.

"Yeah?" A deeper voice asked breathlessly. Another punched-out moan from you, and the arousal flares in his chest.

Yup. It's definitely his this time.

"Jackson, please," your equally breathless voice pleaded, and the sound shot to his cock. Jungkook had to stop his hand from going south inside his pants and boxers.

A delighted shriek and breathless laugh, followed by a staccato of 'ah ah ah's and hips slapping against each other punctuated the otherwise silent afternoon he was having.

And what would a self-respecting man do?

Stay and listen to you get railed six ways to Sunday, was what he did.

(jungkook didn't say he's a self-respecting man.)

Jungkook slipped his hand inside his pants and boxers and wrapped his hand around his aching cock. He almost moaned at how your moans quickly reached a whole other level of desperation. He wondered and tried to imagine how you would feel around him if he fucked you harder and deeper than Jackson possibly can.

He knows he can.

"Hands, Jackson." There was a chuckle, then your whine was heard. "Baobei, please."

Jungkook heard Jackson's sharp intake of breath, and he had to internally agree. Even speaking Mandarin, you sound so hot.

He heard you mewl with a choked giggle as the sounds of hips to hips got faster.

"You really like my hands, huh?" Jackson asked.

"Mhm. Want them wrapped around my—ah!—neck all the time."

Fuck.

Jungkook had to bite onto his hands as he came, so as not to give his position away, cock spurting on his hands,. Seconds later and he heard you cry out and Jackson grunt to completion.

So, no. He definitely didn't watch.

"You nasty, nasty boy!" Jin cackles at him and he wants to pout. "You listened in to them having sex?!"

"Hyung!" Jungkook hisses. "Not too loud."

Jin snickers at him, mouth pulled in a tempting smirk he wants to kiss. "Was it good?"

"Hyung," he whines. At Jin's unfaltering smirk, he sighs. "It was. She sounds so good, hyung. I can't take it off my mind."

"Maybe later, we can do something about that." Jin says with a low hum.

He peers at Jin's eyes and almost shudders at the dark and hungry look in them. Jin squeezes his waist, and it takes Jungkook's breath away.

In his silence, Jin nods with a hum.

"Hm, definitely later."

He won't say no to that. If they can't have you, Jungkook's gonna take what he can get, even if it means settling on replaying your moans in his head.

When they reach the bar, you are still sitting at the other end with Jackson. They are careful not to be seen by you or you'll probably leave like you always do when they get within your 10-foot vicinity.

Then Jackson puts his hand on your slightly exposed leg. He feels the others' jealousy through the bond first before he feels his own, and he sees you stiffen in your seat.

Hyungs!

Jungkook quickly looks away, but not before Jackson catches his gaze. He completely misses the way Jackson's mouth pulls into a quick smirk as their drinks are thankfully served at that exact moment.

"Wanna head back to your place?"

You're unexpectedly suddenly close, and it's like Jackson wants him and Jin to hear to rile them up. It works, and he can barely tamp down the urge to pour the drinks over Jackson's big head, being older be damned.

"Sure. I'll just swing by the restroom." You say as you walk away. Jin and Jungkook take that as their cue to go back to their ritzy room.

"That was short," Jin says tightly as they go back. "Was it you?"

Jungkook shakes his head.

Jin's lips quirk into an amused smile.

"Ah, jealous bastards."

"Weren't you too, though?" Jungkook asks with a slightly amused smile of his own. "That was... that was intense."

"That serves them," Jin says as they near the room. "If they weren't just pigheaded, it's my shoulders her legs are gonna be hanging from later."

"Jin-hyung!" Jungkoo huffs, but then deflates. "Yeah."

"Don't worry, we still have later," Jin says with a lascivious smirk.

And he can't complain about that, can he?

"Where's Tae-hyung?" he asks when they enter the room, Taehyung nowhere in sight.

"Went out. Didn't say where." Hoseok says as he accepts their drinks and puts the tray on the table. It takes a few seconds for him to piece it all together, and he mentally facepalms.

"Whatever happened to 'not giving a fuck' about [Name]?" he mumbles.

"Jungkook," Namjoon warns.

It sets him off.

"What? Are you all really going to keep on pretending? You do realize I felt that back there too, right?" he shoots back.

"So the drinks were just a ruse?" Namjoon's face is stormy.

Jungkook holds his gaze steady. "And what if it was? You all know what I felt about this since day one."

"Kook-ah." It's Jimin this time. "Not now, please."

"And when, hyung? When we go back to just pretending an eighth of our soul doesn't exist out there?"

"Jungkook."

He glares at Yoongi. "No, hyung. If you all want to be stupid, I don't! [Name]-noona is going through therapy because of this, don't you know?"

Yoongi scoffs. "She's a big girl, she can handle herself."

"Not soul-scraping therapy, she won't."

They all stop at that. Even Jungkook stops and internally curses.

Fuck, he wasn't supposed to say that.

"What did you say?" Namjoon's voice takes on a dangerous tone.

He huffs but stays silent, not really wanting to dig a deeper hole for himself.

"Jungkook."

"I talked to Jiho-hyung, okay? I bumped into him five months ago when he visited her."

Silence.

"Im Jiho?" At Jungkook's nod, Namjoon's frown deepened. "I didn't know he practices soul-scraping."

"He's co-authoring the soul-scraping study with Doctor Seong."

At the mention of one of their previous soul health doctors, Yoongi raises his eyebrows.

"Our Doctor Seong?"

Jungkook nods with a sigh, plopping down beside Hoseok. "Apparently, it's why he stopped private practice—to focus on the studies. They're also lobbying for fully legalizing soul-scraping in the Assembly. I ran into him, and he mentioned that he was there for noona's side effects from the therapy."

Side effects?

Shit.

"W-wait. Five months, you said?" Jin says with a tremble in his voice. "Is that why I can barely feel her anymore?"

Jungkook's sigh is pained, forlorn. "Apparently, yeah."

They all lapse in complete silence after that, the thumping of the beat on the dancefloor faint through the walls.

"Fuck."

Indeed.

It is then that Taehyung comes back. He takes one look at their varying degrees of solemn and stunned expressions and tilts his head.

"What? What happened?" he asks.

"[Name]..."

Taehyung's eyes widen before his expression smooths into indifference.

"I told you, I'm no—"

"That's not it," Jimin says softly. "She's in soul-scraping therapy, Taehyung-ah."

...

"What?"

(oh, lord. you don't know the turmoil you caused all these pining idiots, darling.)

---

And what about you?

As we said in the beginning, god must be testing your patience.

"Hey," Jackson says softly. He lifts your chin with a gentle smile long after Taehyung fucked off to god knows where. "You good, baobei?"

You didn't even know they were here. You were vaguely aware that yeah, they might be, but it totally slipped your mind. Meetings really did drain your brain.

When you stood up and went to the restroom while Jackson called for the driver, you didn't know that Taehyung was watching you from their room and completely high-tailed it from there just to intercept you when he saw you stand up from the corner of the bar. You didn't know why, but his stupid drunken ass just decided it wanted and it was a good idea to rile you up.

To piss you off is why, you think.

When you exited the ladies' room, Taehyung was standing there by the wall looking lethal. The ache in your chest flared up for two different reasons, but you ignored it. You ignored him and started walking away, pretending you didn't see him.

"So you're really here."

Seriously?

You continued ignoring him and walked on, but he didn't let you get far.

He grabs your wrist. "I said, you're really here."

The spot where he held you burned and you hissed, cursing the therapy's side effects. You were warned that coming in contact skin-to-skin with your soulmates while undergoing the therapy would feel painful (literally), but you didn't heed it then. You had no reason to touch them after all when they didn't even want to see you.

But it is painful, and it burns.

You yanked your wrist away, hiding your wrist behind your back. There's no need for that, though. Taehyung was looking at your face intently.

"Yes, and I was just leaving. See you around, T—"

"With Jackson?"

What's it with this guy?

You looked back at him and squared your shoulders up. "That's really none of your business, Taehyung."

He laughed with a sneer, shaking his head.

"What would people say if they knew you're off gallivanting with men who aren't your soulmate?"

Wow.

The nerve of this asshole.

You can't let him see it affect you though, so you tilt your head with an innocent smile.

"I'm just a nobody. Why would they talk about me? " You smirked in amusement. "I don't think it'll be me they will talk about since I wasn't the one who rejected my soulmate, was I?"

And oh, shit. Where did that come from, [Name]? Feisty.

"And I'm not doing anything illegal. Why should I be scared?" You slightly lean back and tilt your chin up. "I'm not the one between us with a reputation to uphold, a name I should protect."

You paused, a serene smile on your face.

"I'm not a coward. I'm not you, Taehyung"

The smirk on his lips was replaced with a sharp look of disdain, almost like he wants to slap the smile off your face.

(he wants to, darling. trust me. just not in the way you think.)

You knew you hit a nerve and it feels petty and mean, but it's nothing compared to the loneliness and pain they gave you these past few months. It felt satisfying, even if for just a bit.

"You really think you're all that, don't you?" He smiled almost mockingly. "Tell me, how does it feel to be rejected?"

That really stung and angered you, but you've spent all your life hiding your emotions when needed to. Your expression didn't falter.

"It feels good—"

"—because she dodged a bullet."

You internally sighed in relief as Jackson's voice float behind you. You'll forever be thankful for this man's existence, gods or not.

You melt in his arms when he wrapped them around your waist. You chanced a look at Jackson, not seeing the twitch on Taehyung's brows at your body language.

"You really think you're all that, don't you?" Jackson mocked back at him. "Imagine thinking it's the end of the world for your soulmate just because you shut down their bond." Jackson chuckled ruthlessly.

"You're pathetic, Taehyung-ssi."

The two were locked in a glowering match before Taehyung straightened up and spun on his heel without a word.

Jackson let you get your bearings by the wall of the hallway to the ladies' room in silence. But he didn't let you stew in your thoughts for long.

So now here you are, looking at his gentle eyes.

"You good, baobei?"

You don't know how to answer that really, so you pull him by the collar into a searing kiss.

He puts his hand on your waist, the other on the wall by your face, and you tighten your hold on his collar.

You pull away to gasp for air.

"Take me home," you exhale heavily as you lean your head on his shoulder. "Take me home and fuck me 'til I forget, or I might do something stupid."

Jackson's sharp intake of air is your answer before he pulls you away to your awaiting car outside the club.

---

feedback (constructive, please don't be too rude bc i'll cry) and kudos very much appreciated!

[bffsoobin]

33

➤ soobin x reader, fluff, very slight angst, idiot best friends oblivious to their mutual pining

↳ prompt 33: “Are you SURE I can’t punch him in the face?” “Yes.” “What if I just break his nose a little?

requested?: yes

warnings: swearing, mentions of small injury

A/N: I’m sorry if you were expecting more explicit romance but I feel like this prompt worked better as a mutual pining idiots plot. Also apologies if this is lack luster, it’s been a few months since I wrote anything non-academic! 

•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:•☾☼☽•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•

You huddle underneath your comically large black umbrella as sheets of torrential rain pound down on it, washing across the pavement below your feet as if following the tide of the ocean. Your sneakers are soaked, squeaking pathetically as you shift your weight from foot to foot and grimace at the feeling of your socks soggy between your toes. Normally you would have been huddled in your dorm room, working on homework from the morning’s classes or watching reruns of Catfish just to grumble about how stupid a person could be.

But your best friend had texted you with a code blue, so you found yourself in the back parking lot of the campus library, enduring the rain that could only mean Noah’s Arc was due to float by any second. Wind whips your hair into your face cruelly and temporarily blinds you, as if mocking you for daring to brave the storm. You can do little more than scrunch your face oddly and shake your head from side to side in a desperate bid to get the locks away from you since there was no way in hell you were taking a hand off of your umbrella just to push your hair back. A car peels into the parking lot just as you clear your vision. It’s a humble silver sedan, a Hyundai of almost 20 years old, with streaks of rust on the back bumper and a sun-faded license plate. Even in the rain you can make out the litany of decals covering the back end, especially your favorite which boasts the term “MILF: Man I Love Frogs” in bold green letters.

There’s no hesitation in your step as you slosh through the rain to yank at the passenger’s side door, jiggling it several times until the telltale click of the unlock allows you to heave it open fully. Suddenly worried about the state of the car-which is littered with coffee cups, extra clothing, loose notebooks and sheet music and fast food receipts- you shake the umbrella off outside of the car before snapping it shut and closing the door. Beside you Soobin laughs, short and low.

“Thanks for shaking off your umbrella. Really counteracts the gallons of water your brought in with your shoes and pants.” He glances pointedly at where your feet soak the tan carpet into a dark brown and you bristle.

“Thanks for calling a code blue in the middle of a rainstorm. I wouldn’t have fucked your car up if you didn’t have an emergency.” Your voice softens at the reminder of why you’re here, and you finally turn to face him better after you buckle up. He’s devastatingly handsome, as always, but you feel your heart stutter at the fact that he’s wearing the hoodie you bought him for Christmas, the one he had almost slapped you for spending so much money on. It’s slightly damp from the rain and it casts his face in shadows along with the shitty weather and for once you hate the way it looks on him. He drives without asking, already knowing exactly where he wanted to go to talk out whatever had happened.

“I wouldn’t call it a total emergency,” he begins as Spotify takes a few seconds to switch between songs. “Just something I needed you to be in the loop for ASAP.” He looks your way again, eyes calculating for a few moments before the light turns green and he’s making the all too familiar right turn into the tasty and underrated diner that you discovered as freshmen. The rain has not slowed at all and the two of you run into the building to avoiding getting too wet, although your feet squelch with renewed vigor on the red and white tiled floor.

The lighting is much better at your favorite table, and after you place your order you’re able to finally get a good look at Soobin. His soft eyes are rimmed red and puffy, and you can’t tell if it’s the weather, the lack of sleep or his persistent allergies that are the cause. Maybe all three, or maybe something new entirely. He’s staring back at you just as clearly, studying your own face and mannerisms even though it had been years since anything about him was new to you. Of course, other than the day he casually pulled you into his chest and you realized just how tall and broad and handsome he had become.

The thought leaves as scarily quick as it enters, as Soobin turns his face to smile up at the waitress delivering drinks and you catch a glimpse of reddened, mottled looking skin just beneath the seam of the hood. As soon as the waitress retreats you lean across the rickety table and paw at the cotton. Soobin puts up almost no fight, knowing he’s about to lose a battle that hadn’t even begun. The delicate skin of his cheek is alarmingly bright red and looks angry to the touch. Bruises had already begun to form around the outer ring of the graze and your heart clenches when you realize that what you first thought was a circular bruise looks suspiciously similar to a fist. A symphony of anger and concern rise within your chest and your eyes prickle with tears that you know Soobin will wipe away for you if you let them fall. 

“What-” you swallow, saliva suddenly feeling like it’s made of cotton, “Who did that?” 

He smiles shyly, ducking away from your touch but you gently grab at his cheek, keeping him from moving too far. His eyes bore into yours, flicking down to your lips before bringing them back up. Slowly, as if scared to spook you, he encloses his palm around your wrist.

“Promise you won’t yell and disturb everyone else that’s eating?” You nod eagerly even though both you and Soobin know that it was a promise likely to be broken. His hand, steady and radiating warmth into the skin of your wrist tugs tighter, hooking on to you like a life line. 

“That asshole Braden. I was passing him in the lobby of the math building and he was talking to his friends about how-” Soobin stops to swallow an invisible lump in his throat- “how he worked with you on some project and he kept talking about how stupid you were the whole time.” 

Your face twists into a grimace at the reminder of that exact project and then the image of Braden, tall and wide with an angry round face; but then a laugh bubbled from the depths of your chest. 

“To be fair, I was useless for that project. It was film class and it was about that stupid French movie I didn’t watch. So he’s not technically wrong.” Soobin’s frown twitched and then, to your surprise, deepened. Heart dropping at the sight, you felt a chill creep up the back of your neck. For as long as you’d known him, there was always a good chance that a well timed joke could curb his anger or sadness or frustration. 

“It wasn’t that that got me, well, this. After he said that, he said that even though you were stupid he wouldn’t mind seeing you on your knees.” You sucked in a simultaneous breath with Soobin, whose moody look finally transfered to you. It made too much sense now; why your joke hadn’t shifted his mood, why he was so vague about why he needed to talk to you, why he had that bruise. Your heart races as you begin to imagine how the skin will turn deep purples and greens, going sickly yellow around the edges. “It just pissed me off so bad. So I yelled at him and he squared up with me and before I knew it I was on the floor.”

To be honest, you were angrier that Soobin had come out of the altercation hurt than anything. You were used to the comments, the snide bullshit that falls from the mouths of your less kind peers.

“I’m going to kill him.” Soobin laughs, finally, as you clench your fingers into a tight fist around your innocent glass of strawberry lemonade.

“No, you’re not. I’m fine.” He finally removes the hood from his head, and if it weren’t for the bruise- which you now could see spread almost all the way to his ear- you would have been more interested in the fact that his shaggy hair had gotten even longer since the last time you’d seen it this close. You open your mouth to protest just as the waitress approaches again, this time balancing two hot plates of food on her arms. You flash her a sweet smile at the same time she notices the state of Soobin’s face and squints. She doesn’t say anything, though, and leaves almost as quickly as she showed up.

“Are you sure I can’t punch him in the face?” You ask as soon as she’s out of earshot. 

“Yes.” Soobin playfully scowls at you around a mouthful of french fries. Your heart skips at the adorable way his eyebrows knit and his dimples press deeper into his cheeks. Despite yourself, you smile, feeling the tension in the air dissipate around the pair of you. Soobin gestures loosely to the plate in front of you, wordlessly encouraging you to eat.

The pancakes you ordered are just as delicious as you remember them to be every time; fluffy and syrupy with just enough butter. Halfway through a chew, a new idea pops in your head and you struggle to keep chunks of batter from spewing onto the table as you speak.

“What if I just break his nose a little?”

[songbirdstyles]

sparks

summary: you’re a music journalist assigned to covering one of harry styles’ gigs, and he’s absolutely smitten with you. (part one.)

warnings: slight fluff, excessive liberties taken about music journalism; smut in later chapters, angst in later chapters

word count: 8.2k

inspo.: almost famous - cameron crowe; sparks - the who; hello, i love you - the doors

You’d never truly gotten a big assignment before - sure, you’d gotten a few pieces here and there detailing local LA bands that you knew would never live to see more than 100,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, and they mostly ended up buried by your higher-ranking coworker’s higher end stories on the front covers - and, for the most part, you’d honestly been fine with it. You’re fresh out of college, the newest recruit to your company and your colleagues who are sent out to tour with big bands and artists have been here for years, some even decades, and you suppose they deserve the opportunities more than you, don’t they?

You work your way up, your boss had told you the first day you’d started working, following him around like an eager puppy as he showed you the office. Eventually - if I’m impressed with you - you’ll get something big.

It’s enough for you. Small bands playing in hole-in-the-wall clubs and restaurants may not be the exact thing you’d envisioned when you’d set your sights on being a music journalist but it’s worked out well for you so far, hasn’t it? You’ve made friends - even dated the lead singer of an underground rock band who cheated on you hardly two weeks into the relationship - and your portfolio is slowly building, stacked with exposés and detailed recounts of small gigs that you’d watched from backstage. Eventually, you’ll leave this company and move on to something bigger, like Rolling Stone, and your career will take off until you’re practically the face of music journalism.

And, really, those dreams have carried you through college and the first year of your career, putting your all into every article and every piece just so your boss can tug you into his office one day with a rarely-seen grin to finally tell you -

“I want you to write an article on Harry Styles.”

You furrow your eyebrows, shifting in the cushy office seat that your boss has for guests in his office. It’s a facade that you’ve learned to acknowledge, because, no matter how much he makes it look like he appreciates guests in his office, you know he regards you as nothing more than an interloper, even if he’d invited you there to begin with. “Harry Styles?”

“You’ve heard of him, haven’t you?” Mike asks, light shining off his bald head, and your mouth opens and closes a few times uselessly. 

“Of course I have!” You push yourself to sit up straighter in your seat, staring up at your boss with shock written in every feature of your face. You, writing about Harry Styles? God, you nearly want to pinch yourself to see if you’re dreaming. “Write an article about - about what?”

Mike scoffs in that pretentious way that makes you hate ever having to talk to him, and you resist the urge to roll your eyes at him. “He’s coming to do a few shows along the West Coast. You can go to one or two - talk to him a bit, talk to his band - you’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

“With small bands, sure - Tacocat and - and the Mystery Lights -” You swallow thickly, and Mike stares down at you in your seat like he’s unimpressed with your enthusiasm, or lack thereof. And it’s not that you aren’t executed - but, Christ. Going from bands performing in underground clubs to Harry Styles is like going straight from crawling to flying a fucking plane and you’re not sure if any of your experience with the musical locality in LA could prepare you for that. “I mean, that’s huge, Mike.”

“It is huge,” Mike confirms, crossing his thick arms over his chest, leaning against the desk before you as though he’s immune to sitting in his seat behind his desk like a normal boss. “Do you not want to do it? Because Melissa, you know - she’d love to, was going on and on about it last week -”

“No!” Your cheeks flush at the volume your voice raises to, and if you didn’t know better you could swear you see the ghost of a grin on Mike’s face. “I want to, Mike, I really want to - it’s just crazy.” There’s a pregnant pause between the two of you, your boss nodding smugly down at you as you struggle for words, before you ask the question burning the tip of your tongue with its desire to be heard. “But - why me? I’m sure you have people more qualified for it -”

“Easy,” Mike says, cutting you off and you’d be annoyed in any other instance but you’re too desperate to hear his answer. “Look, Harry’s a young guy. Younger than anyone else our people have interviewed - I think he’ll respond more to a young, pretty girl like yourself than someone older than him.”

Well, that makes sense, you suppose. The only coworker even close to you in age is Melissa, and she’s pushing 30 as it is. You’re 23 - graduated college just over a year ago, and by far the newest recruit this company has taken in years - but you had always imagined that was the main reason you wouldn’t get many big articles, and here it’s the main factor in you getting what will surely be the highlight of your portfolio once you apply to Rolling Stone. An interview with Harry Styles - God, they’ll probably foam at the mouth when they see it, and a grin spreads across your face as you think of it.

“Is that a yes?” Mike questions, blonde eyebrows raised high and nearly disappearing into his scalp. 

“Of course,” you respond without another moment of hesitation, and you push yourself to stand, office chair rolling behind you with the force, and it hits the wall behind you with a soft thump. “Yes - of course - of course.”

“Great.” And he crosses to the other side of his desk, pushing aside a few loose papers and folders on his desk, and you clutch your hands in front of your stomach as you watch him, practically bouncing up and down with uncontained joy and fear bubbling inside of you. The last time you’d felt like this was the first time you got a real assignment - more than just ranking songs and discussing new album releases - and you’d been sent to a strip club to cover a gig from an up-and-coming band. Back then, you’d never expected to ever feel more excited over anything in your life, and yet, here you are, eight months later, fighting back the urge to burst into joyful tears. “They come in a week - I’ll send you the address - if you need help with your questions -”

“I’ll ask Francine,” you finish the same advice he gives you every time you’re assigned an article, referring to your oldest coworker - a little old woman who’s been with the company since the 70s. She’s always been more than willing to help you with your assignments but this - you need to do this by yourself. “Thank you so much, Mike, this is - this is great.”

“Don’t let me down,” he says, pointing his finger at you, and you nod furiously. “I’m trusting you on this - it’s a big opportunity.”

“I won’t disappoint you,” you promise, holding up your crossed fingers just to show him how much you mean it, and you know it’s the truth - you’ll make this piece the best damn one this company has ever seen if it’s the last thing you ever do. 

 ~~

 The night begins a bit - rocky, to say the least.

For one, you couldn’t decide what to wear, even after spending nearly a half hour trying on every variation of clothes in your closet and tossing them onto the floor of your studio apartment when they didn’t satisfy your needs. In the past you’d worn to gigs what you’d wear if you were a simple concertgoer, albeit a bit more modestly, but you can’t decide what you would wear to a Harry Styles concert if you got the regular chance to - and you’d never even dreamt that it would happen in the first place -

Well, you peruse your closet intently and land on a pair of patterned flare pants and a long sleeve sweater. It only seems fitting for the chilly weather outside, and you fold a shirt into your bag in case you need to change if it gets hot backstage. You’re not dressed to impress, necessarily - you’re dressed to get a job done, as Mike would always say, but how could you be expected to not attempt to impress Harry Styles? It’s a preposterous idea. You’re sure anyone would understand.

Journalism pass - phone - keys - deodorant - when you’ve checked your bag over three times to ensure you have everything necessary you finally leave, locking your door shut behind you and ordering an Uber to take you to the concert.

You hadn’t anticipated Uber and Lyft being absolutely overloaded with patrons due to the concert just a half hour away and you need to be there by 6:30 at the very latest to ensure you get in and can at least talk to Harry before he goes on - a quarter of your questions are geared towards how he feels pre show and you can’t get pre show questions after the show - that’s barbaric. But the minutes inch closer to 5:30 and your Uber driver is still ten minutes away and your heart beats so fast against your chest you think you might vomit right into the street in front of your building -

You’re in the car by 5:45. It’s not ideal, and you know you’re cutting it close, but hopefully you’ll be there before the soundcheck ends. It’s always an ideal time to take photos, watching the band warm up and check mics, and with a piece like this, you need all the opportunities for pictures you can get.

And traffic is horrible - you suppose that’s also to be expected, and your Uber driver curses in a language you can’t recognize as cars cut him off on the highway and if you were a different person, you’d recommend a shortcut he takes, but he doesn’t look like he wants to hear a single word come from your mouth. He had given you a dirty look when you entered the car, and that’s enough to make you shut up and pray for the entire car ride that you make it on time.

6:27. Mike would piss himself if he knew how close you cut it, and you hop out of the car with a speed you didn’t even know you could muster, pushing past the buzzing crowd standing in front of the main entrance. The hoard of people seems to have a steady heartbeat, pulsing with excitement much like your own, and you can’t help but smile as you make your way around the group, goosebumps cropping up over your skin as your teeth chatter in the coldness. For a moment you fear that the directions to the backstage entrance that Mike had given you were total bullshit - but then you see the door, blocked by a burly security guard that glowers at you as you walk up to him like you’re something sticky beneath his shoe.

“Hi!” you call, breath exploding in a white cloud in front of you in the cool night air. The security guard smells so strongly of booze that you need to try harder than you’d care to admit not to scrunch your nose - you cough softly. “Let me - um - find my pass - I’m with Autoamerican, the magazine?”

Fingers grab onto your journalism pass, deep within your bag, and you tug it out, flashing it to the security guard with a slightly nervous grin. All of the gigs you’d been to before hadn’t even had backstage doors - to get backstage, you just had to climb onto the stage and walk behind the wings - but this is a fucking stadium, not just a measly club, and a big one, at that. In your youth you’re sure you could recall your dad watching a football game that occurred in this very stadium - funny how life turns out, sometimes.

“Autoamerican?” the security guard questions, bringing his face closer to your badge as the wafting smell of alcohol increases, and he raises his eyebrows with a scoff. “Never heard of it.”

“Oh.” you pause, feeling your teeth beginning to chatter in the cool February air. You’re not quite sure what to say - you’d assumed Mike had called to arrange the entire thing, hadn’t he? And this is the time you’re supposed to be here - “well, we’re not as big as Rolling Stone magazine, but - we’ve done interviews with The Cure, The Smiths - even Zeppelin, at one point -”

Your voice trails off into silence. He doesn’t care. He’s looking at you like you’re some innocent teenage girl, trying to bribe your way backstage so you can bombard the artist and not a fully grown woman here on business, goddammit. And you’re not sure what to say - he doesn’t believe you, clearly, and you hadn’t anticipated that even as you listed all the ways tonight could go wrong.

“Look, kid,” he begins, and that really has your blood boiling, eyes narrowing to glare at him. “We get this all the time. I’m a journalist - I’m with the crew - it’s a bunch of bullshit. Now go to the front with your general admission tickets like the rest of them -”

“I have a pass - I’m a journalist!”

“Sure -”

“I can call my boss if you want proof!”

And before you can reach into your bag to search relentlessly for your phone to follow through on the promise like you intend to, the door the man is guarding suddenly swings open, nearly hitting the guard in the ass as it opens out. You take a step back as dim light from inside floods the darkness, and a man steps out of the doorway, his eyes darting between you and the security guard.

“Are you with Autoamerican?” the man questions, raising his finger to point at you as though he could be speaking to anyone else. You nod furiously, and you hold up your journalism pass again just to prove it. “You can come inside, then - c’mon, Steve, she’s got a pass, for God’s sake -”

And you can’t resist flashing the guard a smug smile as he steps to the side to let you inside, rolling his eyes so far back into his head that all you can see is a strip of white.

The man lets you inside and the door shuts behind you, and you nearly knock straight into a second security guard standing by the door inside, as though trying to stop people from going out. And, well - you’ve been backstage at more concerts than you could count but this is certainly bigger, better, bustling with people carrying equipment and makeup artists and more people you couldn’t possibly identify. You’re half inclined to reach into your bag and grab your notebook to jot down exactly what you’re seeing so you can make sure to include it in the article, but you have a distinct feeling you’ll never forget it.

“I’m Jeff,” the man tells you, already setting off through the people, and you’re quick to follow, trying to maintain your pace beside him. After a second of walking in silence you realize he’s waiting for you to say yours - you clear your throat and introduce yourself, and he sends you a smile. “The band just finished their soundcheck, if you’d like to have a word with them before they go on - what’s the article about, anyway?”

Jeff shoulders the two of you through lingering groups of people until you emerge into a small hallway lined with doors, and you can hear bustling noise coming from the one closest to you - holy shit, is that Harry? 

“Um - just about the shows, the tour, how everything’s going. My boss basically told me to do what I want with it, so I’ll have a better idea once I speak to the band.” It’s the loosest instruction you’ve ever been given for a piece - you’d expected a clear cut outline - but perhaps with an artist this big, Mike trusts you to know what to write. “It likely won’t be anything too personal, but I’d love to get a chance to speak with Harry before and after.”

“Sounds great,” and you can tell he’s stressed - you wonder if he’s always anxious before his client’s shows, or if there’s something special about tonight that has him worried - and then he reaches past you, twisting the doorknob closest to you and holding the door open for you to enter before him, and you give him a gracious smile before walking in.

The room isn’t as crowded with people as you’d expected but they’re bustling with energy - a woman and a man, holding a guitar, lean against the wall with each other - two other women sip water bottles, laughing loudly amongst each other - another woman leans above someone, their body hidden from view except for their legs, covered in silk, floral printed pants -

Your breath catches in your throat as Jeff shuts the door behind you both, and the sound of the door clicking shut draws far more attention to yourself than you’d expected - it seems like every pair of eyes lands on you and Jeff, and you’d decided on being a music journalist to keep away from being the center of attention. You’ve always preferred being behind the scenes, a bit, at least until your career progresses until you’re a household name for music journalism, and now -

You feel very much in the scenes, eyes on you as Rhiannon plays in the background.

And then Jeff is tapping you on your shoulder, leading you around the room to the small groups of people lingering - you shake hands with Mitch and Sarah, the couple against the wall, and the rest of his band, and they’re so nice your smile feels like it’s going to break your face in half. You’ll need to interview them at some point - nothing too intense, and you may not even need to, if Harry’s answers are satisfactory enough - and you can already feel yourself building a strange sort of rapport with the band, their kindness rubbing off on you until you practically glide beside Jeff to the woman bent over Mr. Floral Pants, whose identity you’re fairly certain you’ve already deduced.

It doesn’t make it any more surprising when the woman steps aside where she’s carefully applying powder to the man’s face, and then Harry fucking Styles is staring up at her with a smile and an outstretched hand, suit jacket matching the floral pattern of his pants. His curls are carefully slicked back from his face, skin matte with the powder the woman resumes applying to the side of his face that isn’t turned to you, and you swallow your shock before reaching to shake his hand, Rhiannon turning into Hello, I Love You, playing from a source you can’t identify.

“Nice t’meet you,” Harry says when you’ve told him your name and the magazine you work for - Jeff had already mentioned it, but it is customary to repeat it to whomever you may have to interview. “Y’know, I love Autoamerican - told Jeff, s’the only magazine I’d let interview me backstage. Don’t usually allow it.”

“Really?” your stomach flips as Harry stops bouncing his arm, but it takes just another half second for him to untwine his hand from yours - you’re sure it’s because the makeup artist fretting above him is using her thumb to wipe off powder from his nose, but it still makes your heart thump faster against your chest. “I assumed most people haven’t heard of it - it’s nowhere near Rolling Stone.”

“I love it,” he insists, dropping your hand, and he looks so casual, as if this interaction isn’t blowing up your entire life, and you’re brought back to the many moments you’d spent as a teenager fawning over him in his One Direction days - God, this feels like a dream, and you’re half inclined to pinch yourself in case it is. Maybe you’ll wake up in Mike’s office to him giving you another shitty underground LA band to interview. “The interview with Sublime s’great - read it all the time.”

You swallow thickly, grin spreading wider across your face, and before you can open your mouth to tell him about Francine’s go-to story about how Eric Wilson had flirted with her while she interviewed them for the story, Jeff interjects - “Steve hadn’t even heard of it.”

“Steve’s an idiot,” Harry starts, and you giggle - his lips lilt upwards just a bit. “Hope he wasn’t hasslin’ you ‘bout it.”

“Just a little,” you say, hoisting your bag further up your shoulder just as the makeup artist drops the powder back into the apron slung around her waist, and her manicured nails tilt Harry’s head around for a moment before she seemingly deems his makeup satisfactory before leaving, sending you a tight lipped smile as she goes. “I’d love to ask you a few questions before the show - nothing too heavy - and then I’ll observe the concert and how everything goes, ask a few questions after.”

“Sounds great,” Harry responds, lifting his fist with his thumb up and you didn’t think your heartbeat could grow any faster or louder but you suppose today is just proving you wrong time and time again. “D’you need t’record m’answers? S’a bit loud in here.”

The truth is, you’re sure you’ll have this entire experience engraved in your brain for years to come - you’ll remember every word he utters for you until your dying days - but it is more practical to have a recording. You swing your bag off your arm and open it, digging through the jumbled mess of items inside until you find your phone, and you hold it up with a nod. “Yeah - there isn’t anywhere a bit quieter, is there?”

It takes a minute of bustling - Jeff tells you two instructions to go down the hall into another room where you may find more silence - and Harry promises, accent thick and eyes rolling, to be back in twenty minutes or less, if tha’s enough time for you, ma’am, and you try to trick yourself into thinking the burn flushing up your cheeks is due to the heat of the room.

Down the hall is another door that Harry opens for you, letting you walk in first. It’s a small room, clearly meant for storage, and he shuts the door behind the pair of you. There’s - luckily, or perhaps unluckily - just enough room for you two have at least a few feet between you, and he leans against the wall with an air of casual elegance you couldn’t hope to achieve as you scroll through your phone to search for the voice recorder app.

“Hope this s’good enough - is it?” Harry inquires, leaning his head closer to yours, and you nod. “Good - wish there was a nicer spot for you, but -”

“Don’t worry about it,” you interject, smiling up at him, and he grins back, and your stomach churns violently. You almost feel like you could vomit - when he goes on, you’ll go and have a bit to eat at the table set up with foods that Jeff had wheeled you past when you arrived. Eating seems to solve more of your nerves than you’d care to admit, and you feel like you’re nearly 95% nerves right now. Your fingers fiddle with the voice recorder app, adding a title to the recording while entirely too focused on the sounds of Harry’s breathing above you, and you can practically fear his eyes boring into your face before you press record. 

And, for the most part, it does go smoothly. Harry introduces himself with an ease that only comes with years of practice, so much time spent being interviewed that it must feel like as much of a second nature to him as interviewing is to you. He’s charming and charismatic - flirtatious, even - making jokes and adding lines that you make a mental note to be sure to include in your final piece - whatever direction you go - and you can’t say you’re bothered by the way he leans closer to the phone, and thus closer to you, in order for his voice to be heard more on the recording when occasional noise bustles in from outside.

You don’t need to look at the questions you’d spent weeks laboring over - every question you inquire derives directly from his answers like he’s practically feeding them to you, and then you’re interviewing him so naturally, you could nearly fool yourself into thinking it’s an organic conversation between friends. 

What’s his process to prepare for shows? Well, listening to Fleetwood Mac and eating finger foods, of course - he loves mozzarella sticks. Does Fleetwood Mac make you less nervous for shows? No, he doesn’t get too anxious before shows, now that he’s out of the band. He just loves Fleetwood Mac - he could listen to them at any time of the day. What do you think makes your solo career less anxiety-inducing than being in the band? Different fans let him be himself more. There’s less pressure to be someone he isn’t - do you think he could’ve worn a floral printed suit at a One Direction concert?

And, in the end, twenty minutes hardly feels like it, and by the time Harry tilts his head over the screen of your phone to check the time, you could nearly convince yourself that you’d merely spent a minute with the heartthrob, and it pains you to stop the recording.

“How’d I do?” he questions, cheeky smile indenting the dimple in his cheek, and you feel like you need to dip your face in ice once he goes on stage - your face hasn’t felt anything less than piping hot since the first moment he rested eyes on you, and his kind-bordering-on-flirtatious nature only makes your skin heat more under his gaze.

It isn’t as though you’d have it any other way, though.

“Perfect,” and you send him a smile. “I’ll watch the show - probably eat a bit, too, if I’m being honest - and maybe ask you a few questions. How many shows are you doing in LA?”

Harry reaches past you, grabbing the doorknob and opening the door for you once more, and you slip out with a small smile as he follows, face twisted in what’s clearly a show of being in deep thought. “Four. An’ a few more on the West Coast ‘fore we move out - reckon you’ll need t’come t’a few more?”

“Depends.” He looks at you curiously as the two of you make your way back to the room you’d been in before, and when you enter, it’s clearly in a more prominent state of preparation for the show - there’s more bustle and movement between every band member and Jeff, who looks entirely relieved to see you two come in as She’s a Rainbow thumps softly, volume clearly turned down on whatever produces the music. “If I feel like I’ve got enough material from this show, then that’ll be it - I usually just do reviews of specific gigs, and this is a lot broader - so I really don’t know.”

Harry nods, and you feel a flutter in your heart at how intently he seems to be listening to you, like he really cares, and you’re sure it’s a facade - he probably has a million other things on his mind as Jeff descends upon the both of you, whisking him away as he calls goodbye! to you - but still. When was the last time you’d felt listened to? By Mike, or by the security guard outside, or even from your own parents when you try to convince them over and over that you have a plan, that your degree wasn’t a waste of time when you could’ve been a doctor -

Well, Harry’s a gentleman, you decide, sliding your phone into the back pocket of your flares as you reach in your bag for your notepad. You can tell they’re preparing to go on soon and so you descend against the wall, grabbing your pen from deep inside the confines of your bag to scribble the essential notes of what you’ll need - it’ll make it easier when it’s time to write, rather than listening to the entire 20 minute interview again to try and find the important sections to include.

His responses to your question still burn fresh in your mind, and you began scribbling your bullet points on the small notepad in your hands. It’s decently easy to block out the chatter of the room you’re in along with its music, volume turned down further until it’s hardly audible, and it really is a skill you’ve mastered, though you suppose you’ve had to - trying to take notes for articles about gigs occurring in buildings so small that their noise reverberates off of every surface has made you a master in tuning out noise surrounding you.

You are aware, and acutely, at that, when the band starts exiting through the door beside you. They don’t look nervous, returning your encouraging smiles with ones of their own, and you watch them pour out the door with confidence practically radiating off of them. Well, that’s something to mention, isn’t it? Most of the bands you’d interviewed were practically vomiting with nerves -

Harry takes up the rear, fingers running through his slicked back hair, and you can’t tell if it’s a nervous habit or if he’s simply trying to let his curls fall in front of his eyes more. Jeff walks in front of him, giving you a smile as he leaves, and the singer stops beside you.

Your breath just about catches in your throat as you look up at him, and he’s staring down at you with a decidedly ambiguous look in his eyes, and you smile at him. “Good luck out there.”

“You’re gonna come and watch?”

You nod. “Eventually - I’m gonna eat something first, finish my notes. Maybe give myself a tour of the backstage in case I decide to include it.”

“Sounds good t’me,” Harry says, but he doesn’t make a motion to leave, and then his eyes roll down your body and is he fucking checking you out? Because - no - that’s crazy. That would cement into your brain the knowledge that this is a dream, and not reality, because there’s no fucking way Harry Styles is checking you out, eyes roaming from your eyes to your stomach to your - “I like your pants. Where’d you get ‘em?”

Ah. Of course. Fashion icon, he is, inquiring about the pants you’d chosen specifically because they looked like something he may like. “These?” You glance down as though you’d forgotten what pants you’d donned, as though you hadn’t spent hours in front of your closet envisioning what outfit you could wear to impress him. “I think they’re from Zara. Got them a couple years back.”

“They’re pretty.”

“Why, thank you -”

“Harry!”

Jeff’s voice calling from outside the room snaps you both out of your conversation, a slightly embarrassed grin spreading across Harry’s face that you’re sure is mirroring your own. His cheeks are tinged pink and he clears his throat.

“Sorry - gotta go - make sure y’try the mozzarella sticks, ‘kay? They’re good,” Harry tells you, and you grin, drumming the pen clutched between your fingers against the notepad in your hands.

“Will do,” you reply, and then you lift your hand and point to the door, raising your eyebrows with a smile. “Go break a leg - and then be ready to talk about it when you’re done!”

He doesn’t say anything else - just gives you a thumbs up and slips out the door, and you can hear his frenzied apologies to Jeff as their voices fade away, surely preparing to get on stage and sing his heart out and blow the fucking stadium away, but you can hardly focus on it. Because - God, you really don’t want to sound like a narcissist - but he was joking around with you, complimented your pants, and he did technically check you out, even if it was just to see your pants. 

Was he flirting with you?

Surely not. No, that would be absurd. He’s probably just bored - maybe entertaining random people backstage is his way of dealing with his nerves.

That makes a bit more sense.

When you glance back down at your notepad, the page half filled with scribbled bullet points of things you’d sworn to remember, and when you click your pen open to continue your list, you find that you can’t quite think of anything else to write. All you can think about is the mozzarella sticks waiting for you, and then standing in the wings to watch him sing his heart out to a crowd of adoring fans that you, at one point, would have killed to be apart of -

You shove your pen and pad back into your bag with a determined spin of your heels. Food first - contemplation second.

 ~~~

 The show is - needless to say - amazing.

You’d feasted on slightly-cold mozzarella sticks that were, even in their lowered temperatures, immensely good, and clearly garnered all the affection Harry had for them. The food table was nearly completely empty, crew members repeatedly coming up to fill plates with vegetables and snacks, and so you simply gathered the last three sticks of celery once you were done with your sticks before taking a leisurely stroll along the backstage area. Celery firm between your teeth, you pulled out your notepad and your pen once more and jotted notes of what you could possibly include in the article to jog your memory later -

It takes a while, admittedly. You don’t want to leave anything out, and eventually you have two pages filled with notes in your handwriting that would surely be illegible to anyone else who happened upon them - and, sure, your pages are small, but still. Two pages is a lot, and you’re sure most of it won’t even make it into the article but you don’t want to risk forgetting any important information.

A trip to the bathroom - perusing the food table again to pick up the last few carrot sticks - and the show is nearly halfway over, so you decide it may be time to slip into the wings and watch. Take notes, possibly, but mainly just listen and absorb the music and the atmosphere and exactly how the fans react to his every move. That’s what the people want to know, isn’t it? It’s what you would want to know - so you slip past the lingering groups of people into the wings of the stage, where you get a clear view of Harry and his band, singing his heart out to a tune you know to be Kiwi.

It’s ear splitting, truly, in a way that none of the other gigs you’d witnessed had been. But it sounds good - better than good - and he’s as charismatic on stage as he is off,  waggling his eyebrows during the more suggestive lines and undoing the button of his suit jacket, and the latter garners a deafening scream from the adoring fans in the crowd. 

No, you won’t need to take notes, at least not yet. You’ll remember this forever, won’t you? Watching him work the crowd like he was born to do it, like it’s a second nature and you’re sure it is, at this point. It’s all you can do to stand there, watching him, and you’re sure you look no different from the other fans in the crowd, your eyes wide and lips parted in absolute awe of him -

His head turns to the side, briefly, as if he can sense your eyes on him above anyone else’s. In reality you’re sure he’d simply turned his head to flick a sweaty curl out of his face but it’s never a bad thing to dream right? And your gaze locks for just a moment, his eyebrows raising when he sees your face, and heat burns at your cheeks before his tongue darts out to wet his lips, and his right eye shuts in a quick wink before he’s turning back to the crowd as if his attention had never left them.

Shit. You nearly drop your damn carrot. God, he’s a fucking tease, and you’re not even sure he knows it - that this experience will never leave your brain for as long as you walk this Earth, watching him wink as he stared into the depths of your fucking soul, clad in a gorgeous suit with his gorgeous hair and -

Harry truly is a sight to behold, and you’re more than content to watch him forever.

Forever ends up being another half hour or so before you’re made entirely too aware of the fact that you have to pee - not insanely bad, but enough to make you shift uncomfortably from side to side before sighing, turning and making your way further backstage in your search for the bathroom. In your determined tour of the backstage you’d forgotten to search for the restroom, and you wander about for nearly five whole minutes before getting to it -

You do your business. There’s not much more explanation needed.

It’s when your washing your hands, though, water freezing cold against your palms, that you become slightly aware of a myriad of noises occurring outside the restroom. At first you choose not to focus on it, shoving your hands beneath the air dryer to ease your soaking, cold hands, and the noise of violent air assaulting your palms drowns out the scuffling sounds from outside.

When the dryer turns off, and you reach down to wipe your damp hands on your pants, the noises haven’t stopped. And, sure, no one could expect it to be completely silent backstage, but whatever you’re hearing isn’t the normal laughter and chatter and muffled music that you’re used to hearing -

It sounds like someone is fighting, and your hand freezes in its place on the cool metal doorknob. You lean forward, scrunching your nose as you plainly try harder to hear what’s happening -

But, Hell. You have a job to do - you need to get back to the wings to watch the remaining few minutes of the set before Harry leaves and, subsequently, returns for the encore, and you’d intended to write with detail about his closing repetition of Kiwi. So you grab the doorknob, swing the door open and step out, and freeze nearly immediately once you’ve exited.

There is a fight - not as violent as you’d expected - as the security guard from inside scuffles with Steve, who looks positively wasted in a way you’ve come to know all too well, doing gigs in LA. His face shines with a sheen layer of sweat, skin glowing in the artificial light, and his fists move slowly to pummel into the other security guard’s back. It’s, truthfully, a bit pathetic to watch - he isn’t putting up much of a fight against the guard trying to hold him, and your mouth parts with poorly-concealed confusion at the display in front of you.

You’re not sure what to say - or do - or think - standing in the doorway of the bathroom as you watch the poor excuse of a fight, Steve nearly toppling to the ground as the other guard tries to contain him.

“Come on, Steve - don’t be like this -”

Then the other security guard looks up and sees you, and the expression on his face nearly makes you burst into laughter, but you contain it with a bit more difficulty than you’d like to admit. He looks annoyed, like he’s absolutely done with his coworker, and also slightly embarrassed. Clearly, he’d dragged Steve into the hallway containing the bathrooms with the hopes of nobody seeing either of them, and you’ve interrupted his bid for privacy desperately. “Sorry, ma’am,” the guard says, grabbing one of Steve’s flailing fists in his hands. “Don’t mind us - he’s drunk - just trying to contain him.”

You’re doing a damn good job, you want to say, but you bite back the retort with a small nod and a whisper of a smile on your face, walking with your back to the wall past their display in the hopes of Steve not seeing you. He hadn’t been particularly nice to you when you’d first seen him and you can tell he’s in a much more heightened state, now - he’d been drunk when you’d seen him before and you can tell it’s only gotten worse.

Maybe you should’ve told Jeff the guard was drunk?

Well, it’s counterproductive to dwell on the past.

You’re not so lucky, though - you’ve barely made it down five steps down the hallway before Steve lifts his head, pupils blown and skin even stickier looking than before, and he gives you the same disgusted look as though you’re something his dog had left on the grass. “Hey - hey - Jim - do you know who that is?”

And the other security guard - Jim - just rolls his eyes. “No, Steve, I don’t - stop making a fool out of yourself.”

“She works at - at - Eat to the Beat - Parallel Lines - what is it?”

Do you answer him? You don’t quite know. You just swallow thickly, forcing yourself not to don the smile that’s urging its way onto your lips as you hear roaring screams from the crowd that alerts you to the fact that, if Harry isn’t done with his set yet, he’s close, and you need to watch the end. “Autoamerican. Those are all good albums, though.”

“She’s snarky - get off of me, Jim -”

In Steve’s final bid for freedom his legs kick out, and his sneakered foot knocks into your ankle, and it’s certainly not hard by any stretch of the definition but it’s enough to catch you off balance, his toe hooking into the loose fabric around your ankles as he brings his foot back to kick again. One kick did it, though - you tumble to the ground, legs flying out from under you until you land on your ass on the hard floor, your bag slipping off your shoulder, and its contents scatter across the ground.

Fuck. That hurt, more than you’d care to admit, as you brace your elbows behind you to stop your head from knocking into the ground. Your ass hurts and you can see Steve’s leg bracing backwards for another kick, and you push yourself backwards so his foot merely pushes against the air.

You can already see Jim opening his mouth to desperately say sorry when a set of footsteps interrupts his apology - you don’t have to look to your side to see who it is, the smell of expensive cologne wafting before him like an introduction. You practically feel him before you see him.

Your name falls off Harry’s lips entirely too easily, like he’d been looking for you in the overtly small window of space he has before he has to go back on stage - his hair is messy and his skin is sweaty and he bends down next to you with such sentimentality in his eyes - you almost feel like a child again.

“Are y’okay?” Harry questions, and his hand rests on the small of your back and warmth seems to seep through your body from its spawning point, palm moving in circles against your sweater so gently you can tell he’s scared to go much harder. “Wha’ -?”

For his eyes had just landed on the sight in front of you - Jim managed to pull Steve up, the latter clearly coming to his senses at least a little bit, and his eyes narrow at the sight of you on the floor and subsequently widen as he sees Harry next to you.

“Wha’ happened?” And you can hear anger quivering under his voice like boiling water, ready to overflow, and you instinctively reach up to press your hand against his forearm - you do it to your niece all the time when you can tell she’s on the verge of a tantrum and it always works on her - but she is five, and Harry’s twenty years her senior, so, needless to say, the motion doesn’t do much to soothe him. “Fightin’ back here, kickin’ her - you’re s’posed t’be security guards!”

“It’s okay, Harry -”

“S’not okay -”

And then there’s another set of footsteps jogging over to you, and you look up to see Jeff -

“Har, you need to get back out -” but you can see the confusion set into his features as he stands over the scene, eyes flickering to you and Harry on the floor to Jim and Steve, the former having settled the latter into a fairly calm position. The scent of alcohol is strong and you can practically watch as Jeff smells it, his nose crinkling. “Is he drunk?”

“He is drunk, an’ got into a fight wit’ -”

“Okay, okay,” you interrupt, squeezing Harry’s arm again as you push yourself to stand, attempting not to wince at the pain in your ass as your muscles tense. He’s looking at you like you’ve just been hit by a car instead of having a mild scuffle with a security guard, eyes wide and concerned, and you shake your head at him. “Didn’t get into a fight, Harry - he accidentally kicked me. It’s really fine - you need to go back out, anyway.”

“She’s right,” Jeff insists, reaching down to tug Harry up as his eyes bore into the sight in front of you, Steve slowly calming himself down until he’s simply red in the face and reeking of booze. “Come on, Har - you need to get on.”

But Harry’s already bending down again, grabbing your pen and your notebook and your phone (you can see a crack in the screen that most certainly hadn’t been there just a mere ten minutes ago) and you could nearly laugh at the display he’s putting on, shoving your items back into your back, if Jeff’s demeanor wasn’t bordering on murderous as he drags Harry up again. You reach down and grab your bag, now fully stocked again with all of the items that had clattered out, and you give the tussling security guards one final fleeting look before following Jeff and Harry as they make their way down the hall.

“Y’sure you’re okay?” Harry questions, slowing his pace so you can jog beside him, much to Jeff’s lingering annoyance as he brings his fingers up to rub at the space between his eyes. “Y’should know - tha’ doesn’t usually happen -”

“I get it,” you tell him.

“No, really.” You’ve reached the wings of the stage, and Jeff leaves the pair of you alone to descend on to where the band stands, clearly waiting for the cue to go on. Harry runs a hand through his hair, and he looks oddly exasperated and you wish you could get it through his head that it really isn’t a big deal - “Someone will take care of the guards, okay?”

“Don’t fire them,” you insist, even though you’re sure he has no say in it. “Not Jim, at least.”

“Jim -?”

“The sober one.”

“Oh.” He pauses, dropping his hands to his sides. “I can’t make any promises.”

“Just try.”

“Will do.”

There’s another brief second of silence before you nod towards the stage where he’s needed - the few lowly minutes between the end of the show and the encore has come to an end, and you’re sure people are beginning to wonder if he’s not coming back. “Go on, Har. There’s people waiting for you.”

“M’going!” And he isn’t going, just staring at you with his brows furrowed, and you raise your own with a confused stare. “Are y’gonna come t’any more shows?”

You pause, nibbling on your bottom lip as you contemplate your answer. “Well - maybe. If I need more information.” “You should,” he tells you, and you tilt your head to the side. “Look, I don’t want your only impression of m’shows t’be that they’re violent an’ crazy.”

“I don’t think -”

“Jus’ one more? In two days. I’ll send you th’address. I really want you t’come -”

Before you can process the request Jeff has stepped forward, hooking his arm in Harry’s and practically dragging him towards the stage, and you watch him prance back in front of the audience like it’s his God given purpose and perhaps it is. You’ve never quite met anyone like him, you don’t think, and you’d certainly had a perception of what you’d imagined him to be like based on the insane amount of time you’d spent obsessing over his band when you were younger -

Your mouth feels suddenly dry as you watch him begin, and the music seems to reverberate beneath your skin, and suddenly - without having to think about it much at all, really - you know it won’t take much convincing on his part to get you back for a second night.

[aliwritesfic]

The Night Shift part 8 (F!Reader x Frankie Morales)

Summary: It's time to do what's best for you . . . also fuck Kurt

Warnings: physical violence, emotional abuse, brief mention of trauma

W/C: 2.2k

AN: So.... I'll be honest, I was quite sick when I wrote this (and I'm still not 100% but I'm at like 75% which is good enough) but I have a mentality of not editing or revising my work otherwise I embarrass myself and convince myself I'm The Worst(tm), but I hope this makes sense and the pacing is good <3

Spotify

Part 1 Part 9

Frankie was glad to see you finally opening up. Even if that meant tears he couldn’t wipe away, or a hand he couldn’t hold. The last thing he wanted was to put you in a position where you thought the only reason he was helping was to swoop in while you were vulnerable.

You sat next to him in his truck, your eyes were puffy and red from tears that once they started seemed to come in waves of intensity, from a few sniffles to shoulders heaving, gasping for air sobs. Manny sat beside you, holding your hand, which Frankie was grateful for. He was glad to see that you had people that cared about you. When he had messaged Manny that morning, it was more to find out if his suspicions were correct about the ‘friend’ you had talked about while drunk was you.

“You don’t have-“

“We want to,” Manny interjected for the fifth time. It occurred to Frankie that you weren’t used to people wanting to help you. “I’ve been praying that you’ll let me help you.” That made you sob again. You gave another apology, chest heaving as you tried to breathe.

Truthfully, Frankie was also glad that this was an excuse for him to skip talking about his own feelings. His own mind was a muddy mess of flashbacks and night terrors and bouts of anxiety that became so crippling he forgot how to breathe. How well would that have gone down in the little group he now found himself apart of? If he had to guess, about as well as it went down with Portia – pitying looks and urges to see a proper therapist, and a new distance that neither was willing bridge.

Manny answered a call as Frankie drove back. He wasn’t driving anywhere in particular, but when it had become clear you wanted to be anywhere but that bistro, he had suggested the three of you pile into his truck and see where the road took you.

“Mateo, honey, I need to ask you a few things,” Manny said into his phone. Out of the corner of his eye, Frankie saw you lean your head back and squeeze your eyes shut. Frankie wanted to reach out and squeeze your knee, take your hand, do anything to show that he was there, that he wasn’t going anywhere so long as you wanted him around.

Manny’s voice faded into the background as you turned to look at Frankie. He pulled up at a small nature reserve, which was just an algae slicked pond and a few oak trees surrounded by recently mowed grass. Frankie noticed how bloodshot your eyes were.

“You okay?” he asked, realising it was a stupid question.

“I will be,” you said, your voice hoarse. You cleared your throat with a wince. “I’m not upset . . . I’m just overwhelmed. Like, I’ve been holding this all in for so long that once the lid was opened it was impossible to put back on, and now I’ve just gotta let it all out. Does that sound stupid?”

Frankie shook his head. “Not at all.” You smiled weakly at him.

“Bet this is the worst lunch you’ve ever had,” you said.

“Nah, I think it ranks pretty highly,” Frankie said. “Mainly because of the company, though.” You rolled your eyes and Frankie could see the corners of your mouth twitch in an effort to keep a smile away.

“It’s not your fault, you know,” he said softly.

“What isn’t?” You asked, but before he could answer, Manny interjected.

“I’ve found you a new place,” he said. You shot up, confusion written on your face plainly. Manny smiled the type of smile when someone knows they’ve basically saved the day. “That was my dear friend Mateo on the phone. He is taking his first steps towards being a real estate mogul and recently brought a one bedroom apartment to rent out. And because he is such a dear friend and owes me like, a billion favours, I told him the minimum of what your situation was, and he has told me that he’s willing to rent the place to you for lower than market value. A hundred and twenty a week, including water.”

You’re silent for a few moments, and Frankie watched you carefully.

“When can I move in?” you said finally, and Frankie felt an invisible weight lift off your shoulders. He could only imagine how difficult this would be for you; making decisions that would change how you lived in a matter of hours, basically upending your life.

“He can get the keys to us on Wednesday, he’s just got to replace some fixtures and finish painting some walls,” Manny said. You nodded slowly.

“So, I just need to last till Wednesday,” you said.

“You can stay at my place, if you want.” Frankie said quickly, not exactly comfortable with the idea of you staying with Kurt. You had said he was never physically violent, but Frankie also knew how quickly a man could change when they didn’t get their way.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to impose,” you said carefully. Frankie nodded.

“Of course, you’re my friend, and friends help each other.” Just friends. Only friends. He wasn’t going to take advantage of you in this state just because he had a stupid crush. He had once had a conversation with a pissed off Eve Miller, who was ranting about the guys she thought were her friends instantly making moves the moment she became single. That had solidified Frankie’s resolve to not make moves on women he was friends with – it wasn’t fair to them or to him.

Before you could answer, your phone was ringing loudly. Your face crumpled as you looked at the contact, and Frankie frowned.

Kurt.

You took a deep breath and hit answer. “Hey! What’s up?” Your light and airy tone was at odds with your sombre expression. “No, I have lunch with Manny on Sunday, remember? You’re home already? But –“

Frankie listened to the angry buzzing coming from your phone, his revulsion growing.

“My phone died – no I just went out with Sara last night, she wanted to go to fight night . . . it’s not that short . . . No I didn’t fuck anyone else, Jesus Christ, Kurt! No! Look, I’ll be home soon, we can talk about this then.” You hung up with a shaking hand, your mouth twisting with effort to contain the tears.

Manny met Frankie’s eye over the top of your bowed head and gave a small nod.

“We’ll come with you to get some of your clothes,” Frankie said. “And anything else you need.”

“You’re really too sweet for this,” you muttered with a hiccup. “I’m sorry for dragging the both of you into my shit.”

“I crawled willingly into it,” Manny said breezily, “which I would only do for about five people in this world.”

The trio remained silent for several minutes, interrupted only but the sound of your occasional hiccups. Frankie reached out and patted your shoulder awkwardly, cringing internally while he did. Inexplicably, you leant into his touch, your damp cheek brushing against the back of his hand.

“Can you drive me home so I can get my stuff?” you asked softly. Frankie nodded and turned on the truck.

~*~

You were a ball of anxiety as Frankie pulled into the complex’s parking lot. Kurt’s car was already in the spot reserved for your apartment, sending you to the verge of a full-blown panic attack. You squeezed your eyes shut and counted to ten, then backwards from ten. Distantly, you felt Manny take hold of one of your hands.

“You’ve got this.” Manny’s voice sounded far away. “Francisco and I are behind you one hundred percent.”

“You’re calling the shots,” Frankie said, touching your arm. His hand was warm and calloused, and you didn’t know why that observation seemed to be at the forefront of your mind, but it was. You opened your eyes and met Frankie’s warm brown ones, suddenly feeling infinitely stronger.

You told them what you wanted to do – for you to go in by yourself and for them to wait outside the door, plug their ears if necessary, only come in if they felt like you were in any actual danger. Frankie’s face darkened at this, but to your relief he didn’t protest your plan.

You felt stronger with the two of them behind you. Every single step towards your apartment door solidified your resolve that this was the right thing, that this relationship hadn’t made you happy, fulfilled, in years. The click of your key in the door felt like one of finality.

Kurt sat on the couch, glaring at you. You left the door open a crack as you walked in, hovering by the dining table. You took him in fully and came to the conclusion that you were no longer attracted to this man at all. His skin was reddened by the sun, pale patches around his light blue eyes. His thin mouth was curled into a sneer.

“Care to explain what the fuck you’ve been doing while I was gone?” he said.

“Not really, no.” You replied. “Here’s the thing, Kurtis, you don’t get to go out with your friends for the whole weekend doing who-knows-what then turn around and get angry at me for spending time with the only friend from school that I still have! That’s not fair.”

“And who’s fault is that? You’re the one who pushed them all away!” Kurt stood up and advanced towards you. Normally, you would have taken a step backwards, given him space, but this time you stood your ground, clenching your fists tightly to stop them shaking.

“I’m still allowed to have a social life,” you said, struggling to keep your tone even. Kurt rolled his eyes.

“If you wanna go out and act like a fucking whore-“

“Think what you want, Kurt,” you said, “it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m leaving. You can’t stop me.”

Kurt spluttered for a moment, turning a shade of deep red. “Like fucking HELL you’re leaving me, you bitch!”

“I am!” you shot back. He was only a few inches from you now, so close his breath was hot on your face. “I’m miserable, I don’t love you anymore, and I’m done. I’ve been done for so long I can’t remember a time I was fully invested in this relationship! I deserve better! I deserve love that doesn’t make me so sad it hurts, and I can’t have that with you.”

Kurt’s face twisted into an ugly contortion of the features you once found perfect. “No. Nobody can love you the way I do! Nobody can understand you like I do! If you leave, I won’t want to live anymore. Don’t you remember? I can’t live without you!”

“Then go to a fucking hospital!” you snapped, moving to get past him. Kurt grabbed your wrist tightly. His grip was like a vice, cutting off blood supply to your fingers.

“Let go!” you begged. Kurt tugged you closer, spittle forming at the corners of his mouth, your noses almost touching. He’s going to kill me. Oh my god, he’s actually going to kill me. You saw movement by the door out of the corner of your eye, and your heart swelled.

“You heard her,” Frankie said, “let her go.”

Kurt didn’t let go, but instead gripped harder. He’s completely lost it, you thought dimly, the expression Kurt wore sending true fear into your heart.

“And just who the fuck are you?” Kurt demanded.

“Let her go,” Frankie repeated. He didn’t raise his voice, but you could still hear the power it held. Kurt scoffed and spat at Frankie’s feet.

“This is an issue between me and my girlfriend, now get out of my apartment before I make you.”

Frankie didn’t reply, instead, he strode forward, pushed the sleeves of his flannel over shirt up as he did. Kurt didn’t wait. He pushed you hard against the kitchen bench, knocking the breath out of you and sending a shot of pain through your back, and moved to meet Frankie in the middle of the room.

It happened in an instant, blink and you miss it. Frankie swung, his fist connecting with Kurt’s jaw with a sickening crunch. Kurt went down like a lead balloon, howling as he collapsed on the floor. Frankie stood over him, breathing hard through his nose.

Manny ran forward to help you, holding you to him like the protective brother you had always wished for. It took you a few moments to realise you were shaking, out of fear or adrenaline you didn’t know.

“Come on,” he whispered soothingly, “we gotta get your stuff.” You nodded and let him help you up. You didn’t feel like you were connected with your body like you were watching the whole thing through a separate set of eyes. You saw Frankie standing over Kurt, arms crossed and boot pressing into Kurt’s chest.

Manny held your hand as you walked to your bedroom. You were distantly aware of the aching in your body, your back, and wrist especially. It was Manny who packed your bag for you, grabbing anything he thought you might need. The whole thing was done in less than ten minutes. Before you left you turned to face Kurt.

“I’ll be back sometime this week to get the rest of my stuff. Do not contact me.”

You felt your strength returning to you as you left with Frankie and Manny with you. For the first time in a long time, you felt like you could breathe.

Taglist: @hnt-escape @sharkbait77 @1800-fight-me @annathewitch @darnitdraco @frankiecatfish @punkerthanpascal @nakhudanyx @gracie7209 @quica-quica-quica @pintsizemama @phoenix-of-loki

[jensengirl83]

Unsung Verses Chapter 7

Rockstar!Dean x plus sized reader

Word Count- 4201

Summary-Y/N and Dean have been best friends since high school, in a band together, and dated for a year but decided they were better off friends. They play gig after gig trying to get discovered, but once they sign a record deal, will fame be all it’s cracked up to be? Or will it be too much for their relationship to handle? Join them on their adventure to fame and find out!

Warnings-  Angst, Fluff, Language, Smut

A/N- Song in this cahpter is “You’re The One That I Want” by John Travolta and Olivia Newton John from the movie Grease. I hope everyone enjoys!

Lyrics will be in italics.

Thank you to @deanwanddamons​​​​ for being my beta for this series!

Text dividers made by @firefly-graphics​​​​

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The playlist is a big part of the series!

Y/N’s eyes were beginning to strain as she drove down the interstate. They had been on the road for around ten hours now, and she had been driving the last four. She had made Dean let her take over when she noticed his eyes beginning to droop. She had managed to get a few hours of sleep and wanted to let him rest for a little while. Once the sun was fully risen, the odd lighting of the sky should dissipate and ease the strain on her eyes. At least she hoped it would. 

“Where are we?” Dean’s groggy voice interrupted her train of thought. 

“About an hour outside of Grand Junction, Colorado,” she laughed when she glanced over and noticed his hair. It was sticking up all over his head. 

“That’s pretty much halfway. We’ll stop there and get a room and some food. I could use a shower,” he grumbled, sitting up in the seat. 

“You sure? I can keep driving for a little while,” 

“I’m sure, babe. You could use a break and food too, I’m sure,” he yawned, still trying to wake up fully. 

“Okay. I guess I could eat something when we get there,” she said, smiling at him as he took her hand in his, bringing it up to his lips. 

“Yeah, and I know we could both use more sleep,” he stated. 

“Not going to argue with you on that one,” she laughed. 

They made small talk as Y/N drove them to Grand Junction, discussing subjects like what they wanted to eat and which hotel they should stay in. Dean had been searching Google for which ones were on route. They decided on Motel 6 and the diner across the street from it, agreeing there was no need to be extravagant since they were only there to eat and sleep before they got back on the road. 

Y/N sighed in relief as she pulled into the parking lot and cut the engine, needing food and a bathroom. She opened the door and exited the car, stretching her arms over her head to loosen her muscles, Dean laughing at the exaggerated groan that left her. He walked around the front of the Impala and kissed her on the forehead. 

“I’ll go get us a room, and you can go ahead to the diner and get us a table, sweetheart,” he said. 

“First thing I’m doing when I get to the diner is using their bathroom!” she exclaimed. 

“I swear, you have the bladder of a toddler,” Dean huffed with a smile. 

“Shut it, Angus!” she groaned in faux annoyance. 

“Okay, go pee, and I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he shouted over his shoulder as he walked to the lobby. 

He didn’t have to tell her twice. She was across the street and through the door in a matter of seconds, going straight for their facilities. Once she was done and her hands washed, she made her way to a booth, sliding in and looking over the menu as she waited for Dean to join her. She hadn’t been looking at the menu for very long when she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. Looking up, she saw a man standing by their table, a smirk on his face. 

“Hey there. Mind if I join you?” 

“Actually, I do. My boyfriend is on his way,” she said, trying to be nice but as firm as she could. 

“Come on now. No need to lie to me,” he chuckled, obviously not getting it. 

“I’m not lying. Now, could you please leave?” she asked, her tone a lot sharper than before.

“Hey, sweetheart. Who’s this?” Dean questioned, walking up to the booth and sitting across from her. 

“No one. I’m leaving,” the man said, turning to walk away briskly.  

“Okay...Well, what looks good, Freddie?” Dean asked her like nothing was going on. 

“Really? You have nothing to say about that?” she was confused about how he was acting as if no one had been standing there trying to hit on her. 

“What do you want me to say? I know there’s no reason for me to be worried about guys trying to pick you up,” 

She thought she could physically feel her heart shatter with his words. She knew she was overweight and not the most attractive woman out there, but Dean saying he had nothing to worry about because of it really hurt. Why would he even say something like that to her? 

“Where’s the room key?” she asked, her voice trying to break. 

“Why? What’s wrong?” his voice laced with concern. 

“The key?” she growled, holding her hand out. 

“No, not until you tell me what’s going on,” he sighed, confused about what was going on. 

“I’m not making a scene in here, Dean. Just give me the damn key!” she glared at him, trying to keep back her tears until she was alone in their room. 

“What the hell is wrong with you? I just got here, and you’re pissed at me? What could I have done in two minutes?” he asked, raising his voice a little. 

“Dean…” 

“Here, there’s the key,” he slid it across the table to her, “I don’t know what happened, but this is ridiculous,” 

“Just as ridiculous as dating the unattractive, fat girl that you don’t have to worry about anyone wanting, huh?” she fumed, leaving him sitting at the table with his jaw slack in shock. 

She was in tears, choking back sobs as she crossed the street and into the hotel. All she wanted was to get to their room and lock herself in the bathroom. She should have known that a man as attractive as Dean would ever honestly want her or think she was beautiful. Sure, she wasn’t a dog, but she wasn’t a supermodel either. 

Her hands shook as she got the door to their room open, dropping the key on the chest of drawers and throwing herself on the bed. She had wanted to hide in the bathroom but couldn’t bring herself to make it that far. She had the key anyway, so it wasn’t like he could get in to bother her. She was so lost in her misery that she didn’t hear the door open and Dean entering the room. 

“Y/N, baby, talk to me, please!” he pleaded, laying on the bed and curling up to her back, “Why would you ever think something like that?” 

“How did you get in here?” she asked. 

“They gave me two keys. Now, talk to me,” he whispered. 

“Just leave me alone,” she sobbed, feeling him cuddled to her back, making her even more self-conscious. 

“Freddie...Please. Is it because I said I wasn’t jealous?” he begged, running his hand up and down her side. 

“You said you didn’t have anything to worry about as if you knew that no one would want me!” she cried. 

“Oh, sweetheart. That’s not what I meant. I meant that I trusted you, and I know you would never hurt me like that. I’m crazy jealous! I was trying to hide it because I thought it would make you think I didn’t trust you,” he whispered in her ear, leaving light kisses on her neck and shoulder. 

“Really?” she whimpered, turning over to look at him. 

“I promise! I’m crazy about you, darlin’. You should know that. I can hardly keep my hands off of you!” he chuckled.

“But why? You could get someone so much better than me,” she sighed. 

“Are you kidding me?! You’re all I want. You’re beautiful, smart, caring, and sexy as hell,” he growled, nibbling on her neck. 

“Dean…” she moaned, his mouth on her sending heat straight to her core. 

“Let me show you how much I want you, Y/N. No other woman has ever turned me on as you do,” he said, moving his lips from her neck to her shoulder and then to her collar bone. 

She didn’t answer him, just let him continue his path down her chest, his lips kissing every inch on the way down. Her skin felt like it was on fire anywhere he touched her, a feeling no other man has ever given her. His hands were calloused from playing the guitar and working on the Impala, but so gentle when they were gliding across her skin. 

She couldn’t stop the moan that passed her lips as his hands slid under her shirt, running up her sides to cup her breasts and squeeze lightly, thumbing her nipples through her cotton bra. She arched her back into his touch, her core clenching around nothing as he teased her. He lifted her shirt over her breasts and pulled one of her nipples in his mouth, sucking lightly through the fabric, eliciting another moan from her, before removing her shirt to reveal her partially naked chest to him. 

“So damn beautiful,” he whispered against her skin, looking up to lock eyes with her, “Always driving me crazy, making me so hard,” 

He didn’t wait for a response before reaching behind her and popping the clasp of her bra, throwing it across the room. He kissed his way back up her chest, her neck, and across her jaw, finally making it to her lips. There was no rush in the kiss. His lips were moving with a softness that left her breathless, his tongue caressing hers as if it was the most fragile thing on the earth. His hands were warm and soft against her cheeks as he held her, showing her how much he wanted her without a word spoken. 

“I’m so fucking in love with you,” he whispered against her kiss swollen lips, both of them panting with desire, “There will never be another woman for me, sweetheart,” 

“I love you…” she moaned as his hand slid under the waistband of her jeans and rubbed over her clothed heat. 

His fingers felt so good against her, moving slowly over her panties, pressing against her clit every so often. He removed his hand and popped the button to her jeans, moving down her body to pull them and her panties off in one go. Once he had them off and had disposed of them, he sat back and looked at her with an expression of awe. He would never be able to put into words how beautiful she was and how much she meant to him, but he would never stop trying to show her. 

He stood and undressed, his eyes never leaving her, taking in the sight of her panting and wrecked, waiting for him. He didn’t think he had ever been so turned on as he was when he was with her, but it wasn’t just sex when he was with her. He wanted to please her, not even caring about himself. 

She watched as he moved in between her legs, his muscular body hovering over her, holding himself up with his forearms. The warmth of his body caused her to shiver, not because she was cold but from the anticipation of feeling him inside her. 

“You ready, sweetheart?” He whispered, his forehead pressed against hers. 

“Please…” she begged, needing to feel him. 

He smiled at the tremor in her voice, knowing she wanted him as much as he did her. Reaching between them, he lined himself up at her entrance and moved his hips enough to slide in just an inch. He pulled and pushed a few times, both groaning as he became fully seated inside her. He buried his face in her neck as he gave them a moment to adjust to each other. Y/N rolled her eyes in ecstasy with how he filled and stretched her in the best of ways. 

“Fuck...so tight, baby. Feels so good,” 

“Move, Dean. Please…” she moaned, moving her hips against him. 

“Patience, sweetheart. I’ve got you. I’ve always got you,” he growled, nibbling on her ear. 

He withdrew his hips and moved back in at a slow pace, hitting that spot in her with every thrust. His hips were pushing against her sensitive bud, driving her to the edge faster than she had anticipated. The sound of their wanton moans and skin against skin was all that could be heard as she felt the coil tighten in her belly. 

“I-I’m so c-close,” she whined, her body beginning to shake. 

“Come for me, beautiful. I’m right behind you,” his voice was wrecked with desire, “I need to feel you let go for me,” 

That’s all it took, and she was coming, his name passing her lips in a breathless chant. She wrapped her legs around his hips, drawing him deeper into her, causing him to fall over the edge. His thrusts became erratic before he stilled deep, hips pressed against hers, moaning filthy praises in her ear, and came. His body shook as he tried to hold himself above her, not wanting to crush her as he tried to catch his breath. 

After a few minutes of light kisses and whispered praises, he moved to stand and walked to the bathroom, coming back out with a washcloth to clean her and then himself. Y/N smiled, feeling loved and content with how he wanted to take care of her. Once he crawled in bed beside her, she rolled to lay her head on his chest, his arm pulling her closer. 

“I don’t want you ever thinking that you’re aren’t exactly who I want, Freddie. Do you hear me? I’ve never been as happy as I am when I’m with you,” he whispered, kissing her head. 

“I’m sorry. I let my insecurities get to me when I shouldn’t,” she sighed, knowing it was something she had to work on. 

“You don’t have to apologize. Just promise me next time you feel this way, you’ll come and talk to me so I can show you just how beautiful you are and how much I love you,” he said, squeezing her against him. 

“I promise,” she smiled. How did she ever get so lucky? 

“Get some rest, sweetheart. We still have a long drive ahead of us,” 

He tilted her chin, so she was looking at him, pressing a soft kiss to her lips. They both were exhausted and needed the rest. Y/N fell asleep in his arms with a smile on her face, never feeling as loved as she did when she was with him, and she was determined to show him just what he meant to her too. 

Y/N was loading their overnight bag in the trunk when Dean walked back from the diner, bag of food and coffee in hand. She laughed at the goofy grin on his face as he shook the bag at her, holding it up in the air like a trophy. Granted, they were both starving since breakfast had got ruined earlier. 

Dusk was beginning to settle in as the sun sank lower in the sky, both of them agreeing that they enjoyed driving better at night. There was less traffic to deal with, and there was just something so peaceful about driving with the stars in the sky above them. Y/N settled in the passenger’s seat as Dean got in and handed her a cup of coffee, sitting the bag of food between them. 

“I just talked to Sam. They will be landing around ten in the morning. I figured with what drive time we have left and a few pit stops, we should make it at the same time,” he told her before taking a bite out of his burger. 

“Sounds good. I’ve really enjoyed this trip with you, but I’m ready to get there,” she laughed at Dean’s fake pouting. 

“I see how it is. You just can’t wait to get away from me!” he said, clutching his chest in fake hurt. 

“Calm down, drama king! You do remember we are going to be living together, right?” she asked with a chuckle. 

“Oh, I remember, sweetheart. It’s just going to be you and me. The fun we’re going to have christening that penthouse,” he laughed, wiggling his eyebrows. 

“Is that all you ever think about?” she asked, rolling her eyes but with a smile on her face. 

“When I’ve got a woman that looks like you, how am I not supposed to think about it?” he whispered, leaning over to kiss on her neck. 

“Okay, Casanova. We have to get on the road,” she giggled, shoving him away by his face. 

“Fine, fine. But once we get to L.A., you’re all mine, darlin’,” he winked. 

“I’m forever all yours,” she said sweetly, pressing a kiss to his cheek. 

Dean smiled and kissed her with passion, her face cupped in his strong hands. How could she make him fall even more in love with her by the day? It didn’t seem possible, but here he was, absolutely and irrevocably head over heels in love with her. He couldn’t wipe the smile from his face as he put Baby in gear and headed for the interstate, ready to get to their new home and  to start their new life together. 

Y/N felt the relief wash over her as she pulled up in front of their building and turned off the engine. She had been driving the last six hours so Dean could nap, and she was exhausted and ready to rest. Sam and Cas should be getting there at any time, and she knew they still had to unpack their things. She sighed, just wanting to forget it all and go to sleep, but that wasn’t going to happen. 

“Dean, we’re here. Wake up,” 

“Huh? What? Already?” he grumbled, wiping the sleep from his eyes and sitting up to look around. 

“Yes, grumpy bear, already,” she laughed at the bitch face he gave her. 

“Uhh...We still have to unpack!” he complained, throwing his head back against the seat. 

“Yes, we do, so come on, let’s get this over with,” she groaned, getting out of the Impala and walking back to the trailer. 

Dean soon joined her, and they began unloading their belongings when Sam, Cas, Meg, and Jess pulled up in the cab they took from the airport. Everyone greeted each other with hugs and pleasantries before Dean started to complain again. 

“I’m so tired, and we have to haul all this shit up to the apartment,”

“I’m tired too, but it’s not going to get done if we just stand here and bitch and moan about it,” Y/N huffed. 

“Oh, really? You mean you can’t twitch your nose and make it all appear upstairs?” he asked with a smirk.   

“Unfortunately, I’m not a witch, but if I were, my first action would be to curse you not to speak,” she sassed, everyone but Dean laughing. 

“Are you sure about that?” he wiggled his eyebrows. 

“Yes. Your dick would still work if you couldn’t talk,” she quipped. 

“So, you’re going to dis little Dean, huh?” he growled. 

“You’re the one that just called him little…” she laughed. 

“Okay, okay, that’s enough of that. Let’s get this stuff upstairs before you guys kill each other,” Sam chuckled. 

“She started it,” Dean whined, picking up a box and walking toward the building. 

Everyone laughed at his whining before grabbing a box and following him into the building and to the elevators. It only took a little over an hour to get everything in their penthouse with the others’ help. Y/N and Dean were ecstatic to be done moving everything in. Yes, they still needed to unpack, but they could do that slowly, resting in between. They were both lounging on the couch when he reached over and grabbed her hand, catching her attention. 

“Do you really not want me to talk?” he asked with a pout. 

“Aww, honey, you know I was joking. You were tired and grumpy. I was just messing with you,” she chuckled, leaning to peck him on the lips. 

“You promise?” 

“Yes, I promise. Are you okay, Dean?” she was puzzled by his sudden questioning. 

“I’m okay. I worry I’m not what you want sometimes,” he told her, hanging his head. 

“C’mere,” she whispered, gesturing for him to lay his head in her lap. 

He gave her a weak smile as he hurried over and laid on the couch, resting his head in her lap and wrapping his arms around her thigh. She began running her fingers through his hair, visibly seeing him relax. She smiled down at him, seeing the exhaustion and insecurity in his eyes. It broke her heart to see him when he got this way. She would never understand how a man that looked like him could ever be insecure about himself. 

“Angus, I love you. I know we bicker sometimes, and I can be a little bitchy, but I’ve never been so sure of anything as I am that I want you. So, stop your worrying, and let’s enjoy this new chapter in our lives,” she reassured him. 

“How do you know just what to say and do to make me feel better?” he whispered, nuzzling his face into her lower abdomen. 

“We’ve known each other for over a decade now. If I didn’t know you by now, then I deserve the worst girlfriend in the world award,” she giggled, him already shaking his head in her lap. 

“Nope! No ma’am! That is the last thing you deserve,” he vehemently disagreed. 

“Well, thank you, my dear. Now, how about we get some of this stuff unpacked so we can rest more later?” she smiled, hands still in his hair. 

“Alright, let’s do it,” he groaned, standing up and reaching for her hand, pulling her up and into a hug. 

“Love you too, Freddie,” he declared, kissing her forehead before walking to a box to get started unpacking. 

She smiled at his retreating form. She hated to see him go but loved to watch him leave. He had the cutest butt she had ever seen and could stare at it all day. The way his jeans cling to it when he bent over or moved his legs to take a step… She shook her head to get the thoughts out of her head. They had work to do, and she could stare at his ass later. She giggled to herself as she hit shuffle on her phone, needing music to pump her up and get her moving. She cackled at the song that started to play. 

“Dean!” she yelled, turning to see a mirrored smile on his face. 

“Oh, Freddie, that was the good ole days,” he laughed, wrapping her in his arms and spinning her around, singing the lyrics to her. 

I got chills

They're multiplyin'

And I'm losin' control

'Cause the power

You're supplyin'

It's electrifyin'!

She giggled as he continued to sing and spin her around the room. One of their favorite times in high school was when they performed “Grease”. Dean the lead role as Danny, and Y/N as Sandy. 

You better shape up,

'Cause I need a man

And my heart is set on you

You better shape up

You better understand

To my heart I must be true

She sang the next verse, doing her best Sandy impression, causing him to laugh now. They were still dancing around the room as they both took a deep breath to sing the next verse together. 

You're the one that I want

You, oo, oo, honey

The one that I want

You, oo, oo, honey

The one that I want

You, oo, oo

Are what I need

Oh, yes indeed

They ended the verse in a fit of laughter, reminiscing the great times they had performing musical theater together. He spun her around one last time, pulling her back flush against him. His smile turned into a smirk as he looked at her mouth and licked his lips, leaning in and kissing her hard. 

“Am I interrupting something?” Sam’s voice broke them apart. 

“Yes, you are actually! And have you ever heard of knocking?” Dean huffed. 

“I did. You couldn’t hear me over the singing and teenage giggles,” he smirked. 

“What do you need, Sam?” she asked sweetly, laying her head on Dean’s chest. 

“We’re all going out to get dinner. You want to join us?” he smiled. 

“Nah, we’ll order a pizza later,” she declined, “We have things we need to do here,” 

“Oh, yes, we do!” Dean moaned into her neck, kissing and nibbling. 

“Alright! I’m outta here!” the younger Winchester shouted, letting himself out, shutting the door behind him. 

“Now, where were we?” he chuckled, trying to kiss her again, but she stopped him. 

“We were unpacking these boxes, Romeo,” she laughed. 

“But, sweetheart…” he whined. 

“Later. I promise,” she winked, “After we get some things put away and go get dinner,” 

“Fine, but you’re getting me pie!” he exclaimed, pointing his finger at her playfully. 

“Of course, dear,” she said, rolling her eyes and making her way back to the stack of boxes that weren’t going to unpack themselves. 

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Caught in The Grey (ch 6)

Genre: Trans!AU, hurt/comfort, romance, angst with a happy ending Rated: T Characters: Souji Seta (Yu Narukami), Yosuke Hanamura, Naoto Shirogane, Kanji Tatsumi, Investigation Team, Izanagi/Shadow!Souji Warnings: depression, dysphoria, disassociation, self-hatred, implied suicide attempt, suicidal thoughts, mentions of homophobia, implied past child abuse and transphobia, canon-typical violence, mild sexual content Status: multi-chapter, incomplete

Playlist: Spotify | Youtube <- previous chapter | next chapter -> (unavailable)

Souji is talking to Kanji.

Souji is walking with Kanji.

Yosuke feels something inside of him twist sharply. He feels… sick.

Chapter 6: On the Outside, Waiting

“I was only in my mind, You were on the outside waiting. I could feel you all the time. Your voice could save me...”

- (“Echo”, Starset)

Thursday absolutely creeps into existence.

Yosuke wakes with a vicious headache. It doesn’t start off slowly, either; from his first moment of consciousness, even before opening his eyes, his head feels like something has been trying to claw its way out from inside his skull while he slept. It thrums just behind his eyeballs, leaving everything tinted ever-so-slightly yellow around the edges with each pulse. He digs the heels of his hands into his eye sockets in an attempt to lesson the pressure, but all he gets for his troubles is a stinging, lingering starburst behind his lids – not even ten minutes into the day and Yosuke’s mood is already beyond all hope of saving. So, bleary and exhausted, he forces himself to ooze out of bed like melted wax. He gets up, frowning against the sickening dizziness, the weird sallow hue, and drags himself through the house to get ready for the day.

Going about his morning routine feels like he’s wading through wet concrete. The constant pain keeps his stomach just barely at the point right before nausea, and as he sidesteps around Teddie in their new “brotherly tradition” of communal teeth-brushing, Yosuke has to actively fight the urge to just go back to bed and stay there until Monday. Maybe if he hits a hard reset he can write off the Endless Week from Hell as just another nightmare; fuck knows he’s had enough weird dreams lately that one more wouldn’t mean much at this point.

He doesn’t though. He powers through the motions on pure muscle memory and diverts what little willpower he does manage to scrape together towards putting on a mask of normalcy. It sticks in place precariously, like dried, cracking glue that’s flaking off under too much heat and wear. He keeps the façade going as best he can, however, because despite wishing he could just evaporate into nothingness, Yosuke doesn’t want Teddie to think he’s pissed off at him. (Because he isn’t, not specifically, even if the bear’s enthusiasm for everything is a dozen kinds of irritating this morning.) So Yosuke does his best to try and keep his mental and physical discomfort as close to secret as possible.

More than being worried that Teddie will take it personally, though, Yosuke just doesn’t want his little brother to ask at all. The reserves of energy Yosuke normally has tucked away have not yet been replenished after days of continuous draining. Even the overflow of nervous, anxious energy that comes from his brain and not his body and makes it impossible for him to sit still half the time; he just… doesn’t have it. There’s simply nothing left that he can spare, not even for Teddie.

So Yosuke swallows down the pressure in the back of his throat that threatens to choke him and pretends that nothing is wrong, that his head isn’t pounding like it’s about to explode and he’s two steps away from giving up for the day. He speaks when Teddie prompts him to, answering questions or responding as needed and staying quiet with it’s not. He lets the chatty blond fill the silence for him, instead, and uses Teddie’s unnatural lack of a need for air to his advantage. For the most part, it seems to work in his favor.

Teddie doesn’t notice – or at least, Yosuke doesn’t think he notices – and by the time Yosuke has to leave for school he’s almost convinced that his act has been bought. It’s only at the last minute, when he glances up for no real reason while slipping on his shoes and spots Teddie in the entryway next to him, that he catches the odd sideways look his brother is pinning him with. Yosuke gives him an overly sunny smile as he opens the door, pretending to both his brother and himself that he doesn’t see the frown on Teddie’s face, and finally slumps out into the chilly morning air.

He tries not to think about it for long.

The sky outside is drearier than it has any right to be as he begins trudging along the path to school. He’s actually a little glad for it – the diluted sunlight is just low enough that it doesn’t hurt his eyes and make his still-present headache worse the way a brighter, bluer morning might. Sadly, with his proverbial battery as drained as it is he can’t take much comfort from the lack of extra pain, and it does nothing to lift his mood from the murky depths of his own self-pity. So, even though the sun doesn’t bother him directly, Yosuke keeps his eyes trained on the concrete beneath his shoes as he walks and distributes his weight onto the balls of his feet to keep his own footsteps from jostling his brain.

He makes his way carefully down the familiar first part of the trek. He doesn’t look up, doesn’t pay attention to anything except the quiet music from his headphones – cranked down today so as not to exacerbate what he’s starting to think might be a migraine. Nothing happens; he’s never been so glad for uneventful monotony. He counts the cracks in the sidewalk as he crosses them and lets himself get lost in the repetition.

He doesn’t want to think – not about Souji, not about the dreams, not about the squirmy, guilty feelings low in his gut leftover from last night’s shitty texts. None of it.

He doesn’t want to think at all.

(He feels his knees start to buckle mid-step and has to forcibly blank out his mind to stop himself from remembering everything that’s made him question his own reality over the past few days, lest he turn right the fuck around and lock himself in his bedroom for a year.)

Surprisingly it seems to work; the awful, mocking voice isn’t there this morning, chewing at his memories and bringing them all into sharp relief. There is no harsh whispering in his ears, telling him all the ways he’s fucked up or how worthless and forgettable he is, how much Souji must secretly hate him or how disgusting Yosuke really is down inside. Instead there’s an eerie quiet, only broken by Yosuke’s own mind when he slips and lets his caged thoughts out for a moment. He can’t tell if he’s glad or unnerved.

He tries not to think about that, either.

(The yellow hue hasn’t gone away – he doesn’t know what that means but he’s pretty sure it’s nothing good.)

The mental silence feels like a cool breeze against a scalding sunburn for the short amount of time it lasts. It follows Yosuke the first third or so of the journey, numbing him to the streets and background highway noise within the couple-block radius around his house. But as much as he wishes it could last the entire day, Yosuke has long-since learned that nothing good or decent lingers around him for very long before vanishing and leaving him desperate for steady ground. All too soon, in little visual bits and pieces, he starts to habitually recognize his surroundings once more.

Just past the point where the sounds from the highway he lives by start to fade entirely, Yosuke’s eyes catch on minor landmarks, reminding him of just where he is and where he’s heading. He slows his already-sluggish pace even further and lifts his head to properly align himself with the rest of reality. Up ahead, about a block away, lies the little stretch of road where he and Souji’s paths usually intersect; he’d avoided it yesterday, and looking at it now, even from a distance, Yosuke can feel his nerve endings beginning to spark and crackle, even as his mind stays unnaturally silent. His muscles tense slightly, like his body is getting ready to break into a sprint at any moment before his head can even fully catch up and register the bitter unease that’s steadily taking hold. He hates this. He hates the way his stomach drops out at the sight of he and Souji’s meeting place. There isn’t even anyone there that he can see – though he’s ashamed to admit the teensy flash of disappointment – because... well, because – and, even worse, how afraid he is to stick around and find out if that’s going to change any time soon.

(The whole world turns sickly bile-yellow for a second; the color disappears when Yosuke blinks and swallows with a dry throat, but for a single instant it’s there.)

I can’t do this.

Just like yesterday, just like the coward he is, all talk and no spine, Yosuke lets his feet turn away from his typical route and down a nearby side street. It’ll take him a little extra time to go around like this, to wind through a different part of town and come out at another spot along the river before heading practically a back way up to Yasogami. He’ll still have to take the path to the front gates – there isn’t really another way he can go – but if he can do enough meandering and time it right then he can (probably, hopefully) avoid Souji until he’s actually in the classroom. He’ll have to figure out the rest of the day as it comes.

He stalls and stalls and wanders and picks his way carefully along a zig-zagging line in the general direction of the high school. He’s familiar enough with where he’s going that the roundabout way itself doesn’t bother him; he’s already spent a lot of time mindlessly exploring the streets of Inaba.

When his family first moved from the city, out to this tiny little hole in the middle of nowhere, Yosuke had found himself with too much free time and too few distractions to keep his mind from dwelling on his own misery. Being new meant he had no friends, and being the person everyone seemed to blame for Junes’ existence meant he wasn’t really welcome anywhere either. When he wasn’t at school he was working, and when he wasn’t working he was home alone because his parents were working, and when he was home alone his options were either homework or unpacking boxes. Eventually he ran out of both.

Video games were only fun for a little while before they grew frustrating and boring without someone else to play with. Movies and tv were alright but sooner or later he’d already seen everything twice over. Books where never really his thing because his attention span was always just too short to let him enjoy them; manga was better, but had the same problem as movies. In the end, Yosuke’s only choice for something to do besides sit and stare at the wall had been to go walking – if only to try and familiarize himself with the place he was inevitably going to be stuck in for the rest of his natural life.

So he walked. From the school district down towards his house, looping and doubling back to kill time, or from Junes after an earlier shift and across to the other side of town just to see how far this tiny pocket of rural bullshit extended before he hit the wilderness. He might not have gotten the whole place memorized, but after those first couple of months in Inaba, when his entire experience with the town outside of school, work, or the pile of moving boxes at home had been made up of long walks and lonely hours, Yosuke’s mental map had soon become, at the very least, decent.

He calls on that mental map now as he rounds another corner, pulling at a few staler memories to see if he’s going the way he thinks he is. The house at the end of the street with the blue shutters, the rickety doghouse in the front yard across the road – yep, all still there. He’s probably going to be late again, or very, very close to it, but as long as he keeps moving, as long as he twists and winds and pretends he doesn’t eventually have to join the rest of the student population on the same road to the school entrance, he can keep himself from succumbing to his anxiety. Souji is punctual, Souji likes routine. If Yosuke takes his time getting to school and avoids the usual path, then he theoretically doesn’t have to worry about accidentally running into Souji on the way.

But even as the thought helps to keep the jitters at bay, there is just something so… inherently wrong about it that Yosuke has to bite down hard on the inside of his own cheek to keep himself from choking. This is a violation of his own routine, of everything that has made his world anything considering normal up to this point. Never in a million years would he have ever thought himself capable of outright hiding from his best friend, going out of his way to purposefully avoid him – it feels like a betrayal, like he’s adding just one more slight against Souji to his ever-growing pile of mistakes. A faint echo of loneliness washes over him and clings to his skin like a humid breeze – the morning feels far too much like the walks he used to take before he even knew that Souji existed, all those months ago.

He never wants to go back to that.

He thinks he may have forgotten how to breathe.

Digging his shoes a little more roughly into the sidewalk, Yosuke powers his way up the street – headache be damned – and past the house with the blue shutters, counting his footsteps in his head loud enough to eclipse the lyrics of the song in his headphones. He keeps his head down and his shoulders hunched, only letting his eyes lift from the sidewalk to keep himself from tripping over as he walks like the entire world is clawing at his heels.

He almost doesn’t notice when he’s reached the path that leads through the school district.

He almost doesn’t notice the achingly familiar sound of Souji’s voice further up along the road.

He almost doesn’t notice the figure striding along at his partner’s side.

But then he does.  

Yosuke looks up instinctively as his friend’s voice reaches his ears, startling violently for a moment when he sees just how close he got to Souji without even realizing it. His heart stutters, trembles like the wings of a frightened moth at the flash of silver not even twenty feet in front of where Yosuke has been disassociating as he walks. (And how funny is it that even when Yosuke forgets where he is, his feet always seem to lead him right back to the one thing that’s ever made his life make any sort of sense?) He nearly trips on the next footfall as he overrides his own autopilot and manually slows his pace, falling a little further back from the ethereal swath of black-and-moonlight ahead of him just enough to not be noticed. He makes sure to stay close enough that he can still hear his partner speaking, though – not even the words themselves, just the sound of Souji is all he really needs.

(Just how needy can he get?)

Souji’s voice carries on the slight breeze that blows through and ruffles his hair, moving it enough to catch the muted morning light and make it shine like sunbeams across the Samegawa. Souji's volume is as quiet as ever but unmistakable in its steady timbre, its velvet-softness, and even with his headphones still on Yosuke can hear it. He’s trained himself to pick up on Souji’s commands through his music while in battle. By now it’s almost second nature to him to react every time his friend speaks.

But Souji isn’t speaking to Yosuke. No, Yosuke is still a ways behind him and from the looks of it Souji hasn’t noticed Yosuke at all. Instead, walking side-by-side, so close that their arms nearly brush every time one of them gestures, Souji is talking to someone else. Someone tall, with broader shoulders and a louder voice, bleach-blond hair slicked back to show off the glint of several earrings, a uniform jacket worn like a cape instead of over the arms.

Souji is talking to Kanji.

Souji is walking with Kanji.

Something inside of Yosuke twists sharply. He feels… sick.

It sits like concrete in the pit of his stomach, growing rapidly in its weight until he can barely breathe, can barely see, the edges of his vision almost pulsing with that same ominous yellow. He can't think for a moment, can't focus on anything but the way his best friend – his best friend, goddamnit! - walks just a little too close to Kanji, smiles just a little too widely at Kanji. It's wrong, it's wrong, it's so wrong, and Yosuke can't even begin to peel back his own thoughts from the slow crescendo of screaming now building inside his mind to parse just why he's suddenly so angry. The yellow becomes tinged with something almost like an acidic green, the color of jealousy and vomit and everything Yosuke can feel at the back of his throat like a wad of wet paper. He feels shaky in a new way, no longer afraid but something closer to how he tenses before a strike in battle. Defensive. A snarl curls at his lips before he can stop himself, and it's only because he's still rooted to the spot in a kind of shock that doesn't even feel human anymore that he doesn't go launching himself across the way and yanking Souji back to himself by the arm.

Somewhere, deeper than the anger and the horrible heat trickling down his spine, Yosuke knows he's being unreasonable; after all, Kanji is Souji's friend, too, and it's not like Yosuke has exactly been available for Souji to interact with recently, so there's nothing in the world wrong with the other boy walking to school with another member of their team. He wishes he could pinpoint where this is even coming from, why he's suddenly flipped like a switch from wanting to avoid Souji at all costs to violently wanting to hoard him all to himself. It doesn't make any sense, and Yosuke's actually starting to get a little bit frightened of his own reaction.

It's just too bad he can't feel it properly below everything sinking into his heart, poisoning him from the inside out; maybe it would be enough to snap him out of whatever this is.

He stands stock still, only vaguely aware of the other people around him, some shooting looks at him no doubt, and watches as his Souji (his, something in him hisses,) passes through the gate with someone other than Yosuke. He watches, body frozen and eyes burning, refusing to blink as Souji, his friend, his leader, his partner approaches the school together with Kanji, the same way he used to (used to, should be,) with Yosuke.

It shouldn’t knock the wind from Yosuke’s lungs like he’s taken a Zio straight to the chest; it shouldn’t, because when all is said and done it's almost guaranteed all this is completely innocent – Souji is a friendly guy, and it's never been like him to say no to anyone asking for his time. (Except for when he did, Yosuke thinks bitterly, because wow, that wound is just not closing.)

But that's the thing, isn't it? Because no matter how much it is absolutely Yosuke's fault for putting this newest distance between him and his partner, even if Souji's refusal to talk to him had set everything in motion, no matter who or what is truly to blame for this, it does little to change the very real fact that Yosuke is not the one by Souji's side right now.

That Souji has picked someone else.

The scene is so similar that it’s almost as if Yosuke is looking at a displaced echo, a badly done juxtaposition of two different images made to look like one. Like someone stripped the negative of a photograph and pasted in a poor substitute. Like someone replaced the original and, and...

Told you, the voice inside his brain sneers. For the first time that morning, Yosuke feels that formless smirk stretching wider, curling into his fingers and toes like something settling into its frame after being wadded up, stuffed into a space it didn't fit. It feels simultaneously right and wrong – wrong because he doesn't think it's supposed to be there, hiding just behind his limbs, adhering to his bones and pricking at his nerve endings; right because the thing now wearing his skin alongside him disagrees.

It was only a matter of time before he got tired of your shit.

It was only a matter of time before he got tired of you.

He takes a few steps after them as they start to get just a little bit too far away, hyper -focusing on the way Souji acts, the sound of his voice and the way it lilts and flows, comfortable in a way Yosuke's rattling memories can't recall if he's ever been before. Yosuke zeros in on the lack of distance between the pair ahead of him, scanning them like Rise does in the TV and storing away all the minute details he can suddenly see, focus now sharp as his kunai. He sees the way Kaji's face reddens. He sees Souji looking over at Kanji with a bright expression, with a smile that shows teeth and pulls the corners of his mouth wider than Yosuke has ever seen when Souji is talking to him. He feels a growl rumbling deep in his throat.

Souji tilts his head in Kanji’s direction as the punk says something, swinging a large hand out in front of himself with obvious excitement and nearly smacking into Souji’s side with his elbow. He catches himself before the hit lands and sheepishly pulls his arm away, face going redder. Souji lightly, deliberately, bumps Kanji's elbow with the back of his own hand, no doubt reassuring the blond that his exuberance has caused no harm. Kanji rubs at the spot awkwardly. He says something. He blushes harder.

And Souji laughs.

It not a real laugh, it never really is with Souji, nothing louder than a very quiet chuckle or a huff or a breath, but Yosuke has heard it before, has been the one to bring it out before, so he would know that sound anywhere, will always recognize that silent shudder of his partner's shoulders as the other boy uses his body to communicate instead of his voice. Yosuke doesn't have to hear it – his mind supplies the sound.

That's mine! he snarls.

Not anymore, something mockingly singsongs in reply.

The yellow-green in his eyes grows darker and Yosuke can see the corners start to creep inward with solid color, until all he can see is the fondness on Souji's face that isn't meant for him.

He has to claw his way back to the forefront of his mind in order to get to class on time, just barely slinking into the room with the teacher coming up the hallway behind him. His eyes bore into the soft grey hair at the back of Souji's neck and – for the briefest of moments – he has to quell the urge to lean forward and sink his teeth into his partner's flesh, leave his imprint for all the world to see and claim what's his.

He doesn't even notice the way the thing inside him that before would have been copper and sick now seems to purr at the thought.

---

He doesn't remember the rest of the day.

Yosuke is aware that he somehow makes it through the school day, bounding out of the room at lunchtime to go and... well, he doesn't even know, really. He thinks he may have gone up to the roof but he isn't sure. He knows that he did eventually go back to the classroom – presumably after lunch – but beyond that there's nothing. The end-of-day bell sounds and he's immediately on his feet, out the door, down the hall, head foggy and vision tinted yellow; if anyone says anything to him then he doesn't even notice.

Something ugly is happening to him inside. He knows it, doesn't know how to fight it. Right now, after that morning, after everything swirling around in his chest and his head for most of the week now, Yosuke feels a disconnect between himself and reality. He's spent so much time trying not to think, then over-thinking, the repeating, and repeating, and repeating, that it's like something has finally snapped. He's so tired and wrung out that he can't tell how he even feels right now, whether he's mad at Souji or Kanji or himself. Or all three. Or just fucking everything. It's as if there's a block of ice holding him separate from the dark things twisting like vines behind his heart; he can't look at them, can't pull them apart with his hands and study them, he can only feel them coiling tighter and tighter until his body goes numb.

His phone goes off in his pocket as he stalks his way down the hill away from school, thighs burning despite months of combat toning his muscles inside the TV. He checks it on instinct, feels the vines in his ribs twist in another direction as he reads the “I miss you, Partner,” that Souji had texted him.

Guilt or anger or self-disgust or something climbs its way to the back of his throat and threatens to spill from his lips onto the sidewalk and it's such a mess, such a god-fucking-awful mess that the only thing Yosuke can do is type a quick, dismissive, “sorry @ work” and back out of the text before he chokes on molten, raw emotion. Without even looking he scrolls and clicks on a random chat log further down the list and pulls it up so he doesn't have to look at Souji's name anymore, doesn't have to try and figure out if he's upset or happy or just sick to his stomach. Chie's nickname screams at him from the phone screen, her words from last night still justifiably pissed.

Yosuke takes a second to think of the dirtiest pick-up line he can and sends it off, not even caring anymore. It doesn't feel like anything, he gets no satisfaction from it, doesn't even bother harboring the idea that maybe she'd find it funny like he used to do ages ago. It doesn't mean anything. Nothing means anything anymore. He's just hollow.

His phone 'ping!'s and he barely glances at the response. She's mad again. Whatever. Let her be. Yosuke deserves it – the frigid rush he gets from her anger coats his skin and, in a horrible, disgusting way, it makes him feel better. Good. At least someone feels something in his direction. He sends her another message, pretending it was all a joke, that he wasn't punching at the walls of his tiny world just to feel anything anymore. He's gone so far from the constant buzz of anxiety and fear that he's grown immune to it now. Everything is so loud and at the same time it's all too brutally quiet. It's like he's rigged for self-destruction, caught in a loop of feeling betrayed and wanting to betray in return out of spite, folding back around to hating himself for it, wishing everything was back to normal, that he and Souji were back to normal, and then wanting to rip his own skin off when he realizes they aren't and can't. It tilts him side to side and he can't balance. He can't regulate his emotions, can't sort out his feelings, has no outlet – all he can do is take a swipe at everything around him and hope he finds a handhold, something to pull him back to the surface. Maybe if he causes enough damage outside himself then it will make up for all the damage already caused inside.

He wants to scream.

Instead, Yosuke types out another dirty text and hits send with shaking, vindictive hands.

Nothing changes as the afternoon stretches on. Chie spits more fire at him through the phone, apparently borrowing Yukiko's element for a while as she tells Yosuke in loving detail just how many ways she intends to break his knees. He hates that it's almost comforting in its normalcy – albeit in a dark and over-exaggerated way. The ice block sits comfortably in his chest, hindering him from properly feeling the fallout of his actions as the vines dig their thorns in deeper; he knows that if he tries to look behind it then he'll be disgusted with himself all over again, (Chie really doesn't deserve this kind of treatment, for one thing) and so he just. Doesn't. He holds back the part of him still consciously rallying against everything he's doing, yelling at him to stop, throwing itself against the frozen wall to try and make him feel all the remorse and guilt he knows is there behind the ice. It's building, drop by drop, bucket by bucket, action by action, but Yosuke can't make himself stop.

You really are a worthless piece of shit, aren't you?

It's to the point where Yosuke can no longer tell the mocking, hissing, whispering voice inside his head from his own. He thinks there might not be a difference at all anymore.

He wanders through the streets and between the buildings in the same weaving, winding pattern he did that morning, letting the music in his ears and the faint ache in his legs from his ceaseless power walking distract him from all the things he wants to pretend aren't happening. Eventually he reaches the bottom of another hill and doubles back to kill more time before his shift at Junes – because, unlike the night before, he really does have one this time. He debates on calling in as he takes the long way around to the shopping district. Right now he barely feels human, let alone like he's capable of interacting with other people; donning the mask of artificial pep needed to deal with shoppers is draining even on the good days, despite the fact that he's used to being on autopilot while at work with too many years of involuntary customer service making it almost muscle memory by now. In the end, though, he decides against it. Calling in will mean having to make up a good excuse for his dad, which might lead to a far longer and more complicate conversation than Yosuke has any desire to have. There's no way he has the energy to play verbal minesweeper with his parents, whether it be now or later once they get home.

He checks his phone to see how much time he has left to fortify himself, to keep his brain and his heart blissfully, chaotically numb, and sees a trio of new texts from Chie that must have come through while he wasn't looking. He taps her name to bring the chat back up and expects to see more of the usual fair. He doesn't.

Meat-Fu: What's going on Hanamura? This isn't normal.

Meat-Fu: U know u can talk 2 me right?

Meat-Fu: Ur my friend & I'm worried.

Yosuke feels like he's been stabbed.

Nonononono,this isn't right! With all the shit he's pulled to get attention, validation, to force the world to prove he's a bastard, none of it was supposed to result in this. He's sick, he's worthless, why can't everyone just hate him as much as he hates himself?!

Yosuke nearly throws the phone away from him, his body suddenly shaking as the ice cracks and the vines squeeze and he comes dangerously close to feeling something. This wasn't – he doesn't' know how to deal with this. Everything is off-kilter; Souji has gone and replaced him with Kanji and Kanji is stealing his best friend and it's all Yosuke's fault because he's disgusting, of course Souji isn't going to want anything to do with you anymore – and Kanji probably has the same kind of dreams that Yosuke's been having because that's what gay people do, right? And now Chie, of all people is picking up on the stuff Yosuke is trying so hard to shove down because how does he even begin to deal with all of this and he can't let her know, he can't! Not after everything he's done and said and everything he's turning into, oh god.

Blinking through the sudden blur in his vision, (when did he start tearing up, what the hell?) Yosuke grips his phone in both hands and sucks in breath after breath of too-thick air. He's so tired of borderline breakdowns. Typing as best he can with his limited sight, he fumbles out a reply, just something, anything to grind the conversation to a screeching halt before it can even begin.

Yosuke: wth r u talking about? lol ur crazy Chie

He sends it. It's not enough, it's too casual, too easy to brush off, but he can't see the screen anymore and his fingers won't move right. So he sends it and he stands there in the middle of the sidewalk near the bus stop in the shopping district, staring unseeing down at his phone and forcing himself not to blink. The tears stay in his eyes, dry up, fade away. He takes a shaky breath in and lowers his phone.

“Yosuke-kun?”

Oh no.

It's like a nightmare. An actual nightmare. He looks up and sees Yukiko standing a few feet away from him, likely waiting for the stupid bus (why did he have to stop here? Why?) with what looks like a couple of Junes bags draped over the crook of her elbow. She must have just finished shopping and come straight to the bus stop, ready to head home.

Which means Yosuke would have been damned either way – if he'd gone straight to work he would have run into her there, and because he'd stalled for so long he'd run into her here. He shouldn't have answered Chie's text, should have kept moving, should have taken another route or hidden in the stock room at work. He should have--

Yukiko takes a step closer, concern sweeping over her delicate brows. “Are you alright, Yosuke-kun?” She takes another step. Her lips pull into a frown as she looks at him and Yosuke can't even begin to imagine what's she's seeing.

“H-huh?” he squeaks out. His knees don't want to hold him up.

Yukiko's frown deepens. “You look troubled, did something happen?”

Yosuke shakes his head. “No! No, I'm perfectly fine, I'm just uh...” He flounders for a second, staring at her like she's an approaching Shadow four times his size – even if she hasn't moved since that second step in his direction. He knows his eyes are wider than a cat's, he can feel it. Finally he manages to blurt out, “stalling? Cuz I really don't wanna go to work.” (Well it's not... exactly a lie.)

From the way Yukiko is looking at him, he knows she isn't convinced, can already tell she's thinking of saying something. She's quiet and polite most of the time, yes, but she's been getting better at speaking her mind, and that scares him right now. He can barely keep himself together over a text conversation; there's no way in hell Yosuke will be able to make it out of a face-to-face one alive.

So he defaults. He defaults and it leaves him feeling gross and slimy even before it's finished leaving his tongue; “You know, if you're worried about me, you could always come cheer me up.”

(Oh god does he wish he could put the words back in his mouth and swallow them down.)

Yukiko leans back slightly, her expression turning uncomfortable, and it just serves to make Yosuke feel even worse about what he's doing. She opens her mouth to speak. Yosuke cuts her off.

“You never did send me that picture.” He tries to wink. He doesn't like how it feels.

This time, Yukiko recoils as if something foul has been splashed at her. “That's--”

But Yosuke is already turning on his jelly-kneed legs and willing them to carry him just around the corner, just out of sight. “See you tomorrow!” he calls, trying to keep himself from retching as the words come out. Behind him, he hears the sound of the bus' breaks squealing and pushes his legs faster. Yukiko won't follow him, he knows (he hopes,) lest she miss her ride home and have to wait for the next one. Yosuke has been spared for now.

(Except he hasn't really, now has he?)

He's almost makes it up to the top of the shopping district, almost makes it to (possible) safety at Junes where he can hide between the aisles, go and find things to do and redo in the stock room, keep himself busy without actually doing anything. It'll be a welcome distraction at this point, despite how vehemently he doesn't actually feel like dealing with customers, coworkers, hell, he'd even probably dodge Teddie because Yosuke just genuinely can't today. (And on the chance he spots one of his friends walking into whatever area he happens to be in, well... then he'll just have to find something to hide behind and stay there until they go away.)

He's almost to his goal when the universe decides he's not done suffering quite yet. There, coming around the corner, Nanako perched happily on his shoulders, is Souji.

Yosuke stops dead in his track, so abruptly that it's only by some tiny speck of luck that he doesn't fall face-first onto the pavement and break his nose. Panic erupts in his blood like he's been doused in gasoline and set on fire and suddenly his lungs are collapsing in his chest. He doesn't know how he manages to do it, but he dives to the side into an alleyway and tears out the other end as if his life depends on it.

Souji can't see him, Souji can't know he's there, because Yukiko and Chie both talk to Souji and Yosuke hasn't even managed to deal with all the stuff that's already happened this week, hasn't dealt with this morning even! So if Yukiko and Chie talk to Souji and tell Souji about all the horrible shit that's Yosuke's been doing...

Yosuke is doomed. Yosuke will absolutely be doomed. He hasn't spoken to Souji in days and he can't let their next interaction be Souji looking at him with disappointment, with anger, with disgust.

Yosuke runs through back streets and down alleyways until his legs betray him and he collapses against a wall just outside the Shiroku Store. He wasn't even aware he'd managed to book it that far – no wonder his chest feels like it's about to explode. He waits until he can manage to catch his breath, leaning into the bricks so he doesn't sink to the ground. When he thinks he can move again, (ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour later, he has no idea how long he's there,) he pulls himself around the corner and looks first to the left, up towards Junes, and then to the right down the shopping district. No Souji. Good. Hopefully the other boy is still up shopping with his sister and will be for a good long while, (especially if Teddie has anything to say about it.) Tentatively confident that he's not about to be ambushed by his former partner, Yosuke slips shakily out onto the sidewalk.

First thing's first, he shoves his hand into his pocket and digs around until he finds every bit of loose change he's got and shoves it gracelessly into the receiver of the vending machine. He hits a random button, doesn't even care what he gets so long as it's liquid and cold. He chugs the can without even tasting anything and he stifles a wince as the drink hits his burning throat, before the raspy dry feeling finally goes away. He tosses the can away in the nearby trashcan and slinks back into the alley to hide while he calls his dad and tells him he can't make it in for his shift.

(Chie texts him again because of course she does. He doesn't even look at it this time; he just fires off a quick, “@ work can't talk” and puts his phone on airplane mode.)

---

Yosuke makes a quick stop inside Shiroku Store before chancing the trip back home. He grabs a couple of instant ramens for himself, knowing full well no one will be home for a while to make dinner and that his own appetite is questionable after his stomach has been tied up in knots for so long. It'll also give him an excuse not to have to sneak back downstairs later and risk running into his parents. Again, not a conversational minefield he's willing to navigate right now. (He also grabs a pack of mochi to placate his little brother when Teddie inevitably whines about Yosuke not coming in to work.) Once he's out he heads straight home – straight, because the sun has started going down and it's freezing outside, so he feels confident enough in the low temperature to take the gamble on none of his friends being out where he can stumble into them.

He makes it to his house without incident, makes it inside and up to his room, even manages to take a bath without a fuss since Teddie isn't home yet to knock insistently on the bathroom door. For now, he's safe. But even knowing he's at home, alone, with his phone far away from him in the other room, Yosuke finds that he still can't relax. He soaks in the warm water, (he'd washed as quickly as fucking possible because even days later the shower makes his stomach squirm,) and tries to will the anxiety to bleed out through his pores. It doesn't.

Something is keeping his shoulders tense, his nerves frayed and spiked. Even when he gets out of the bathtub after Teddie comes bounding into the house, loud even from downstairs, Yosuke feels like he could jog all the way back to school and have energy left over.

He gives Teddie the mochi, which effectively shuts up any line of questioning that might have been incoming, and Teddie babbles excitedly as he eats. He tells Yosuke all about how “Sensei and Nana-chan” had come by to do some grocery shopping, how he and Nanako had run off to find the groceries together while Souji had wandered off. How they'd found him later after they were all done, around the side of the building, crouched low to pet the stray cats. Yosuke listens to all of this with far more attentiveness than normal; he only breathes once Ted is finished and there has been no mention made of Yosuke whatsoever.

It's... weirdly easier to relax his body after that, though understandably not his mind. His little brother is a small sliver of something normal, oblivious and innocent and forever just happy to be there. It lets Yosuke pretend that nothing bad is waiting for him just outside the house's front door.

Normally he'd play a few rounds of a video game with his brother until one of them felt tired enough to go to bed; tonight, though, Yosuke can't keep his attention on the game, and so gives up after only two failed races. He moves to sit on the bed and picks half-heartedly at his cold instant ramen, only partially watching as Ted plays against the game's AI until the bear starts getting bored. Teddie decides that they're going to have a movie night together after that, and Yosuke lets the blond boy put in some brightly-colored Ghibli thing for them to watch. Yosuke inevitably zones out.

It isn't until the credits end and the dvd menu comes back with a loop of the movie's main theme that he finally looks up, blinking at the red numbers on his alarm clock that read far later into the night than he'd thought, and then down to find his brother passed out cold on the floor. Yosuke sighs and gets up, throwing his unfinished noodles away before awkwardly – albeit carefully – dragging Teddie's slumbering form over to the closet and plopping him onto his futon.

It's as Yosuke is getting ready to turn off the light that he sees Teddie's phone lying on the carpet.

He doesn't know why he thinks it, what makes him link the sight of his little brother's cell phone to the flicker of memory that bubbles up to the surface. He doesn't know where the idea comes from. But he has it.

Rise had taken pictures of everyone and everything at the pageant. Rise had taken pictures of Souji.

Teddie had been begging Rise to send the pictures to his phone.

Yosuke has no idea whether or not Rise had ever actually did, but with how proud of herself she'd been for taking them, he'd bet money on there now being a whole folder of pageant photos residing in the bear boy's phone.

I shouldn't, he thinks, and not just because it'd be incredibly invasive to go poking around in his brother's phone –  if he does, and he finds what he's looking for, then what? He knows neither the girls nor Naoto took any photos of the second pageant, but despite what he let Yukiko believe (and what he's been trying to convince himself of for days,) Yosuke doesn't need those; he'd snapped a few of his own when the event was happening. There aren't many - he'd been a bit preoccupied worrying over Souji's disappearance at the time, and he'd purposefully avoided taking any pictures of Naoto because they'd looked so miserable that it felt almost cruel, but he has some. (And thinking about it now, he realizes he hasn't so much as opened the photo gallery on his phone even once to look at any of them since he took them.)

So no, it's not photos of the beauty pageant he's looking for.

Slowly, as if terrified Teddie will somehow wake up and throw open the closet door to catch Yosuke in the act, he reaches down and picks his brother's phone up off the ground. He's just picking it up, he tells himself; he's just getting it off the floor so no one steps on it. He's doing Ted a favor. He's not going to look, he's not.

(Liar.)

It's not hard to get into Ted's phone – the bear doesn't have any sort of lock on the screen – and because it's a cheap Junes model, Yosuke already knows exactly how to work it. It takes him less than half a minute to find Rise's nickname in the text logs and pull up their last conversation.

There, staring up at him, is the bottom part of a photo, with what looks like the stage in the school auditorium.

Yosuke immediately feels his palms start to sweat. He crosses the room in two quick, silent strides over to the light switch, turning it off with fumbling fingers and plunging the room into darkness save for the faint glow of his alarm clock and the glare from the phone in his hand. He pads back over to the outline of his bed and throws the covers back, then climbs in, throws the blankets over his head like a child avoiding bedtime, and curls up into a ball on his side with his prize held tight in his nervous hands.

His stomach swoops as he holds his thumb over the up button, ready to scroll past Ted's enthusiastic words of thanks to Rise and see--- but hesitates.

He could stop right now, he thinks; it would be so easy just to shut the phone off, put it on the charger, go to sleep. He could roll over with his face in the pillow and pretend none of this happened. It would be so easy.

Okay, he thinks, momentarily closing the phone. Okay. Okay...

This isn't creepy, it's not; he's just... making sure. Right. Yes. That's all. The dreams started after Yosuke had seen Souji dressed up as a girl – after Yosuke had thought things about Souji dressed as a girl. That had to be the reason, right? He couldn't be gay if he was only attracted to his best friend when Souji was in a skirt, when he looked a little too convincing as a chick. That's where the wires had gotten crossed in Yosuke's head, when his teenage hormones had been confused at the sight of his already-pretty partner making an even-prettier lady. That's all it was, it had to be, and Yosuke was holding the proof, the means to his mental salvation, in his hands. All he had to do was look.

Yosuke closes his eyes and takes a second to brace himself, scared for reasons he doesn't particularly want to explore. He pulls in a deep, unsteady breath. Another. A third. On the final exhale, he opens his eyes and taps a key to wake the screen back up. He stares at the bottom of the photo for just a few moments more and then finally sucks in one more breath, pressing the 'up' as his lungs fill to the brim.

The first few pictures aren't what he needs: a crowded group shot, Teddie flouncing around the stage, Kanji looking ready to break an ankle in his ill-fitting heels, Yosuke hating everything while holding the mic. He keeps scrolling up, growing irritated and more anxious with every photo revealed not to be the one he wants. Eventually he just holds the button down and lets everything scroll by until all the images start to blur together; it's because of this that he very nearly misses a flash of grey and silver as the photo streaks by.

Yosuke immediately takes his thumb off the 'up' and jabs at the 'down' until the picture comes back into view. There, bathed in the harsh spotlight of center stage, stands Souji, expression tightly neutral and face pale. It sucks the breath from Yosuke's lungs.

This. This is what Yosuke has been trying so desperately to find, simultaneously to avoid. It feels wrong, somehow, like an invasion of more than just Teddie's privacy, but the whole school had seen Souji in a skirt so it's not like it's a secret that anyone's trying to keep. Still, as Yosuke stares at the familiar shape of his partner's face, his hips, his hands, Yosuke feels, not the wave of relief he'd been expecting, but sour. He can't even put his finger on it, why his face seems to curl up in frustration without him even consciously bidding it to; Souji's body is just as lean and graceful as he remembers it looking, with the long silver wig framing his face and softening his features and the line of the skirt hugging his waist to give him just the faintest of hourglass figures. It should be beautiful, in a way it is, but the more that Yosuke stares at the photo the less and less attracted he finds himself being.

This isn't right.

(Oh, but isn't it?)

Yosuke scrolls up to look for another photo, finding a better one, a closer one, on the very next try. This time the camera is zoomed in, giving Yosuke a much clearer view of Souji from the waist up. Whatever bra the girls had stuffed him into makes his chest look natural, a petite curve to his body that fits stunningly along with the slender way his figure normally seems to taper slightly at his waist. Objectively, Souji looks great, hot, even in the pageant clothes he'd been forced to wear; Yosuke had thought as much when seeing his partner in person on that nightmare of a day. He squints at the phone in his hands and tries to recall just what specifically he'd found attractive when he'd been staring at Souji backstage in the dim, shitty lighting. His hips, definitely – he remembers thinking how perfect they would be for him to rest his hands on. Souji's waist, his chest, yes, but also his hands. Yosuke remembers how ethereal Souji had looked, too, with his eyes and the wig (an uncannily perfect match for Souji's actual hair color,) shining dull silver in the dark. The curve of his jaw, the hint of skin just above his collar bones, the line of his thighs barely there below the straightness of the skirt.

Looking at the photo now, Yosuke can see all the the things that he found so alluring before – and feels, strangely, next to nothing.

He can't understand it, why is he not swooning over the image of his best friend making the most amazingly convincing girl Yosuke has ever had filthy dreams about? (Something turns over in his mind, and suddenly, sickeningly, Yosuke feels like he's on the highest peak of a roller coaster, staring down at the hundred-foot drop below him just as the cart begins to move.)

The sex dreams hadn't featured a skirt.

They hadn't featured long hair or perky boobs.

In his dreams, Souji had just been... Souji. A flat, smooth chest, all toned muscle and softly masculine edges. The silver had been shorter, the cheekbones sharper, all of it had been Souji as he always is – a guy. No matter how gorgeous Yosuke thinks (or thought) Souji looked in his pageant outfit, the blinding fact remains that the boy in his dreams had stayed a boy.

Slowly, stomach twisting into nausea, Yosuke reaches out from the safety of his blanket shield and picks his own phone up off the night stand beside the bed. Like some kind of gremlin, he snatches his hand – phone and all – back into the darkness beneath the covers, clutching it to him with fingers so clammy it threatens to hinder his grip. His heart flutters in his chest, hard enough that he can feel his own pulse; he swallows and his throat is dry. Trembling, Yosuke holds a phone in each hand, holds them up next to one another. He opens his, and fumbles his way to his photo gallery, clicking through until he comes to a picture of himself and Souji, standing close and smiling as Yosuke snaps the selfie.

Oh god.

It's all still there. The photo is, again, a waist-up shot, but even still Yosuke can see the gentle line of Souji's jaw, the hint of his collarbones just past the open top button of his shirt, the long, delicate fingers on strong and calloused hands. Souji's hair is shorter, of course, and doesn't frame his face the way the wig did, so his cheekbones are more visible, his chin slightly sharper, but his eyes. Souji's eyes are still that same summer-storm hue, round and kind, and full of far more life than any of the photos of him in pageant garb. Pageant Souji looks like a marionette; real Souji looks like rainclouds incarnate.

Yosuke's gaze travels down to the very bottom of the picture, where the image cuts off right below Souji's belt buckle, leaving the dip of his waist, the jut of the top of his hip, all still visible. He's wearing his uniform shirt and jacket, but even with the layers of straight-cut clothing Yosuke can see that same faint, curving line of his partner's body that almost looks like the start of an hourglass. Yosuke can't see the other boy's thighs in this one, but the line of Souji's hip fills outward slightly, instead of carving a path straight down like Yosuke is so used to seeing on most other guys – himself included.  Souji, for all that he's built like an athlete, is only sharp in certain places, soft in others; a graceful blade of curving steel, handle wrapped in velvety leather.

Yosuke tears his eyes away from the photo of him and Souji together and back over to the one of Souji at the pageant. The features are the same but different, radiant in one and hollow in the other – both have the same shape, the same color, the same lines and vivid angles. But even without the false femininity, Souji is still gorgeous. Souji is still ethereal. And Yosuke can feel that swooping in his stomach turn to something warm.

A terrible realization comes dawning over Yosuke's mind like a cold and wretched sun. The people in the photos – excluding Yosuke – though differing in dress, are the same. The things that Yosuke had noticed on the day of the pageant, when he'd stared and stared and stared at his friend like Souji was the most beautiful ghost he'd ever seen, every single one of them was still there. Even without the wig and the makeup and the clothing meant for women, every tiny detail that Yosuke had poured over was unmistakably present; they'd all been there the entire time, never not.  

Which means that Yosuke just hadn't noticed them until he'd stopped and stared. And stared. And stared.

Oh my fucking god.

---

There is a certain kind of quiet mania that comes from not having slept at all; a distant sort of grinding at the threads keeping a person from breaking down, from cracking like a gunshot. It's a mental time bomb, one that can lead to either exhaustion and collapse, or the utter shattering of all rational behavior and thought.

Yosuke sits on the living room couch, already fully dressed for school, watching the sun come up through the window as his body and mind are eerily calm. That internal timer is already running low.

He hasn't slept. After his brain-breaking revelation the night before, Yosuke had lain there, pulling out every memory he had of Souji and turning it over and over in his mind. Each interaction, each time he'd thrown his arm casually across the other boy's shoulders, the way it felt when they sat close enough that Souji's body heat warmed his side. So many times Yosuke had felt his breath hitch, his heart beat just a little bit quicker, but every time he just brushed it off. Adrenaline from talking over the murder case, the heat in the summer air, his now-absent crush on Rise kicking in when she did anything cute. (Because he'd noticed that, too; that his cheeks no longer flushed while thinking about her – not since she went from The Idol Risette to his friend Rise.)

Memory by memory, it felt like Yosuke's self-dug grave had gotten that much deeper, and as he pulled on that first thread of realization, more and more had come. Like untangling a spider web piece by fragile piece. It had left his brain in a jumble, keeping him awake for hours until he'd just given up on sleep altogether.

He hadn't been restless, per se, but there had been enough static in his head that it had eventually threatened to spill out into the dark of the bedroom, and, resigned to being awake forever, Yosuke had peeled back the covers and crawled silently out of bed. Grabbing his wrinkled uniform from the day before and slipping it on, he'd gone to grab his toothbrush and a comb out of the bathroom (fervently not looking at either the mirror or the shower,) and headed downstairs to use the bathroom there instead. Slowly, with all the time in the world, he finished getting ready for school on autopilot, even bothering to make – and eat – a bowl of cereal. From an outside perspective he might have looked relatively normal; internally, however, there was nothing but empty, dissociated quiet. Still waters, deceptive with their glassy surface, poised and ready to drop into the churning rapids below.

Yosuke checks the time on his phone, still on airplane mode.

He stands from the couch without a sound, collects his coat and school bag, and slips out the door into the frigid November morning.

(His reflection in the entryway mirror turns to watch him as he leaves.)

---

He cuts through the back way to school again, though this time he doesn't drag his feet; instead, he stalks down the side streets with his hands shoved in his coat pockets and his shoulders hunched. The lack of sleep and the cold feeling now lingering just at the base of his skull both serve to sharpen the knife's edge of emotional instability he's currently teetering on. He feels... nothing. And everything. All at once. He feels like he could run full-throttle straight at somebody and deck them square in the jaw; he also feels like he could break into hysterical laughter at any moment, or maybe tears. It's hard to regulate what's going on in his everything, because his head is both empty and far too full from all the thinking he'd done the night before, but it's also quiet, which is never a good sign. Normally his brain is too loud, but today...

Today is different.

Today is bad.

If he had to try and put words to it, Yosuke would have probably described his mood (if only to himself) as fragile. It's like the wall of ice that had been blocking him from his thoughts and emotions before has turned to tiny, thin splinters. Sharp and cold and so delicate that one wrong move will shatter them – but they'll also slice everything in their path to ribbons.

The slow, methodical trudge to Yasogami High actually takes far less time than he means for it to, leaving him ample time to loiter unseen around the side of the gate, just out of view of any students passing through it. Somehow, (and he's not sure just which god to thank for this,) he hasn't seen Souji yet, either in flashes on the way as Yosuke ducked away from the normal path, or up already near the entrance. It means that Souji is either already inside or he's still en route. (And Yosuke hopes it's the former, because he's not sure just how well that wafer-thin pane of frost is going to hold. Or, for how long.)

It's just his luck, then, that he catches a glimpse of starlight silver and bleached blond coming up the crest of the hill. Yosuke digs his teeth so hard into his cheeks he can taste the coppery tang of splitting skin – Souji and Kanji are walking together. Again.

So easily replaced.

Yosuke bites viciously into the flesh inside mouth and turns to stalk into the school before either of the other boys – so close together they almost touch – can see him.

---

“Hanamura!”

Yosuke twitches, jerked from the ominous quiet inside his own achingly-empty head. Turning, (slowly, stiffly, with the faintest spark of mania waiting to be fueled,) he turns to see the bearer of the voice that had shouted at him from the stairwell behind. Chie stands on the second floor landing with her hands on her hips, glaring up at him with a look so cold it could rival her Bufu. Yukiko appears just two steps below and finishes the climb to stop beside her, a stern expression locked on her face as if made of iron resolve. Neither one of them looks to be in a forgiving mood.

Yosuke wants to just turn back around and ignore them, wants to say 'fuck it,' and just throw away what's left of his friendships so he can go back to the blissful emptiness of rock-fucking-bottom. It'd be easier that way, and he has neither the time nor the energy to even begin to untangle the knot of mistakes he's made this week.

But the looks on his friends' faces (Chie, especially,) tell him they aren't going to let this go, even for now, so, begrudgingly, Yosuke stands and waits for one of them to speak. They don't disappoint.

Chie, upon seeing him pause, marches up to him with Yukiko hot on her heels and together the pair of them back him up until he's nearly hit the wall. “Alright, you dick, we need to talk.” From around her, Yukiko steps into position and stays at Chie's side, looking for all the world like a disappointed mother as she silently lets Chie do the talking.

Somehow, Yosuke finds his voice. Somehow, despite that momentary fight-or-flight-or freeze instinct when the girls had stormed towards him, Yosuke is calm. (It isn't the normal kind, either, it's the kind of calm that can only be found when someone has reached the threshold of just how much adrenaline their body can handle and they loop back around to apathy.) “Can it wait till we don't have class?” he asks, and the voice that leaves him is so devoid of life and emotion that it actually makes Chie balk. She and Yukiko share a disquieted look, like they aren't sure whether to be startled or mad and Yosuke takes their moment of distraction to try and slip to the side where there's still space to move away.

This snaps the pair out of their hesitation. Chie blocks his path with an outstretched arm, open palm smacking the wall hard enough – though not violently, to his mild surprise – to make a soft 'thwap.' Yukiko, still silent, moves to block Yosuke's remaining escape route on the other side.

“No,” Chie hisses, “it can't. Because the moment we let you out of our sight you're just going to run off into nowhere and go back to avoiding everyone, just like you've been doing for days. We're tired of it, Yosuke.”

Yukiko nods. “I know we're not as close as you and Souji-kun, but you're our friend, too, and this behavior needs to stop.” She strengthens her stance - and it is frightening.

Yosuke can't meet either of their eyes. “...I don't know what you're talking about.”

Chie makes a sound low in her throat. “Like hell you don't; you've been totally MIA with barely a word to anyone, you've been acting shady as hell whenever someone tries to talk to you, and on top of that you've been straight up avoiding Souji – which is insane, considering you two're normally joined at the freaking hip!”

Yosuke must be doing something with his face, because Chie squints at him and says, “Yeeaaaah, don't think we haven't noticed.”

Something sniggers inside Yosuke's head and it makes his vision pulse a faint, sickly yellow. His lip curls in a barely-there sneer. “Look,” he says, a little more life in his words this time. He smacks at Chie's arm with the back of his hand. “It's nothing, will you get off my back? I'm just having a bad week.”

“Bullshit,” Chie growls in response.

From the corner of his eye, Yosuke can see Yukiko take in a long, carefully-controlled breath, as if she's silently counting down from ten to keep herself collected. “This is more than just a 'bad week,' Yosuke-kun,” she says, and the evenness of her tone belies the fire he knows she can conjure during battle. “You've been rude, crass, evasive, and downright belligerent...”

(Yosuke isn't sure he knows what all those words mean but he's pretty sure she's right on every one.)

“Even on your worst days you've never been this bad.”

Yosuke is so, so tired. He's tired of feeling like he's being buffeted by the wind that's supposed to be on his side, unable to find his footing and ready to fall at any given moment. He's tired of the wildly swinging pendulum of his emotions sending him back and forth from feeling everything to feeling nothing. (And deeper, deeper down, he's tired of people leaving him behind, even more so of driving people away; it's a skill he's never asked for but has somehow mastered nonetheless.)

He doesn't answer Yukiko's spot-on accusations. He doesn't answer Chie's too-observant glower. He doesn't look at either of them, he instead stares off to the side, unseeing, just past the arm that blocks his escape.

Chie lets out another sound of frustration and leans further into his space, craning her neck to somehow stare him down despite their height difference. “Well?” she demands, “Anything you wanna say?”

Yosuke takes a long, deep breath through his nose, letting it out so slowly that the yellow creeping into the edges of his eyes dots with black. With the exhale, he feels the last of his energy – physical, emotional, mental – drain away. It hollows him out with each passing second, until he's nothing more than a husk resigned to his fate of forever being the King of Fucking Up; he's already pushed everything this far towards the edge, he might as well take that last step over.

“...Yeah, actually,” he says, and it's a lifeless drawl, almost entirely devoid of anything. (He sees Yukiko stiffen and Chie flinch in his peripherals.) Exhausted, he lolls his head forward and finally turns his eyes to Chie's face, fixing them just above her eyebrows because he can't focus them any lower. False eye contact, something he's picked up in his time working at Junes.

He takes another deep breath, feeling that disconnecting wall of ice closing over his heart, and says, “You should probably lay off the meat, Chie, cuz you're not doing your thick thighs any favors.”

Yukiko gasps.

Beside her, Chie looks stunned, jaw dropped and mouth open like it's trying to form words her head can't find.

(Yosuke tastes bile in the back of his throat.)

Disgusted with himself and just wanting to not be here, Yosuke tries to use the girls' frozen reactions to his advantage. He isn't sure he can move or duck under Chie's arm, so he makes a break for it the opposite direction and attempts to slide past Yukiko – only for her to snap back to attention just as he's almost free.

“Yo--!”

But Yosuke is too far gone. Instead of letting himself be forced back against the wall, he doubles down, gives in to the fatalistic inevitability that he's going to be losing more than just Souji at this point. (Good, he thinks sadly; I don't deserve any of them, anyway.)

Swerving, scraping the wall with his shoulder to try and get as much space between himself and Yukiko as he can, Yosuke reaches out a hand (desperately hoping he misses,) and makes a pinching gesture at her skirt, causing her to jerk back and away. “See? Here's a perfect set right he--”

His face erupts in red-hot pain.

Yosuke staggers backwards, hitting the back of his head against the cold concrete of the wall with an audible 'thump.' Thoroughly bewildered, he blinks over at the space he had just been and sees Yukiko, hand raised, stance wide, and completely, utterly livid.

Oh, he thinks, slowly reaching up to touch his scalded cheek. I've been slapped.

“You!” Chie snaps, just as Yukiko whispers, “How dare you,” in the most bone-chillingly quiet voice he's ever heard.

He... may have gone too far this time.

Chie stalks forward, so close he has to shallow his breathing to keep his chest from touching hers when he inhales. She turns her face up at him and for a moment, through the exhaustion and the resignation and the apathy, he truly believes her to be capable of tearing his throat out with her bare hands.

It's almost impressive.  

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she snarls, “You've been acting like a jackass all week!”

Yosuke focuses on Chie's cheekbones as best he can with her so close; he practically has to go crosseyed to do so, even without meeting her murderous glare. It's strange, how he's aware that his cheek is in pain, (and rightfully so, he deserved that slap,) just as he's aware that on any other day before this week he'd be terrified for his safety in a situation like this. He remembers just how hard Chie can kick, having felt it firsthand in delicate places. But his energy is spent at this point, and all the awareness in the world can't conjure up the ability to be anything other than drained.

So he doesn't react, just looks back at his (probably former) friend and huffs, “Chill out, Chie, it was just a joke.”

Both girls visibly tense, shoulders squared and backs straight. Yukiko brings her hand up like she's going to slap him again, rearing it back as she hisses, “It wasn't funny!”

Chie, simultaneously, bares her teeth in vicious rage. “Like hell it was!” she barks, her own voice layering over Yukiko's outburst.

Yosuke just lolls his head to the side slightly and focuses on empty air. “Yeah, well,” he drawls, unable to find the right emotion to put into his voice. “You're girls, of course you wouldn't get it; it's guy humor.”

Chie leans impossibly closer. “You think you're such hot shit,” she seethes, and her tone has gone icy, blisteringly cold. She jabs a finger into his chest hard enough for him to feel it bruise. “We put up with your nasty 'jokes' and your weird staring because you're our friend, but there's a limit, Hanamura!” Her lips curl, the finger digging into his sternum like a silent threat. “And you're freaking pushing it.”

Yukiko leans in as well, her hand still raised and ready, a bow string held taut. “Girls don't like it when you say things like that,” she says, so dark and even that it raises the hairs on the back of Yosuke's neck – but even though his body physically, instinctively reacts, the hollow pit in his chest where the ice now sits keeps his heart and mind numb. He doesn't look at her as she says, “If your brand of humor makes other people uncomfortable, then it isn't really humor at all, it's gross.”

There are people starting to collect around them; Yosuke can see them moving closer just past the haze of his unfocused vision. He can't tell if he cares of not, doesn't think he does anymore. Everything Chie and Yukiko are saying is too right, too justified for him to fight back or defend himself. I deserve this, he thinks, hears his own voice echoing like there's another nearly identical one layering beneath it.

A few other students, faces unrecognizable, gather just a bit too close to the direction he's been staring in. He doesn't feel like letting them think he's acknowledged them, so he rolls his head lazily back so he can pretend to face to the two girls in front of him. He's just going back to fixing his eyes on Yukiko's shoulder when a swath of silver catches in his vision – just barely, just enough to make him look up before he can consciously think about it. He refocuses, and feels his heart come to a painful halt inside his ribs.

Souji is standing there, looking at Yosuke as if he's never seen him before. His eyes are wide and confused, thin brows pulled so low that they're actually visible below his hair; his lips are slightly parted as if he's been caught mid-gasp.

Yosuke stares back at him for a long, panicked moment. A slow, frigid kind of adrenaline begins to seep into this veins, making his hands and knees shake even though he can't feel it. It kick-starts his heart back to life and suddenly it's pounding as he looks into Souji's eyes for the first time in he can't even remember how long, seeing no trace of recognition in the other boy's face. Only pain. Only confusion and betrayal. Souji looks at him like Yosuke is a stranger now, gaze boring into his own like he's looking for someone familiar but just can't find them, can't figure out who Yosuke is.

He saw, the voice that had layered his own whispers, hissing though laughing, jagged glee.

Souji saw.

The floor drops out from under Yosuke's feet and he switches to autopilot to keep from falling, somehow managing to stay upright through sheer force of unconscious will. Chie and Yukiko must notice the change, because he can peripherally see them pause, turning their heads to see what he's looking at. It's enough.

Moving feels like he's underwater, drowning, but Yosuke sees his chance and snatches at it with trembling fingers; as the girls are distracted by Souji, Yosuke pushes himself sideways along the wall until he's no longer pinned by Chie's proximity. Once there's space to do so, he shoves his way forward, sticking out an arm and breaking through the line that Yukiko and Chie's bodies have made. They part in their shock, and he's able to slip between them at last.

“Whatever,” he hears himself say. A verbal barrier, a wall to keep them all at bay while he books it to something resembling safety. He reaches up and palms the headphones resting around his neck. “You guys throw your hissy fit, I'm goin' to class.” He tugs the headphones up as he takes a couple long, quick strides out of their stationary reach, shoving them over his ears without actually turning on any music – using the comforting weight at the sides of his head as a shield. If they try and call out after him, he can just pretend he can't hear them and keep walking.

He makes it all the way to the classroom without being caught; he doesn't dare look at Yukiko, Chie, or Souji (especially not Souji,) as the three of them enter the room. Yukiko first, then the others, and Yosuke busies himself with his school bag until the sound of the door opening signals the arrival of the teacher and the start of class just moments later.

Yosuke keeps his head ducked down the entire morning, just in case of the the girls decides to risk a glance back in his direction. He can't tell with his eyes glued to his desk, but he thinks that none of them do.

(He doesn't know whether he should be relieved or not.)

---

Yosuke is up and moving almost before the lunch bell even rings. Like he's done for the past week, he grabs his stuff and hightails it out the back of the room, pointedly not looking and any of the friends he's managed to alienate in only a handful of days. Headphones snug over his ears and player in his hand, he takes the steps up to the third floor, then the roof, two at a time. It's only once he's up in the cold air and alone that he feels like he can breathe.

Picking a spot as far away from the door as possible, Yosuke drops to the ground and leans his back against the frigid metal links of the fence, barely even feeling the chill through his clothes. The breath he's finally caught starts to pick up – only for a moment – and he has to bring his knees up to the his chest, hands over his eyes and fingers twisting in his hair as he ducks his head and pulls in lungful after lungful of air. It passes just as quickly as it came.

What do I do now?

Despite the hollow feeling encompassing his heart, Yosuke still feels the twinge of anxiety that had brought about the thirty-second panic attack; it sticks to his blood cells, causing his palms to sweat and go clammy in the nippy November breeze. He brings them to his mouth and cups them over his lips, breathing into them to try and warm them back up. It doesn't work.

He sighs and drops his hands back into his lap, tucking them between the bend of his knees. He didn't bother bringing lunch with him again today, though between the rare breakfast that morning and the churning in his stomach he isn't so sure he'd be able to eat anything anyway. Still, even a snack would have provided him something to do with his hands, and so Yosuke is left with nothing but his music and his surroundings to occupy his time. He frowns – being alone with his thoughts recently has been anything but good, and today having gone the way that it has so far, he can feel the incoming uphill battle against his brain. He cranks the volume up on his player in hopes of drowning it all out before it begins, but turns the whole thing off and tugs the headphones from his ears a minute or so later, not wanting to associate any of his favorite songs with the maelstrom already brewing inside his mind.

It starts with a replay. Every single thing he'd said and done that morning in the hallway with Chie and Yukiko. It twists at his gut with each image, each remembered word he'd vomited out like a bio-weapon; he barely recognizes himself in his own memories, and honestly that is the part that scares him the most. No wonder Souji had looked at him that way.

And oh, if that hadn't been the worst part of it all. Yukiko and Chie he already hated himself for, already felt sick over how he'd treated them both since even before this all began, starting with the festival. He wishes he could go back in time and stop himself from ever putting their names down – all of them – because not only was it just a shitty, immature thing to do, but it also violated their trust. He sees that now, and it feels like a hammer to the head, because with everything that he's turned into in the days since, he knows it all started with that one first terrible decision. Most of the low points in his life have started with terrible decisions, he just hadn't been aware enough to put the pieces together until now. Had things been different, Yosuke wonders if Souji would have been proud of him.

That, however, is the thing that brings Yosuke's already-simmering self hatred to a rolling boil. Of all the people he's hurt so far, Souji is the one that makes Yosuke feel like he's beyond all hope of redemption. Souji had been his partner, his best friend, and Yosuke, stupid, stupid Yosuke had taken that bond and thrown it right in the garbage. They were supposed to be equals, but Yosuke had been too busy sinking into his own head, too mired in self pity and selfishly wanting things to go back to a normal that likely didn't even exist anymore. Not after all of this. For all the maturing Yosuke feels he may have done – the only silver lining in the storm that he himself created – focusing only on his own hurt and blaming Souji for it is by far the most childish thing he's done.

(Inside his skull, stretched out as though sliding into Yosuke's skin like a glove, he can almost feel something like a head being tilted, an eyebrow raised. There is a quiet, contemplative, 'hmmm,' as if his mind is thinking thoughts without him. He doesn't know how to interpret the sensation, so he tucks it away on the back burner for now.)

Somewhere past the door leading back into the school, Yosuke faintly hears the warning bell sounding, signaling the end of lunch and the resumption of classes for the day.

Yosuke doesn't move.

He sits there and leans his head back against the fence in utter exhaustion; he doesn't have the energy or will power to get up and go back inside. He doesn't want to feel the others' eyes on him when he walks in the door, or, equally painful, being entirely unacknowledged instead. Having done the same to Souji for days,Yosuke will admit his hypocrisy in that he doesn't know if he'd survive having his former partner do the same to him - even if Souji had scared the shit out of him, neglected to communicate with him, left him to wonder and worry and want after the pageant.

Then again, some part of Yosuke quietly relents, Souji... really isn't obligated to tell Yosuke anything. And while their leader should have at least been courteous enough to let someone know he was still alive, he'd eventually told Naoto. Which had hurt Yosuke – pretty badly, in fact – to not be the one Souji had talked to first, but at least he'd talked to someone. (Even though Yosuke is still adamantly sure the “food poisoning” excuse had been complete bullshit.) But... it wouldn't be fair to expect Souji to never have secrets; after all, Yosuke still has secrets of his own, even after confronting his shadow.

Some are just far, far more shameful than others.

Thoughts swirling, Yosuke can feel a headache beginning to build behind his eyes. He keeps going around and around; he's mad at Souji, he's not mad at Souji, he's mad at himself, he's not mad at himself for being hurt – on and on and on. It's a loop that doesn't seem to have an end, and it's making Yosuke dizzy.

He sighs again, and there's an echoing sigh inside his skull, albeit one that sounds far more frustrated than his own audible one. He's too tired to suss it out, though, and because all this thinking is starting to spiral, he digs his player back out and tries one more time to drown out the thoughts with music. He's relived when his attention stays on the lyrics and doesn't go careening off again; he closes his eyes and lets himself go blank for a little while, almost-but-not-quite dozing, tucked away in his little patch of rooftop in the brisk November air.

Sometime later – he doesn't know how long – Yosuke is pulled from his trance by the sound of a far-off school bell. His player apparently ran out of battery long ago, because the screen is dark and his headphones silent. Yosuke feels like shit.

He's chilly to the point where his skin doesn't really have much feeling anymore; his neck is stiff from the cold and the position it'd been kept in while he was out of it. His ears ache a little, too, and it's probably more from the headphones than the weather. Groaning, Yosuke sits up and peels the headphones off, setting them in his lap and rolling his neck to try and get his full range of motion back. He feels something pop. With another groan, he makes it slowly to his feet and stretches, every muscle in his body protesting as he does.

Fully aware that he hadn't gone back in after lunch, Yosuke has absolutely no idea what time it could possibly be; judging by the position of the sun over the treetops, however, and the sound of the bell from earlier, he can guess that it's probably well into the afternoon. “Fuck,” he mutters to the empty rooftop. He's more than likely missed most of the rest of the school day, though if that's the case then he can't bring himself to care. There was nothing waiting for him back in the classroom anymore, anyway.

Reluctant still to make his way inside lest someone catch him, Yosuke takes his time gathering his bag, tucking his player away, setting his headphones carefully on top because, well, they aren't any use to him right now, are they? It's only once he's run out of stuff to do that he finally fishes his pone out of his pocket to check the time.

Weirdly enough, there are no new messages – which, he isn't surprised at but also is? If no one had wanted to talk to him after that morning, he would have understood. However, with as rightfully angry as they both had been, he would have expected there to be something from Chie at the very least – even if not from today, then something else from last night, surely. Curious and a little uneasy, Yosuke stares at his phone until the screen goes dark. Oh, he realizes finally; he'd forgotten he'd put it on airplane mode the night before.

(He'd wondered why his phone had been so blissfully, ominously quiet all night.)

He taps the keys lightly to get the screen to wake back up and goes to take it off airplane at last – only to hesitate just before pressing the button, thumb hovering as Yosuke chews on his lip. His gut curdles. Whether there are a slew of missed texts or none at all, Yosuke knows that whatever is waiting for him once he hits confirm isn't going to be good. He has to brace himself; he just isn't sure what for.

With a deep breath in and a quick breath out, Yosuke takes the plunge and hits the button, not looking at the screen as his thumb presses down. He doesn't want to see just yet. At first there is nothing – no belated notification sound, no vibrations, nothing. He thinks maybe he's safe for the moment, simultaneously unsettled by the lack of any apparent messages...

...Until his phone vibrates, just once, in his hand.

Yosuke's breathing sticks in his throat for half a breath, head instinctively tilting to look down at the notification that just jostled his anxiety. It isn't from Chie, which is not what he expected, nor is it from Yukiko, which also would not have surprised him. It isn't even from Teddie, whining that Yosuke had left without partaking in their new morning ritual of communal teeth-brushing. No, the sender, devastatingly, is Souji.

Prtnr: I'm sorry. I won't bother you anymore.

Everything stops.

[ticklikeabomb]

One-shot : Low-Key

Pairing : Loki x Plus Size Reader ; Avengers x Plus size Reader

Warnings : Language ; Innuendos

Word Count : 2k

Requested by @lizzybatesblog : Are you taking requests right now? If so, could I ask for a oneshot where Loki walks in on the reader singing and dancing to Low-Key by Ally Brooke and Tyga and thinks about the song she is singing as if she is saying his name? I'm so sorry if this doesn't make sense. And I love your writing! :-)

A/N : I got carried away AGAIN xD

You were born as a Mutant. At first sight, no one knew that you had powers, not even you. It was even more astonishing considering that your parents didn’t have the Mutant gene. You were an only child and suffered from isolation, kids at school quickly picking on you for your weight. To escape that reality you created your own in your head. Their comments quickly became a buzzing background sound while in your universe, music was your life supply, the air your lungs seeked for.  Years passed by and you discovered that you could play any tune after just hearing them once. Very few people had that gift so you didn’t think a lot of it. Reaching your twenties, you decided you had enough of the small town life and expanded your universe by tempting your chance in New York. Resourceful, kind and full of life you managed to get a job as a pianist for a party. Not really asking for the details and just glad you had a chance, you wore your fanciest outfit and made your way to the party. When you entered the room and saw the people inside, you felt small. It was the Nobel Prize after party and here you were about to play for some of the ‘greatest’ populating the world. You took a seat in front of the piano and began to play the first notes of Lykki Li’s Deep End song. 

The second the first words came out of your mouth, the guest’s chatter went dead silent. Only your angelic voice was heard, each word touching them deeply. Among the guests was Bruce Banner, who never felt so peaceful in his entire life. He went back to the compound that night, a large smile on his face, feeling as relaxed as ever. He asked F.R.I.D.A.Y to play the song in his room but something was off. The peaceful feeling wasn’t there, something was missing. It lasted over a week, the frustrations getting the best of him when he eventually asked F.I.D.A.Y to play the camera footage of the after party. He was listening to you play and sing on the screen but the feeling wasn’t there. Tony, Thor and Loki entered the lab and frowned at seeing Bruce, his hands on his head. "What's wrong with him?", asked Loki. "Hey buddy, you're ok?", asked Tony worried. "No…yes… I don't know, it's just her voice." His fellow teammates looked at the screen and frowned. "I rather thing that she has a lovely voice", commented Thor. "That's the thing. When she sang something happened in me, some sort of energy. I've never felt more peacefully as that night", said Bruce before continuing. "F.R.I.D.A.Y can you isolate the sequence and show me the brain composition." 

"Don't you think you're exaggerating there?", asked Tony with a chuckle. The AI did as requested and Bruce told her to press play. "There ! Look. The guests brain composition seconds before she played, they seemed normal but as soon as she began playing and singing, the pleasure side of the brain activated and they're bodies show signs of…compliance?", he pointed at the screen. "That's indeed awkward. F.R.I.D.A.Y give me everything you have on her?", exclaimed Tony. "See I told you there was something." "An enhanced?", added Thor. "If so, she's not listed in the system and that could be a problem. Here an address", said Tony. "Let me go talk to her", exclaimed Bruce. That's how you ended up at the compound. Brought along by Bruce, you waved at the Avengers with a bright smile. "I'm Y/N", you told them. They introduced themselves, not that they needed to. "Bruce told us you're an enhanced", called Sam your way. "I'm a Mutant to be exact." You saw them frown and you elaborated, "I was born with it, they were not generated." "And what exactly are those powers?", asked Wanda. 

"Y/N can persuade her environment to comply as she pleases with a simple word. It can be while she sings, plays piano or any other instrument. Her power lays in her voice", answered Bruce. "Really? Why don't you show us", exclaimed Tony with a cocky smile. You looked at him and asked what was his favorite song. He told you it was Back in Black by AC/DC. You cleared you voice and focused on him, singing the first words of the song. You saw his face crunch in disgust. "Arghhh what the hell? Why are you singing that horrible song, I hate it. Stop it! Stop that, I can't stand it", he shouted angrily. You smiled at the others impressed faces and looked back at Stark, continuing the song but switching his feeling from hate to love. "Yeahhhh that's what I'm talking about. Best song ever !!! I'll fight anyone who says otherwise", he said with sparkling eyes. "Hmm I have to admit that's impressive but in what use would it be while saving the world?", chuckled Loki. You looked at him with mischief in your eyes, "Dance !" and saw his legs and arms move against his order. His face screamed shook and anger cause he had no more control over his body. "Shake that ass", you said and he began twerking. Thor let out a loud laughter along the others. "Who knew Asgardians could twerk", you smirked before looking back at Loki and seeing him fall to his knees, fighting to get up after you said "Down". 

That was a year ago, an eventful year. If someone told you that being part of the Avengers would be on the line when you left your hometown, you would laugh on the person's face. And yet, here we are. You became part of the family, always smiling, open-minded, kind, funny, affectionate and patient with everyone. You were more than a coworker and a friend, you were there when they felt down, angry, sad and comforted them. 

You were currently checking the new songs out on Spotify and put it on shuffle. At some point a catchy song came up and you hummed along. The song "Low Key" by Ally Brooks ft Tyga quickly became your favorite. You would get out of your room in the morning, singing the first lines of the song before entering the kitchen. 

"Low key, low key, you should really get to know me." The God of Mischief was in the kitchen, cutting pieces of apple and frowned hearing you say he should get to know you better. "Why's that dear?", he turned your way but deep in your mind, you didn't noticed he was addressing you. Frustrated he let it slide but kept eyeing you during the whole breakfast. The second time he heard you call after him, he was making his way out of his room after having a shower. "Low key, low key…Yeah, I know you got some things that you could show me", you said with a smile. He felt his face flush and his manhood throb underneath his sweatpants, affected by your words. He cleared his voice and called after you, "I beg your pardon?", he asked you. You looked up and saw what seemed to be a pissed off Loki (who was in reality flustered). "Hey Loki everything alright?", you asked him. "I could ask you the same thing. I don't know what are those things that I could show you but this is extremely inappropriate", he exclaimed before vanishing, leaving you behind confused. 

The third time he heard you 'call after him', you were doing squats in the gym. He was already looking at you, your curves driving the God insane. "Low key, low key, I see you looking at my body very closely. But there's a lot of things about me that you don't see. You know we could take it fast or take it slowly. (…) I can take you places you ain't been before me. Then, the rest I guess is self-explanatory." He widened his eyes, following your ass up and down before he cleared his throat and leashed out of the gym, groaning. "What's got over him?", asked Bucky to Steve. "I have no idea and I'm not sure I wanna know", the blond haired responded. 

The fourth time he thought he heard you, you were all alone in the living room looking out to the sky while mumbling "I see you watchin', you been plottin' on me, low key, yeah" He felt his heart drop in his stomach, scarred that you may think that he was plotting something against you. 'If you only knew', he thought. He wanted to let you know the feelings that he was harboring for you but was scared you would turn him down. Little did he know that you liked him too. Sure if you wanted you could say one word and have him kneeled in front of you but you didn't play games when it came to your family, friends and Loki. 

The next day Loki couldn't sleep and decided to read the book he saw in your hands a couple of weeks earlier. He was finishing the fifth chapter when he heard noise coming out from the gym. What he saw made his heart beat frantically : you singing and dancing happily. What caught his attention after were the lyrics.

Low key, low key, you should really get to know me Low key, low key, you should really get to know me

Yeah, I know you got some things that you could show me

Low key, low key, you should really get to know me

I see you looking at my body very closely

But there's a lot of things about me that you don't see

You know we could take it fast or take it slowly

We could fly out to Ibiza and get cozy

All your friends are looking for you

They don't know where you're at

'Cause you left with me and slipped out the back

Low key, low key, you should really get to know me Low key, low key, you should really get to know me

Yeah, I know you got some things that you could show me

Low key, low key, you should really get to know me

He mentally face-palmed himself discovering you were singing this song all along for weeks, instead of calling after him and felt bad for leaving you standing by yourself when he lashed out without giving an explanation. He entered the gym and you turned around, your eyes sparkling when you saw him approaching. You spread your arm into an invitation and he grabbed your hand. His arms circled around your wide waist and yours on his neck, you danced together. No words needed. Loki felt bold and dropped a chaste kiss on your neck. "Loki", you breathed out. You felt him push you closer and hummed contentedly. "That wasn't very Low key was it?", he said and felt her smiling. "I found it quite smooth at the contrary", you responded and looked at him in the eyes. "Y/N…I -", he started but you shook your head. "I know, me too", you smiled. His smile joined yours before he leaded down and showed you how much with a chaste but passionate kiss. You spend the rest of the night talking, him telling you about the times he thought you were calling him but were singing the song to which you laughed loudly. When you looked at the clock you saw it was already breakfast time. Your hands joined, you and Loki entered the kitchen and prepared something to eat. You were cutting fresh fruits when you mumbled out a new song : Ponyboy by Sophie. 

"Ponyboy… lock up the door"

"Ehmmm Y/N why would I lock the door and why are you calling me Tony Boy?", asked Tony. You looked at him confused for a second and your eyes locked with Loki's. "Oh no it's starting again", you commented before cracking up in loud laughter, Loki joining you. He stood up and dropped a kiss on your shoulder. "Did I miss something?", asked Bucky to Steve. The blond haired again shook his head and mumbled, "I have absolutely no clue what's going on in this place." 

* gifs not mine, credit to owners*

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[missblissy]

Title: Homeless at Home Fandom: Red Dead Redemption Genre: fanfiction, chapters, angst, reader insert, fluff, slow burn, friends-to-lovers, pre-game Characters: Young!Arthur Morgan, Dutch Van Der Linde, Hosea Mathews, Arthur Morgan/ Reader, Female reader, Arthur x Reader, Arthur Morgan x Reader, Arthur/ You, Young!reader Chapter: One || Two || Three || Four || Five || Six || Seven || Eight || Nine

Follow me on AO3!! Read it there too!

((Hello again everyone!! Thank you all so so so so much for all the support that you've given this fic!! Do not worry!! I am NOT DEAD!! I've just been busy with finals and college and stuff!! Please show the fic some love by leaving a kudos or commenting! I'd love to hear what you all have to say!!

I made a playlist on Spotify for Homeless at Home! Follow it to dive deeper into the world of the Gang and Reader!!

Lastly, everyone gets ready, because these next few chapters are leading up to something big!!))

Description:

The inside of the house was dark and smelled like a mixture of smoke and wet dirt. As you ran through the empty kitchen in the back of the house, up front were a dining room and living room came together in the foyer, where Arthur was laying on the floor at the foot of the old staircase. He had his gun in both hands pointed up to a figure halfway down the stairs.

It was an old man, he had his hands up in defense and fear was on his face that was taken over by an unkempt beard peppered with silver hairs that stuck out against his faded brown ones. Fear was on his face, “I-I-I didn’t mean!” The old man let out a yelp when Dutch pulled his gun out too, pointing it at the homeless man, “I’m sorry! I’m real sorry- please don’t kill me! I’m just a useless old man! I’ve been squatting here all summer waiting for the law to kick me out again!!” He looked like he was ready to piss himself.

_______________________________________

The sky was cloudy and the wind was strong, chilly, and cold enough to annoy you. Not that you weren’t already annoyed. Your legs and back had been hurting since the moment you had gotten on Callus. He was still a large horse and you were still small. That was a week ago. Callus was a tame animal, after all, he was a bit jumpy and easily agitated, but you could change that with trust and bonding, or so you were told. Nobody told you that riding a horse would be painful though.

Although it was hard to ignore, you did your best to shut out the sore throbbing pain that came from your lower back and legs. You carried on, doing your best to ride behind Arthur who was riding behind Dutch. The three of you were going somewhere very important and Arthur said this would be a good chance to bring you along for once. He argued that you needed to get out of camp more often and Dutch took the bait.

Almost an hour later and you were nearly at the end of this long ride. Your destination was close, that’s what Dutch said at least. Something awful has happened within the last few days. Hosea had gone missing. No one has seen him in four days, and this was not normal. You checked in town, in the jail, in the saloon. You found no sign of him until Arthur had went to Bessie’s stables and found David. He said she was home, and he saw Hosea giving her a ride on a wagon a few nights ago. He said he might have taken her home. So the best lead was Bessie’s own house, deep in Paradise Valley. She owned a large ranch miles away from Sugartown.

It was hard to believe she would take this ride to sell horses in town when she could have done it off her property. You laid eyes on a large horse ranch, bigger than anything you’ve ever seen. You could fit the whole town on this plot of land. Dutch, Arthur, and yourself were at a stop before the large gateway that welcomed you to Bessie’s fabulous home. Not a single one of you had any idea she stemmed from such a… wealthy family.

The place seemed almost totally abandoned aside from the horses who grazed away in their fenced in pastures. It was nearly noon as you rode towards the house. Dutch took the lead, a hand always ready to grab his pistol. Arthur, however, was relaxed and making fun of Dutch’s paranoia. Dutch was only like that because you were there, you knew that Arthur knew that. Even Dutch knew that. The only reason why you weren’t as nervous as Dutch was because Arthur made a valid point earlier, Bessie was a friend, not a foe. It was clear she liked you, Dutch and Arthur. She hadn’t meet Annabelle or Susan yet but that was also because Hosea kept her at a distance from the gang. Dutch did the same with Annabelle, which is why no one was bothered at his hesitation.

Just as you had gotten near the house someone started rustling away behind a door as they jimmied it open. Dutch’s hand inched closer to his side where his guns rested in their holsters. The door swung open and out came a man you didn’t know. He was tall and skinny with big sunk in eyes, “Can I help you?” At least he was friendly and not threatening you to get off his land.

Dutch cleared his throat and gave a small wave, “I am so sorry, sir,” he started off. You could hear the showmen inside him come to life, “I’m looking for a friend of mine. I was told he was last spotted here. Maybe you’ve seen him? Tall, blonde hair? Blue eyes? Pointy nose like a rat?” You saw Arthur nearly burst into laughter. He snorted through before he brought his fist to his mouth and dug his teeth into a knuckle.

“Name’s Hosea?”

“Yes!” All three of you spoke at once, surprised and delighted to hear his name. Dutch spoke once more, “Have you seen him? Is he here?”

“Yep, he’s here.” The man headed back inside.

Well this was a nice and safe journey across the county. No guns. No shooting. No nothing! Now it was time to get Hosea and go home, right? Dutch needed help moving camp because winter was going to set in soon, but you didn’t have very many options to run to. There was a desert south, but it was barren and not livable, and Colm O’driscoll was down south. Which Dutch didn’t want to run the chances of crossing. You could head north but that would make things colder. East wasn’t an option. Neither was west. Dutch was extremely tempted to stay the winter in Paradise Valley, simply because the winters were mild here. However, Hosea was more familiar with this area and knew more people.

The door opened again and out came Hosea. He looked… not good. He seemed tired, his hair was messy and his eyes were dark. He was paler than normal as well. He looked like he hadn’t slept since he left camp. Dutch rushed to slide off his horse and took no time asking, “What has happened to you? Where have you been?” Here, clearly, but why?

Hosea started to shake his head and stayed on the large front porch, “I’m sorry Dutch- I.. didn’t mean to get caught up here for so long.”

“What’s going on here?” Dutch asked. You and Arthur had gotten off your mounts as well and followed Dutch up the steps. You stood on the first step while Arthur took the second.

There was a moment of silence as Hosea opened his mouth for a second then closed it. He then sighed and said, “Bessie’s father died,” He spoke quietly, “She… It’s very complicated,”

At some point Dutch had pulled out a cigarette, he lit it with a flick of a match along the side of the little box hidden in his palm. As he dragged in the nicotine he nodded, “As all things are, I’m sure.”

They seemed to have some kind of silent understanding for a moment before Hosea wrung his hands, “Yes, so,” He took a breath, “I’ve been helping Bessie and her sisters with the ah-.. the financial stuff,”

Dutch nodded his head as he steamed out a cloud of smoke, humming, “Mhm, sure,”

“And the legal stuff too. You know, who gets what, what goes where. It’s just he died, um- last night.”

“Oh, he did now?” Dutch raised his brow, not nearly as surprised as he let on, “Maybe that’s why you look like shit?”

Laughter mingled between them and Hosea shook a finger, “I couldn’t have said it better. It was real bad. We brought the doctor from town. Don’t even know what killed him. He just got very sick, lots of vomit, blood, couldn’t eat or sleep. He withered away, really.”

“Awful thing, that’s just awful. I’m sorry to hear that, Hosea, I am,” Dutch paused and this is when you knew the conversation was about to shift, “But we need ya back at camp. I get that this is not a good time but we have to get moving soon, you know that as good as I do.”

“I know Dutch- I know. I’m working on it, I’ve got a place that… Maybe might work for now, it’s actually not far from here,” It was almost as if the world knew he was talking about it. A cold breeze pushed right through the ranch with a heavy gust of mountain air falling from the sky above. Hosea shivered slightly and wrapped his arms together, crossed in front of his chest, “There’s an old house a few miles from here, much deeper in the valley,” He said, “It’s been eaten up by the forest and it’s been abandon for a good few years. I’ve seen it myself, it’s a good spot for now.”

There was a shared moment of silence as another breeze passed through, making a hollow windy sound in your ears as you watched Dutch flick away the dead end of his cigarette, “Alright,” There was a small flare in his attitude, like he was a spoiled child, “Are you coming with us?” He asked.

When Hosea shook his head slowly, you could see a look on Dutch’s face that let you knew every emotion he felt in those five seconds it lasted. Hosea saw it too and he wasn’t quick to rush to his own defense. There was a power struggle here that you or anyone in the world could see. “I can’t,” Hosea finally said, “I… I gotta stay here. Just a few more days, Dutch,” When Dutch didn’t say anything Hosea rambled on, but in a quieter tone as to not let anyone else hear his words but the other outlaw. You couldn’t make out the whispers but whatever Hosea said it must have worked.

“I understand,” Dutch backed away with a nod of his head, “I do, I know what you mean, it’s a terrible time for all of us. I swear it’s the weather, something about the cold makes us all cold-hearted bustards and brings about these dreadful times.”

“Exactly,” They started walking towards the steps, you and Arthur moved out of the way. Hosea turned to Dutch and shook his hand once, firm and formal, and gave him a nod of his head, “I’ll be here if you need me, but I don’t plan on staying forever,” He laughed a little shrill chuckle that sounded tired and strained.

“We know. If you aren’t back in a few days I’ll send Arthur to come in and check in on you. Right, boy?” Dutch had this cheeky flashy grin on his face as he passed the lanky cowboy. Arthur rolled his eyes and was sure to walk off a bit to avoid any teasing Dutch had in store for him, “Come on kids, we got a house to look at.”

As you watched Dutch and Arthur head back to the horses, you looked to Hosea who was standing there with a small smile. You wanted to speak with him, asking him if he was okay and why he had to stay here, but someone came to the front door and pushed it open half way.

His head barely poked out but you could make out who it was. Your eyes locked for a solid ten seconds as he gazed around the front porch. The doctor from town, the one you got the books from, stood in the doorway of Bessie’s house. You felt a wave of anxiety rush over you. Hosea had noticed the doctor too.

He gave you a little wave of his hand back and forth, “I’ll see you around, (Y/n). Don’t worry about nothing, alright?” He disappeared into the house after that.

Your heart was beating faster than a birds wings while trapped in a cage. The doctor was staring at you from around the front door where he still had his head stuck out. You met his gaze and when you did you felt nauseous. His face was blank and his glasses made it hard to see his eyes, for several seconds he stayed there before dipping behind the door and retreated back into the house. He heard your name. Your real name, not the fake one you gave him.

How much did he already know about you? How much of the truth had Hosea unintentionally tell him? Did he know who you were? About your parents? Worry started to sway back and forth in your mind like a bucket overfilled with water. Each splash and wave was like another thought that said something wasn’t right. Should you tell Dutch? Or maybe Arthur? Who knew what that doctor could do. You tried not to think about it as you returned to Callus.

The mustang seemed happy to see you at least. He brushed the side of his head against you as you walked by and let out a little chirp as you struggled to get in your saddle. He was a tall horse and you needed to jump to get up on his back.

Arthur and Dutch chattered away while you headed to this house that Hosea spoke about. You, on the other hand, had kept to yourself, focused on your thoughts. Arthur’s advice on ignoring the prying thoughts of your mother had been going pretty smoothly over the past couple weeks since your birthday, but seeing the doctor opened the flood gates again. For the most part, you thought about your mother’s family, the family you had that was still alive. What were they doing now, and what did they think about you?

The ride to the house felt a lot shorter in contrast to your daydreaming. Dutch had managed to find it by following an overgrown path into the forest. It was in better condition than anyone would have planned. It looked livable aside from all the plant overgrowth. It was a two-story house with white paint chipping away, and looked like it was big enough to fit a large family, which is exactly what you needed. At some point, Arthur had wandered inside while you and Dutch had taken a look behind the house. You found a shitty looking barn only a few feet away from tipping over, but it’d have to do. It was good enough to keep the horses in overnight, someone could camp out there and keep watch while keeping the horses' company.

Suddenly a loud bang came from the second floor of the house, followed by what sounded like rocks tumbling downstairs then someone yelling. You and Dutch looked at each other for a second before heading into the house through the back door.

The inside of the house was dark and smelled like a mixture of smoke and wet dirt. As you ran through the empty kitchen in the back of the house, up front were a dining room and living room came together in the foyer, where Arthur was laying on the floor at the foot of the old staircase. He had his gun in both hands pointed up to a figure halfway down the stairs.

It was an old man, he had his hands up in defense and fear was on his face that was taken over by an unkempt beard peppered with silver hairs that stuck out against his faded brown ones. Fear was on his face, “I-I-I didn’t mean!” The old man let out a yelp when Dutch pulled his gun out too, pointing it at the homeless man, “I’m sorry! I’m real sorry- please don’t kill me! I’m just a useless old man! I’ve been squatting here all summer waiting for the law to kick me out again!!” He looked like he was ready to piss himself.

While Dutch kept his sights locked on the stranger, you went over to Arthur and started dusting off the dirt that had gotten on his back as he sat up from the floor. As he groaned and got to his feet, Arthur’s low voice asked, “What the hell is your name, you old bastard?”

“Don’t got one,” He stayed still in his spot on the stairs. You could see his hands shaking slightly, “They call me, Uncle,” What a strange man. He smelled like whiskey, his hair was on the verge of turning from a light brown to snowy white. He had to be in his 50s at least. He swallowed a lump in his throat and spoke a little softer, “You ain’t the new owners… are ya? C-cause if so y-you- you wouldn’t happen to… keep this from the law?” What a pathetic man.

When Arthur finally stood tall again he snarled out, “I ‘aught to fucking kill you for kicking me down the fucking stairs! Hell no, we ain’t the god damn owners!” He pointed his finger and shook it with each word. You’d never seen Arthur get so angry so fast. He spun away and walked away from Uncle and head towards the front door that was still ajar.

“I said I was sorry! You should know better than sneaking up on an old man-” You stared at Uncle with wide eyes trying to mentally tell him to shut the hell up before he said the wrong thing.

Arthur stopped on his snotty little march out the door and looked back at Uncle. There was a moment of silence where everyone stared up at the old man and he looked back at every one of you. Before he turned away again, Arthur shook his head and cursed under his breath while saying, “Dutch do something with this old bag of shit, you’re the businessman,” He left after that.

Dutch on the other hand ran his hand over his mustache a few times while walking directly into the foyer. Uncle had come down a few steps too, but he was still sure to stay clear of Dutch just like he did with Arthur. Funny, because Dutch was the one he should be the most afraid of, you thought to yourself.

“Well,” Dutch started, and took a long pause as he did this thing where he rubbed his chin then crossed his arms in front of his chest, “I’m gonna have to ask you to leave Uh… Uncle. You see we might not be the new owners, but… ah… We need this house more than you do.”

Surprise oddly washed across his face, “You ain’t gonna kill me?” Uncle asked.

“Not yet,” Dutch retorted, “No, not yet.”

“You’re just gonna… Kick me out? I was here first!”

“And I got a gun,” Dutch’s voice was smooth and low and calm. He stood in front of you now, while you looked around him and watched Uncle. Laughter twisted around in Dutch’s chest for a second, “Now get out,” He smiled.

Uncle stood there for a second or two while he took in this new reality that just slapped him, “Wh-.. what? You can’t do this to me!” He pleaded, “I… You’re doing me worse than death by sending me out there!” Out where? Outside the house? “Please! Mister! I’ll… I’ll pay! I’ll work! I got money! Please let me stay!”

Money changed the name of this game and Dutch was already bending the rules, “Money?” He tipped his head to the side slightly, “How much money?”

Uncle was frazzled enough already. He brought his hands up and shook them around as he spoke, “It’s in a safe!” he started, paused and licked his lips, “In the basement!” There was a basement?

But Dutch wasn’t as stupid as Uncle wanted to think he was, “Did you put the money in the safe?”

Uncle’s face dropped, “N-no… B-but… I found it! It’s mine!”

Dutch’s laugh came from a dark place, it was loud and sounded like a cackle, “It’s mine now!” His smile flashed on his face and he bent over as he laughed, “Woah! You are something special old man! Tell you what,” Dutch took a finger and ran it under his eye to clear away the single tear he gained, “You got till I come back with the rest of my friends then you gotta clear it from here, ya understand?” Dutch then turned on his heel and headed for the door. He didn’t even give Uncle the chance to say anything in reply because he yelled out, “Arthur! Get over here!”

Like the little lap dog he was, he came running over, “Yeah?” He stayed put on the steps of the front porch.

Dutch walked up to him and said, “You stay put here with, (Y/n), I’m gonna head back and gather up the ladies and bring them here. Make sure no one else finds their way back here alive,” As he walked past Arthur he clasped his shoulder and gave a firm squeeze. And that was it, Dutch mounted his stallion and was off into the forest and gone from sight.

You walked outside and met up with Arthur as he sat down on the front steps. You stood to the side of him and peered back into the house. Uncle was gone, but not really, he must have disappeared back inside. You felt bad for him. He clearly was alone in this world and didn’t have anyone else but himself. He seemed lonely, sad, and well… easy to pity. Maybe you should let him stay?

“It’s a nice house,” Arthur’s voice broke through your thoughts, “Two bedrooms downstairs,” he was staring at the overgrown path that led to the road and out of the forest, “Two bedrooms upstairs too.”

“Well that’s good,” You decided to sit down next to him, “It’s nice that there is some furniture too,” You noticed bits here and there when you were inside. There was a table with some chairs, a couple of couches, and the kitchen had a stove. There were fireplaces scattered around too. It was a really nice find for you guys.

The two of you chatted back and forth. You talked about the rooms you wanted, the warmth you’d have for winter, and how it sucked being nearly two hours away from Sugartown. Arthur made plans to explore the area, see if there were any closer towns or trading posts. As you talked, the sky grew darker and darker with thick grey clouds forming overhead while thunder echoed from far away. Every so often it’d get closer and the wind would get stronger. Soon enough the weather drove you and Arthur inside the house. You both decided to hide in there and wait it out until Dutch returned with the rest of your things and the others.

As you stared out the window you watched the storm outside pick up as a mixture of rain and ice started to fall. It got incredibly cold within a matter of minutes. Arthur started a fire in the living room fireplace in the background of your thoughts while you focused on the chaos outside. The storm felt alive and you felt as if you were apart of it. It came without a sound then screamed when it finally got here. You knew there wasn’t a chance Dutch would be back tonight, so you got comfortable with the new house and waited out the weather. ______________________________________________________________

The winter came much faster than anyone expected. About two weeks later and the world turned into a snowy escape. There was always a thin sheet of snow covering everything while the sun slowly melted it away. Most days were clear and cold, but most nights were colder and filled with snowfall.

While everyone made themselves at home, you took claim to one of the bedrooms on the first floor, Arthur took the other. Surprisingly, Dutch didn’t kick Uncle out after all, but he did kick him out of his room. The old man was left to sleep in the living room on the couch while Dutch and Annabelle took his room, and Susan took the other one upstairs. The sad part about all this was that Hosea had still not returned from Bessie’s Ranch. He visited, once, when you first got here, but you haven’t seen much of him since then.

Dutch had finally had enough of waiting around for Hosea and had left some time ago to go find him. You stayed behind because you enjoyed the warmth the house provided. However, this meant you had chores to do instead. Since Hosea wasn’t around to hunt, Susan had taken up the task, and every morning that she would come back with something, it was your job to cut and clean it. Today she brought back a small and sad looking turkey. She wasn’t the world’s best hunter, but she was all you had.

You sat at the small table in the corner of the kitchen and by the windows. You could peer out the icy glass and to the backyard. As you plucked feather after feather, you watched Arthur stand watch by the front doors of the barn, standing over a little fire with his hands close to the tips of the flames. Each time he breathed a little cloud fluttered away in the wind. In the background, you could hear Annabelle and Susan quietly chat about Dutch. You listened to bits and pieces of their words.

“He’s been gone a while now,” Annabelle muttered with a slight attitude, “It’s almost noon. How long does it take to get someone?”

Susan let out some sort of sigh or sneer, it sounded like both, “Girlie,” She started and you looked up to see her pointing a finger at Annabelle, “You need to focus on cutting those potatoes and less on Dutch. He’s fine.” No one knew that for sure but that’s just what was said anytime someone went missing these days. They're fine. They're missing but they are fine and dandy

“Do you think Hosea will come back?” Annabelle’s questions never seemed to end. She was a strong-willed woman and she fought Susan’s bitterness with an air of politeness. She really was such a kind-hearted woman with a spirit of gold.

Again, Susan let out a sound of annoyance and shrugged while shaking her head, “Who knows. He’s found a real lady with a lot of money. He might run east with her if he gets the chance.” There was no way Hosea would do that, you knew he’d never leave the gang.

“You think?” Annabelle picked up a small pile of chopped potatoes and poured them into a boiling pot of water on the kitchen’s old fashion stove, “He doesn’t seem like that kind of guy.”

“Ha!” Susan laughed, she hummed for a second then said, “You don’t know Hosea, then,” You made sure to listen in on her next words, curious to learn Susan’s true impression of the silver-tongued outlaw, “He’s a slimy, evil little goblin who chases after the high of getting rich. He wants money. Nothing else.” That didn’t sound like Hosea at all. The Hosea you knew was kind and gentle and silent. He was a powerful mastermind and a genius at tricking people to give him their money, but he wasn’t a… a gold digger. There was no way on earth he was. What about all the times he spent patiently teaching you to aim a gun? To walk quiet enough to sneak up on a rabbit? What about all the crime novels you’d read together every weekend and gush about? He wouldn’t just… leave… would he? Did the gang mean anything to him? It meant the world to Arthur, this was his home, it was the growing pride of Dutch’s fruits of labor.

Suddenly the sound of footsteps outside on the front porch creaked out. You looked out the window and noticed Arthur wasn’t at the barn anymore. In a matter of seconds, Dutch was standing in the archway of the kitchen with an awful look on his face. Arthur was standing right behind him, peering into the room and sharing a glance with you.

“Well?” Susan asked, “Where is he?”

Dutch shook his head and ventured into the kitchen. As he walked past you he placed a hand on your head and ruffled your hair. He took the seat at the other end of the table while Arthur took his spot in the archway. After what felt like hours, Dutch leaned back in his chair and placed his hands together on his chest, “He’s gone.”

While Susan had a look of almost pride for calling it, Annabelle seemed shocked and so did Arthur, “What?” Annabelle left her potato cutting duty and stared in disbelief, “Where did he go?”

You had also stopped plucking the turkey and left it abandoned on the table, “He’s gone? Like.. he ran away?” You asked slowly while trying to believe it, Hosea actually left?

He waved his hand then shook his head, “I don’t know,” Dutch said, “I went there and the ranch was sold. I spoke to the new owners, some… real fat city folk from the east coast. Pigs,” He spit on the floor, had something gone down between them and Dutch? “Bessie was gone, her sisters sold the ranch and split. They said two daughters headed south to Texas, and the last daughter went west toward California. I’m guessing that was Hosea and Bessie,” Dutch paused as he sat up some more, straight and formal, his voice was low and carried an anger to it that you didn’t understand, “Said they left nearly a week ago,” Silence filled the room aside from the soft bubbles of the boiling pot of potatoes. Out of nowhere Dutch slammed his fist down into the table so hard that it scared the shit out of everyone, “A Goddamn week ago!” He shouted.

No one spoke after that. You all stayed in your place while silently mourning over the loss of Hosea and the betrayal that he left behind. You glanced at everyone in the room.

Annabelle and Susan stood still and startled by Dutch’s outburst. Uncle had managed to peek his head into the kitchen from behind Arthur who had a confused expression on his face. It didn’t make sense… It just didn’t add up. Why would Hosea leave? Did he really not care about the gang and was he really just a money hungry monster?

Something told you it wasn’t that, it was something else, something Hosea never mentioned or talked about. But really everyone knew what it was… It was Bessie... And Hosea’s profound and obvious love for her

[b00bconnoisseur]

60 questions for @not-my-brain

1. selfie.......Ugghhhh ok. Imma take one rn

Ok here u go (yes thats a bmth shirt)

2. what would you name your future kids?.....Ooo hmmm well when i was a kid i really liked the names disney, and mesiah. I didn't know at the time that mesiah was another name for god i think lol. I liked it cause of handlers mesiah. I still do. Ooo and maybe Tj too

3. do you miss anyone?......Yeah. My friends on Pinterest from a year ago. My friend lucas. Stan lee. Bob ross. My cousin who died from cancer some years ago. Snape. Sirius. Lupin. Tonks. Dobby. *continues to name every unfortunate death in hp*

4. what are you looking forward to?.......SE-YA next month!! Its the south eastern young adult festival at this college. You can have meet n greets with authors and alot of stuff its the besstttt

5. is there anyone who can always make you smile?......DEFINATELY. @dirtysocke @mysisterlooksforthisaccountsobye @cristal-kyd1280 @sammchenry my friend lucas and @septembersbloom. ^^

6. is it hard for you to get over someone?..... What like...romantically? Or like a death? If romantically uhhh idk it took over a couple weeks but im ok now. Ive never had another relationship so idk. If death oof yeah idk maybe. Ig it depends on how much i knew them idk. Like when my nanny (great grandma) died i was sad for days (is that alot?)

7. what was your life like last year?.....Sucky af. Still is. But the highlights of my life last year was getting and making friends on tumblr, going to the tøp concert and going to warped tour, volunteering at the library, going to seya and meeting some of my favorite authors, reading, changing and improving my art, listening to all the bands i listen to now, getting into more fandoms, going to a friends house for the first time

8. have you ever cried because you were so annoyed?.......Yes lol. Some years ago when i couldn't find smtn id be so annoyed and pissed id start crying. I dont now but still lol

9. who did you last see in person?.......Hm ig family doesn't count....? Wait do u mean a friend? If so uhh my friends rebekah, anika, and Judah at a TAB meeting at the library sometime last month.

10. are you good at hiding your feelings?......I think so? Like i mean I can hide whenever i get my....time of the month from my mom (talking abt stuff like that with her makes me uncomfortable) and i hid a breakup. And other p big stuff too. So imma say yeah

11. are you listening to music right now?........*pops on earbuds after reading this* yee im listening to bitch lasagna by pewdiepie xD (do i have the best spotify playlist or what?)

12. what is something you want right now?.......To hug @mysisterlooksforthisaccountsobye but SOMEONE has to live so far away

13. how do you feel right now?........Happy that my earbud still works cause they got washed in the wash yesterday....oops. Its not my fault. I told my dad to remind me to take it out of my jacket pocket before they threw it in but noooooo he forgot

14. when was the last time someone of the opposite sex hugged you?.......Uhhhhh fuck idk it was probably from my lil 4 yr old bro sometime last week. Other than him (hes my favorite sibling) i dont let them hug me too much

15. personality description.......Nerdy. Fangirl. "Emo". Tomboy. Hotsause obsessed. Book lover. Music lover. Black. Blue. Harry potter. Introvert. Fall. Sports. Values friendship. Loyal. Uhhhh i cant think of much lol

16. have you ever wanted to tell someone something but you didn’t?.......*sigh* yes. Yes yes yes. Theres some things abt me, or my life really, that i havent told anyone on here or my irl friends that i sooooo want to so bad but i haven't cause i feel like they'd feel bad and pity me and i don't want that

17. opinion on insecurities........I dont really understand this one. Everyones insecure abt something. Is this askin like if i think its ok or not? I say its ok. Im insecure about literally everything about me. My face. My personality. My socialness. My art. What i do. What i say. Basically my whole body. The things i feel good abt are my books, music taste, and my friends (ily fuckers)

18. do you miss how things were a year ago?.........Hmm this time around a year ago....idk its sorta the same but all the stuff i mentioned abt my year from last year didn't happen yet so nah tho my life sucks rn its better than this time last year

19. have you ever been to New York?........Nooo but i want too soo baddd i wanna visit @septembersbloom !! Im coming for ya soon gramps *does the eye watching thing* my dads been to nyc before tho cause he does construction and he had a concrete job to do there. It was a 23 hr drive for him

20. what is your favourite song at the moment?........Uhhh idk!!! So hard! Maybe.....the whole thats the spirit album by bmth ;)

21. age and birthday?.....15 yrs of age and September 27th 2003 (whats yours brainy? I'll put it on my calendar)

22. description of crush......Its weird idk im not sure if its a genuine crush or not but uh....They like hp :).Thats all u get

23. fear(s).......Losing my best friend @dirtysocke and my other friends. Death. Failure. Momo chasing after me then killing me slowly keeping my eyes open to look her dead in the eyes while i die

24. height......5'6 call me short and I'll fuck u up with THIS *pulls out trusty potato peeler named now steve* dont test me boi

25. role model......Hhhhhhhh so many! But uh gosh one of them is @superraedizzle (youtuberrrr) and vexx and bob ross and da vinci and aaaaaaa so many

26. idol(s)......First person that immediately comes to mind is @sammchenry cause he's super cool and he's really nice and his art's reallyyy good (if u havent seen it w-w-what are u even doin with your life?) And he has a great sense of humor and *continues to ramble about why samms the best*

27. things i hate.......Dabs. Transphobes. Homophobic ppl. Basically any hate on the lgbtq+ community. Bullies. The ship starker. Umbridge. Snape haters

28. i’ll love you if….....U you'll eat pizza, draw, and rp harry potter with mee

29. favourite film(s)......Fantastic beasts. Every hp film. Twilight. The maze runner 1-2. The hunger games. Spiderman homecoming. Kingsman: secret service. Into the spideyverse tho i havent seen it yet

30. favourite tv show(s)......Inkmasterrrrr. B99. The mick. The middle. Uhhh idk mostly ink master xD

31. 3 random facts........Ive never had shrimp. I had a beta fish for over a year once. Im eating pizza crust rn

32. are your friends mainly girls or guys?.......G i r l s. I have all girl friends irl and one boy. And on tumblr it seems like i just meet girls? Likei agree with @cristal-kyd1280 its like alot more gals then dudes here. But i do have some guy friends on here too. But mostly girls

33. something you want to learn.......TO DRAW ANATOMY DAMMIT

34. most embarrassing moment........Every moment of my lifes an embarrassing moment. Idk of i can pick a "most" embarrassing one. But one time i i sent my crush (now ex bf) a hey fuckface and like some hearts or whatever for an ask game that meant like "i have a crush on u" "youre adorable" etc and said Hewo but i did it all anonymously. But he confronted me askin if i sent it cause im the only person he knows that actually says hewo lol. Then later on i finally admitted i really liked him and well y'all know the story after i think. Unless you're new

35. favourite subject.......A R TTTT OFC

36. 3 dreams you want to fulfill?........meet my friends on tumblr. Get into mtsu (college i wanna go to) and study art. And go skydiving

37. favourite actor/actress........favorite actor uhhhhhh probably thomas brodie sangster or tom felton and my favorite actress? Hmmm idk maybe evanna lynch (luna lovegood)

38. favourite comedian(s).......probably kevin hart lol he's p funny

39. favourite sport(s)........basketballllllll and football

40. favourite memory........uhhhhh idk?? One oh my favorite memories was when we went to see tøp in concert

41. relationship status.....single as a pringle

42. favourite book(s)......harry potter and the order of the pheonix. Harry potter and the half blood prince. Simon vs the homo sapiens agenda. Divergent. Maze runner. Twilight. Fangirl. Fallen. Red queen

43. favourite song ever.......TOO HARD DONT MAKE ME CHOOSEEEEEE

44. age you get mistaken for.........16 and 17 sometimes lol

45. how you found out about your idol........i was watching someone on yt and superraedizzle always poped up in my feed and my mom turned on one of her vids cause she always saw her vids too now ive seen most of em i love her. Id heard of vexx but never watched him and i was watching a collab from anthony miller art and shrimpy and i checked out shrimpys channel and was lookin at comments and alot of ppl said his art is like vexxs so i checked out vexx. At first i was like eh ok. Now i cant click fast enough when he posts a vid. And i actually fpund out about bob ross from my grandpa on jan 20 2017 when trump was getting sworn in or whatever. We turned on pbs and my grampa told me to look and bob ross was on and i was IN. I loved it. I even started watching full episodes on YouTube of the joy of painting after that. Wonderful man. My first painting i ever did i think was when i followed one of his tutorials xD (i didnt know it was popular at the time)

46. what my last text message says......."ok your turn"

47. turn ons.....uhh nerds ig idk um book lovers, music lovers, art lovers, potterheads, idk and nice ppl

48. turn offs......jerks. Homophobia. Idk ig whatever i said in things i hate

49. where i want to be right now......uhhhh idk wait didn't i already answer this? Ok this ones different ig so uhh with my friend lucas

50. favourite picture of your idol.....oh shit...favorite? Idk xD i have a fave of vexx but not of rae or bob. But heres pics of them any way

51. starsign......a libraaaaa boiii

52. something i’m talented at......drawing and speed reading. Thats about it lol. Oh and procrastina

53. 5 things that make me happy.......ooooo art, my friends here on tumblr, books, harry potter, and music ^^

54. something thats worrying me at the moment.....if my friend thinks im being annoying

55. tumblr friends......hhhhh so manyyyyyy. @dirtysocke @mysisterlooksforthisaccountsobye @cristal-kyd1280 @chinesewaffles2 @kingantlion @queen-baelin @sammchenry @septembersbloom and more

56. favourite food(s)......green beans, pepperoni pizza, and vanilla madelines

57. favourite animal(s).......basically any reptile. Puppies. Cats. Any animal really but my #1 are snakes

58. description of my best friend.....well she's a tiny bean (5 feet) and she has dark hair, she wears glasses, she doesnt take shit, she's in love with Josh dun, she's awesome, funny, nice (YES youre nice jackie) and shes the best friend ive ever had. Oh. And she has a weird obsession with spaghetti

59. why i joined tumblr.......well i heard abt it on Pinterest over a year ago but didnt want it. Then @mrfastbass-deactivated20181231 on DeviantArt said he got tumblr so i made one then followed him and figured id just post art and that's it cause i thought tumblr was boring as hell when i first got it. Now im p much obsessed with it

60. ask me anything you want.......go ahead brainy shoot. Give me smtn good

[missandrogyny]

for @cherrystreet , who asked for this and honestly loves me and my call and delete au more than we deserve

—

He’s driving to work on a normal, Friday morning when he hears it.

See, Louis doesn’t usually listen to the radio—it’s unnecessary, since he’s got Spotify on his phone, an aux cord in his car, and all the songs he likes segmented into a bunch of playlists he can pick and choose from, depending on his mood. Besides, it’s got ads, which is incredibly annoying, and a person prattling on and on about God-knows-what, which is even more annoying.

But he’d stayed up really late last night, marking papers and binge-watching Game of Thrones late, and well. No matter how much Louis tries to deny it, he’s no longer nineteen, and by extension, no longer capable of running on two hours of sleep.

Which is why he does two things he normally doesn’t do.

First, he stops by a Costa and buys himself a coffee. Fucking disgusting, that shit, but sadly, necessary.

And second, he turns on the radio.

He regrets it the instant he does—as expected, there’s a twat already on the radio, waffling on and on about things Louis couldn’t care less about. He’s got a really annoying voice, this one, and Louis thinks that’s probably why he’d been put on morning radio; he seems like he’s capable of waking up even zombies by talking about Cheryl Cole’s hair or Rita Ora’s new bikini.

God. What did Louis just do to himself.

Still, he leaves it on, half-listening, half-focusing on getting to the school. The sooner he gets there, the sooner he’ll get to the teacher’s lounge, where he can nap until it’s time for his first class.

He’s just about managed to pull into the school parking lot—five minutes to seven, he notes happily—when the DJ says something that catches his attention.

“… Cute Lou from the loo!” The twat with the really annoying voice is saying, sounding incredibly smug about the whole thing. Louis tries his best to suppress a laugh, rolling his eyes. It’s a horrible pun, but, to be fair, it’s also quite creative. Louis has to give the DJ points for that.

“What am I gonna say?” From the radio, someone else speaks up, his voice much deeper than the DJ’s. He speaks slowly, like he’s mulling over everything he’s saying. He sounds familiar too—there’s something about his voice that kicks up a strange sense of déja-vu.

It’s also really obvious, judging by the question, that this man is playing call or delete. That’s always a load of fun to listen to.

“She’s cute right?” The annoying-voiced DJ asks, still sounding incredibly smug. It takes a moment for Louis to place the voice as Nick Grimshaw’s, which means this must be the Breakfast Show or something. Makes sense, since it’s so early in the fucking morning. “Do like, a romantic declaration over the phone. And ask her out for dinner.”

Louis has no idea what compels him to turn the radio up. “A romantic declaration?” The other, nicer-voiced man replies. Now that he’s hearing it again, he’s pretty sure he’s heard this man’s voice before, but from where, he isn’t sure. Most possibly from a film or something, because this is call or delete and the only people who play call or delete are film stars or musicians, but also there’s something about this man’s voice, something that makes him feel like they’ve spoken before, or at least exchanged a few words.

Grimshaw laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “It’ll be fun! I’m dying to know who this Cute Lou from the loo is, anyway. You never tell me anything, young Harold.”

Harold. The name jogs something in his memory. Louis’ pretty sure he doesn’t know anyone named Harold—it’s an old-person name, and the list of old people Louis knows is decidedly short. It’s even shorter when Louis adds the factor of the person being somewhat famous; Louis doesn’t think he’s ever spoken to an old, famous person who went by the name Harold.

But then the Grimshaw did call him young Harold. So, either that was sarcasm or…he’s not that old.

He’s so focused on trying to figure out where the fuck he’s ever met a young Harold that he stops paying attention to the radio, doesn’t hear when the person decides to get on with the dumb call or delete game. He does, however, hear when his phone rings shrilly, and it startles him, making him jump up on his seat and bang his knee on the underside of the dashboard.

“Fuck,” he mutters, annoyed at his own reaction. This is why he doesn’t drink coffee, it makes him all jittery and jumpy.

But whatever. Louis grunts, using one hand to rub at his knee and the other to answer the phone, not bothering to look at the caller ID. “Hello?”

He’s met with a dead silence. Louis frowns, confused.

“Hello?” He tries again, slower this time. The person on the other line still doesn’t speak, but Louis can hear someone breathing. It’s kind of creepy, if Louis’ being honest.

Or maybe what’s creepy is the way someone one the radio is saying hello, muffled, like they’re speaking over a phone line, just a split-second after Louis.

Louis narrows his eyes at his radio. Either he’s being haunted by a ghost that’s possessed both his phone and his radio, or this is a prank call.

“Hel-lo?” He says again, this time, making himself sound as annoyed as possible. If this is a prank call, Louis has to admit it’s a really well-executed one.

“Hi,” the person on the other line finally replies, and Louis is surprised by how low and deep the voice is. He’s even more surprised when young Harold on the radio says Hi too, just a split second after.

Louis pauses, an idea forming slowly in his mind. He looks at the radio suspiciously. “Hello,” he tests, and hears the muffled, phone voice on the radio a say the same thing split-second after.

“Hi,” the man on the other line says, and, as expected, young Harold on the radio says the same thing.

Holy shit. “Hello,” Louis tests again, and the muffled phone voice on the radio repeats what he just said.

“Um, hi,” the man replies, followed by young Harold saying the exact same thing.

It’s official. Louis is going completely, batshit insane. He’s never drinking coffee again. “Mate, are you having me on?” He demands, a bit shrilly. On the radio, he hears the muffled voice say the same thing, which only confirms his suspicions. He glares at it, before shutting it off completely. “Who is this?”

How do you have my number, he thinks, but he doesn’t ask—one question at a time. He’s still trying to wrap his head around the fact that a famous, young person named Harold has his number and landed on it while playing call or delete on the radio at arse-o’-clock in the fucking morning.

“Hi.” Young, famous Harold who Louis is apparently talking to on the phone, stammers. “Sorry. I mean, hi. Um, sorry again, uh, for saying hi, but, hi. Hello. I’m Harry.“

So he’s not Harold, he’s Harry. That certainly widens his prospects. By a bit too much though, because Harry is an extremely common English name and Louis lives in fucking England. He can’t even begin to count the number of Harrys he’s met in his life.

“Harry?” He asks. “Harry who?”

There’s a pause. “Just, uh, Harry,” Harry says cryptically. “We met in the loo.”

Makes sense, because somehow, he’s supposed to be Cute Lou from the loo, but. Has he even met a Harry in the loo? Louis racks his brain, thinking it over. Maybe he met a Harry in the club he and Stan went to a few weeks back? He can’t really remember; his memory of that night is extremely fuzzy, drenched in tequila and regret. Maybe one of his kids’ parents’ name is Harry, and they met in the loo during a PTA meeting. But no, Louis doesn’t remember a Harry at a PTA meeting, much less giving his number out to a parent.

He’s just about to give up and say, sorry mate, wrong number, when a weird idea occurs to him, all the pieces of the puzzle falling into place.

And. Fuck.

This is—this is Harry Styles, one-fourth of England’s most beloved, most popular boyband. Harry Styles with the curly hair and the green eyes and the dimples, who can charm anyone in seconds; Harry Styles, whose face is plastered on the billboard across from Louis’ house and behind the door of Lottie’s bedroom in Doncaster. The same Harry Styles, Louis notes, feeling slightly faint, he met when he tried out for the X-Factor back in 2010, the one who had been so nervous that he’d accidentally weed on Louis’ trousers.

He remembers it vividly now, remembers teasing him over the weeing accident. Remembers giving the cute boy a hug, and creepily smelling him. Remembers asking for an autograph and a photo, then giving the boy his number before leaving in what he’d thought was a mysterious and alluring flirting tactic at the time. God, he was such an embarrassing little shit. There’s a reason why he’d repressed all of his memories from before he turned twenty.

Louis winces. “Curly Harry? As in Curly Harry Styles?”

“Yes! Yes, that’s me.” The relief in Harry’s voice is palpable even through the phone. Now that Louis knows it’s him, he can appreciate his voice more—it’s much lower than Louis remembers it to me, but it’s still just as slow and raspy. “Yeah, Harry Styles, hi. That’s me.”

And Louis, because apparently, his brain never grew out of his being-embarrassing-when-talking-to-a-cute-boy phase, blurts out, “You’re the one who pissed on my trousers five years ago!”

It’s official. In order to save the world from secondhand embarrassment, Louis must die. Jesus, he knew Harry was on the radio, why the fuck did he even say that?

“Um, yeah,” Harry replies hesitantly. God, he probably hates Louis. “I’m sorry about that, again, by the way. I don’t really—I don’t actually remember what happened at that moment, I just—”

Louis wants to stop talking about this right now. “No worries,” he interrupts, as casual as he can. “It was a great way to leave an impression. So, what’s up, why’re you calling?”

There. He did that quite well. There’s hope for him yet.

There’s a silence on the other line, like Harry doesn’t know what to say. If Louis were him, he’d just hang up. Fuck this whole dumb game.

But Harry is evidently not like Louis because he pushes on. “Are you still cute?” He says, quicker than Louis has ever heard him speak, his words mashing together.

And it dawns on Louis that maybe, just maybe, Harry is finding this just as mortifying as Louis is. That he, too, doesn’t know how to act, talking on the phone to a boy he’d weed on years ago, when he was a bright-eyed sixteen-year-old just on his way to making it big.

There’s a strange sort of solidarity in this, in the way both of them are unsure how to navigate the waters of a long-delayed conversation, in the way their first proper exchange is being broadcasted to a whole bunch of people listening. And really, Harry is the famous one here, which means that Harry is the one everyone is listening for, Harry is the one who’s got a million eyes on him. Harry is the one who’s going to live with the embarrassment if Louis chooses to continue embarrassing him, because tabloids and fans and social media never forget.

When put like that, how could Louis not try to make it easier for him?

He snorts. “Uh, yeah,” he says, trying to sound completely at ease. He hopes it works—hopes that his easy cooperation will help relax Harry, even just a little bit. “I think I’m still pretty cute. I’m never not cute.”

“Not ‘handsome’ then?” Harry’s reply comes, and there’s a slight shift in the tone of his voice, one that has him sounding a bit more confident. Louis bites his lip in anticipation. “Or ‘rugged’ or ‘manly’?”

“No, I am,” Louis answers immediately. “Cute and handsome and rugged and manly. I’m all of those things and so much more. Keep up, Harold, you should’ve already known this.”

It’s a bit conceited. Louis doesn’t really care.

“Sorry,” Harry replies, and he might be smiling. Louis isn’t sure. “It’s not as if I’ve seen you in five years, or anything, Louis.”

“Whose fault is that?” Louis shoots back easily, doing his best to sound mildly displeased. There’s an opening here, one that Louis hopes Harry takes, so he can get this call or delete game over and done with.

And Harry doesn’t disappoint. “Mine,” he says confidently. “Let’s fix that, though. Go out with me.”

Louis lets himself have a dramatic pause. “What? What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, Lewis,” and Louis lets out an involuntary noise at the mispronunciation of his name. Harry giggles a bit though, which is good. It means he’s relaxed enough to laugh. “That I like you a lot and I think you’re really cute and handsome and rugged and manly and I’d sort of like to hold your hand and take you out to dinner sometime.”

Well. It’s very forward. Louis definitely wasn’t expecting him to be that forward. “Mate, I don’t know,” he says. “It’s been a while. What if I’m a taken man?”

“Then you’ll break my heart,” Harry answers, and this back and forth is easy, much easier than Louis was expecting. This is call or delete game is actually quite fun.

Or maybe it’s just Harry. Maybe talking to Harry is just a lot of fun.

“But I hope you’re not,” Harry adds, almost way too sincerely.

Honestly, Louis hasn’t been on a date in about a year. The last bloke he’d went out with broke things off when they were getting a bit serious, claimed he couldn’t do any of that commitment thing. And Louis is definitely curious to see Harry Styles in person, to see if all the photos live up to what he looks like now.

But then again, this is a game. A prank. Louis doesn’t want to say yes, because then Harry might feel bad for pranking Louis and feel obligated to take him out.

“But I don’t know you that well,” Louis finds himself saying, the words flowing out of him easily. “So for me to give you a chance, you’re going to have to sell it. Come on then, what’s your edge over the other guys vying for my attention?”

If Harry is surprised by that turn of events, he doesn’t make it known. “Well, I’m still curly,” he says, without missing a beat. “You liked my curls, didn’t you?”

His curls were a complete mess when they met. It looked like his hair had grown a boy, and not the other way around. Louis thinks it’s best not to say that, though. “I did,” he says. “But I can find other guys with curls easily. What else?”

“I’m funny,” Harry declares, after a moment’s pause. “Knock-knock.”

Of course. “Who’s there?” Louis asks. He catches himself grinning like an idiot in the rearview mirror, and he scowls at his reflection, pinches his own cheek to stop himself from smiling.

It’s just a dumb knock-knock joke. He really needs to get it together.

“A cow goes,” Harry answers.

Louis rolls his eyes. “A cow goes who?”

“No, a cow goes moo.”

“You know what,” he says, trying to sound uninterested. “You remind me of my little sisters. They’re twelve.”

“They must be hilarious then,” Harry replies, the exact same time his phone lets out a series of vibrations against his cheek. He pulls it away from his face, puts Harry on speakerphone.

“A lot more hilarious than you,” he shoots back, as he navigates to his messages. There, at the top, Lottie has sent him a bunch of texts, ranging from how the fuck does bloody HARRY STYLES have your number to HE’S FUCKING FLIRTING WITH YOU????? ON THE RADIO???????  WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS MY LIFE

Teenage girls are so dramatic.

Harry, oblivious to what he’s doing, giggles cutely. Louis finds himself laughing too, at Lottie’s incredibly dramatic texts and this entire, surreal morning.

“Okay, fine,” Harry says, once they’ve both stopped laughing. “I’m really romantic.”

This should be good. Louis takes Harry off speakerphone, tries to stop himself from grinning too much. “That little declaration earlier was the farthest thing from romantic, Harry.”

“No, but look, I can try again,” Harry says, sounding determined.  "Roses are red, violets are blue—”

”—oh my god—”

“—I think you’re hot, go out with me, Lou?”

“That was terrible,” Louis says, trying to stop himself from laughing. Even over the phone, Harry Styles is ridiculously endearing, and a whole lot charming. Louis can kind of see why he’s got the entire world falling over themselves for him. “I give it a three out of ten.”

“Shut up,” Harry says, but he’s laughing as he says it “So, what do you say, then? Dinner?”

Louis sighs dramatically. “I’m not easy to please, Styles,” he says. “I demand a lot of attention and cuddles.”

“Okay, yeah.”

An idea forms in Louis’ head. “I also like long walks on the beach, horseback riding, sleeping in front of the fire, having my photo taken by paparazzi everywhere, having Taylor Swift write songs about me—”

“Wait, what?” Harry interrupts, but Louis ignores him.

“—Free concert tickets, being able to attend A-list events, meeting Beyoncé and Jay-Z, drunkenly talking to Tom Hanks, baking Stevie Nicks a cake,“ Louis takes a deep breath. “I just don’t know how you’ll be able to provide all that for me,” he finishes, a bit sarcastically.

There’s a moment of silence where he thinks he’s miscalculated, thinks that he’s accidentally offended Harry, and he’s just opened his mouth to apologize profusely when Harry—

Harry laughs.

It’s loud and full-bodied, like it’s coming from somewhere deep inside him, and it sounds relieved and happy that Louis finds himself giggling too, finds himself laughing along with Harry Styles over the phone, like it’s just the two of them. Like it’s just him and Harry and a phone line, like there aren’t well over a million people listening to every word they’re saying.

“I don’t know if I can,” Harry replies.

“Hm.” Louis hums. “You’re right. You’re just curly and you have ridiculously bad jokes and you have no romantic bone in your body.” He pretends to think about it. “Maybe I’ll get a popstar boyfriend instead. You know that bloke, yeah, Zayn Malik? From that boyband, One Erection was it? He’s really fit. Cheekbones and smouldering eyes and all that. Maybe he’ll be able to take care of my needs.”

“You know, then.” Harry states, and the happiness in his voice is audible over the phone.

Louis rolls his eyes, grinning all the while. “Harold,” he says. “I have five little sisters.  And I’m not dumb or blind, your face is everywhere. Here in London, at least.”

“You’re in London?” Harry asks, excitement in his voice.

“Yeah, moved two years ago.”

There’s another silence, where Harry seems to be digesting this information. Then, “So, how about dinner, then?”

He probably remembered he was meant to be playing a prank. Louis decides to just end the entire thing. “Um, you don’t have to continue, Harry,” he says. “I do know you’re playing call or delete with Nick Grimshaw.”

“You do?”

“I mean, yeah,” Louis replies, biting his lip. “Aside from the fact that I was listening before you called—Cute Lou from the loo, by the way, ha—” that nickname is really fucking ridiculous, “—my sister texted me, asking how bloody Harry Styles has my number.”

“What did you say?”

“I told her that we met when we engaged in a rather fun game of watersports,” Louis says, the same time his phone vibrates against his cheek again. He pulls it away from his ear, sees that he received a string of random capital letters from Lottie, and decides to ignore it.

“You did not,” Harry says, when Louis puts his phone back to his ear. He’s laughing as he speaks.

“I did,” Louis insist, his grin threatening to grow wider. He should really tone it down a notch; his cheeks are beginning to hurt.

Still, he can’t help but tease Harry a little bit. “And it’s true, anyway. I have proof. I’ve still got those trousers somewhere, I could still say they’ve been splashed with Harry Styles pee and auction them off. Your fans would love them, I’m sure.”

Those pants have since been washed and stored in a box somewhere in his mum’s house in Doncaster. Or maybe given away to charity. He’s not really sure.

“Oh, God,” Harry says. “Please don’t.”

Louis tries not to laugh. “But how much money would I earn?”

“Louis,” Harry says helplessly.

“Harry,” Louis replies back.

“Lewis.”

“Harold.”

“Grimmy,” Grimshaw speaks, and Louis feels his little Harry Styles bubble pop. He’s suddenly acutely aware that he’s sitting in his car in the school parking lot, grinning like a loon and wasting gas. “I’m sorry, I had to interrupt, despite how entertaining your flirting is, I’m afraid we really don’t have enough time. We’ve still got to play a couple of songs, and answer a few more fan questions.”

“Okay,” Louis says, and he can’t help but feel a tiny sliver of sadness in his chest. It’s dumb, he knows—he hasn’t spoken to Harry in five years, but. Somehow it still feels like Louis would miss him, when they eventually hang up.

God. He’s so pathetic. Louis slaps himself in the face quietly before turning off his car’s engine. He needs to get it together. He’s still got a full day’s worth of classes to teach.

“Bye Harry,” he adds, making his inflection as happy as he can. He doesn’t want to weird Harry out by being too clingy, after all. “I’ll talk to you soon. Have fun at the rest of the radio show, and good luck with whatever.”

He waits for Harry to say “Bye Louis,” before he hangs up, pushing his phone into his trouser pocket. He grabs his bag, locks his car, and brisk walks all the way to the teacher’s lounge.

He finds Luke, the English teacher, already in the lounge, a cup of tea in his hand. He raises an eyebrow when he sees Louis. “You alright, mate? You look a bit wired.”

Louis waves a hand as casually as he can. “`s nothing,” he says, as he makes his way to the small kitchenette for tea. His hands are shaking as he takes down a mug from the cupboard, and he has to take a few deep breath to calm himself. He hopes Luke doesn’t notice. “Just a weird morning.”

“Oh?” Luke asks. “Wanna talk about it?”

Louis drops the teabag into the cup, pours the hot water already in the kettle. “Got pranked, that’s all,” he says breezily. He picks up the mug, savouring the warmth of it between his hands, takes a sip. The taste of it immediately calms him down. “Nothing too nasty though. Was a good laugh.”

Luke opens his mouth to say something, but Louis beats him to it. “`m gonna head to my classroom. Wanna do some marking before the kids come trickling in. Gonna be a long day, for sure.” He waves at Luke, doesn’t wait for him to respond before he’s slipping out of the teacher’s lounge, making his way to his classroom.

He leans against his desk, using one hand to pull his phone from his pocket. He ignores Lottie’s numerous texts, navigating all the way to his call history and tapping on the first number there.

It takes him a few minutes, and a few false starts, but eventually, he manages to compose a text that he deems decent enough. finally have your number! after five years, wow. nice talk to you today. you’re a long way from the sixteen year old i met in the loo, eh?

He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and presses send before he can think about it too much. After, he buries his phone in the deep recesses of his bag, and proceeds to ignore it for the rest of the day.

He’s got things to do.

[ithacamafia]

SYAA2L: For Your Consideration.

      Many moons have passed since the last mixtape was posted on these here parts. I’m looking to remedy that ailment right quick, not just with the most recent "Songs You Are About To Love” mix dreamt up by Matthew and myself -- but two additional mixes as well from the past two years. With any luck, enjoyment for all of us should soon follow.

- “SYAA2L: Impact.” (2015)  A gem of a mix, possibly one of our best, where we muse on our Dads, our own roles as Dad, and the influences surrounding those orbits (wandering off into car accidents, pro wrestling, and baseball).  CLICK TO ENJOY.

- “CSYAA2L: New Plan For Stan.” (2016)  A cover song mixtape which gets pretty weird, pretty fast -- and could have, understandably, forged on forever (leaving all sorts of music genres crushed in the wake). CLICK TO ENJOY.

- “SYAA2L: For Your Consideration.” (2017)  A mix in which Matty proposes sharing songs which we are not *only* about to love -- but tunes in which, under the right circumstances, could be considered the best. songs. ever. 

We also work though a bunch of.... stuff. 

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN, continue reading the liner notes for a deep dive into our latest and greatest (ever?):

Kevin,

I don't blame you, dude. And I definitely don't blame myself. I mean, our lives are busy. There are dogs and t-ball. There's grocery shopping... and birthday parties. Hell, we've got wives, lives and and the bunker in Argonne Forest. We are busy. It's no wonder we haven't made a mixtape in forever plus one day.

Truth be told, I was close to writing this email a long time ago. I had a good list of prospective songs and an idea for a theme... something about what gets a song consideration as potentially the Best Song Ever. It was a good list and there were a few songs on there that I was really excited about. Then a thing happened that threw everything off track. The album that one of those songs was off of was suddenly and unceremoniously removed from Spotify. (Truth be told, there may have been a ceremony, but if there was I sure as hell wasn't invited.) I was pissed. Upset. Sad. I had so many questions. What would become of my mixtape future? How could I live without one of my expected cornerstones?

I figured it would be okay. I thought that the feeling would pass eventually. I assumed that if I gave it some time, I would forget about that song and remember what was important about our mixtapes. The sharing. The camaraderie. You know, being pals... I figured it was just a matter of time.

It wasn't. It wasn't a mater of time, dude. That feeling never waned and I decided to give up any hope I might have had about living the mixtape-filled future I'd always assumed I'd live. Screw sharing. Screw being pals.

But then this week something good happened! I was driving along, listening to the same old songs and I saw it - there, in my playlist - back just as quickly as it had disappeared: my old pal - this song! It was back! I figured that it must be a sign. We have to do a mixtape now, right? Right. If for no other reason than because it's a race against time before the song disappears again. This song is like mixtape Brigadoon. It only appears once every hundred years. We have to seize the opportunity!

So here it is. A new mixtape. That original idea was a variation on a theme that we've touched on before... the thing your wife said once about how you listen to a song differently when you know that it's someone's favorite song. "Well, if he thinks it's the best song ever, then... I don't know - maybe it is?!" I think the new idea was about how lots of songs could be the best song ever if the circumstances are right. You know - the song you're listening to in 7th grade when that girl you've hoping for months would hold your hand is suddenly holding your hand, that song is going to feel like the best song ever. At the very least, it's going to feel better than it is. So, with that in mind, the potential for a song to be great widens considerably. When you consider environmental factors and mood and just where you are in your head - the sky is limitless.

So, friend, I thought we could do another list of songs that we are about to love, songs that also just might be the best song ever:

SYAA2L: For Your Consideration

Naturally, my first pick has to be the song that came and went (and then came back again). I feel like it earned this slot. On top of that, these guys closed a mix for us a long time ago... it seems only fitting that I stick them in here to kick this one off. Now, this isn't a song that I would have thought stood a chance to be the best song ever (BSE) upon first listen. No part of it soars. There's no divine guitar solo. There's no pristine vocal performance. Still though, every time I listen to it, my heart grows fonder. And I know what you're thinking - you're thinking, "Matty, it's the song's absence that has you thusly ensorcelled." Well, you're wrong. This song has been in heavy rotation for me for years now... its absence is just the thing that has since moved me to try and share it with you (and the three people that listen to our mixes). There's a lot going on here and the whole thing is steeped in classic rock influences. I love it.

Give it a listen. You may agree, you may not - but I for one think it might be the best song ever.

Here's The End of That, by Plants and Animals.  

- M

==========

We're forty, Matthew.  Forty years old.  Who has time for music?  (Let alone MIXING that music with another person.  Or for another person.  For anyone.  Forreals.)

I certainly don't.  

I've accepted the fact that you and I -- we -- have reached the point in our lives where music is predetermined to become rote.  A thing.  A noice machine that plays in the background of car rides or making dinner or clicking on the compute.r  Something that just drowns out the ever-present sound of our slowly dying hearts.

This is the point we've arrived at, Matt.  You can't fight it.  Inevitable.

We're the old me whose teenage songs are the best songs ever.  And those songs are now classic rock.  No longer in fashion, beyond fashion, around the bend until they ironically become appreciated again (when our kids are about juniors in college).  Until then?  Laughable.

But cling to your last whisp of youth if you must, much like we did the same to our eroding hairlines.  Tell yourself that these songs -- your song, with the nimble jaunty gee-tar and the "fucked-up bumblebee" lyric that might have captured a younger Kevin -- might be the best songs ever.  Under the right circumstances.  Inimitable.

Thing is, I'm in the circumstance where I'm swimming in the sea, wandering, desperately tryin' to get a grip on my emotions...

I'm falling apart

You wanna get me on board?  Better be new but feel classic.  Sound joyous but exude despair.  And don't even bother knocking unless you're got a name worthy of my goddamn time.  

Dig?

Chicano Batman. Friendship (Is A Small Boat In A Storm).

... Dig.

==========

You fool. In your vain attempt to disprove my point, all you've done is embrace it. Do I want to get you on board? Look around you, Kevin. You are on board. Sure, your opening diatribe is all about being too old for this shit, but then you drop Chicano Batman on us and it's immediately evident that the old man rant you're selling is not a product that you are willing to buy. Of course, no one wants to be on a small boat in a storm - that would suck. But think of the alternatives. Would you rather no boat in a storm? Can I interest you in a small brick? If friendship is all you got, kid, then friendship just might be the thing that saves you.

So, friendship is a boat in a storm. True. And obviously Mixtapes are friendship... And everybody knows that if A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C. So, mixtapes are also a boat in a storm. There will be no argument. You're going to make this mixtape and in this mixtape, maybe, find your salvation. We've known each other a long time, and as one of your first mates, I demand that you walk away from the light. We've got work to do.

You see, we are forty, bro. And there is a good portion of life that must be set aside now for fighting the notion that your best years are behind you. But you have to recognize that what you (and Chicano Batman) have done here is underscore a central point to my thesis. That song, for all of its despairing, still might (MIGHT!) be the best song ever. And Mixtapes.... Friendship...These are the things that keep us young. These are the things that keep us alive. What if - WHAT IF! - that song is the best song in the world?! Or what if it's this next one!? That's worth living for, right? Our hearts can't be slowly dying if the next song we hear might be the best one ever!

You're not falling apart. You're not. And I will always be proud to be Irish Robin to your Chicano Batman.

I hadn't planned to use this song here, but you seem like you need a pick me up - and I serve at the pleasure of this mix's wants and needs, so here it is. Here's: Die Alone.

Like most happy songs, this one draws some lyrics straight from a 2000 year old Roman poem that Catullus wrote upon the occasion of his brother's death. The whole poem is quite lovely. It speaks about traveling across seas to provide funeral rites to his brother's silent ashes. The part they excerpt for this song means something like, "I come to a conclusion, handed down from generations… Now and forever, my brother, hail and farewell."

Oh shit. I see now that I've made an error in judgement. Um... when they're speaking Latin, just picture the scene from the end of the Grinch. It sort of sounds like that, and that's totally uplifting. His heart grew.

Here's Die Alone by We Are Star Children.

==========

Fine, Star Child.  

Fine, fine, fine.


G’head and sally forth with your new mixes and new musics.  Sing me sweet songs of friendship and dead brothers.  Convince yourself that these trifling tunes could somehow rise to the level and legacies of our fathers’ — and our fathers’ fathers (favorite songs).  On some level, in some reality, I get it.  They’re the Schrödinger's Cat of Best Songs Ever: inside the box of this mixtape, yet to be revealed to the world — all possibilities exist at once.  Each song, both the greatest pieces of music ever and also being toss-aways not worthy of bargain bin cassingles.


In a way, it doesn’t matter what I pick.  When it exists in the possibility of these moments before my selection, they are perfect.  Only once revealed, do they become a power-chord “fuck you” song.  A well-worn singalong anthem.  The middle finger to an ex-lover.   Simple formulas showing little heart past the surface.  Or a thread, a moment, tapping directly into a youthful vein as it pumps unbridled angst and fury through our collective subconsciousness. 
 I dunno, man.  I ain't that smart.  Fuck your Ivy League sweater.


Harvard.  Diet Cig.

==========

Oh, Kevin. Your armor is wearing thin. What's that you said? "In a way it doesn't matter what I pick..." Sure, and that was followed immediately by your picking a protest-too-much song about how the singer is 'completely over' the dude enduring the Boston weather. Yeah, she's so over it that she's locked in a room somewhere writing emails tosongs about him.

I always imagine the ex sitting and listening to a song like this (...a song that was, I guess, intended to prove to them that the other had moved on). I find it far more likely that the ex lover sits there and says, "Yep, all I have to do is pick up the phone."

That's you, dude. You know that the cat is very much alive inside the box. You know it. He's in here with headphones on. He just needs you to drop this pretense and accept the fact that having angst and fury pumped through our collective unconscious is pretty great. He needs you to accept that Harvard by Diet Cig might be the best song ever.

I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life, friendo. I'm brave enough not to tame you. I'm happy to sit here and let you burst into flames. In fact, I'll stoke the coals and watch you blow. This mixtape is going to be here. I'm going to stay too... and not just because I want to prove your wrong. I am going to stay because there might be soaring vocals and hand claps. I'm going to stay because we might stumble into the best song ever.

I'll stay because I want to hear what comes next (...and I know that you do too).

This is Strange by LP.

==========

There was a time, not so long ago, where soaring vocals, hand claps, and a solo piano would be enough for a song to worm its way inside my heart.  Throw in thematic messages about how we're all strange, we're all weirdos, you're not alone, blah blah blah -- and you've got yourself the bedrock of my personal musical roadmap.  But not this time.  No, sir.  I'm simply a jaded old man who only connects with such songs when they're played over ads for HBO original programming.

Speak of sweet promises like "When you're lost and you're left and it's getting worse / They're the only ones who you know will get you by" as images of Julia Louis-Dreyfus and the Khaleesi flit by underneath it.  Then, and only then, will the path be clear.  It's not TV.  It's what's left of my soul.

Go ahead, adjust the script to electronic hand claps, anthemic pre-choruses, vocals that soar so high above our mountains majesty.  Won't matter.  Lay down an overarching sense of anti-love, of brutal honesty and indifference towards those who’ve wronged you — of knowing that no one is going to feel better about any of this shit that's happened between us anytime soon and that’s just the way things are because that’s that's what it means to be an adult.

There’s grey between the lines.

Tack all that on top and I'll barely flinch.  You're giving me a very effective Audi commercial at best.  And you had best believe you cannot build what I don’t need.  

And I know. I need. To feel. Relief.

Take care.

Leave A Trace, by CHVRCHES.

==========

Hey, asshole - I don't know who you think you're talking to - but lest you forget, please allow me to remind you... I’m not just some schmo off the street that is going to be impressed by your calculated musical depression. There is no part of me that is turned on by your measured disinterest. I’m not going to sit here, starry-eyed, saying, “Oh, disillusioned TV writer… I'm totally impressed by your ability to turn a phrase and craft a snarky argument. Please, tell me more about how you’re dead inside and soulless.”

A very effective Audi commercial? Are you kidding me? Son, I’ve seen you rise from a newborn sleep to become a reckless ballerina at the moment that Brendog overcomes his stage fright and Saba kicks into gear. I’ve seen you turn the lamest of weddings up to 11 when the right song gets a hold of your earholes. These are not the actions of a man who could ever be dead inside.

I get it, I get it. You're William Hurt from The Big Chill, trying to prove it to your college pals that you have evolved past them, that your life experience has illuminated their youthful exuberance as folly. Well that would all be well and good if it wasn't such utter bullshit. This, “…aww-shucks, I’m just an old dad trying to pay bills and keep my lawn in shape…” isn’t you, and it sure as shit isn’t me. That’s common people shit. We are soul men. You talk about ‘what's left of your soul’ like the piece that's hurting is gone and lost forever. That's not how souls work.

Believe me, I understand – living the life of the common schmo is appealing. The blissful ignorance our neighbors enjoy seems totally attractive on the surface. It must be nice to be a regular guy. It is, without question, the easy way out. Your wife buys you a bunch of pocket tees from Old Navy and you are content to work 9 to 5, five days a week, forever – as long as you get to watch football on Sundays. If you want to embrace every aspect of that life, then do it. If you want to throw in the towel and abandon your search for a song that moves you, so be it. If you want to close up shop, pack it in and quietly await death, go for it. You want to live like common people? You want to see whatever common people see? Fine. I for one am going to rage against that machine with every fiber of my being, even as the circumstances of my life lead me further and further towards that abyss.

I’m reminded of a time not long ago when I was sitting with my grandfather-in-law on his back porch. We were having a cocktail and he was telling stories. In a lull in the conversation he sighed and said, regarding the rest of the family in the living room, “Ah well, I guess we’d better head back inside… listen to the bullshit.” It was, I think, one of the funniest and saddest things I’ve ever heard.

I don’t want to be 85 and resigned to listening to the bullshit. You can if you want. Go ahead. Laugh along with the Common People. (Pulp.) I'm going to keep trying to find a long that means something. 
 PS - That's not even how you spell Churches. PPS - And you know. You need. Unique. New York.

==========

No one *wants* to be sitting there at the ripe ol’ age of eighty-five, resigned to the bullshit.  But with life, comes constraints.  Families can't just be ditched because they're idiots.  Much as you might like.  We can't magically wish the world into the sort of place where Pulp's timeless rallying cry universally touches our fellow man... not when odds are the bullshit like William Shatner's version is probably preferred by most of 'em.

That being said: I want.  I want plenty.

And sure, some of my wants might be common -- standards like health, happiness, a roof over my kids head.  But not all of them.  I also wanna feel flames licking at my back as I barrel through a brushfire (but I fear being burnt).  I want to craft something so staggering with my own two hands (but I'm far too clumsy).  I wanna taste stardust, sea air, soft earth.  To flit along the threads of a dew-covered spiderweb.  To behold true beauty, eyes like mirrors, until my breath is ripped from my chest.  

I Wanta Holler (But The Town's Too Small).

Constraints, Matthew.  We can't all be Gary U.S. Bonds.

==========

*jams fingers into ears* *shakes head wildly*

DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT CONSTRAINTS, DAMMIT! JUST DON'T!

I'm a soul man! Can't you get that?! I will listen to the bullshit, sure - but I REFUSE to resign myself to listening to the bullshit! I will not accept that the bullshit is all there is! I will continue to dream of a world that has moments - just moments, here and there, that are free of bullshit! You have to let me have that! All I have are those dreams! It's just me and my dreams and (despite what it seems) it ain't much, but yet it's JUST enough.

*plays Soulman, by Ben L'Oncle Soul* *removes fingers from ears* *stops shaking head* *breathes*

==========

You want a Soul Man?  I'll get ya a Soul Man.  But he ain't got a lot of time.  He could maybe stay for three minutes or so.  Tops.  And Chuck -- that's my Soul Man's name -- Chuck ain't here to spit sweet nothings in our ears.  He won't be spinning an effervescent number about this fun new dance he's discovered.  He's no mashed potato.  No C. Thomas Howell Soul Man.  

Nope.  Chuck's gonna stand center stage, tear open his goddamn heart, and thrust both arms elbow-deep into the bullshit.

He's gonna howl and holler and implore those of us who can hear his cries to not just *see* the bullshit before him, but to help him rid the world of it.  Chuck wails "What are ya gonna DOOOOOOOO?"  And I'm left realizing that perhaps my Old Man wallowing and resignations were misguided.  I need to be standing up with my man Chuck.  I need to purposefully step into the bullshit, and try to change it.  Change.  Change the false preachers -- Change the hate in us -- Change for the better of our soul.

We've gotta change our love. Change For The World. I've got to give you my love. Shout them lines.  Take this love. Charles (I call him Chuck) Bradley.

==========

Well, alright! This guy's somebody that I can work with! This last message - and this last song - these both seem to have my old pal, Kevin in there somewhere.  

Now we're starting to really get at this thing.... huh? So what are we really talking about then? It's circumstances, right? It's not about whether a person has made choices in life that have ultimately complicated their ability to be happy or carefree - that's everyone. That's how time works. The longer you linger, the harder it is to be happy and the more careful you have to be. No, this here is about what we do with those circumstances. Are we going to see the bullshit of our lives and be resigned to it, or are we - like my man Chuck - going to see that bullshit and vow to plow through it? Are we going to commit to a persistent evolution and say to all comers, "Just keep shoveling - I shall rise above..."?

It's because we keep evolving that our appreciation of a thing can change. I will hear a song differently depending on what I am bringing to the table. That next song could always be the best one because I am changing. My soul is evolving.

"Change for the better of our souls?" Fucking-a right. You just need to adjust your perspective. The whole world should know that if you talk to us about your circumstances, we're going to talk to you about perspective.

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog." Mark Twain "It's not the years, it's the mileage." Indiana Jones "It Ain't What You Got, (*Goldust noise*) it's how you use it." Jimmy Hughes

Things are looking up.

-M

==========

Yeah!  Yeah.  I’m here.  I’m back, baby!  I’m in like Flynn -- and not the wretched piece of shit who sold us out, serving as a blazing reminder of how utterly debased and cataclysmic our current government has become -- because *that* would be focusing on the low-fi.

We're all about the hi-fi now.

Can't afford to dwell on cards dealt or bum situations or sleights -- because dude, I could easily sit here for hours and grouse about stuff like the time a group of older teens stole my basketball on the playground near my home; and how powerless, how impotent that felt (further compounding the abundance of inadequacies I already struggled with) -- no, no no no no.  No time for that.

Gotta focus on the here.  The now.  No dwelling among the past regrets -- like this time in elementary school when I wrote on another kid's backpack, insisting to myself that it was simply because he wasn't that nice of a kid (when, in reality, he was simply an easy target because he was a big bigger for our age).  Dr. Martin Rand would call that shit transference, if I recall our psych classes correctly.  Kicking down the rungs on that ladder of misplaced childhood anger.  I bullied that kid and feel shitty about it now, and sure I could try to wrack my addled memory, trying to remember his name, even search the internet in a faint hope of finding him to make amends -- but that's the past.  Can't change it now.  

We face the future.  We take stock of the endless possibilities spread out before our kids and bask in them -- not fretting over the ever-present, ever-compounding number of fears and anxieties over this changing world and our inability to shelter or protect them from the Flynns or the basketball thieves or the shitty little bullies like we once were --

-- to say nothing of the inevitable heartbreaks -- -- or the state of humanity in general -- -- the death and decline of our ecosystems --

Naw, man.  Hi-fi.  Things are looking up.  

Totally.  

Yeah.

I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts. X.

==========

That’s what I’m talking about! We're all about the hi-fi! Keep our eyes on the prize, right? 
 
 I couldn’t agree more, buddy – we absolutely cannot afford to dwell on those bum situations or slights of the past. I mean, Jesus, if I did that I might end up losing whole days down terrifying rabbit holes in the dark recesses of my psyche. Yikes. I would never want to get caught in a rut where I was obsessing about the missteps of my life. You know, where you're just spinning and spinning contemplating all those notions that normally lay dormant... Dormant, that is, until the moment you are least expecting them, when something reminds you about them and they reemerge and consume you… Actually, now that you mention it, I’ve got a lot of stuff like that – things that pop up in my head out of nowhere just when I think I’ve successfully ignored them out of existence. Things I should have done differently… other choices I should have made… people I could have been better to… Come to think of it, “I must not think bad thoughts…” is a mantra I rely on quite a bit. Honestly, between that kind of abject denial and booze, I’ve got a pretty good system down. There’s a trick to a system like that though, isn’t there… Because the minute you tell yourself not think bad thoughts – you know… here they come. It's really about maintaining - keeping yourself busy with whatever is next. All that goes out the window though when you forget that you must not think bad thoughts. Just now, for example, as I was listening to your song (...about not thinking bad thoughts), it occurred to me how silly it is that we've been having this email exchange about navigating the bullshit of life and overcoming adversity.  I mean, the utter absurdity of two 40 year old white male Americans gabbing about their struggle - I could definitely obsess about that… about how I was given a golden ticket, squandered it, and yet still have the audacity to spout this Poor Me nonsense… 
 
 As we speak, I actually can’t stop thinking about that. Or – if I wanted to – I could spend time thinking about all those times in my life when I was other people’s circumstances. It’s so easy to get tunnel vision about your own troubles and lose sight of the way you’re impacting others. I mean, ask anyone – I’m kind of a hard ass (…and there have been very few people in my life that have been patient enough to find any charm in that). There were so many times where I was not careful with other people's feelings. It sucks actually… you know – when you think about it. Don't get me wrong, I hear what you're saying - you're saying the past is the past and we need to look forward. How though can I be expected to look towards the future with any confidence, if all I've done throughout the history of my life is bungle each opportunity and always hurt the ones I love? I mean, do I have any right at all to keep it hi-fi? Christ, when you think about it that way, you were probably right all along - it just doesn't fucking matter what song I pick. It really could not matter any less. Best song ever? Who gives a shit. Circumstances? The only circumstance that counts is that we were all given this beautiful gift of life and every person that I've ever met has royally shit the bed with that opportunity. Pick a song? Sure, I'll pick a song. Here's a catchy little number called Nothing, Not Nearly by Laura Marling. It appropriately starts off with a noise that sounds like me slowly screwing myself ever further down into hell with everything I do. Might this be the best song ever? Maybe. I think it could be. But really, who gives I damn what I think? Not me, that’s for sure. Not anybody else either. Why would they? I'm a screw up nobody that can't stop thinking bad thoughts. Thanks for reminding me.

==========

So, um, it's, uh... it's entirely possible that my last song sort of, um -- well, it seems to have *only* made us think bad thoughts.

That one's on me.  My bad.

But look, we still got that sweet bluesy-talky Laura Marling number out of it.  And if I've learned anything from "Inside Out," it's that allowing (or embracing, even) your sadness is a pretty goddamn important component to having a healthy emotional life. Don't try to deny it. Multitudes, y'know? Even if yer troubles tend to hedge toward the mundane -- they're no less legitimate. Underneath these innocuous trappings we all be fretting the same thing.  Trust me.

Take this couple out on the sidewalk, for example.  They're young and heading into this house that's for sale.  Checking it out.  Scoping the neighborhood, wondering how they'll afford everything.  Is this the right place to start their family, to build their home together?  On the surface, they talk about the wallpaper and the previous owner and how they'll cut back on lattes to save some money -- but the underlying worry is all about that same thing I was talking about: our own fucking mortality.  

Perhaps it ain't the time to be happy.  We all end up in Depreston from time to time. Least we can do is ease into things gracefully, just like Courtney Barnett does.

==========

Well, now I feel terrific. I thought we were just doing mid-life crisis... you're mixing in mortality. Yeesh.

I appreciate your effort, I guess. I spent most of Inside Out looking at my phone, though - so I probably missed most of the finer points. Actually, I spend most of the time that I'm not working or actively parenting looking at my phone. When I see that same thing in other people, I usually assume that they are dead inside. With me it's more that it's all I can muster, having given so much to those times when I am working/actively parenting.

I get it. suppose it is better to try and frame the whole sadness/depression thing as transitory. If I were sad or depressed then I probably would have found your words of encouragement, you know - encouraging. But that's sort of the thing. I'm not sad or depressed. I've made not being sad or depressed into an art form. Outwardly I'm pretty happy and inwardly I'm just sort of numb. There's this running gag at work where when people pass me in the hall and say, "How's it going..." or whatever people say, I always respond the same. I say, "Best day ever." And they laugh because they know the nature of my job precludes me from having a lot of great days. Still though, it's not like it's a cry for help or anything - I just like that people think it's funny and I go along with it.

The next song on our mixtape is Running from My Savior by Wolfie's Just Fine.  I've listened to it about 2000 times and I never really had a handle on what it's about. I sort of think about it like Jules in Pulp Fiction and Ezekiel 25:17. You know, where he can't decide who is evil, who is righteous and who is the tyranny of evil men. Like Jules, originally, I never thought about what this song meant. I just thought it was catchy. The more I listen to it though, the more I try to figure out who is the Savior and who is the Narrator. Sure, I'd like to think that I'm the Savior, trying as he might to shepherd the unwilling out of danger and save them from themselves. Sometimes I even think that the Narrator could be America, running in the opposite direction from progress with it's thumbs in its ears, ranting about how everything will be fine because America is the best. Of course though, I need only get to the line, "I am not unique, but only I can pretend..." to discover the truth. The truth is, I'm the Narrator. Breathlessly running away from anything that might be the right direction and anyone trying to help. Pretending. Always pretending.

It's a good song, I think. I know it doesn't matter though. Sorry to be a downer. I'm trying, Ringo. I'm trying real hard to be the Savior. Maybe next time.

==========

Yeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaah.

...

*cough*

...

*looks at watch*

Huh.  Fifteen songs already.  Guess we're Halfway Home.

...

*nods*

Yup.

...

(Broken Social Scene)

==========

...because when you really think about it we're all in charge of our own shit, right? We all have the power to decide how we respond to our circumstances... We can choose to be joyful. Of course, the sad truth of it is that sometimes the context of our lives requires that we lie to ourselves if we want to make a choice that is contrary to our reality. In short, sometimes you have to bullshit yourself quite a bit just to keep it together. That's life. So what if you get stuck in a rut where the lying to yourself seems to happen seamlessly and without forethought in everything that you do? If that's what you need to get through... well, shit, I guess that's what I need to do. I've gotten pretty good at it - if not for these emails I'd probably be happily going about my nice little Saturday today... trip to Toys R Us to get another birthday present + wrapping for some kid I've never met, and then (if the weather holds) I'll get to mow the lawn while the kid is at the party. Should be sweet. We're hoping to get to Price Chopper later - we're out of spinach and toilet paper. Keep it up, Matty - you're doing great.

Fifteen songs. Forty years. Halfway home.

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation? I don't think so. In my experience, the desperation only comes in spurts, in waves, like this one. Really, most of my life is spent in that complete and seamless denial. That's what I see all around me. Everyone is just trying to maintain - putting up a front so they can, I don't know what... get to the weekend? To that week vacation? You're goddamn right I must not think bad thoughts. Everything is fine. Everything will be fine. If I keep doing things the same boring-ass way I've always done them, I will somehow, miraculously get to enjoy the good life sometime before I die. Christ, I'm too busy lying to myself to be desperate.

So, here we go... Things are good. I enjoy a good salad, my neighbors didn't build a giant fucking tree-house in their front yard, and I am very pleased with the way everyone drives when it's raining. Also, I quite enjoy living in the suburbs, no one in my office gets on my nerves and David Bowie is very much alive.

I'm doing it, bud. I'm keeping it hifi. I am very excited about this next pick. Definitely one of my favorite artists ever, it's off of his newest album - this might be the best song ever! - here it is, it's Sign of the Times by David Bowie.

==========

I've been sitting here all weekend sifting through the jumbled pieces of my psyche, trying to rationalize a world in which some candy kid from One Direction channels Bowie via Oasis and calls into question the laws of musical fame vis a vis bubblegum pop stardom blooming into True Artistry.  I thunk on the Beatles (mainly because Sirius finally added a goddamn Beatles channel which is pretty great but plays waaaaaaaaaaaay too many solo Ringo songs for anyone's taste save for maybe Ringo himself, but deep down even he knows it's over the top) and how those fab kids made the leap from Tiger Beat to True Artistry -- which, of course, led me to mull over how many other artists have been able to make such a transition (not that I'm saying this One Direction kid is a True Artist -- yet certainly one can appreciate his attempts toward or yearning for such credibility) except ultimately, I never really found a followup song able to ride the vein toward Best Song Everdom since we're also trying to make a mix here.

So I sit here mucking about themes of men and their quiet, spurting desperations, trying to find a follow-up that carefully encapsulates the emotional weight I feel inside my chest in most of my quiet waking moments (which, granted, could also be undiagnosed angina) -- when I end up sidetracked into researching whether The Kid can keep playing baseball next year or whether she's going to get shuttled off to youth softball because, you know, she's a girl.  

She ain't gonna be interested in softball, Matty.  Her friends (who are boys) play baseball and she knows the Sox play baseball and all of her carefully curated trading cards are of baseball players.  Not softball players.  At which point I slide into this sinkhole of eventual injustices and inequities she's definitely going to face as she gets older and all the while I'm spiraling there's this soft repetitive thumping in the back of my head -- pounding like an incessant Jehova's Witness on my front stoop, trying desperately to give me the good word.  

But I'm flailing, coming to terms with the fact that I'm ill-prepared to equip her with any sort of armor against the very basic totalshittyness of being a girl in our society and then the door opens and it's not a Jehova's Witness at all -- but some guy who knows a thing or two about catchy pop songs.  And then *he* starts slagging off Rick Astley out of the blue ("that dick's a clown"!!!) while spouting a simple tenet which will serve my girl well in life -- AND it ties in nicely with the other theme of guys and their spurting waves of desperation.  Like a neat little package.  Perfect.  Trust me.

Or don't.  Because I'm full of shit. All Men Are Liars. Thanks, Nick Lowe.

==========

Kevin! This is what I'm talking about! All Men Are Liars (...to themselves and everybody else, but mostly to themselves)! And you're right (wrong) by pointing out that you yourself are full of shit - that song sticks us smack dab into a paradoxical loop. How can we believe Nick Lowe while he's quite literally telling us that he's full of baloney. Even if I did tell you that I believe him, you couldn't trust that I legitimately did, because I might just be 'believing' him for show. I'm totally full of crap. Just like you. Just like Nick Lowe.

Believe me when I tell you that I tried hard to find a good Rick Astley song to slot in here... well actually, that's not true at all. The truth is that it occurred to me that I could slot a Rick Astley song in here (and how funny that might be...) But then I remembered how all Rick Astley songs sound sort of the same and how his face creeps me out a little because he always seems strangely out of focus. So whatevs, I moved on.

Now where were we then? Oh yeah, softball.

Bud, I don't know what to tell you. I hope that it's some comfort to hear that raising a young man in Trump's America is no picnic either. Of course, I wouldn't pretend to equate the two - I'm just saying, when faced with similar (albeit fewer) questions, I often just throw my hands up and say, "All we can do is prepare him for the world as best we can and hope that when the time comes to fly, he flies." Sure, I can understand the urge to, "...slide into the sinkhole of eventual injustices..." but what good can you be to her if you're in a puddle on the floor? None. So what do you do? You lie to yourself. Why? Because the best you can do is try to maintain. That's what all of this is about, right? I'm not just lying to myself for me... I've got a family to think of.  

I feel like maintaining is the least we can do when it comes to the little guys. Childhood is a bridge. We need to just get them to a place where they can think on their own and then hope against hope that they have the audacity to be true to themselves. Please, oh please, let them be okay just being who they are and telling the rest of whoever to go screw.

...and so what if she wants to play baseball? Eve ate the apple because the apple was sweet. Doesn't make her a bad person. There's nothing to be afraid of there. She was hungry. Right? What kind of God forbids fruit? What kind of God would ever keep a girl from getting what she needs? Eat an apple. Go play baseball. Give no fucks.

...and so what if that means that they get damned in the popular opinion! I say, let that be just another damn in the damns they're not giving.

This next song is about something like that, I think. It's Josh Ritter if Josh Ritter was asked, "Hey, can you write a song like Only the Good Die Young for a movie like Footloose in the style of Tom Petty?" This one took me a long time to warm to - I tend to like the quiet one man and a guitar Josh Ritter. The more I listen to it though, the more I see how the band really lifts it up. Call me a liar, but it might be the best song ever.

If that's not enough to sell you, this song also has the only lyric I'd ever consider getting tattooed on my body.** And that's the truth.

Here's Getting Ready to Get Down by Josh Ritter.

-M

==========

Man, that's a *much* better idea for a tattoo than my ill-conceived (and thankfully avoided) intention in college to have a Celtic band tattooed around my arm.  Now you know me, Mack.  Has there EVER been a point in which my biceps -- hell, even one bicep -- have been tattoo-worthy?  To say nothing of the fact that I don't have a drop of Irish blood in my bones (all praise to your own Celtic ancestors, of course).  Folly of youth, holmes.

That sweet Ritter track is gonna aid me mightily on our massive road trip to Kentucky this weekend -- plenty of time to soak up the strong "Life Is A Highway" vibe, with the windows down and the hair blowing past my sunglassed eyes.  So so so good.  As for any potential Baseball v. Softball clash -- the jury is still out.  And truth be told, I give zero fucks about popular opinion -- I was just hoping to avoid marching on the town Rec Center chanting "Free Mister Clark!"  I'd rather work on her batting stance.

Thus, I've chosen my follow-up track very carefully: a power-trio of kick-ass women who take your bustling beat from the previous track and kick the pep up juuuuust a tad.  The bassline alone is tight as a goddamn tripwire.  Their message, concise.  To the point.  There's no mistaking what they want, and they're not going to let it go until you listen to them.  Polite, but firm.  Don't close the Door, they ask you, Nice As Fuck.

==========

Okay, okay, I think I'm starting to get it. I think that we may be approaching something that might slightly resemble actual self-awareness. "All the shit that we talk is a smokescreen?" Yup. That seems appropriate. Because really, there's not much to 'talk', right? Talk (when I talk anyway) is almost always some form of excuse or another. Some half-assed justification for taking the easy way... for ignoring the voice inside me that knows how I alone am responsible for my state of mind. A closed door is the easy way. It's definitive. Safe. All this non-sense about how I don't want to think bad thoughts because it depresses me is really all pretense, isn't it? The truth is that what depresses me is my seeming inability to get out of my own way and put in the work it takes to feel better.

Baby steps, untie my knots.

It doesn't take much, does it? I guess for some people it does. I don't think that's me though. Leaving the door open. Or sometimes just a single word. That could be all you need to get the ball rolling downhill. Gain some momentum. Sometimes you just need to let go of your bullshit and let bygones be bygones.

So I'm drawing a line in the sand right here - I'm going to quit my bellyaching and get back to some honest to God mix-making. No snarky set up that pays off with a song about dying alone. And no over the top self delusion about being a soul man who is impervious to the things that could potentially lay him low. Nope - this one's an olive branch to my real self. I've decided to call off my dogs and resume my search for the Best Song Ever.

This might be it. It's Call Off Your Dogs by Lake Street Dive.

==========

I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful.   I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful.   Baby steps.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is to wish you were better about it all -- a better person, a better bellyacher, a better mixmaker -- in the hopes of making it so.  

Baby steps to the end of the mix.  

First time I heard this guy, I was driving around in the car as a song of his came on Sirius.  I thought the band name was a joke.  Car Seat Headrest.  Immediately I wanted to text you, tweet, complain about the fact that we've (apparently) reached the point in time where we've run out of proper band names.  We've resigned ourselves to selecting random objects and hoping they'll make do.  "Refrigerator Door Handle."  "Lawnmower Gas Cap."  The stuff of legends, right?

Of course, there's always the possibility that I'm just old now -- that this is the point in time where I'm forever frozen, like when my parents stopped buying new music.  You reach Lionel Ritchie's Greatest Hits and go no further.  Then I hear the song.  Y'know, *hear* it.

"I have become such a negative person.  It was all just an act."  And be sure, there's a thread of melancholy throughout, but the song builds, layer upon layer, chord upon chord.  Baby steps.  "It doesn't have to be like this.  It doesn't have to be like this."  I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful.

It's not too late, Matty.   Turn off the engine.   Get out of the car.   And start to walk.   Toward the best song ever:  Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales --

(Wait, is that really the fucking song title?  Seriously?  I -- uh... hm.  Maybe I am old...)

by Car Seat Headrest.

==========

Well sir, honestly, I didn't really get that song on my first few listens - and it wasn't just the band name that had me stumbling. I don't know what it was, I guess... but I wasn't hearing it. Something happened though as I kept listening, trying to settle on my pick... and it wasn't just the normal warming to something that familiarity brings. My appreciation of it evolved. I began to get it. Now I'm enamored.

I don't mind telling you that this small change in me felt significant. The fact that an unenthusiastic reaction to a song could become a very positive one seemed important in light of all the bellyaching I've been doing about being stuck. And I was feeling stuck. You know, really stuck. Like whatever it was that had me writing 'feelings' emails these past few weeks might have been enough for me to be wondering if having that mindset was forever my fate.  That kind of stuck. Here we are though, from my line in the sand (Call Off Your Dogs) to your plea to get out of the car and start to walk (Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales), it feels like I may be turning a bit of a corner. It doesn't have to be about resigning to bullshit or pretending that the bullshit is great - it can be about recognizing your own evolution and the freedom one can only enjoy when he realizes that all of it - the happiness, the bullshit - it's all fleeting.

Oh and by the way isn't that the whole point of this exercise?! How your appreciation of a thing can evolve? How a moment can shape a thing almost as much as the thing itself? It is, right? What fun.

My next pick may lack the gravity of DD/KW, but its Lady Mack the Knife vibe is too potent for me to resist any longer. I believe now that I can't know what song might be the best one for me on a given night... tonight though, if you give me a slick bass line, a filthy little sax thing and a vocalist channeling young Van Morrison - well I think that about does the trick.

Honestly, that might actually do the trick on most nights.

Here's Silver Dagger by Charley Crockett.

==========

Y'know, Mack -- if I were an evil musical scientist charged with creating something that'd appeal directly to your natural song-trait predilections, this would pretty much be the song I'd come up with.  Hit all your sweet spots, make it irresistible, world domination follows.  Simple shit.

And this next jam was irresistible for me, too.  Not that I didn't try.  Literally.  Whenever it came on the radio, I'd quickly have to change the station.  Not because I didn't enjoy what I was hearing (on the contrary, the opening guitar lick is a massive goddamn earworm), but because six seconds in they start spitting some seriously saucy language:

"PICTURE THIS, I'M A BAG OF DICKS, PUT ME TO YOUR LIPS, I AM SICK -- I WILL PUNCH A BABY BEAR IN HIS SHIT."  

You know me, I loves me some good use of profanity, but I've usually got a kid in the car.  And while I'm certain the day is coming where we delve into the contextual use of profanity -- that day ain't here yet.  Maybe 3rd or 4th grade.  But the fucking song kept following me.  Every other ride for like a year, it'd just pop on.  And I'd have a six-second countdown to change the channel.  Occasionally I'd pick it up halfway through.  But it was always in fits and starts.  Snippets.  I was drawn to it, but I still didn't really know what I was dealing with.  Then it fell out of rotation on my stations and I forgot about it.

Until football season.  When Bud Light made a Buffalo Bills ad which used the same opening guitar riff.

So months in, after seeing the commercial dozens of times and during one of my inevitable Rex Ryan meltdowns, I searched for the song.  Couldn't remember the name.  Knew the guys performing it (Run The Jewels), but it wasn't on any of their albums.  Then, one day, I stumbled upon it randomly on Spotify.  And ever since, I no longer have to resist the spitting lyrics and head-bobbing swagger of Nobody Speak (feat. Run The Jewels) by DJ Shadow.  And, now, neither do you.**

**Unless your kid or Aunt Chris is listening, in which case I'd skip right past this track.

===========

You should write a book called The Contextual Use of Profanity. I would buy it. I would buy the shit out of it.

As for Nobody Speak? I'm all for including it here. This is a mixtape for adults, bud. Sure, I listen to music in the car with my kid too. Like you, I too find myself filtering out any language or subject matter that might need more of an explanation that I'm willing to give. As he gets older though, the more I'm finding that I absolutely trust his instincts. I mean, the kid kind of has impeccable taste. For example: he loves Son of a Preacher Man. I support it. Now he doesn't have a clue what the lyric, "Learning from each other's knowing, looking to see how much we've grown..." means. If he asks me, I just tell him that I don't know either. End of discussion. We get to listen to the song with all of our delicate sensibilities intact.

I mean, what? I'm supposed to protect him from, "Meanwhile Britain keeps shittin' on us relentlessly..."? I'm supposed to say, "Well my six year old has taken an interest in the biggest musical in a generation, it's about the dawn of our nation and it won the Pulitzer, but there's some salty language in there so I'm going to discourage it and tell him to go watch Caillou piss his pants again..." I'm sorry, that's just not happening. I'd rather listen to it and let him ask me... And if he does?  I'll tell him, "Well son... Britain was SHITTING ON US RELENTLESSLY!" That is profanity used in context, and I don't think that we need to apologize.

I'm not afraid of Nobody Speak. I welcome it. I know some very good people that use bad words all the time and not once have I been hurt by them. And let's not forget the flip side to that coin! Bill Cosby, for example, raged against the use of profanity for decades and he is a straight up goddamn monster.

Under the proper circumstances, Nobody Speak absolutely might be the best song ever (and it therefore belongs on our mix).

I guess what I'm saying is that there are degrees here with profanity. There's a spectrum. I don't think the little guy is ready for Nobody Speak (...and I'm not ready to evade all those questions). The thing is, Kev - we're not kids. We're adults. There are gradations. We can use adult words with each other. We can appreciate a well placed curse in a song. We have already evolved from precocious youngsters to hard-hearted grey beards. Our tastes have changed. Our favorite song tonight was likely not our favorite song when we were six. (This is what we've been talking about!) We're adults - and I for one see nothing wrong with adults getting a bit filthy. We're grownups, right? We can totally handle it. And not just with words either. We can handle some filth in our bass lines too. If you're of age and you want to dip your toe into a nasty little horn part, well that is totally your prerogative. If we work hard all night and day and then drive an hour to a club, what, do you think we're just going to stand against a wall? No. We went there to have ourselves a ball, right? Why wouldn't we let our hair down a bit?

Truthfully, I let Deck listen to this next one whenever he wants. I mean - I can't keep him young forever. I know that. And if he's got to grow up, I want it to be Teddy Pendergrass teaching him how to Get Up, Get Down, Get Funky, Get Loose. He can handle it  - and it's better than him learning it on the streets.

==========

Songs that teach.  I like that idea.  

Tunes that take the adult burden of imparting the next generation with proper lessons on how to navigate the world -- and fobbing it off onto a pop song.  At first glance, I thought perhaps only lighter lessons could be included.  Small things to be taught (which is not to say knowing how to Get Up, Get Down, Get Funky, and Get Loose is small...), to be given catchy refrains which could be drawn upon in a moment of crisis.  Fight the Power.  Stand Up Rise Above Racism.  Put the Lime In The Coconut.  You know.  

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced you could put ANY possible lesson in song form and have it be more effective than an uncomfortable, rambling parent.  Schoolhouse Rock for Real Life (which, I guess, was the point of Schoolhouse Rock, actually) -- but with the Best Songs Ever.  And so, I'm going to give you this song lesson many moons past the due date, when we were but wanderlust teens unable to read the signals being sent from the fairer sex... just waiting to be handed a slip of paper that explicitly gave us the go-ahead.  

This song is that slip of paper. Shut Up Kiss Me by Angel Olsen

==========

Well that is just about a perfect response. (Sorry it's not completely perfect, but I have to deduct points for the implication that we are somehow more equipped now to read the signals being sent from the fairer sex.) It is near perfect though because it hits on something that is again central to my point: Best Song Ever has to be variable because at different points in your life, you need to be taught different things by the music that you listen to. Because you need to hear different messages at different points in your life AND because you need to be receptive to a message in order to appreciate it, you can find yourself discovering perfection in a song that had previously seemed imperfect to you.

So, yes! The Best Songs Ever are variable and they most definitely are songs that teach us something. I would put that second one on the list if ever I sat down to write the best song ever. That will probably never happen though (...due to my complete lack of musical ability). But, if I were say... Beethoven, or Lou Reed... you know - if I were Paul McCartney... If I were one of those guys then I would definitely be trying to teach.

I'll never be one of those guys though, Kevin. Nope, it wasn't in the cards for me. I've had to resign myself to the fact that my role in musical discovery takes place before a pen strikes paper or fingers alight on keys. I am, of course, referencing my life as a muse. You know too well that I've long been the thing that inspires artists to create art. Sure, I may not get the recognition I so desire, but my contribution is no less significant. I'm the person that inspires the art which inspires another person to create art which inspires another person... That's a cycle that I want to jump into and out of forever.

Think about that, bud, the next time you're listening to Elton John or Ray Davies. Think about what caused the spark to light that song's way. Or you should try it yourself - the next time you're at the wall of writer's block - think about the people in your life that get you out of your head and into your heart.

This next one pick might be almost meaningless to you right now. It might just be a catchy pop song that you may or may not sort of enjoy. You might not be susceptible to this infectious hook right at this precise point in your life. But maybe (just maybe), there will be some day in the future where you are in search of inspirado - and you'll stumble upon this song again... and there within it's catchiness, you'll discover the lesson. It's at that moment that it will hit you. "Man, For Elise by Saint Motel might be one of the best songs ever." I don't know where I'll be then, Kev. But I'll know about it and I'll be happy.

==========

Inspirado, man.  Such a fickle mistress.  It's helpful when there's a specific element to a song that provides the inspiration -- like that infectious hook, or the clever lyric, or the person (like you) behind the person behind the person.  

But what about a piece that refuses to really show itself to me?  One that slips through my fingers like whispy tendrils of smoke as I try to grab hold of meaning?  Is it the general tone of the song -- how at points I can almost feel the soft summer sun on skin?  Or is it in those booming transitions, when there's a rumble in my chest akin to unexpected thunder?  Or or or, is it in the half-second pauses they pepper throughout -- the negative space

where all

possibilities

present themselves

in a single

moment?  

I don't know, Matty.  I just don't know.  But I do listen to this song, over and over, hoping against hope that this'll be the time when it finally reveals itself.  When it opens up to me. Eventually. Tame Impala.

==========

Christ buddy, I don't know either. Sometimes I feel like everything worth holding onto is a whispy tendril of smoke... And as I look at life through these forty year old eyes "Eventually" is becoming the dirtiest of words to me.

You've set me up well for my final selection. Thematically, these songs seem linked. I had been zeroing in on this band for my final pick since we started this thing... not sure why. As we've progressed through our emails, it became more and more clear to me that this song would be the selection. Now it actually seems silly that I ever considered any others. There's a few reasons for that really... the most obvious is that my appreciation of the song has definitely evolved considerably over time. When I first heard it, I thought it was about Elizabeth Taylor. Then I started to really hear it - you know, you catch one more lyric every time and slowly you realize that it's actually about a taxi driver and her life... and her regrets. It's not depressing though - it's a cautionary tale. It's a call to arms - like Scrooge's glimpse into the future. It's about gathering your fucking rosebuds. And now I'm in the future, you know. And I'm really hearing this song - hearing it in a way I'm sure that the other suburban dads are not. Hearing it with my soul. That's the other reason this has to be the pick. I've been on a bit of a roller coaster through this mix. This song feels to me a fitting place for me to land. It is straightforward about regret, but it still feels hopeful to me. It acknowledges the bullshit without ever resigning to it. Also, on top of all of that, I believe that it could possibly be - if the conditions are right - the best song in the world. It's my final pick. It's Cleopatra by The Lumineers.

I'm going to see these guys Thursday night. You should come. Music is the best.

Honestly, bud, I don't have a clue what the best song ever is... Chances are that on a given night it's none of these... It's probably Marquee Moon, or Lover You Should Have Come Over or something... Or Something. For a long while I thought it was Crimson and Clover, but that isn't really the case for me anymore. Sometimes it's I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You. Other times it's Sinnerman... or the Prelude to Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suite in G Major. Still, I think we've done some good work here pointing our fingers at some songs that should be in the running. As our circumstances change, only time will tell.

We've got one more to go. Last pick is yours. Bring us home.

==========

Gather ye rosebuds, indeed.

If Cleopatra is the call to arms -- to beware regret and believe in hope -- then my final selection is the inverse of that.  Yin, meet Yang.  There's no hope found in this finale, just the inevitable squaring of accounts.  Edges refusing to be softened by angelic melodies.  The tape rolls out and we're left alone with the desperate wailings of a broken man echoing in our ears.  Death and depression.  Resentment and rage.

Which isn't to say I'm anywhere close to that mindset at the moment.  I have my spells (and we've damn well established there are few among us who don't), but tonight I feel good.  I feel great.  A brisk breeze is nudging through our window.  The drink at my side is slowly sweating onto the desk.  And my best chums will be under my roof tomorrow.  We're happy, we're healthy, we're alive.  And that's why music is the best.

Because I can press play on this song and be taken from this contentment -- even if only for five minutes -- and be tossed aside.  Be made to feel utterly alone through a warbling voice and a few distorted guitars.  My own stuff begins to bubble up and I taste bitterness on the back of my tongue.  I'm seventeen again.  I'm forty.  I'm lying on the floor, wailing.  I'm careening down the road, dead-eyed.  I'm tearing photos from the walls.  I'm burning bridges.  I'm leaving it all behind.  I'm sinking below the surface, hand extended to the heavens.  I'm safe at my computer, typing this message.

I'm in a small boat in a storm.   And they're coming fin by fin until the whole boat sinks.

I've no idea if this is the best song ever.  The Australians seem to say it's *their* best song ever, which must count for something, I suppose.  All I can vouch for is that this song unlocks something deep inside me.  Sets fire to feelings I'm wary of.  And that's why music is the best.

Fin by fin.

Thanks for sharing it with me, pal.

Shark Fin Blues, by The Drones.

[richietoaster]

Heart Hurts So Good

Pairing: reddie

warnings: none

words: 2,362

thank you to 2/4 my beautiful betas: @killerxqueer and @reddie-to-go :)

ao3 link

Spotify Playlist that helped me write this

Eddie doesn’t remember the first time he felt like he was floating. Or, falling, maybe. He doesn’t know when his heart started leaping out of his chest, or when his eyes started to linger longer on a certain boy . Hell, he can’t even remember when he started liking boys and stopped liking girls.

He supposes that it could’ve started years ago; when Richie started slinging an arm over his shoulder, or the way he began smiling at him, or the way Eddie developed a habit of always gravitating to him no matter where they were or who they were with.

Eddie’s not too sure about this whole ‘feeling’ thing. Whatever it is, at least. He tries to push his feelings away, tries to bury it and hide it. He knows it gets increasingly harder with every look Richie gives him. Maybe it’s not just a feeling, maybe Richie is just the one that reminded him of what’s always been ignited inside of him. It gets harder, and Eddie knows it.

They’re all sitting at the lunch table, a Friday afternoon. Richie is sat across from Eddie and he hates it. Hates that he can just look up and see his pretty fucking face. He knows that he’s being way too passive aggressive about it, but he can’t help but stab his macaroni with his plastic fork the more he thinks about how fucking beautiful his best friend is and how he shouldn’t even be thinking that.

“You okay there, Eddie?” Stan touches his arm carefully.

“Fan-fuckin-tastic,” Eddie grumbles and shoves the food into his mouth. “This macaroni is good as fuck.”

Stan blinks, because, okay then..

Eddie nearly chokes when he looks up once more, seeing Richie, with what looks like a smirk plastered on his lips.

“ So... ” Mike speaks loudly, trying to clear the tension, “What’s on the agenda for the day? I was thinking we could have a boys night. Order some pizza, watch some movies, play poker..?”

“Yeah that sounds awesome. It seems...” Ben looks at Eddie. “Well needed.”

Bill sees this and chuckles, “Yeah, i-it does, doesn’t it? I’ll b-bring alcohol.”

Bev sighs, “Why do you guys have to have a boys night? Because then I’m stuck at home with nothing to do and nobody to-”

“-do?”

“Richie Tozier I will rip your fuckin’ dick off.”

“Kinky.”

Beverly rolls her eyes, “and nobody to hang out with.”

“What about Jane?” Eddie questions, “You guys have been hanging out a lot in gym, aren’t you friends?”

She goes to speak but Stan beats her to it, “Yeah, sure. They’re friends.”

“What is this, ‘pick on Bev’ day?” Bev huffs,”Yes, Eddie. Jane and I are friends...”

“Ask her to hang out then.” Eddie shrugs.

“Yeah, we don’t want you to miss out on too much fun.” Richie says, a suggestive tone in his words, “I’m sure Jane would really like that.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll ask her to hang out.”

“Great! Now we all have plans tonight.” Ben says, smiling at his friends.

Eddie returns it, weakly. He does NOT want to be any physically closer to Richie than he is right now, and if he goes to Mike’s, he’s just going to be glued to him, and he knows this. Is he still going to go, though? Yes. Is he going to act like a love-sick puppy the entire time? Probably.

Eddie shows up to Mike’s house later that night, a bottle of wine in hand. He shoves it into Mike’s hands when he opens the door. Eddie slides past him and ignores the weird look that his friend gives him.

“Ayyyy it’s Eds Spagheds!” Richie greets him with a smile and wraps an arm around Eddie’s shoulders. Eddie instinctively reaches up to grab his hand, despite that, throwing a warning look at Richie.

“I know, I know, don’t call you that.”

Eddie smiles at this.

“Alright boys,” Richie lets go of Eddie and claps his hands together, “What’s first? Poker? Movies?”

Everyone collectively agrees on poker.

An hour and a half into the game, they’ve all got alcohol in them. Ben, Bill, and Stan all on the more ‘tipsy’ side. Mike, Eddie, and Richie all nearly pissed drunk.

Richie starts being more touchy with everyone, particularly Eddie. He’s got a hand in Eddie’s hair, an arm around his middle, and every once in awhile he’ll throw his face into his neck.

Eddie can’t stand it. He can’t stand all of this touching. Not that he doesn’t love it, because he does, it’s just that he knows it’s all due to Richie being drunk. Eddie might be drunk too, but he’s touchy with the other boy because he likes him. He’s just a friend to Richie, and it makes his heart hurt even more, especially when he feels the taller boy’s lips graze against his ear when he laughs at something Ben had said. The second he feels it, shivers flow all the way down his back and down to his feet.

Eddie thinks in that moment, he thinks he know what love is.

In the morning, Eddie blinks away the sleep. He stretches, trying to sit up, but feels something heavy over his chest. Eddie looks down and sees Richie’s arm draped over him. He removes it carefully, trying not to wake him. Everyone around him is snoring away, still sleeping off their hangovers and he wishes he could stay there with his friends, but he knows if he’s not home at an early enough time, his mother will never let him hear the end of it.

Eddie bikes home as fast as he can, holding his thigh at the pocket of his sweatpants so his phone doesn’t fall out.

When he gets in the driveway of his house, Eddie wheels his bike to the garage, not bothering to put it inside. He digs out his key from his other pocket and begins to approach the front door. Before he can put the key in the slot, the door is yanked open and an angry Sonia Kaspbrak stands before him.

“Do you know how much trouble you’re in?” Sonia puts her hands on her hips.

“Mom- I- I was just at Mike’s, I stayed the night-”

“I said you could hang out, I didn’t say you could spend the night.” Sonia sighs, “come on, get inside.”

Eddie complies and opens his mouth to apologize.

Sonia grabs her son’s arm the moment he rushes past her, “Edward Kaspbrak, do I smell alcohol on you?”

Eddie’s eyes widen, “N-No mom, of course not, I-” He stops speaking and leans back when his mother crowds his space, sniffing his shirt intensely.

“Don’t lie to me.”

The silence between them is enough for Sonia to receive her answer and she pushes Eddie into the house.

“Give me your phone.”

“What?”

“I said give me your phone.” Sonia slams the door behind her and holds her hand out, motioning for him to hand it over.

“Mom, you can’t do that, I have track and school and-”

“You will come straight home all this week and you will not leave the house for the rest of this weekend, do you understand?”

“Yes, mom..”

“I’m not doing this to irritate or to push your buttons, Eddie. You know how I worry, okay? I’m doing this as a punishment. You’re only seventeen and you were drinking! Do you know how dangerous that is? Underage drinking?”

“I’m sorry.”

Sonia shakes her head, “I’m very disappointed in you. Go to your room. I’ll call you down when dinner is ready.”

Eddie nods and goes to his room without another word.

Eddie falls asleep, sleeping through nearly the whole day, but he’s woken up when he hears a knock at his door.

“Eddie-Bear? Are you awake?”

The door opens slowly and Eddie sits up, “Yeah, m’awake.”

“Dinner’s ready, sweetie.”

Sonia retreats downstairs and waits until Eddie comes down too, before she starts eating.

Eddie picks up his fork, about to dig in, but his mom stops him.

“You know we pray first, Eddie.”

Eddie nearly has to force himself not to roll his eyes. He doesn’t think he’s that religious. At all, maybe.

When she bows her head and begins to pray, Eddie doesn’t move, doesn’t close his eyes, like his mother.

“Amen,” She speaks suddenly.

“Amen.”

They eat in silence, not speaking. The two usually don’t speak as much anymore, not like they used to.

The house phone rings suddenly, and Eddie jumps up to get it, but she gives him a look. He watches his mother walk over to it, picking it up, and placing it to her ear.

“Hello?”

Eddie nearly stops himself from breathing to try to hear who it is.

“Yes, he’s here...” Sonia pauses and sighs. “Eddie, come talk to your friend.” She practically spits out the last word. He assumes it’s Richie from her tone of voice. He pushes his chair out, scrambling to take the phone out from Sonia’s hands. He doesn’t speak until she sits back down.

“Hello?” Eddie says.

“Hey,” Richie’s voice rings through. “Are you avoiding me?”

“Unintentionally.” Maybe it’s a good thing, though.

“What do you mean by that?”

“My mom took away my phone.” Eddie purses his lips. “Why?”

“Nothing, Mike just mentioned that...” Richie trails off.

“What is it?”

“Nevermind. I just… is your window gonna be open tonight?”

Eddie smiles to himself, quickly dropping it before his mom can see, “Of course. It always is.”

“Okay. I’ll be up later.”

Eddie lowers his voice, “I’ll be awake.”

The line goes silent and Eddie speaks again, “Are you still there?”

“Yeah.”

“You sound off, are you okay?”

Mike just mentioned that...

“Yeah...don’t worry your pretty little head, Eds. I’ll be up later tonight, okay?”

“Okay, sounds good.”

“See you then, Spaghetti.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Bye, Rich.”

Sonia watches her son hang up and sit back down, “What did he want?”

“Richie? Um,” Eddie stuffs his mouth with food, “Science Project.”

“Okay.”

Eddie goes to his room fifteen minutes after he’s done eating, making sure he doesn’t seem eager to leave his mother. (He is.)

He counts down the hours, knowing Richie won’t come until midnight, just in case Sonia is still awake. She never hears him come through the window, anyway.

When one o’clock in the morning hits, Eddie watches his window expectantly. After a few minutes, he sees a mop of curls poke through the curtains, and a smile plays on his lips.

“Miss me?” Richie asks, laughing at the sight of Eddie’s face.

“You wish.” Eddie pats the space next to him, a feeling of content spreading through him when Richie lies next to him.

“You got grounded?”

“Yeah,” Eddie nods, “She smelled the alcohol on me almost immediately.”

“Little does she know, all of us could come see you this entire week and she would never know.” Richie laughs and turns on his side to face Eddie.

Eddie’s breath hitches when his eyes meet the other boy’s.

Another feeling erupts in his chest. It overwhelms him, yet completes him. He feels so free but it’s like his chest is almost constricting itself, cutting off his oxygen. Eddie thinks its funny how someone could go from being a stranger, to becoming a friend, then a best friend, and yet in the end, it never ends like that-- meeting someone that he automatically became attached to the hip with, and expecting him to just see him as a friend, a best friend, and only a best friend.

Who is he kidding? Definitely not himself. He’s completely infatuated with Richie, and he doesn’t know how he’s lived without him for the first ten years of his life. Eddie feels like Richie is the first chaotic thing that happened to him. He disrupted the stilled and stabilized life Mrs. Kaspbrak was trying to get Eddie to have.

Eddie takes a breath, inhaling deeply, and breathing out slowly. No, he doesn’t think he knows what love is. He can feel it. It’s ignited in him, all throughout his body. Nobody has ever made him feel what Eddie feels just by looking at Richie.

“What’re you staring at?” Richie questions, shaking Eddie from his thoughts.

“You,” Eddie says, feeling suddenly confident despite his cheeks reddening.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Richie reaches over and tucks a strand of his hair behind his ear. Eddie grabs his hand, and he audibly chokes. “Oh my god,” he says. He can feel the tears pricking at the corner of his eyes.

“What’s wrong, Eds?” Richie touches his cheek, thumbing down his jawline.

“I-I think.. I think you’re the one.”

Richie blinks at him, saying nothing for an entire minute, and Eddie thinks he’s going to go insane if he doesn’t soon.

“Rich.. Say someth-”

Eddie doesn’t like being cut off. And he’s always hated  it. However, he’s not minding it much. No, not when what’s interrupting him is Richie’s lips pressing against his.

Eddie is crying, and he’s not meaning to, but he can’t help it. The love of his life is kissing him hard and slow and it’s everything he’s ever wanted.

“Eddie,” Richie laughs against his lips, “I’m so, so in love with you.”

“God,” Eddie shakes his head, “Look at us- we’re a mess.”

They laugh into each other’s mouths, kissing each other harder than the first time.

“We’re not a mess,” Richie disagrees, “We might be stupid, but not a mess.”

Eddie nods, his nose bumping against the older boy’s. “I don’t know how I’ve gone seventeen years without kissing you.” He doesn’t, really. His need to be kissing Richie is like needing oxygen to breathe.

“You don’t have to wonder any longer,” Richie places his lips on Eddie’s again, holding his face in his hands. He moves one hand to Eddie’s leg, pulling it over his waist, the need to be closer getting stronger and stronger.

They kiss for hours, it seems. Their lips bruised, along with both of their necks and chests. It’s all they need in the moment, and Eddie thinks it’s all he’ll ever need.

“I don’t think I’ll ever have to wonder again.”