#but the clash between the happy music and the dark meaning behind the lyrics

[lil-melody-moon]

Lately "The Who Sell Out" is stuck in my head and each time I hear this:

I keep repeating it shouldn't sound so cheerful, not with these lyrics

[sluttyminghao]

studio stress | h.vc

w.c: 3.5k request:  hi!! can i request a dom!vernon x fem reader where he fucks her in the studio because he’s jealous? maybe because his gf talked to another member or something lmao genre: smut! pairing: vernon x female!reader contains: dom!vernon, jealous vern, sub!female!reader, mentions of spit play, oral and fingering (fem. receiving), mentions of restraints, marking, slight degradation, vern is a bit of a shithead lmao a/n: amazing idea! thank you for this anon! im also tagging @junsol​ because she wanted to see this :)

Vernon wasn’t the type to get jealous much, if at all really.

He was normally always level headed and calm, and he had no problem with you hanging out with his band mates when he wasn't around, because he trusted both you and them enough to know that neither of you would do anything. Vernon’s bandmates respected and liked you enough to know that you wouldn't do anything with them, and vice versa.

Your boyfriend and his bandmates were currently under a significant amount of stress, however, due to their new album preparing to be released in the following weeks. They were snippy and snide to one another, and their actions didn't always come off in the nicest ways, even towards you, but you knew they really didn't mean it at the end of the day, and they would always apologize to you after.

Today was one of those days, and it was particularly awful. You didn’t know just how bad it was going to be, but if the texts from the other band members was anything to go off, you were in for a doozy.

You were headed towards their recording studio after Vernon had sent you a text to come visit, and you were more than ecstatic to see him after he had holed himself away for a few days, only sparing a few minutes to text you. You hadn’t really minded of course, but you had missed him dearly, and you knew that seeing him would make your day better.

The texts had been short and concise, and only really things like “hello” and “i love you”, but it was nice to know that he was still thinking about you even when he was under so much pressure with his company and his bandmates. You knew that after the album came out though, they would all go back to their happy and relaxed selves, and you would have your boyfriend back in your hold soon enough.

The walk to the studio wasn’t overly long, but the cool winter air had seeped under your various layers of clothes and had ultimately chilled you to the bone by the time you were standing outside the studio, your body shivering and teeth chattering, texting your boyfriend to let him know you had arrived. The door to the studio quickly swung open not long after the text had been sent, and Seokmin was standing in the doorway with his signature sunshine smile.

“Hey you! Come on in, Vernon’s been expecting you for hours!” He exclaimed loudly, his broad frame moving out of the way so that you could walk in to the warm building and attempt to shake off the cold. “Thanks for letting me in Seokmin, how is everyone doing today?” You asked as you shrugged off your jacket, quirking a brow in confusion when you heard faint shouting coming from down the hallway.

“Uh...it’s not going great at the minute,” he muttered, his lips forming a pout at yet another shout, followed by a crash sounded from the room down the hall. He sighed and lead you down the hallway, where the voices became louder and the screaming more prominent, your eyes widening in surprise that the team seemed to be crumbling behind the very door you were about to walk through.

Just as Seokmin pushed the door open to the recording studio, the voices that were screaming just seconds before had become hushed and the bodies had stilled, as if being a group of deer caught in the headlights. Every person in the recording room turned to see who was opening the door, and visibly relaxed when they noted that it was only Seokmin and yourself, making Vernon beam widely as the rest of the band members fell into conversation once more after exchanging their hello’s with you.

He stood up from his spot between Minghao and Soonyoung, and walked quickly towards you and enveloped your body tightly with his strong arms, his favourite cologne drifting up your nostrils and invading all of your senses in all of the best ways. “Hey ‘Sol,” you mumbled, your face smushed into his firm pecs, making him giggle at the slight vibration against his chest.

“Hey, baby,” he whispered into your hair, placing a chaste kiss to the crown of your head and sending tingles throughout your body. You smiled as you pulled away from his warm body reluctantly, letting him return to whatever he had been doing previously, and finding yourself a chair to sit on while he worked.

Finding purchase on a seat across the room, you found yourself squished between Seungcheol and Seungkwan and quickly fell into idle banter with the two, who were bickering over something you could not quite comprehend, but you also weren't paying a whole lot of attention because you were watching your boyfriend busy himself with recordings.

He was busy concentrating on and discussing an odd bass loop with Jihoon, the pair trying to find the perfect place to put it in the song where it wouldn't sound weird or repetitive. Your eyes unashamedly grazed all over his body, admiring how toned he had gotten over the last few weeks from his constant workouts and personal training sessions.

You were snapped out of your trance however, when Seungkwan snapped his fingers in front of your face to garner your attention. “Were you even listening to me?” He quipped, sass dripping from his voice as he rolled his eyes at you. You rolled your eyes back in response, albeit with a huge grin on your face as he continued his story about picking up his Americano earlier that day.

While you were chatting with Seungkwan, you felt the hairs on the back of your head begin to stand, and it felt almost as if someone was watching you. Your eyes darted around the room trying to find the reason for the suspicious activity, until they finally locked onto your boyfriend’s dark ones. You hadn't seen him look at you like that before, and it only sent shivers down your spine and you forced yourself to look away before you flung yourself at him.

You tried to occupy yourself by having a conversation with Seungcheol, who was showing you some of the lyrics he was writing and leaning in quite close to you. It hadn’t seemed like a problem for you since you were always talking to them about their lyrics and what they were working on, but there was something that felt...off, about sitting and talking to Seungcheol, even though all of your previous encounters with him had been nothing but pleasant and fun.

Vernon’s eyes refused to move off of your form as you sat next to Seungcheol, and all he could focus on was how his blood was beginning to boil, watching how his band mate would wrap an arm around your waist or whisper into your ear and make you laugh at some dumb joke he had explained to you. It was all getting too much for him, and before he could even control himself, his palms were slamming down onto the table with a loud thud, causing the room to fall into silence and everyone’s heads to whip around to face Vernon.

“What’s wrong Vern? You seem a little stressed, almost like you need to get laid or something,” Jeonghan joked, playfully hitting his younger friend’s arm lightly. The room fell into silence again as everyone awaited his response, not sure what the outcome would be from his seemingly harmless joke.

“Everyone needs to leave, I can’t concentrate with all this noise going on,” he finally spoke through gritted teeth, and everyone stayed still for a split second, before they scrambled to gather their things and leave as quickly as possible, not wanting to know what was going to happen once they left.

Because if they knew Vernon, they knew that he was hardly ever like this, and if he was going to snap, it wouldn't be pretty and they didn't particularly want to see it. They gave you quick, worried glances as they left, and you could only remain planted in your seat as you watched your boyfriend’s form tense and untense the more he looked at the music in front of him.

“Are you okay, baby?” You finally squeaked out once the door to the studio had shut and you were left alone with your stressed out partner. He remained silent for a few beats, and you thought about just grabbing your stuff and leaving him to his own devices, but his raspy voice stopped you before you even had the opportunity to grab your bag.

“I didn’t like the way you were talking with Seungcheol, it really got on my nerves,” he spoke through his teeth, hands gripping the table until his knuckles turned white. Your head tilted in confusion, before a small laugh bubbled past your lips from his statement, which you could hardly believe. “Are you serious? You’ve never had a problem with me talking to him before! Why is it any different now?”

His body immediately whirled around in the chair he sat on and he stood up, making fast paces towards you. You suddenly felt overly small in his presence, and even more so with his dominating nature that he was currently exuding. His eyes had darkened a few shades, and it was a look that you were all too familiar with, one that made arousal pool within your stomach and a distinct wetness clinging to your panties.

“I never had a problem before, because he wasn’t flirting with you last time, sweetheart,” His voice was rough as he stood in front of you, a small smirk reaching his mouth before he was crashing his lips into yours harshly, teeth and tongues clashing and you couldn’t help but let a mewl spill from your lips.

“He-he wasn’t flirting with me Vernon!” You managed to stutter out when he pulled away and sat on the couch next to you, fiddling with the hem of your shirt. His head snapped up and his eyes bore into yours again, before he let a sinister chuckle fall from his lips, and he was ripping your shirt off, leaving your upper body exposed to the slight chill in the air, with exception of your bra.

“You must be blind if you couldn't see the way he was undressing you with his eyes and holding your waist tightly, but it’s a shame he won’t ever get to see you like that,” he seethed, letting his lips run across the expanse of your neck and collarbone before letting his teeth sink in to the juncture of your shoulder and neck.

A small hiss left your lips as he continued to suck on your neck, leaving pretty purple and blue blooms across the expanse. Your hands found purchase in his locks, tugging roughly on the roots and pulling him off your skin. “W-we can’t do this here...” you trailed off, voice growing small when you noticed your boyfriend stripping his own clothes off, another laugh slipping past his kiss-swollen lips.

“Oh, sweetheart, you don’t get a say in that, I need to show you who you belong to,” he spoke nonchalantly, leaning over your body and unclasping your bra, before pulling your pants and panties down in one swoop, leaving you stark naked in front of him. You face burned red with embarrassment, and you poorly attempted to cover your body up with a pillow strewn carelessly on the couch.

“Why are you trying to hide your smoking hot body from me?” His dominant act dropped momentarily and he let his body fall so that he was crouching between your legs, his eyes softening as he looked at you adoringly. “I-I don’t know...” a stuttered breath fell from your lips as he removed the pillow from your grip and threw it across the other side of the room.

His large hands roughly gripped your thighs and pushed them apart, exposing your glistening pussy to the air and his eyes. You saw his eyes grow hungrier and darker the longer he stared at your folds, and he couldn’t help but lean in towards you and lick a flat stripe against you, a smirk playing on his lips when you gasp and attach your hands to his scalp.

“Fuck, Vern! Your mouth i-is like ma-magic” You moaned out, unable to stop your legs from violently shaking with pleasure. His hands kept your legs pried apart, and it only heightened your levels of pleasure when his mouth found your clit and he sucked on it gently, sending waves of electricity coursing throughout your body. “You always did like when I eat you out, I bet that Seungcheol couldn’t even come close in terms of eating you out, I will always be on top” he moaned out loud, reattaching his lips to your folds and sucking vigorously.

Vernon spent a significant amount of time alternating between licking and sucking at your folds, and it came as no surprise to either of you that you were nearing your first orgasm already, your moans increasing in volume substantially when he began teasing a finger at your entrance. “You’re soaked, baby, I bet I’d just slide right in huh?” He teased, hissing when his finger was met with no resistance when he did slide it in.

He could feel your walls pulsing around his finger, and he knew that you would be cumming any moment now. Your whines were like music to his ears, and only spurred him on to add another finger into your swollen cunt, the wet noises making his cock twitch and a groan to spill from his lips.

You were too late in giving him a warning that you were cumming, it happened so fast and before you knew it, your legs were attempting to close around your boyfriend’s head and there was shapes and white patterns dancing behind your eyelids. You could faintly hear yourself crying out his name as you came down from your glorious high, and came to just as Vernon’s hand caressed your cheek.

“That was a powerful orgasm, sweetheart, but don’t forget that I’m not quite done with you yet, I still wanna fill you up with my cum.” He all but growled at you, pulling his boxers down to reveal his hard and leaking length, a continuous bead of precum growing at the tip of his erection. His cock wasn’t overly long, but it still worked wonders inside of you, and the thickness made you feel so full it was almost as if you would split open. 

You leaned over to reach for his cock, but his hand gripped your wrist and held on tightly, making confusion cover your features. “No, we don’t have time for that right now, the members will be back any moment soon,” he replied, laying you down and hovering over your sweaty and shaking body. You could feel his heavy cock resting against your clit, and it only made you shiver in excitement at what was going to happen.

“F-fuck me ‘Sol...make me see stars,” You whined out, before he effectively silenced you by shoving two of his fingers in your mouth and glaring down at you with hooded eyes. “You don’t get to talk to me like that, slut, you’re lucky i don't have anything to tie your hands back with because that’s where they’d be.” He groaned, letting his tip slide down to your entrance.

He teased his cock at your entrance, prodding at it and pushing in slightly, only to pull back out again and leave you a whining and sobbing mess. “P-please...I need your c-cock!” You cried out, your body wriggling around on the couch in anticipation. He quirked a brow at your neediness, stopping his actions altogether and making you whine even louder. 

“Someone is a needy brat tonight huh? That’s bold considering you were flirting with one of my bandmates not even an hour ago,” he scolded, finally letting his cock sink into you slowly. “I- ngh, I wasn't f-flirting with him!” you screamed out, his hips finally meeting yours as he bottomed out with a low groan.

“You definitely were, I could see it in your eyes,” he stuttered out, his hips beginning a rapid and unforgiving pace. His cock was stretching you out so nicely and filling you right up to the brim, and you couldn’t even find the energy to respond to his snarky comment. His cock was making you feel amazing in so many ways, you could feel your eyes rolling back into your head and your legs beginning to shake the more Vernon pounded into you.

“Your cunt is so fucking tight, baby, I don’t know how much longer I can keep myself from c-cumming inside of you,” he groaned, lifting one of your legs up so that it was propped on his shoulder and he could angle his cock better inside of you, attempting to hit that one spot inside of you that would have you clenching around his cock in a matter of seconds.

“R-right there! Fuck!” You cried out, your fingers digging into the flesh of your boyfriend’s bicep and leaving bright red crescent marks indented on the skin. He smirked at your cries and continued to hit in the same spot over and over, hissing when he felt how your pussy began clenching rapidly around his cock, making it even harder for him to thrust inside of you.

You were so close to falling over the edge, you just needed one more action to send you toppling, and Vernon knew exactly what to do to send you into that fucked out state. He removed his fingers from your mouth, groaning at the sight of the line of saliva dropping from them and landing on your skin. 

“You’re so fucking sexy, I’m gonna make you cum so hard that you won’t be able to walk out of here,” he spoke softly, his hand moving down to your clit and rubbing harsh figure eight’s on the swollen bud. His grunts and the way his hips and fingers were moving sent you spiraling over the edge with a loud scream, your body arching up so beautifully.

Luckily for you, the studio was soundproof.

Vernon was so extremely close to cumming as well, and seeing your face and body contort underneath him sent his cock twitching and unloading his cum inside of you, painting your walls white. “F-fuck...fuck!” He moaned out, pulling his cock out of you and watching globs of cum fall from your pussy. He smiled and let two of his digits scoop up the cum and press it back into your folds, a defeated whine leaving your lips as you shook from oversensitivity.

“No more, please ‘Sol...” you rasped out, feeling as if you were on another planet from how lightheaded your orgasm had made you feel. He chuckled and pulled his fingers out of you, loving how your body shook in response to his actions. “You did so well...so well my baby,” he spoke softly, wiping his fingers on a nearby pillow. His clean hand came up to caress your face, gently brushing some stray hairs out of your eyes and leaning in to kiss you softly.

The kiss was so soft and warm and made butterflies erupt in your stomach, and you couldn’t help but wrap your arms around him and hold him as close as you could. He finally pulled away from you with a wide grin on his face, before he got up and began to dress himself again and make himself look presentable. 

He turned to you and helped you to dress carefully, kissing over each and every mark he left on your body, as well as whispering apologies into your skin and making you giggle at his adorableness. “Do you feel better now that you’ve gotten some of your stress out ‘Sol?” You asked, smoothing out your hair so it didn’t look as messed up as it had moments before.

He turned to face you and nodded with a huge grin on his face, pulling you in to a hug and swaying with you slightly, humming an unfamiliar tune that nonetheless made you smile and relax into his body. Just as you were about to ask him what he was humming, the door to the studio opened and a few faces popped in, worry on their features.

“It’s okay to come in, we’re all done in here,” Vernon commented, your face burning red with his outright comment. The boys slowly trickled back into the room and made themselves comfortable once more, falling into small talk with each other and you before you decided to make your exit.

“Oh, by the way,” Jeonghan started, a shit eating grin plastered on his face, and you knew that whatever he was about to say to you, would probably embarrass you until the ends of time. You made eye contact with Vernon, who looked just as nervous as you felt.

“Some of these walls aren't soundproof, for future reference.”

[jaskierswolf]

What I'm afraid to say

Part 5/6 - AO3

part one | previous | Next

Geraskier - T

Summary: Five times Geralt tries to tell Jaskier he loves him, and one time he succeeds.

______

Geralt follows Jaskier along the path, they don’t have any destination in mind and Geralt is happy to follow his bard as he struts and dances and twirls along the dusty road. Everyone always says that it’s Jaskier that follows the White Wolf, but Geralt knows differently. From the first day back in Posada it had been Geralt that spurred on Roach to trot after the bard as he strummed on his lute. Geralt has been following Jaskier ever since, taking contracts in the towns they visit, stopping along the path to forage for ingredients, and finding the best places to camp.

Geralt smiles, knowing his face is hidden from the bard as he chatters on ahead of Roach. Jaskier is beautiful like this. He may be a man used to the finer things in life, but travelling suits him. It invigorates him as he flits from town to town, like leaves on a breeze.

Jaskier talks about everything and nothing, weaving stories and ballads out of thin air about every little thing they encounter. Poetry falls from his lips as easily as a priestess’s prayer to the gods. Geralt had known only silence before Jaskier, but now that void would stifle him. Nothing is as peaceful as the constant tenor floating through the air, wrapping Geralt in its warmth, a reminder that Jaskier is alive. The bard may be born to travel, but travelling with Geralt puts him in danger. Geralt would do anything to keep him safe, anything, but it isn’t always enough. He cannot cage the bird that wishes to fly free.

Because Jaskier is free, almost like a force of nature that cannot be contained, and that thought makes Geralt chuckle. It seems only right that the bard named himself after a flower, and not for the reason many people would think. He isn’t delicate, and whilst he dresses as brightly as wildflowers, there is a nasty streak in the bard. He can be bitter, jealous, and condescending. He is not just a sweet little buttercup.

He is so much more.

He is the water that flows in a river, a breath of life and unforgiving all the same. He is the light of the sun, warm and yet blinding. He is the spirit of the forests, so alive and yet dangerous if you never learn how to respect it.

And Geralt loves him.

He loves him so desperately that the words are stuck in his throat. His tongue cannot seem to work anytime he thinks of how he might tell Jaskier the truth. So he finds other ways, and hopes, prays, that one day Jaskier will hear the full extent of his feelings.

His smile fades as he remembers the jagged scars on Jaskier’s skin, marks from the cockatrice that tried to take the bard from him. He would love to wrap Jaskier up in his arms and never let the bard leave an inn or tavern again, he knows it wouldn’t work. Jaskier chose his life with Geralt for the adventure, for the hunts that threaten him every time he ignores Geralt’s pleas for him to stay behind.

The Cockatrice hunt was the start of it, a catalyst that caused his feelings to spiral out of control. Now he’s barely able to hold on. Every day he feels like he’s falling over the edge of a waterfall but he never hits the bottom.

Fuck, he just hopes that Jaskier will be there to catch him when he does.

“Geralt!” Jaskier cries, spinning round with his lute in his hands and a dazzling smile on his lips. “Can you hear that?” the bard asks, tilting his head.

Geralt frowns, looking around for any danger but even when focusing his senses he can’t hear anything, just the trill of the birds from a nearby tree and…

Oh.

Of course, Jaskier listens for the beauty in the world when Geralt only sees the evil.

“Hmm,” he replies, too ashamed to admit that he hadn’t even considered the birds until after he’d checked for bandits or monsters.

“I wonder,” Jaskier hums, deep in thought as his tongue flicks out and swipes along his bottom lip. “Do you think I could write a song based on the bird songs?”

Geralt doesn’t reply. He thinks that Jaskier’s songs are more exquisite than any bird song, but he doesn’t say that. He never says it. He wants to, gods he so desperately wants to. He wants to love his bard the way he deserves to be loved, but he is a witcher. He could never love Jaskier in the same carefree way that his bard loves everything and everyone.

Luckily, Jaskier doesn’t need any encouragement from Geralt, he never does. He just laughs, more musical than any other bard that Geralt has ever met, and spins back around. Disjointed notes fill the air as Jaskier tries to figure out the pitch and rhythm of the bird’s calls. He grumbles and swears under his breath until he gets it right. Geralt is no bard, but he knows as soon as Jaskier has cracked it, a sweet scent wafts through the air and Jaskier cheers, dancing forward with a spring in his step.

The rest of the day is filled with Jaskier’s attempts to find the right lyrics and rhymes for his latest song, an ode to nature, he calls it. Geralt is almost disappointed that Jaskier seems to have found a new muse. His heart aches in his chest as he considers that Jaskier may not need him anymore, that he’ll move on and leave Geralt in the dust.

Geralt isn’t sure what he’ll do when that happens.

Even the long winters at Kaer Morhen now seem empty without the bard to light up his life.

They set up camp quickly, falling into a well worn routine, moving around each other as they each complete their tasks, like nobles dancing at a banquet, completely in sync but never clashing. Soon enough they are sitting on logs opposite the fire, Geralt sharpening his swords in a steady rhythm as Jaskier plucks aimlessly at his lute. The bard stares up at the sky watching the stars that twinkle in the otherwise black sky. There is no moon tonight and the only other light comes from the fire, the orange glow casting eerie shadows around the camp. The soft light makes Jaskier look impossibly even more beautiful. There is a light stubble on his cheeks and Geralt tries to memorise the line of his jaw, his nose, his cheekbones.

“You know…” Jaskier breathes barely above a whisper, “we’re all rather insignificant when you think about it.”

Geralt wants to disagree. Jaskier is anything but insignificant, in the time Geralt has known him, the bard has become the single most important part of his life. Jaskier is the light in the dark, his guiding star on the path, the reason he fights so hard to survive in every hunt.

Geralt stays silent.

“The stars, burning bright and lighting up the heavens, each of them far larger than any of us. Even a witcher or a sorceress is nothing in the life of a star,” Jaskier murmurs, never looking away from the sky.

“It’s not about how long we live,” Geralt mumbles, his heart racing in his chest, almost as fast as a human’s. He feels the blush on his cheeks and his tongue feels heavy in his mouth. This is the moment he will say it. I love you.

“Hmm?” Jaskier asks, finally looking at Geralt from across the fire.

“It’s about how bright you burn,” Geralt explains, and Jaskier burns so brightly, brighter than any star or moon or sun.

Jaskier’s smile widens as his expression softens, wrinkles appearing at the corner of his eyes and he bites his lip, a sign that he’s deep in thought. He hums and plucks a few notes from his lute that sound suspiciously like ‘Toss a Coin’. “I suppose you’re right. We’ll make a poet of you yet, darling.”

Geralt’s heart clenches at the pet name, but he knows it means nothing. Jaskier loves freely and Geralt is no exception, but it would never be in the way that Geralt longs for, he’s too damaged, too scarred.

And yet, Jaskier is also scarred now.

“Can I see?” he asks, knowing the bard will understand him. It’s the same question he’s been asking every night since the hunt. The scar has faded now, still visible but less red and jarring against Jaskier’s pale skin.

Jaskier rolls his eyes, a fond smile dancing on his lips. “And they say witchers don’t feel.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt growls, only calming once the bard shrugs out of his doublet and pulls up his chemise. Geralt breathes a sigh, a weight lifted from his chest. The scar is exactly how he remembers it, fading and perfectly healed, and yet every night he worries, a nightmare plaguing him relentlessly that it has reopened and is bleeding beneath Jaskier’s colourful doublets.

“See, all fine, stop your nonsense,” Jaskier chides and pokes him on the nose. Geralt’s nose wrinkles and he sits back from the bard, causing Jaskier to let out a peal of laughter. “Oh dearest Melitele, how I love you,” Jaskier says between giggles, the words falling off its lips like the sweetest honey.

Geralt stammers wordlessly.

I love you too.

He opens his mouth, gaping, his cheeks burning hotter than the fire. Jaskier just laces their fingers together, as if it means nothing at all, and kisses Geralt on the cheek. “I know, dear heart, I know.”

A warmth pools in Geralt’s chest at Jaskier’s words, letting the bard’s voice soothe him. Those three damn words are still stuck, but he has time. Jaskier knows now, he’ll wait for Geralt.

He hopes.

[scarletnerd05]

For @the--sad--hatter  Weird and wonderful writing challenge. Hope you enjoy it *hides face behind hands and peeks through fingers*

Prompt No.7:   "I’m just like any modern woman trying to have it all. Loving husband, a family. It’s just, I wish I had more time to seek out the dark forces and join their hellish crusade.”

You sit and watch as the bard travels between tables and people alike, in a graceful dance he seems to have done a thousand times. The song he performs today tells of epic battles between the Witcher and whatever monster of the week he had taken down this time. 

While his reputation has vastly improved since before the Witcher, it seems not everyone appreciates his lyrical genius, as even now, people boo and throw food, which, well the bard doesn’t seem to be bothered as he gathers fallen rolls and returns to the table in which the man of the hour sits. After cursing at the ungrateful patrons of course.

You have been following them for a while now,  never close enough to gain notice, but just enough so you could observe safely and wait for the opportune moment to approach. A choice that seems to have been taken out of your hands now as you see the bard - Jaskier gets up once more and heads towards your table in the back.

“so , it seems while everyone else had no problem sharing their meals, and opinions, showing their frankly lacking taste in music during my performance, you were strangely silent. So come on. Share what you think” he states by way of introduction with a determined air that you know means he will not leave without getting what he came for. Only adding his name as an afterthought. 

“I think” you say, watching as Jaskier leans forward in your brief pause “that your stories are inspiring. But something seems to be missing” 

“And what's that” Jaskiers pleased expression at your compliment transforming into a pout.

“Maybe a daring female heroine to accompany the white wolf, and dashing bard” you add for his benefit.

“You wish to accompany us?” Now Jaskier seems to be withholding a smile.

“What can i say?” you spread your arms as if sharing in the helplessness of your situation with Jaskier. "I’m just like any modern woman trying to have it all. Loving husband, a family. It’s just, I wish I had more time to seek out the dark forces and join their hellish crusade. ” 

“And well”  You continue when Jaskier lets out an amused snort . “I don't have a husband, and the dark doesn't seem to pay what it used to, so thought maybe i would try join your band of merry men instead”

Jaskier is silent for a moment. You’re not sure if he is taking you seriously but you hope he can see the truth in your eyes. While you may joke, this is something you desperately want.

It seems Jaskier does see something in you as he softens before saying “I’ll go consult Geralt, it would be his choice ultimately”.

You let gratitude shine through your eyes as you watch  him walk away back to the Witcher, who you notice is watching you.

The longer you sit however, the more you lose hope in ever being granted a chance, as neither men move to join your table or beckon you to theirs for the rest of the night.

Eventually you give up. Clearly you would not be given even a chance to prove yourself. 

You leave the tavern, hoping to find a safe place to camp for the night soon, as you did not have the coin for a room. Gathering your horse, you begin trailing down the road for a while before you feel a prickling on the back of your neck. Someone is following you. 

You continue to walk as if you noticed nothing, slowly reaching across your body to grip your sword handle. You whip around suddenly, blade out, only for another to catch it before it hits its mark. You don’t have time to realise what is happening, suddenly you are fighting. Swords clashing through the closing night, only flashes of white hair and glowing eyes clue you into your attacker. The Witcher. 

You feel despair because you know, as hard as you trained, however desperately you fight, you are no match for him. And moments later your thoughts are proven true as your blade is wrenched from your hand, the Witchers blade at your throat and you at his mercy.

You stand, your eyes burning into his as you refuse to show fear in your last moments. You had stood against the Witcher for as long as you could and all you can do is be proud of that, as you wait for the Witcher to strike the final blow. 

You are shocked into motionless then, when instead, the blade at your throat is removed and the Witcher only lets out a distinct and rough “Hmm”

Taking a moment to catch your breath, heart still pounding, you finally take notice of your surroundings, of Jaskier in the background seemingly bouncing on his toes, and of Geralt retrieving his horse and giving you an appraising look.

It dawns on you then. That was a test. An opportunity to show if you could indeed keep up with Geralt or if your wanting to join them was just a silly maids dream. You can only hope you had done enough to convince him.

“You said you didn't have a husband” Geralt growls out in what you could assume was his default tone, not even a bit breathless from the fight. “A family?”

You’re not sure if Jaskier had repeated your words at the tavern to Geralt, or if he had simply overheard them personally with his supernatural hearing, if the rumours were to be believed, but you answer just the same with a halfhearted gesture behind you, arms still feeling like rubber from the unexpected assault they had just undergone.

“Only my horse” you say somewhat self consciously stepping aside to reveal the very creature, who had stood by your side through many trials, carrying you faithfully and safely wherever you lead, but had apparently seemed happy to stand aside while you were set upon by the Witcher, and instead chews on some straw which you have no idea as to where it came from.

Geralt only lets out one more “Hmm” before walking past you, leading into the surrounding forest you had initially been heading in to make camp, his horse at his side. You’re not sure if you were imagining it, seeing as his expression was near stone like, but you can almost have sworn that you saw understanding in his eyes when you said your horse was your family. 

You stand still, only stirring when Jaskier makes to pass you, gently bumping your shoulder with his as he does, offering you an enthusiastic thumbs up and smile. A smile quickly mirrored on your face as you follow. With one last thought, you head into the canopy of trees.

You had found your own hellish crusade to go on and you would fight with everything in you. Maybe one day, there would be songs sung about you. 

And just maybe, one day, you will find the monster responsible for setting you on this path in the first place.

[queenpersephonesgarden]

from my song to yours

Wangxian Week Day 2: Music

“Perhaps we should save the rest of our speculations for the morning.”

Lan Wangji blinked gritty eyes and looked up from where he’d once again been studying the malevolent disembodied arm currently floating just above the qiankun bag it was normally kept in, meeting Wei Ying’s eyes across the table.

“Already?” he asked, mildly surprised; more than one memory of cheerful laughter and quicksilver smiles shining in the light of the moon served to remind him just how late into the night Wei Ying preferred to work and play in equal measure, and one quick glance out the window confirmed the moon hadn’t even fully risen into the sky yet. “You’re tired?”

Wei Ying snorted a laugh, a lovely, light-hearted sound that seemed appropriate coming from a face as young as the one he now wore.

“No, no, I’ll be fine for another four hours at least.”

A finger rose to point accusingly right at Lan Wangji’s face, who blinked placidly.

“The investigation can wait for tomorrow because of you! I know all about you Lans and your ridiculous nine o’clock sleeping schedule!”

Can also be read on AO3

He was worried… about the Lan sleep schedule?

Lan Wangji raised a placating hand. “I am fine.”

“Are you?” the rising of Wei Ying’s right eyebrow was entirely skeptical.

Confusion made Lan Wangji’s own eyebrows furrow the slightest bit. “Night hunts often run far past midnight on serious cases-”

“But this isn’t a serious case,” Wei Ying interrupted, then quickly amended “Well, it is serious, but it’s not the kind of case we can solve in a single night of staring intensely at the problem, so instead of doing that, we should focus more on things we can achieve in a single night. Like sleep!”

Without waiting for Lan Wangji to attempt a response Wei Ying swept the resentful arm back into its pouch, tying the bag firmly shut before setting it back down on the table where they could easily keep an eye on it.

When Wei Ying stood, Lan Wangji haltingly tried to slow him down from heading back to sleep in his own room next door. “We. Don’t have to-”

“Hanguang-jun.” One eyebrow rose imperiously as Wei Ying scrutinized him with too-dark gray eyes. “If we go any longer, you’ll sleep in past noon and bring some calamitous dishonor upon your ancestors. How would the Cloud Recesses ever recover?”

Such a bizarre statement said with such gravity almost made Lan Wangji reach across and press fingers to Wei Ying’s forehead, thinking perhaps he had somehow contracted an unnoticed fever, before the slightest shine of amusement in Wei Ying’s eyes gave it away.

Ah.

Still playing the madman he’d been reincarnated into.

While he wished fiercely Wei Ying didn’t feel the need to keep up the act around him, Lan Wangji couldn’t deny that it was… nice, to be the focus of this strange farce, because as elaborate as it is it still feels intensely familiar.

It was such a nonsensical, roundabout way of showing concern.

It was unnecessary.

It was bizarre.

It was- it was exactly the kind of ridiculous game he would have tried to play in their youth, reaching across a sun-dappled table in the Library Pavilion to tug at Lan Wangji’s sleeve, crying dramatically, “But who in their right mind is ever tired at nine o’clock, hah?”

The tidal wave of nostalgia makes it hard to keep steady when he stands from the table.

Wei Ying, eyes sharp as ever even in a new body, caught the infinitesimal slip in posture and grinned triumphantly. “See? I was right all along!”

“Of course.”

Two slim hands laced their fingers together and rose up above Wei Ying’s head in a languid stretch. “Well, I suppose I better leave you to sleep,” he sighed contentedly.

Stay.

The thought comes unbidden, but not unexpected; letting Wei Ying leave his sight for any length of time since his return has been difficult.

The reluctance in his silence must be truly palpable, because Wei Ying pauses and looks back at Lan Wangji despite not allowing even a single muscle in his face to so much as twitch in protest.

Dark gray eyes light up with some unspeakable mischief. Lan Wangji does not glare as he once would have as a teenager, another stark difference from his memories.

“Aiya,” Wei Ying bat his eyelashes in an outrageously flirtatious manner. “Would the great and noble Hanguang-jun like this one to sing him to sleep?”

Despite the sour pang in the pit of his stomach at the tease, the clash of foreign-familiarity of the new face and old mannerisms had Lan Wangji responding without thinking especially hard about it. “Mn. If you wish.”

Wei Ying stared, frozen in an exaggerated coquettish pout.

Lan Wangji stared back, resolutely keeping his expression as blank as ever even as his ears grew hot. He refused to regret the slip.

“….. huh.” Wei Ying said intelligently, looking genuinely poleaxed, and if Lan Wangji were a pettier person he might have felt the slightest bit smug for their positions during many an afternoon in their youth to be reversed. But he didn’t, of course, because the Second Jade of Lan was not petty.

“Haha, um, I don’t know very many songs suited for a lullaby.” Desperate verbal backtracking was something Lan Wangji had never expected to see the most shameless person he’d ever known do, but there it was.

Lan Wangji turned and padded over to the bed, fingers trailing up to pull the pins that held his hair in place out with a confidence he didn’t really feel. “You are clever. I am sure you can think of something appropriate.”

A strangled sound came from behind him, and for the first time in a very long time, Lan Wangji resisted the urge to smile the slightest bit.

Yes, being the one to initiate the teasing was far more enjoyable than getting teased himself, he decided.

For a moment he balked the slightest bit at the thought of slipping into bed with Wei Ying still in the room, the far more recent memory of his warm weight laying across him making his breath catch, but Lan Wangji could admit to himself that he was always stubborn to a fault; if either of them was going to back out of this, it wouldn’t be him.

So, he slipped into bed, and did a rather remarkable job of keeping an expectant look off his face when he glanced over at where Wei Ying was still standing rather awkwardly next to the table with the qiankun pouch.

Wei Ying stared back, still clearly flummoxed, but rallying to the challenge.

A softer grin painted his new face in a different way under the moonlight, and Lan Wangji felt his heart stutter.

“Oh, don’t worry, er-gege~,” Wei Ying said cheerfully in that way that always made an aborted shiver run down Lan Wangji’s spine. “I think I know just the right song for someone as lovely as you to drift off to!”

And because time was cruel and heartbreak was his oldest friend, he began to hum the song Lan Wangji had written himself in the throes of frustrated, sun-drenched love as a teenager, and his blood froze solid.

This was-

This was a mistake.

This was a mistake, and Lan Wangji was a fool, but if he asked Wei Ying to stop, to sing something else, he would ask why, and Lan Wangji-

He couldn’t.

His eyes fell shut, but only because looking at Wei Ying as he was now, happy and lovely in the muted candlelight and singing the song Lan Wangji wrote for him, felt too raw.

The only solace, Wei Ying knew the melody, but that was it. He’d never heard the lyrics before, the words Lan Wangji had slowly dared to thread through the harmony during thirteen years of waiting. Thirteen years of yearning. Thirteen years of missing Wei Ying with every breath of air in his lungs.

But that was alright, because those painful words were still locked behind Lan Wangji’s heart, and the melody was still all that was needed for an impromptu lullaby.

It seemed a much kinder reversal of the first time Lan Wangji had sang it to Wei Ying, trapped deep within a cave with no guaranteed escape, the both of them injured and wracked with fever for days on end.

Yet it was also strangely crueler, because despite the gentler setting they were still so very far apart. In the cave, at least Lan Wangji had been able to touch Wei Ying, to try and soothe him between intermittent bouts of shivering on the cold stone floor.

Here, now, Wei Ying hummed the song that had taken root in Lan Wangji’s heart on the night they had first met, and Lan Wangji desperately tried not to drown.

Do you know?

Do you know what that song means to me?

Did it ever mean the same to you?

In the wide empty space of the bed, fingers clench almost painfully hard around a handful of fabric.

Did it ever mean anything to you?

Only decades of discipline kept his face as smooth as unfeeling jade when the song tapered off slowly, Wei Ying’s voice – so different from before, slightly higher in a not unpleasant contrast to Lan Wangji’s even tones – growing quieter and quieter with each repetition until he ended it with a deep, quiet sigh that tugged incessantly at Lan Wangji’s heart; the voice was different, but the cadence was exactly the same.

I know you, some wild thing shrieked in Lan Wangji’s head. I know you, how could I not? How could you ever think I would forget how you are when you’re happy?

A rustle of fabric, a squeak of a floorboard as Wei Ying stepped away with a small sound of satisfaction, a soft breath of air as the candle was blown out.

“Good night Lan Zhan.”

He must have turned away, must be focusing on something else, because if he were still looking at the bed there is no way he could have possibly missed the way Lan Wangji’s hands spasmed reflexively at the sound of his name.

For several heartbeats it’s all he can do just to keep breathing through it, the terrible heaviness clamped hard around his chest in an agonizingly familiar way.

He breathes in deeply, twice, three times, long years of meditation serving him well in getting his breathing back under control.

Once he is certain his voice will remain steady, his heart will not shake apart under another onslaught of emotion, he forces his eyes open to try to say- something, no matter how breathlessly quiet his voice is-

“Wei Ying-!”

But the door has already shut softly behind the man, leaving the room aching and cavernous in the silence.

--

A/N:  Yeah you know how there's a scene in the audio drama where Wei Wuxian just absent-minded started humming Wangxian.mp3 while he was cutting out a paperman?? Yeah my heart may never recover. ~Persephone

[jmeddows2]

Purple Thunder (Roger Taylor Series) Part 5

(present/old) Roger Taylor x  Reader Notes:

as promised, I still made it on time, well kind of.. as this relationships develops I’d be happy to hear some of the concepts you guys have/ would love Reader and Rog do/experience etc. :) I’d be really grateful and excited to hear some of that..

other wise, same old jazz: sorry for grammar/ mistakes, English is not my first language but anyways, I gave it a go. Enjoy and feel free to submit requests, feedback etc. :)

If you haven’t already, please check this out: Introducing: Purple Thunder :)

Warnings: a bit of cursing, cheating, we’ll get to more in time, don’t worry ;)

Words: 2.5k

„How was that?“ your drummer Sid gave you a questioned and expecting look through the glass wall from the recording booth, as he fiddled around with the drum sticks, twirling one in his right hand. Roger was already in the black leather chair next to you, willing to produce the whole new album and of course, he didn’t give you a chance to deny it, or to put it better, he insisted on taking over the job as producer. 

“It was good, really good…. but I don’t know.. I feel like we’re repeating ourselves over and over again” your eyes darted from the sound board to your band member. “It’s good, but it all sounds the same. Don’t you think?” You put your elbow to rest your chin in your hand in a thoughtful gesture looking to Roger beside you. His air was a bit messy, but still looked flawless. He put so much work and detail into each song, trying to make little masterpieces out of them, but as much as you appreciated his work, something was wrong. 

“I’ll try a new pattern then? To match the tempo you had in mind?” Sid made you beam back him again, already finding a new beat as he was waiting for your answer. 

“Have you tried drumming machines?” Roger firstly looked at you, then Sid, then back at you.

“It’s not exactly the real thing but it’ll give you something to experiment with” Roger suggested, lightly scratching his beard. 

“Your call, boss” Sid smiled at you , he was indeed excited about Roger’s ‘new role’ in your band, considering that he had been a life - long fan of his, picking up drumming because of Roger in the first place. It should also be mentioned that his parents met at Live Aid back in 1985 when they were just 15 years old, both stood in front row cheering on their favourite band: Queen. Sid especially recalled seeing pictures of Roger in magazines his parents owned, showing a younger Roger wearing some nice suits, having a glass of wine in his hand and always a beautiful young thing by his side. A major part in his decision making on wanting to become THE next Roger Taylor. And he did.. Well sort of.. Sid was someone who enjoyed life… and especially the ladies… He enjoyed it so much that he lost count of the hearts he had loved and left haunted. 

“Ok, let’s try it, you guys mind if I go out for a smoke?” you asked as Sid jumped excitedly into the seat next to Roger. 

“It’s alright love.” Roger gave you a smile and turned to Sid “Now, we’ll start with the basics, you can imitate any percussion on this, if you just…” Roger’s voice drowned out as you made your way out of the sectioned area you had rented, up the stairs to the roof terrace. After 10 minutes of smoking and collecting your thoughts you made your way back onto the ground floor, passing the counter in the foyer where Laura, a good friend of yours had been working. Dan had declined all calls since his outburst in the studio the other, which didn’t make the situation any easier. Arriving back in the booth the drum backing track had surprisingly fast, already been laid down.

Time went by flying as Roger showed Sid some tricks of his own on the drums, which left him amazed. 

“Today’s been great, you’re heading into a kind of different direction in terms of music, I mean your last two albums were excellent, but I think this is going to be even better” Roger smiled adding finishing touches to the mastering of yet another song. Sid had left you two to it again, heading off to meet his parents. Probably also to tell them that he is currently working with rock royalty, but we’ll leave that aside. 

“You listened to those? I’m sorry, I’m just.. I never thought someone like you would listen to my kind of stuff” you chuckled. 

“Someone like?” he laughed. “Why do you always think so bad of yourself? Those two records were really good! Of course I listened to them, got to know what’s hot in the moment… Y’know.. what the teenagers fancy… or whom. I read all the music magazines.”

“You’re probably the only person who still reads those” you laughed giving him a light pat on the shoulder. 

“Hey” he frowned a bit, but a smile appeared on his lips, signalling he wasn’t taking it too seriously. 

“You’re growing with your music, it’s a good thing. Without any of the growing and changing part, Queen would have probably never made it. Gotta think outside the box y’know, do what your heart tells you to do.” He touched your shoulder in a loving gesture. 

“And if it tells me to quit?” you whispered but it was still audible for him. 

“I don’t know if I want to keep doing it. I’m not feeling it anymore, the excitement, the relief, the love…” 

“Are you sure you’re still talking about music here?” Roger looked at you softly, trying to test the waters. 

“I don’t know... Music’s always been there for me when friends or family were turning their backs on me, or when I was too afraid to ask for help, I’d just put some record on and everything was fine. It helped me cope with so much, you helped me cope with so much.” looking into his eyes. 

“Listening to your music was almost like a healing process, I know it sounds weird but it was and still is. I’m just… confused right now. Do I want to continue? Make an album, tour and then end up in the same dark place I had been in two years ago, because absolutely nothing feels right about it? Do I attempt to make my fans happy, but end up disappointing them because nothing feels right?  There’s always so much pressure, I don’t even know who we’re doing this for anymore” by now there were a few hot tears escaping your face. You felt pathetic. Pathetic for always crying and being miserable when Roger was around. He must think you’re a fool by now, someone that’s not capable of the spotlight anyway. Someone weak and undeserving. 

On the other hand….. 

Roger knew what it meant to make sacrifices, also for the sake of his other three band members back in the day. When you’re up against 3 equals, you’re not always able to convince them with your ability or choice. Whether it depends on the melody and musical part of each song or the lyrical choices. Roger often recalls having a song idea, which then ended up being taken apart by his band mates, trying to change every little thing possible. 

This happens, especially when each individual has their own favourite type of musical style. The journey of a musician in expanding their horizon ends, with not feeling it inside their heart anymore. Or the feeling being lost, hurt and especially left out. No matter how many people they’re surrounded with.

You two were sitting with him on the black leather couch, one leg on the couch, one on the ground, while he was listening to you ramble on as if was the most interesting thing ever. Comforting you, giving advice, but most importantly not trying to lead you into any direction, which many people have tried before. He was there. He cared. Lost in comfort you pulled up your feet to place them in his lap.  “I was too stubborn when I was younger, but I know now! Don’t do what might sound like the best idea. It usually ends up going into the opposite direction. If following your heart means breaking free from everything that’s holding you back now, then you could do that” Roger gave you a sympathetic smile, softly rubbing your ankles.  “If it means taking a break from all of this” he made a circling gesture “then you could do that! Don’t feel like letting anyone down, they’ll understand. We used to release an album every year for quite some time, but the fans still continued supporting us, it’s not going to be any different here.” You brought your legs from his lap to the ground scooting closer to him. A failed attempt.  “Do you know how to play?” he picked up the drum sticks that had been lying on the little table beside him and you shook your head in response. He got up and walked over to the drum kit with you following closely.  “Be ready to learn from the best then” he sat down on the little stool behind the kit, making enough room for you between his legs, patting for you to sit down. You did. You held the drum sticks in both of your hands when he brought his around you, to teach you a simple pattern.   “So try hitting the high hat eight times in beat of one measure. Snare comes in at 2nd and 4th hit.” You followed his instructions perfectly earning praise.  “Yeah, just like that, keep the tempo. Now try adding the kick drum on both beginning and end of the 1st and 3rd beat.” You followed his instructions again.  “We have a natural here” Roger laughed reaching forward to brush the hair out of your face that was sticking to your forehead.   “Solo time” it took a few loud clashes on the cymbals to send the sticks flying through the room. “Ooops” you laughed covering your mouth with your hand, your head slightly tilting to one side as Roger laughed into your shoulder.  “A true rockstar” you turned your head to face him.

No phone this time, no text interrupting this moment. There it was. Your all or nothing moment. 

You leaned forward pressing your lips against his. He helped you turn around to sit in his lap without ever breaking the kiss.

“You’re the most impactful, strong and beautiful woman I got to witness in such a long time” he brought his hand up and brushed a few strands of your hair out of your face.  You moved closer to him, pressing your lips against his again and he deepened the kiss.  Your heart was racing when your lips touched his, the feeling of his beard tickling your chin as his mouth started to move along with yours, his lips surprisingly soft. You moved your hand into his messy hair as one of his hands moved to your hip, the other cradling your cheek. Sudden realization hit you and you pulled back. Roger opened his eyes at the sudden loss of contact, when he saw you with your head already in your hands as you were nervously pacing around the room. “I really seem to mess everything up, huh?” you mumbled to yourself, not intended for him to hear. “Hey, it’s alright” calming down was the last thing on your mind now. “You’re alright!”  “No, nothing’s alright, Roger! I’ve been telling myself that for far too long now.. I get it if you don’t want to see or work with me ever again “you were cut off when his lips crushed against your again, he pulled you onto the leather couch with him, back into his lap. A feeling of safety crept into your heart as he pulled you tighter, kissing along your jaw.  Nothing mattered, not the fact that your boyfriend was currently touring the states, avoiding every single temptation on the way, nor Roger’s wife who was patiently waiting for her husband’s phone call from the other side of the world.  Your face was pressed against his chest, the scent on his shirt in your nose and it felt like the safest place in this world. He held you as close as possible. “What are we now” “I don’t know. But I hate the fact you’re everything I was looking for, when I wasn’t looking for it.” Roger replied with a hint of sadness in his voice, caressing your hair.  “Have dinner with me, I know this restaurant, pretty hidden…”  “what if they-“ “Brian’s going to be there. No paparazzi to worry about.” So you agreed. Without having any other conversation your current status, he held your hand. On the way to the cab, in the car itself, earning no suspicious look from the driver who probably didn’t even notice your intertwined fingers. Roger only let go once you entered the restaurant.  Brian was already there, definitely not expecting you on joining them, as he had already taken a seat on a table for two. Roger was right, no paparazzi around.  A young waitress with long brown hair pulled up into a ponytail, which was about 16 years old, was willing to reseat you. She was nervous and almost trembling, so you suspected her to be star struck by the two rock royalties who you shared the table with.. She came back with a tray of drinks, nearly tripping over own feet when she finally reached your table. Brian was just about to ask her if everything was alright, Roger beside you with a smug smile but it wasn’t them she was interested in. “Actually I’m so sorry it’s not really professional, but (Y/N) I’m such a big fan!! Could I please take a picture with you! I’m so sorry to disturb you, I just can’t help myself” the young waitress bounced nervously from one foot to the other. Roger took a quick picture for the girl, who had now basically wrapped her arms around you, still trembling. It was cute, a small reminder of why you’re still doing this. Making people happy… but somehow always leaving yourself out of the frenzy of happiness. She thanked you by giving you another squeeze and you took your seat next to Roger.  “So… how’s the album getting along? Roger told about some complications concerning the guitarist? Did everything turn out alright?” Brian asked, taking a sip from the beer in front of him. You were struggling to answer that question. Your guitarist had basically left, you were far behind in production and material. Yeah everything went great, except for the fact that management was pressuring you, because of the money they were about to lose. Everything was great. Roger noticed the worry in your eyes so he was trying to change the topic.  “Let’s not talk about work now, what are y’all having? Bill’s on me” he placed his hand on your thigh under the table, making sure no one would see and gave you reassuring squeeze. It was all you needed in this moment to calm down.  Brian was quite suspicious. He had known his best friend for over 50 years now. Even considered him a brother. He knew when something was going on with Roger. And that was a lot in this moment. He saw it, right in front of him. Every single look that was exchanged between you and Roger, every single gesture and the exchanging touches. Love.

 Roger payed the bill as promised and wanted to drop you off at your flat. Brian though had other plans, which involved a serious conversation with his best friend. So tricked Roger into the belief that some ‘serious’ problem about the upcoming tour came up. 

“What the actual fuck do you think you’re doing Roger?” taglist: @bellamy1998 @oldfashionedlovergirlsblog

[freshmatchatea]

An Analysis #1: ‘Spring Day’ by 방탄소년단 (BTS)

[megalony]

Just hold me

A flashback to my imagine ‘All me needed’.

@rogertaylorsbitontheside

All he needed  Part 2

Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Reaching into his back pocket Roger fished out a packet of cigarettes that was almost empty, his hand curling around the small dark blue lighter that was also stuffed down in the pocket of his slightly tight navy green trousers that matched the green shirt he was wearing. Stuffing a cigarette into his mouth and setting the end alight in minimal time, begging for this to be a better remedy than those pills the doctor had prescribed that seemed to be doing nothing for his health. The drummer knew that smoking was not going to improve his health in the slightest, it was a bad habit that he had a bad craving for but he wondered if this would work as a calming remedy. To help ease his mind from concentrating on the harsh pulsing of his muscles, or the tightening feeling in his jaw that he could feel starting to arise in his back too. Cigarettes always eased the anxiety he could feel whenever they were getting ready for a concert or a press interview or tour, so maybe they would ease his mind or even release the tension his muscles were harbouring. It was a long shot but it was the only one that Roger had left. His doctor had handed him bottle after bottle containing different pills he was instructed to take. Some pills were only for if the pain was on an unbearable scale, some pills were for every day and some were for whenever he was beginning to feel under strain. Roger had been so confused by the amount he could and ultimately did take that he wondered if he might get addicted from how many he seemed to be taking on a daily basis. But each one he downed with a glass of water (after being told no alcohol whilst taking them) did nothing, or at least seemed to do nothing. The tension in his weakening muscles stayed the same, the pain circulating through different parts of his body didn't leave. Roger had cried so hard in (Y/n)'s arms a few nights ago in hysteria that he could actually feel the muscle in his neck deteriorating right then and there. Having only calmed down when her soothing voice reminded him deterioration was a very long process and though it felt hard now, he could relax at the notion that the aching wasn't him wasting away. It had been three months since that dreaded day at the doctor's office when the doctor had tried to explain everything to the drummer about his new found condition. Roger hadn't listened. As soon as he heard what was wrong with him his mind turned off, he had read about this condition in university when he switched to his biology course instead of his dentistry one. Although Roger hadn't gone into the details of this condition in university he knew that it meant a weakening of the muscles. (Y/n) had been the one to take in all of the information for him, knowing by the look in her husband's eyes that he was in a different world completely. The band had yet to find out about Roger's condition. No matter how many times (Y/n) had tried to tell him that telling his best friends what was wrong with him would help he couldn't. Roger buckled under the knowledge of what would happen when they found out. Them knowing would make his condition real, Roger would have to face the facts that he was not going to get better with time and that he was not going to recover from what was slowly taking more and more parts of him away. He didn't want to see the way they looked at him differently, the way that they would pity him. Roger couldn't stand knowing that once they knew things were going to change. When this became a sure reality the band wouldn't be able to carry on the way they were. Roger wouldn't be able to work through all hours of the day because his muscles were tiring and becoming painful, they would spasm out after long hours and the drummer couldn't do that and pull an all-nighter. He wouldn't be able to do rehearsals all day, perform a concert into the night and then continue that routine the next day and so on and so forth because his body simply wouldn't allow it. Sometimes Roger thought that if he ignored what was happening maybe he could forget about it, just for a few hours. Give himself a sense of relief by imagining that this was his life before his diagnosis, that he was the old Roger who could play the drums all day and night with only one or two cramps in his hand and that be it. Now he couldn't hold his cigarette properly between his fingers from the shaking caused by the tightening of the muscle in his upper arm. They had been in the studio since five in the morning and Roger was becoming restless. His neck was spasming to the point he almost couldn't breathe, his arm was now burnt out and ready to drop from his body and his back wasn't happy at the constant movement he had to do when sitting behind the drum kit to reach every single drum for the songs. (Y/n) had voiced her concerns but Roger couldn't do anything about them unless he told the band his problem. She knew that if something happened to Roger such as a muscle spasming or the pain getting out of control and he didn't have his tablets with him the band wouldn't know how to help him. If anything happened they wouldn't know what to do and the longer Roger kept them in the dark the worse it would be when he had to bring them into the light of his situation. They needed to know so they understood Roger's limits of working so he didn't overdo anything and hurt himself or simply collapse from exhaustion. "Ready?" Brian questioned, looking to Roger who took a last drag of the cigarette pressed tightly between his lips before he nodded. Puffing out the smoke and stubbing the cigarette in the ashtray that rested on the side of the control panel he was sitting behind. The drummer had requested they take a break and listen to how the tape was sounding so far as they were recording a newer version of one of their earlier songs 'Now I'm here'. Roger loved how this song allowed him to express his drumming ability especially since it was around five minutes long in full but now he was regretting the length of the song and the extreme of the drumming in it. His arm was close to falling apart and he wasn't feeling the best version of himself today. He suspected that the acoustics in the recording room was making him feel ill because of the medication coursing through his veins. He felt drowsy yet wide awake and at the same time, an experience he had not had before and one that he didn't like. All the recording meant that they were all recording their parts together as well as separately. Recording them all together meant that there were much more vibrations and acoustics circulating through the room and it was shaking Roger's chest in a way that had never bothered him before but now it was all he could think about. It was beginning to hurt but if they stopped now it would mean having to put back their schedule, pick up where they left off tomorrow and then stay for longer into the night tomorrow to get back on schedule. Roger didn't want to do that, so he was ignoring the feeling and taking a few more of his tablets when he took a break to the bathroom. Leaving his almost empty packet of smokes on the counter along with the lighter Roger got to shaking legs and followed his friend into the recording room. Sighing in relief when he sat down on the stool behind the drums, his head leaning back against the wall for a moment as he picked up his drumsticks. Nodding that he was alright for them to start recording, Roger leaned forward to the point his head was almost resting on his drums, his arms pulled to his chest as he tried to control his breathing. Needing to stay rather motionless so he could preserve his energy ready to suddenly lash out on the drums in a moment for his part of the song. His head nodding to the lyrics and the guitar rhythm being created around him before he sat up straight again, feeling his spine clicking into place causing a twinge to surge through his back. His lips twitched before he forced a calm expression as not to show any pain, reaching out and clashing his sticks into two of the cymbals. Waiting for another beat to then repeat the action. Rubbing his hands together before suddenly letting loose on the drums. Feeling that usual rush of adrenaline coursing through his veins at the way the drums vibrated the sound right back to him and clattered all the way through his body. The music being created all around him in this one room coming back to flood through him like he was the heart of the room giving the music it's needed push to continue. A sudden shuddering feeling rushed through his chest making his body shiver in a horrible way causing his foot to jerk down on the bass drum out of timing. Everyone in the room and recording panel room looking to him asking if everything was alright, gaining a curt nod in response as he recovered his beat and continued to play. His chest heaving a little more than it should for this song making him worry. Roger always controlled his breathing and counted in his head to make the most of the energy he could preserve and create. Running out of breath was the worst thing that could happen for a drummer and he never made that mistake if he controlled his breaths or took them in short quick huffs. Then it happened. The sudden clenching in his chest that sent his body rocking violently onto the drum kit in front of him. His hands losing the drumsticks somewhere at his feet as they fluttered around in a rush to try and grasp his chest, pulling at the flimsy material of his shirt to snap the buttons and allow him to scrape his nails across the flesh of his chest in utter agony. All the noises around him seemed to stop a second before the band came to a sudden halt. Each band member and production crew snapped their attention to the drummer who let out a hurtling scream that vibrated around the room and became caught on the tape that was still rolling although the band had stopped playing. Each dropping their instruments and their headphones to huddle around the drummer who suddenly gasped for air like someone was holding him underwater stopping him from breathing. "Rog what's wrong?!" "What's happening?" Roger couldn't breathe. His chest was shuddering and pulling him inwards like he was a piece of paper being folded into origami. He could feel every beat of his heart as it was being shaken in his ribcage and each pulse that pounded from his heart made him cry. It hurt so much, why was it hurting? "I c-.. c..... heart." The only word they could make out was one that sent ripples of fear through each of them. Since when did Roger have heart problems? He had never said anything about anything being wrong with him and they would have especially remembered him mentioning he had a heart problem or stutter or whatever the hell was wrong with him. His short nails dug into his skin so harshly and quickly that he drew blood, his hands continuously rubbing at his chest as he scratched away as if trying to break through the skin and muscle to reach through his ribs to his heart. His head snapping back when Brian and John reached to gently pull him from the drums, needing to know what was wrong so they could work out the best course of action to take to help him. His eyes shut tightly like blinds being pulled down as another scream rippled through his lips, a gurgling cry following as he wondered if this was it. "Rog, what's wrong with your heart?" "Heart... a-attack." Was the only thing that was playing on Roger's mind. It felt so much like his heart was struggling to push the blood through each chamber. He had done biology in university, he had learnt about heart attacks and just maybe, this was what he was suffering from. Was he going to make it out of this alive? Would he never get to see (Y/n)'s beautiful features again? "I think we need an ambulance!" John shouted, his eyes darting to the glass that separated them from the crew sat in front of the controls with wide eyes. Making sure someone nodded and disappeared to do so before he dared to look back to the drummer who was now taking shallow breaths instead of deep quick ones like before. His eyes widened when they opened and burning into nothing in particular as he started to tremble like someone was shaking the life out of him. Could Roger really be suffering a heart attack right now in front of them all? The drummer's skin was unnaturally pale as the veins around his eyes could be seen pulsing around the whites of his eyes. Brian tapped the side or Roger's face wondering if he was sat in some kind of trance no longer able to hear or understand them. Watching as Freddie held his shoulders and gently squeezed them, trying to get a reaction from the drummer who looked like he had died in that moment. Brian felt a wave of sickness turning his stomach upside down when Roger's shoulders pushed forward, his ribcage moving inwards at the same time as he seemed to choke on air. His eyes rolling back in his head before his shuddering body slammed against the drum kit when both Brian and Freddie pulled back in shock. Screeches and shouts coming from each one of them at the way Roger's head smashed into the snare drum, bouncing off before slamming back down again and resting on the drum that was shaking from the impact. The headphones that were once on Roger's ears now fallen from his head and slipping behind the bass drum in front of him as each member of his band and the crew could have sworn that he had died right then and there. "Where's that fucking ambulance?!"

Roger's drowsy eyes moved up to look at the door when it burst open, a pained look coming onto his face at the way his heart fluttered in his chest when his eyes set on his wife running towards him. No matter how many years he had set his eyes on her and how long they had been together she had the same effect on him as the first day they met. Now Roger was beginning to dislike the way his heart reacted to her. His brain jumping to the conclusion that he was going to suffer another attack if it speeded up by just one beat and how it reacted to her made him want to cry at the feeling. "Fuck, baby what's happened to you?" Her breathless voice sounded so full of adrenaline yet so soft and quiet at the same time as she sat down on the edge of the bed beside him. Unsure whether it was alright to hug him or whether she should simply take his hand in her own instead. She watched as Roger seemed to read her mind, answering her question for her as he opened his arms like a small child and pushed himself into her chest. His arms circling around her middle as his head rested against her chest causing her to feel his tears soaking into her bare skin. Wrapping her arms around him (Y/n) rested a hand to the back of his head, entangling her fingers in his hair, her nails gently scraping his scalp as she kissed the top of his head. "I, I thought..." Roger couldn't tell her what he thought had happened because he feared he would relive the moment again or that she would ridicule him for jumping to the conclusion that he did before he passed out. His mind running wild as his eyes began to close, wondering if that was going to be the last time that his eyes would ever close or be open. Feeling his heart shuddering in his chest and wondering if it was going to slow to a sudden stop. It seemed so stupid to him that he thought he was having a heart attack, that he was going through such a serious condition that was life-threatening when he hadn't. And yet at that moment in time, it was the only explination that Roger could find for the sheer amount of pain that was pulsing through his heart. "I know honey, John called me when you collapsed. Want to tell me what happened?" There was no possible way that (Y/n) could make fun of Roger or put him down for jumping to that conclusion because when John rang her all of the boys had thought the same thing. John had told her how Roger had collapsed with chest pains and in his frantic speech to get her to leave work and meet them at the hospital he said how Roger said something about a heart attack. Commenting how he was deathly pale before he passed out and that even Brian didn't have a clue about the cause of Roger's sudden health scare. "The acoustics, they messed with my heart muscles... I had a heart murmur that scattered my heart rhythm." Roger had come back to consciousness when he arrived at the hospital. Waking up the doctors pestering around him asking about any previous or current condition he had as they hooked him up to machines and IV drips whilst trying to drag an answer from his shocked state. He has an ECG machine set up which he needed to stay on for two days, an IV fluid drip to boost his system and a drip of pain relief medication after having some other medication injected straight into his vein to help settle his heart and his chest pains that started as soon as he woke up. When everything finally began to settle down and Roger felt calmer and unlike he was on the brink of death he managed to force himself to listen to the doctor who informed him the sound waves had messed with his heart. Learning his heart muscles were also affected by his MD and not just his limbs. His heart dropped to his stomach at learning he would have to take yet more medication on a permanent basis to control his heart so he could continue with work, go flying and not have another episode due to turbulence and continue with daily life as normal. "That's just as serious as a heart attack baby, what if this happened somewhere else when you were on your own? Have you told the boys now?" This was exactly the kind of situation that (Y/n) had been worried about when Roger confided that he just couldn't bring himself to talk to the boys. They hadn't known what had happened and they didn't know he was on medication or what to tell the paramedics when they arrived. If Roger had been in the studio on his own this could have ended a lot worse. Roger tried to keep himself snuggled into her chest, his arms tightening around her middle when her arms gently pushed him back. Still holding her drummer but at a distance, so she could see his face which was sodden with tears and pain. "If you don't tell them they'll only treat you like you did have a heart attack, they need to know what's happening Rog." It wouldn't be fair for Roger to simply keep the band in the dark or try to spin some tale about this being some kind of one-off heart murmur he had suffered. He needed to tell that the truth and there was no way around this for Roger. "I'll tell them, just... hold me first." The vulnerable tone to Roger's voice made (Y/n) crumble in an instant. The boys could wait a while to be informed of their drummer's condition and current state because right now Roger needed comfort and reassurance and (Y/n) was going to make sure that he got that. Her lips pressed to his forehead as her thumbs gently brushed away the tears coating his cheeks. His arms winding themselves back around her middle, his head falling lightly rest in the crook of her neck as he inhaled her scent that was intoxicating and so calming to his heart that was now back to a normal pace.

[sharpiefaceontangerine]

Harry Styles’ New Direction (Harry’s 2017 Feature in Rolling Stone)

(because apparently I didn’t have the full text on my tumblr and u can never be too careful)

January 2016. There’s a bench at the top of Primrose Hill, in London, that looks out over the skyline of the city. If you’d passed by it one winter night, you might have seen him sitting there. A lanky guy in a wool hat, overcoat and jogging pants, hands thrust deep into his pockets. Harry Styles had a lot on his mind. He had spent five years as the buoyant fan favorite in One Direction; now, an uncertain future stretched out in front of him. The band had announced an indefinite hiatus. The white noise of adulation was gone, replaced by the hushed sound of the city below.

The fame visited upon Harry Styles in his years with One D was a special kind of mania. With a self-effacing smile, a hint of darkness and the hair invariably described as “tousled,” he became a canvas onto which millions of fans pitched their hopes and dreams. Hell, when he pulled over to the side of the 101 freeway in L.A. and discreetly threw up, the spot became a fan shrine. It’s said the puke was even sold on eBay like pieces of the Berlin Wall. Paul McCartney has interviewed him. Then there was the unauthorized fan-fiction series featuring a punky, sexed-up version of “Harry Styles.” A billion readers followed his virtual exploits. (“Didn’t read it,” comments the nonfiction Styles, “but I hope he gets more than me.”)

But at the height of One D–mania, Styles took a step back. For many, 2016 was a year of lost musical heroes and a toxic new world order. For Styles, it was a search for a new identity that began on that bench overlooking London. What would a solo Harry Styles sound like? A plan came into focus. A song cycle about women and relationships. Ten songs. More of a rock sound. A bold single-color cover to match the working title: Pink. (He quotes the Clash’s Paul Simonon: “Pink is the only true rock & roll colour.”) Many of the details would change over the coming year – including the title, which would end up as Harry Styles – but one word stuck in his head.

“Honest,” he says, a year later, driving through midcity Los Angeles in a dusty black Range Rover. He’s lived here off and on for the past few years, always returning to London. Styles’ car stereo pumps a mix of country and obscure classic rock. “I didn’t want to write ‘stories,’ ” he says. “I wanted to write my stories, things that happened to me. The number-one thing was I wanted to be honest. I hadn’t done that before.” There isn’t a yellow light he doesn’t run as he speaks excitedly about the band he’s put together under the tutelage of producer Jeff Bhasker (The Rolling Stones, Kanye West, “Uptown Funk”). He’s full of stories about the two-month recording session last fall at Geejam, a studio and compound built into a mountainside near Port Antonio, a remote section of Jamaica. Drake and Rihanna have recorded there, and it’s where Styles produced the bulk of his new LP, which is due out May 12th. As we weave through traffic today, the album no one has heard is burning a hole in his iPhone.

We arrive at a crowded diner, and Styles cuts through the room holding a black notebook jammed with papers and artifacts from his album, looking like a college student searching for a quiet place to study. He’s here to do something he hasn’t done much of in his young career: an extended one-on-one interview. Often in the past there was another One D member to vector questions into a charmingly evasive display of band camaraderie. Today, Styles is a game but careful custodian of his words, sometimes silently consulting the tablecloth before answering. But as he recounts the events leading up to his year out of the spotlight, the layers begin to slip away.

It was in a London studio in late 2014 that Styles first brought up the idea of One Directiontaking a break. “I didn’t want to exhaust our fan base,” he explains. “If you’re shortsighted, you can think, ‘Let’s just keep touring,’ but we all thought too much of the group than to let that happen. You realize you’re exhausted and you don’t want to drain people’s belief in you.”

After much discussion, the band mutually agreed to a hiatus, which was announced in August 2015 (Zayn Malik had abruptly left One D several months earlier). Fans were traumatized by the band’s decision, but were let down easy with a series of final bows, including a tour that ran through October. Styles remains a One D advocate: “I love the band, and would never rule out anything in the future. The band changed my life, gave me everything.”

Harry Styles reveals the inspiration behind his new music. Here’s five things we learned about Harry Styles’ new album.

Still, a solo career was calling. “I wanted to step up. There were songs I wanted to write and record, and not just have it be ‘Here’s a demo I wrote.’ Every decision I’ve made since I was 16 was made in a democracy. I felt like it was time to make a decision about the future  …  and maybe I shouldn’t rely on others.”

As one of the most well-known 23-year-olds in the world, Styles himself is still largely unknown. Behind the effervescent stage persona, there is more lore than fact. He likes it that way. “With an artist like Prince,” he says, “all you wanted to do was know more. And that mystery – it’s why those people are so magical! Like, fuck, I don’t know what Prince eats for breakfast. That mystery  …  it’s just what I like.”

Styles pauses, savoring the idea of the unknown. He looks at my digital recorder like a barely invited guest. “More than ‘do you keep a mystery alive?’ – it’s not that. I like to separate my personal life and work. It helps, I think, for me to compartmentalize. It’s not about trying to make my career longer, like I’m trying to be this ‘mysterious character,’ because I’m not. When I go home, I feel like the same person I was at school. You can’t expect to keep that if you show everything. There’s the work and the personal stuff, and going between the two is my favorite shit. It’s amazing to me.”

Soon, we head to the Beachwood Canyon studio of Jeff Bhasker. As we arrive, Styles bounds up the steps to the studio, passing a bored pool cleaner. “How are ya,” he announces, unpacking a seriously cheerful smile. The pool cleaner looks perplexed, not quite sharing Styles’ existential joy.

Inside, the band awaits. Styles opens his notebook and heads for the piano. He wants to finish a song he’d started earlier that day. It’s obvious that the band has a well-worn frat-house dynamic, sort of like the Beatles in Help!, as directed by Judd Apatow. Styles is, to all, “H.” Pomegranate-scented candles flicker around the room. Bhasker enters, with guru-length hair, multicolored shirt, red socks and sandals. He was initially busy raising a new baby with his partner, the singer and songwriter Lykke Li, so he guided Styles to two of his producer-player protégés, Alex Salibian and Tyler Johnson, as well as engineer and bassist Ryan Nasci. The band began to form. The final piece of the puzzle was Mitch Rowland, Styles’ guitarist, who had worked in a pizza joint until two weeks into the sessions. “Being around musicians like this had a big effect on me,” Styles says. “Not being able to pass an instrument without sitting down and playing it?” He shakes his head. It was Styles’ first full immersion into the land of musos, and he clearly can’t get enough.

Styles starts singing some freshly written lyrics. It’s a new song called “I Don’t Want to Be the One You’re Waiting On.” His voice sounds warm, burnished and intimate, not unlike early Rod Stewart. The song is quickly finished, and the band assembles for a playback of the album.

“Mind if I play it loud?” asks Bhasker. It’s a rhetorical question. Nasci cranks “Sign of the Times,” the first single, to a seismic level. The song began as a seven-minute voice note on Styles’ phone, and ended up as a sweeping piano ballad, as well as a kind of call to arms. “Most of the stuff that hurts me about what’s going on at the moment is not politics, it’s fundamentals,” Styles says. “Equal rights. For everyone, all races, sexes, everything. …  ’Sign of the Times’ came from ‘This isn’t the first time we’ve been in a hard time, and it’s not going to be the last time.’ The song is written from a point of view as if a mother was giving birth to a child and there’s a complication. The mother is told, ‘The child is fine, but you’re not going to make it.’ The mother has five minutes to tell the child, ‘Go forth and conquer.'” The track was a breakthrough for both the artist and the band. “Harry really led the charge with that one, and the rest of the album,” says Bhasker.

“I wish the album could be called Sign of the Times,” Styles declares.

“I don’t know,” says Bhasker. “I mean, it has been used.“

They debate for a bit. Nasci plays more tracks. The songs range from full-on rock (“Kiwi”) to intricate psychedelic pop (“Meet Me in the Hallway”) to the outright confessional (“Ever Since New York,” a desperate meditation on loss and longing). The lyrics are full of details and references – secrets whispered between friends, doomed declarations of love, empty swimming pools – sure to set fans scrambling for the facts behind the mystery.

“Of course I’m nervous,” Styles admits, jingling his keys. “I mean, I’ve never done this before. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I’m happy I found this band and these musicians, where you can be vulnerable enough to put yourself out there. I’m still learning …  but it’s my favorite lesson.”

The album is a distinct departure from the dance pop that permeates the airwaves. “A lot of my influences, and the stuff that I love, is older,” he says. “So the thing I didn’t want to do was, I didn’t want to put out my first album and be like, ‘He’s tried to re-create the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, Nineties.’ Loads of amazing music was written then, but I’m not saying I wish I lived back then. I wanted to do something that sounds like me. I just keep pushing forward.”

“It’s different from what you’d expect,” Bhasker says. “It made me realize the Harry [in One D] was kind of the digitized Harry. Almost like a character. I don’t think people know a lot of the sides of him that are on this album. You put it on and people are like, ‘This is Harry Styles?’ ”

Styles is aware that his largest audience so far has been young – often teenage – women. Asked if he spends pressure-filled evenings worried about proving credibility to an older crowd, Styles grows animated. “Who’s to say that young girls who like pop music – short for popular, right? – have worse musical taste than a 30-year-old hipster guy? That’s not up to you to say. Music is something that’s always changing. There’s no goal posts. Young girls like the Beatles. You gonna tell me they’re not serious? How can you say young girls don’t get it? They’re our future. Our future doctors, lawyers, mothers, presidents, they kind of keep the world going. Teenage-girl fans – they don’t lie. If they like you, they’re there. They don’t act ‘too cool.’ They like you, and they tell you. Which is sick.“

Styles drives to a quiet dinner spot in Laurel Canyon, at the foot of Lookout Mountain Avenue, onetime home to many of his Seventies songwriting heroes. He used to have a place around the corner. As the later tours of One Direction grew larger, longer and more frenetic, he offers with irony, “It was very rock & roll.” He’s not a heavy drinker, he says, maybe some tequila on ice or wine with friends after a show, but by the band’s last tour there wasn’t much time even for that. John Lennon once told Rolling Stone that behind the curtain, the Beatles’ tours were like Fellini’s Satyricon. Styles counters that the One D tours were more like “a Wes Anderson movie. Cut. Cut. New location. Quick cut. New location. Cut. Cut. Show. Shower. Hard cut. Sleep.”

Finding a table, Styles leans forward and discusses his social-media presence, or lack thereof. Styles and his phone have a bittersweet, mature relationship – they spend a lot of time apart. He doesn’t Google himself, and checks Twitter infrequently. “I’ll tell you about Twitter,” he continues, discussing the volley of tweets, some good, some cynical, that met his endorsement of the Women’s March on Washington earlier this year. “It’s the most incredible way to communicate closely with people, but not as well as in person.” When the location of his London home was published a few years ago, he was rattled. His friend James Corden offered him a motto coined by British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli: “Never complain, never explain.”

I mention a few of the verbal Molotov cocktails Zayn Malik has tossed at the band in recent interviews. Here’s one: “[One D is] not music that I would listen to. If I was sat at a dinner date with a girl, I would play some cool shit, you know what I mean? I want to make music that I think is cool shit. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.”

Styles adjusts himself in his chair. “I think it’s a shame he felt that way,” he says, threading the needle of diplomacy, “but I never wish anything but luck to anyone doing what they love. If you’re not enjoying something and need to do something else, you absolutely should do that. I’m glad he’s doing what he likes, and good luck to him.”

Perched on his head are the same-style white sunglasses made famous by Kurt Cobain, but the similarities end right there. Styles, born two months before Cobain exited Earth, doesn’t feel tied to any particular genre or era. In the car, he’ll just as easily crank up the country music of Keith Whitley as the esoteric blues-and-soul of Shuggie Otis. He even bought a carrot cake to present to Stevie Nicks at a Fleetwood Mac concert. (“Piped her name onto it. She loved it. Glad she liked carrot cake.”)

This much is clear: The classic role of tortured artist is not one he’ll be playing. “People romanticize places they can’t get to themselves,” he says. “That’s why it’s fascinating when people go dark – when Van Gogh cuts off his ear. You romanticize those people, sometimes out of proportion. It’s the same with music. You want a piece of that darkness, to feel their pain but also to step back into your own [safer] life. I can’t say I had that. I had a really nice upbringing. I feel very lucky. I had a great family and always felt loved. There’s nothing worse than an inauthentic tortured person. ‘They took my allowance away, so I did heroin.’ It’s like – that’s not how it works. I don’t even remember what the question was.”

Styles wanders into the Country Store next door. It’s a store he knows well. Inspecting the shelves, he asks if I’ve had British rice pudding. He finds a can that looks ancient. He collects a roll of Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles (“since 1881”), Lindor Swiss chocolates (“irresistibly smooth”) and a jar of Branston Pickles. “There’s only two shops in L.A. that stock all the British snacks. This area’s kind of potluck,” he says, spreading the collection on the counter.

The clerk rings up the snacks. In the most careful, deferential way, the young worker asks the question. “Would you  … happen to be …  Harry Styles?”

“Yep.”

“Could I get a selfie?” Styles obliges, and leans over the counter. Click. We exit into the Laurel Canyon evening.

“Hey,” shouts a grizzled-looking dude on the bench outside the store. “Do you know who you look like?”

Styles turns, expecting more of the same, but this particular night denizen is on a different track.

“River Phoenix,” the man announces, a little sadly. “You ever heard of him? If he hadn’t have passed, I would have said that was you. Talented guy.”

“Yes, he was,” agrees Styles, who is in many ways the generational opposite of Phoenix. “Yes, he was.”

They share a silent moment, before Styles walks to his car. He hands me the bag filled with English snacks. “This is for you,” he says. “This was my youth …”

Harry Edward Styles was born in Worcestershire, England, in true classic-rock form, on a Tuesday Afternoon. The family moved to Cheshire, a quiet spot in Northern England, when he was a baby. His older sister, Gemma, was the studious one. (“She was always smarter than me, and I was always jealous of that.”)

His father, Desmond, worked in finance. He was a fan of the Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, a lot of Queen, and Pink Floyd. Young Harry toddled around to The Dark Side of the Moon. “I couldn’t really get it,” he says, “but I just remember being like – this is really fucking cool. Then my mom would always have Shania Twain, and Savage Garden, Norah Jones going on. I had a great childhood. I’ll admit it.”

But in fact, all was not perfection, scored to a cool, retro soundtrack. When Harry was seven, his parents explained to him that Des would be moving out. Asked about that moment today, Styles stares straight ahead. “I don’t remember,” he says. “Honestly, when you’re that young, you can kind of block it out. … I can’t say that I remember the exact thing. I didn’t realize that was the case until just now. Yeah, I mean, I was seven. It’s one of those things. Feeling supported and loved by my parents never changed.”

His eyes moisten a little, but unlike the young man who wept over an early bout with Internet criticism, a powerful moment in the early One Direction documentary A Year in the Making,Styles tonight knocks back the sentiment. Styles is still close with his father, and served as best man to his mom when she remarried a few years ago. “Since I’ve been 10,” he reflects, “it’s kind of felt like – protect Mom at all costs. … My mom is very strong. She has the greatest heart. [Her house in Cheshire] is where I want to go when I want to spend some time.”

In his early teens, Styles joined some school friends as the singer in a mostly-covers band, White Eskimo. “We wrote a couple of songs,” he remembers. “One was called ‘Gone in a Week.’ It was about luggage. ‘I’ll be gone in a week or two/Trying to find myself someplace new/I don’t need any jackets or shoes/The only luggage I need is you.'” He laughs. “I was like, ‘Sick.'”

It was his mother who suggested he try out for the U.K. singing competition The X Factor to compete in the solo “Boy” category. Styles sang Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely.” The unforgiving reaction from one of the judges, Louis Walsh, is now infamous. Watching the video today is to watch young Harry’s cheery disposition take a hot bullet.

“In that instant,” he says, “you’re in the whirlwind. You don’t really know what’s happening; you’re just a kid on the show. You don’t even know you’re good at anything. I’d gone because my mum told me I was good from singing in the car …  but your mum tells you things to make you feel good, so you take it with a pinch of salt. I didn’t really know what I was expecting when I went on there.”

Styles didn’t advance in the competition, but Simon Cowell, the show’s creator, sensed a crowd favorite. He put Styles together with four others who’d failed to advance in the same category, and united the members of One D in a musical shotgun marriage. The marriage worked. And worked. And worked.

You wonder how a young musician might find his way here, to these lofty peaks, with his head still attached to his shoulders. No sex tapes, no TMZ meltdowns, no tell-all books written by the rehab nanny? In a world where one messy scandal can get you five seasons of a hit reality show …  how did Harry Styles slip through the juggernaut?

“Family,” answers Ben Winston. “It comes from his mom, Anne. She brought him and his sister up incredibly well. Harry would choose boring over exciting … There is more chance of me going to Mars next week than there is of Harry having some sort of addiction.”

We’re in Television City, Hollywood. Winston, 35, the Emmy-winning executive producer of TheLate Late Show With James Corden, abandons his desk and retreats to a nearby sofa to discuss his good friend. More than a friend, Styles became an unlikely family member – after he became perhaps the world’s most surprising houseguest.

Their friendship was forged in the early stages of One D’s success, when the band debuted on The X Factor. Winston, then a filmmaker and production partner with Corden, asked for a meeting, and instantly hit it off with the group. He became a friendly mentor to Styles, though the friendship was soon tested. Styles had just moved out of his family home in Cheshire, an inconvenient three hours north of London. He found a home he liked near the Winstons in Hampstead Heath. The new house needed two weeks of work. Styles asked if he could briefly move in with Winston and his wife, Meredith. “She agreed,” Winston says, “but only for two weeks.”

Styles parked his mattress in the Winstons’ attic. “Two weeks later and he hadn’t bought his house yet,” continues Winston. “It wasn’t going through. Then he said, ‘I’m going to stay until Christmas, if you don’t mind.’ Then Christmas came, and …”

For the next 20 months, one of the most desired stars on the planet slept on a small mattress in an attic. The only other bit of house-dressing was the acoustic guitar that would rattle into the Winstons’ bedroom. While fans gathered at the empty house where he didn’t live, Styles lived incognito with a couple 12 years his senior. The Winstons’ Orthodox Jewish lifestyle, with a strong family emphasis, helped keep him sane.

“Those 20 months were when they went from being on a reality show, X Factor, to being the biggest-selling artists in the world,” recalls Winston. “That period of time, he was living with us in the most mundane suburban situation. No one ever found out, really. Even when we went out for a meal, it’s such a sweet family neighborhood, no one dreamed it was actually him. But he made our house a home. And when he moved out, we were gutted.”

Styles jauntily appears at the Late Late office. He’s clearly a regular visitor, and he and Winston have a brotherly shorthand.

“Leaving Saturday?” asks Winston.

“Yeah, gotta buy a cactus for my friend’s birthday,” says Styles.

“My dad might be on your flight,” says Winston.

“The 8:50? That’d be sick.”

Winston continues the tales from the attic. “So we had this joke. Meri and I would like to see the girls that you would come back with to the house. That was always what we enjoyed, because we’d be in bed like an old couple. We’d have our spot cream on our faces and we’d be in our pajamas and the door would go off. The stairwell was right outside our door, so we’d wait to see if Harry was coming home alone or with people.”

“I was alone,” notes Styles. “I was scared of Meri.”

“He wasn’t always alone,” corrects Winston, “but it was exciting seeing the array of A-listers that would come up and sleep in the attic. Or he’d come and lounge with us. We’d never discuss business. He would act as if he hadn’t come back from playing to 80,000 people three nights in a row in Rio de Janeiro.”

“Let’s go to the beach,” says Styles, pulling the Range Rover onto a fog-soaked Pacific Coast Highway. Last night was his tequila-fueled birthday party, filled with friends and karaoke and a surprise drop-in from Adele. He’s now officially 23. “And not too hung over,” he notes.

Styles finds a spot at a sushi place up the coast. As he passes through the busy dining room, a businessman turns, recognizing him with a face that says: My kids love this guy! I ask Styles what he hears most from the parents of young fans. “They say, ‘I see your cardboard face every fucking day.’ ” He laughs. “I think they want me to apologize.”

The subject today is relationships. While Styles says he still feels like a newcomer to all that, a handful of love affairs have deeply affected him. The images and stolen moments tumble extravagantly through the new songs: And promises are broken like a stitch is … I got splinters in my knuckles crawling ‘cross the floor/Couldn’t take you home to mother in a skirt that short/But I think that’s what I like about it … I see you gave him my old T-shirt, more of what was once mine … That black notebook, you sense, is filled with this stuff.

“My first proper girlfriend,” he remembers, “used to have one of those laughs. There was also a little bit of mystery with her because she didn’t go to our school. I just worshipped the ground she walked on. And she knew, probably to a fault, a little. That was a tough one. I was 15.

“She used to live an hour and a half away on the train, and I worked in a bakery for three years. I’d finish on Saturdays at 4:30 and it was a 4:42 train, and if I missed it there wasn’t one for another hour or two. So I’d finish and sprint to the train station. Spent 70 percent of my wages on train tickets. Later, I’d remember her perfume. Little things. I smell that perfume all the time. I’ll be in a lift or a reception and say to someone, ‘Alien, right?’ And sometimes they’re impressed and sometimes they’re a little creeped out. ‘Stop smelling me.'”

If Styles hadn’t yet adapted to global social-media attention, he was tested in 2012, when he met Taylor Swift at an awards show. Their second date, a walk in Central Park, was caught by paparazzi. Suddenly the couple were global news. They broke up the next month, reportedly after a rocky Caribbean vacation; the romance was said to have ended with at least one broken heart.

The relationship is a subject he’s famously avoided discussing. “I gotta pee first. This might be a long one,” he says. He rises to head to the bathroom, then adds, “Actually, you can say, ‘He went for a pee and never came back.’ ”

He returns a couple of minutes later. “Thought I’d let you stew for a while,” he says, laughing, then takes a gulp of green juice. He was surprised, he says, when photos from Central Park rocketed around the world. “When I see photos from that day,” he says, “I think: Relationships are hard, at any age. And adding in that you don’t really understand exactly how it works when you’re 18, trying to navigate all that stuff didn’t make it easier. I mean, you’re a little bit awkward to begin with. You’re on a date with someone you really like. It should be that simple, right? It was a learning experience for sure. But at the heart of it – I just wanted it to be a normal date.”

He’s well aware that at least two of Swift’s songs – “Out of the Woods” and “Style” – are considered to be about their romance. (“You’ve got that long hair slicked back, white T-shirt,” she sang in “Style.”) “I mean, I don’t know if they’re about me or not …” he says, attempting gallant discretion, “but the issue is, she’s so good, they’re bloody everywhere.” He smiles. “I write from my experiences; everyone does that. I’m lucky if everything [we went through] helped create those songs. That’s what hits your heart. That’s the stuff that’s hardest to say, and it’s the stuff I talk least about. That’s the part that’s about the two people. I’m never going to tell anybody everything.” (Fans wondered whether “Perfect,” a song Styles co-wrote for One Direction, might have been about Swift: “And if you like cameras flashing every time we go out/And if you’re looking for someone to write your breakup songs about/Baby, I’m perfect.”)

Was he able to tell her that he admired the songs? “Yes and no,” he says after a long pause. “She doesn’t need me to tell her they’re great. They’re great songs … It’s the most amazing unspoken dialogue ever.”

Is there anything he’d want to say to Swift today? “Maybe this is where you write down that I left!” He laughs, and looks off. “I don’t know,” he finally says. “Certain things don’t work out. There’s a lot of things that can be right, and it’s still wrong. In writing songs about stuff like that, I like tipping a hat to the time together. You’re celebrating the fact it was powerful and made you feel something, rather than ‘this didn’t work out, and that’s bad.’ And if you run into that person, maybe it’s awkward, maybe you have to get drunk … but you shared something. Meeting someone new, sharing those experiences, it’s the best shit ever. So thank you.”

He notes a more recent relationship, possibly over now, but significant for the past few years. (Styles has often been spotted with Kendall Jenner, but he won’t confirm that’s who he’s talking about.) “She’s a huge part of the album,” says Styles. “Sometimes you want to tip the hat, and sometimes you just want to give them the whole cap …  and hope they know it’s just for them.”

In late February 2016, Styles landed a plum part in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming World War II epic, Dunkirk. In Nolan, Styles found a director equally interested in mystery. “The movie is so ambitious,” he says. “Some of the stuff they’re doing in this movie is insane. And it was hard, man, physically really tough, but I love acting. I love playing someone else. I’d sleep really well at night, then get up and continue drowning.”

When Styles returned to L.A., an idea landed. The idea was: Get out of Dodge. Styles called his manager, Jeffrey Azoff, and explained he wanted to finish the album outside London or L.A., a place where the band could focus and coalesce. Four days after returning from the movie, they were on their way to Port Antonio on Jamaica’s remote north coast. At Geejam, Styles and his entire band were able to live together, turning the studio compound into something like a Caribbean version of Big Pink. They occupied a two-story villa filled with instruments, hung out at the tree-house-like Bush Bar, and had access to the gorgeous studio on-site. Many mornings began with a swim in the deserted cove just down the hill.

Life in Jamaica was 10 percent beach party and 90 percent musical expedition. It was the perfect rite of passage for a musician looking to explode the past and launch a future. The anxiety of what’s next slipped away. Layers of feeling emerged that had never made it past One Direction’s group songwriting sessions, often with pop craftsmen who polished the songs after Styles had left. He didn’t feel stifled in One D, he says, as much as interrupted. “We were touring all the time,” he recalls. “I wrote more as we went, especially on the last two albums.” There are songs from that period he loves, he says, like “Olivia” and “Stockholm Syndrome,” along with the earlier song “Happily.” “But I think it was tough to really delve in and find out who you are as a writer when you’re just kind of dipping your toe each time. We didn’t get the six months to see what kind of shit you can work with. To have time to live with a song, see what you love as a fan, chip at it, hone it and go for that  … it’s heaven.”

The more vulnerable the song, he learned, the better. “The one subject that hits the hardest is love,” he says, “whether it’s platonic, romantic, loving it, gaining it, losing it  …  it always hits you hardest. I don’t think people want to hear me talk about going to bars, and how great everything is. The champagne popping  …  who wants to hear about it? I don’t want to hear my favorite artists talk about all the amazing shit they get to do. I want to hear, ‘How did you feel when you were alone in that hotel room, because you chose to be alone?'”

To wind down in Jamaica, Styles and Rowland, the guitarist, began a daily Netflix obsession with sugary romantic comedies. Houseworkers would sometimes leave at night and return the next morning to see Styles blearily removing himself from a long string of rom-coms. He declares himself an expert on Nicholas Sparks, whom he now calls “Nicky Spee.” After almost two months, the band left the island with a bounty of songs and stories. Like the time Styles ended up drunk and wet from the ocean, toasting everybody, wearing a dress he’d traded with someone’s girlfriend. “I don’t remember the toast,” he says, “but I remember the feeling.”

Christmas 2016. Harry Styles was parked outside his childhood home, sitting next to his father. They were listening to his album. After lunch at a pub, they had driven down their old street and landed in front of the family home. Staring out at the house where Styles grew up listening to his father’s copy of The Dark Side of the Moon, there was much to consider. It was a long way he’d traveled in those fast few years since “Isn’t She Lovely.” He’d previously played the new album for his mother, on a stool, in the living room, on cheap speakers. She’d cried hearing “Sign of the Times.” Now he sat with his father – who liked the new song “Carolina” best – both having come full circle.

Styles is moved as he describes how he felt. We’re sitting in Corden’s empty office, talking over a few last subjects before he returns to England. “I think, as a parent, especially with the band stuff, it was such a roller coaster,” he says. “I feel like they were always thinking, ‘OK, this ride could stop at any point and we’re going to have to be there when it does.’ There was something about playing the album and how happy I was that told them, ‘If all I get is to make this music, I’m content. If I’m never on that big ride again, I’m happy and proud of it.’

“I always said, at the very beginning, all I wanted was to be the granddad with the best stories …  and the best shelf of artifacts and bits and trinkets.”

Tomorrow night he’ll hop a flight back to England. Rehearsals await. Album-cover choices need to be made. He grabs his black notebook and turns back for a moment before disappearing down the hallway, into the future.

“How am I going to be mysterious,” he asks, only half-joking, “when I’ve been this honest with you?”

[btsanonwriting]

Song inspired scenario - Bruises - Lewis Capaldi

BTS Scenario based on This song give it a listen to if you want but it isn’t required to understand :) Each scenario is based on a lyric. 

Angst I suppose? 

Jin

I’ve been holding onto hope that you’ll come back when you can find some peace.

Months had passed since you and Jin had finally called things quits. It wasn’t an easy decision but it was a choice you both had to make. There was only so many arguments and so many tears you could take. It wasn’t an unhappy relationship completely. You’d think back on all the happy times you had and there was a lot. That is what made the break up so hard. You couldn’t even break up face to face. A facetime call at 4am while Jin was on tour was how you broke up. Both of you in tears trying to cling onto the love that was there. The break-up wasn’t a case of falling out of love or a toxic relationship it was simply the pressure and the time a part had become too much. Your relationship became a thing of the past and you were spending less time together than ever before. Still every time Jin went on stage his eyes would scan the crowd hoping to see your face standing cheering him on again that you often chose to do. Seeing him perform was one of your favourite things. Every performance he’d break his own heart all over again. He’d talk himself into believing that today was the day you’d be there, that you’d go back to him but every night as the music stopped and the cheers turned into silence you weren’t there.

Yoongi

Cause every word that I’ve heard spoken since you left feels like a hollow street 

There was only so many times you can hear “Things will get better.” “It’s time to move on.” “You need to let go.” And Yoongi’s personal favourite “Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.” He was going to go insane if people just didn’t let him breathe. He knew the words were spoken with his best interest at heart but he couldn’t take it anymore. No words were going to make him feel better all he needed was you back in his life. How could he not see it coming? You were calling less, holding his hand less, hugging him looser, turning your head when he kissed you. All the signs were there yet he didn’t see it coming.  He had hidden himself away from the world, locking himself in his studio pouring his heart and soul into his music. If heartbreak had to happen at least he could escape in music, but even then you were the only thing on his mind. Every lyric he wrote down he could relate to you, every beat he created made him want to call you up to ask your opinion; like he had done many times before. Your opinion was the only one that mattered to him. No amount of words spoken would ever change the fact he was madly in love with you, and probably always would be. 

Hoseok (gif doesn’t go but I refuse to use a crying gif)

And every breath that I’ve been taken since you left feels like a waste on me

A lifetime. That is what had past since you and Hoseok had first got together. A marriage, 2 children, 4 grandchildren and over 100 memories together had all lead up until this moment. The hand he as holding was no longer warm but cold to touch. The eyes he once loved looking into were firmly closed shut. The heart he heard beating so softly when he lay his head on your chest had become silent. The memories of your life together played over and over in his head as he watched your life become nothing. He would never forget the day you agreed to marry him, even to this moment he couldn’t believe his luck. You had both been bickering all day over small things. The lack of time he had spent with you lately starting to take its toll. The little habits you both had were slowly but surely revealing themselves to each other. You were so different yet fit so perfectly together. You were shouting your face had gone red from anger and you couldn’t believe he was picking on you so much. “If I’m that annoying why don’t you just leave me?” You replied to him so calmly despite being in a fit of rage. It was stupid but he knew at that moment he never wanted to live without you. The pain he felt in his chest at the mere thought of leaving you. “Marry me?” He had to admit it wasn’t the most romantic way to declare your love for someone but it was his way and it was a way that you’d never quite forget. But here he was placing a kiss on your cold forehead wishing that it was all some nightmare. He always wanted to be the one to go first his wrinkled hand never leaving yours the full time. Your kids standing behind him each having a hand on their dad’s shoulder both crying as well. You were the stronger one, it was meant to be him lay there not you. “Every breath I take from this moment will be wasted without you in my life Y/N. You’re my forever and always.”  

Namjoon

And if only I could hold ya. You’d keep my head from going under.

You had become somewhat of a comfort blanket to Namjoon. He found it rather easy to get lost in his thoughts and create a false realty in his head. His mind would often go to the negative things and it was something he worked on every day. When he was with you he never had to worry about feeling alone with his thoughts. You were the person he felt most comfortable around he could be completely and unapologetically himself. Due to his work your time together was often spent over the phone or laptop. Seeing your face whether it was in person or on screen was always the brightest moment of his day. However you worked too. You had a life to live just as he did and sometimes your work clashed and you’d go days without speaking to each other besides a few odd messages here and there. These were the times he was alone with his thoughts. He knew he wasn’t lonely he was surrounded by many people he loved and many people that loved him but that doesn’t mean his mind wouldn’t make him feel like he was sat in a black hole of emptiness. He would begin to question things he had said, he had done. Whether he was on the right path or not. In these moments all he wished for was your presence. You were the light in the dark. If he could have you there in his arms he knew he’d be feeling content. All he needed to do was focus his mind on you and he knew he’d be okay.

Jimin

Maybe I’m just being blinded by the brighter side.

  No relationship was ever easy, especially if you were an idol. The many days, weeks or months you’d spend away from home, the millions of fans who felt like their opinion of your significant other mattered. So many obstacles stood in the way of an easy and happy relationship. The amount of pressure you both felt once the relationship went public was something neither of you had expected. Everything was going great between you both Jimin really didn’t see any reason to keep you a secret. He wanted to show you off to the world. To who army the person who was making him happy beyond belief. He really couldn’t quite believe how happy you really made him. Of course the honeymoon phase shortly ended and the hate began to become too much for you. You’d spent your nights reading through hundreds of comments about the way you looked, the way you acted, the way you spoke. Every aspect of your life had become a talking point and you couldn’t escape. It led to many arguments between you and Jimin. You began to blame him for everything his fans said, getting angry that he never did anything to defend you even though you knew he really couldn’t. If he ever saw someone treat you badly you know he’d be there to defend you in a second. But that didn’t matter the arguments continued to the point you spent more time arguing and giving each other the silent treatment than being happy. Jimin couldn’t quite let go, and neither could you. You knew it wasn’t healthy to keep going the way you were but the happy memories kept coming flooding back to you whenever you had plucked up the courage to leave. Jimin had spent weeks talking himself into saying goodbye but every second he was with you he couldn’t bring himself to do it. The good times were that they were good and they were something he wasn’t quite ready to let go of just yet.

Taehyung  

It’s your love I’m lost in.  

The thing about Taehyung was when he was in love he was truly deeply madly in love. He loved with every ounce of his soul. There was never a day that went by where you ever had to question if he loved you or not. You couldn’t help but feel you were never quite enough for him but none of that ever mattered. To him you were the most beautiful person in the world. To him you were his world. He could watch you as you went about daily task like house work or cooking and he’d be so content with just watching and being in your presence. He could read you like a book at this point and you weren’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. Sometimes you felt smothered but at the same time you wouldn’t change him for anything. You loved him just as much as he loved you and nothing else mattered other than that. The only negatives were you were both blinded by love. Your relationship was far from perfect. You’d spend hours screaming and shouting at each other. Breaking up and getting back together and you both knew that no matter how far you’d run that you’d always come back to each other. You were addicted to each other.

Jungkook

Even though I’m nothing to you now.  

Taking a photo every day for a year and keeping them safe in a photo album sounded like a great idea at the time but now the year was over and Jungkook was left with a whole album to remind him of what he had lost. January 1st the photo he treasured the most. He still remembered the moment he took it. His vision blurred slightly from the alcohol he had consumed earlier in the night but your beauty was something he could see very clearly. The way your eyes lit up when your favourite song began to play. The lights were dim with the odd strobe lighting you up as you danced like you were the only one in the room. Your eyes never leaving Jungkook’s the full time. He couldn’t stop himself from smiling his cheeks were beginning to hurt. He had the take a photo to capture the moment. He flipped a few pages to summer time. July 28th to be exact. A photo you had asked a random passerby to take for you. You had spent the day at the beach together sat on an old blanket you had stuffed into Jungkook’s backpack earlier. You were sat on the edge of a rock watching the waves as the sun started to go down. The sky glowing with golden and pink swirls. You had ran to a passerby asking to take a photo saying it would be the “perfect aesthetic”. The photo was you sat on the rock with his arm wrapped firmly round your waist holding you close to his body as you both looked out to the sunset over the water. It really was a beautiful sight. He sighed flipping to the last page. All the photos from the past month had been of emptiness. His inspiration was gone, his spark was gone. Each photo was nothing. They held no meaning just blank sheets of paper. His mind went back onto you as he took out the photo from January 1st and held it in his hand. The realisation that you were still his everything and he was nothing to you now. 

Author note

So yeah this was a little bit different let me know what you think! It is also just after 4am and I’ve just finished writing this so please excuse any mistakes etc. But yeah send your thoughts and your requests! Thanks again <3 

[lifeisjustanotherstory]

02/03/2019

They shouldn’t have been friends, really. Not on paper.

He was the bad-boy musician with the chocolate-brown eyes and softer hair, with looks and lyrics that had girls on their knees (in that way? Yes.) She; younger than her years, with a thousand storylines swirling around that imaginative mind. Quirky and straight-laced, gold cross dangling from the neck, filled by a warm heart and framed with a gentle smile.

It all started with a rum and coke. Down his top, into his lap. She could have died from the shame. He laughed it off, too high to care. That night, they spent hours in conversation, only stopping to enjoy the sunrise in a companionable silence. Two strangers left that night as friends.

Worlds apart, and yet not so different. Words were not always shared, but pictures were - her story ideas and shots of the sky, his messy songwriting notes. And memes. One day, she dared to ask if they could meet again. Heart full, she accepted his invitation to his house party.

Each girl over the course of the night was a dagger to the heart. Kisses, tongues, lips, sex, it didn’t mean anything to him. But to her? Everything. This was not a good idea. She left before he could see her pain, before she could no longer hold back the flood of tears and emotions. A grey mist of sadness clouded her vision as she made her way through the multitude of rooms - but wait, this was not the way she had come in? And why was there a door being closed behind her? Who was closing it?

He muffled the scream before it could leave her mouth, tossing her on the bed. An uncomfortable pressure, raced breathing. A hundred thoughts raced through her head before settling on one last dark one - I am going to lose my virginity to a rapist.

Flesh against flesh, grunts and groans - but not from her mouth? Fighting all instinct to keep her eyes shut, she opened them to a scene she would never forget for the rest of her life; her gentle sunrise boy, his chocolate brown eyes seemingly glowing red, her attacker cowering and then unconscious on the floor.

He’d had his eyes on her all night. And then she decided. She wouldn’t be a girl to have his body, but she would be his friend. Throwing her arms around him, she let the tears flow once she felt his arms come around her, creating a soft, safe world in his embrace.

Months passed, and friends they were. She was content to have a place in his heart, even if it wasn’t the place she wanted. Girls came and went, but she was always there, at the end of the line. A constant.

His band got big. College over - the American dream wasn’t for her, and she went back home across the pond to the City job she had always wanted. But the pictures continued - selfies from the stages of concerts across the country, her photos of the office skyline , lights twinkling in the evenings of long working days.

A couple of years down the line and he was tiring of the “good” life. Of the endless women, drugs, rock and roll. Arenas had turned into stadiums, national had become international.Money was great, but he had enough of it. Had enough for his grandchildren to have enough. Emotionally rich, he was not. And then, the idea came to him.

A hundred different near-and-dear, those not in on the plan, received the message. “It’s up. I am done. It’s all over. Everything I had...gone.”

Megan cut him off, but not before she’d taken the pearls. Jan said she’d given him her best, and had nothing to show for it. Friends fucked off without a farewell. One by one, they fell out of his life. Hours passed and he was waiting for HER. What would she say?

The rain was falling hard outside, and he could barely hear the knock on the door. She was soaked through, her tan suede coat now only a few shades lighter than his eyes.

“Last minute plane tickets are daylight robbery.” She finally said, her voice small. “But I would rob a bank to be able to see you in person. And to do this.” And just she like had done years before; she threw herself into him, waiting for that moment when his arms closed around her.

Moments passed and she pulled herself away, her eyes not meeting his. All of a sudden, she was the 19 year-old again at the party.

“I don’t want to be your friend,” she said with a quiet fortitude. She knew he hated the 1975.“I want to kiss your neck.” And then, she ran her hands through his hair, gingerly at first, before finally gripping it into her fist, pulling him down. Trailing her lips over his ear, his cheek, his neck, breaths mingling.

It had filled her mind during the entire transatlantic flight. What was he to her? The ultimate friend. There was no denying it any longer. Rejection would be shit. But better then a life full of regret and “what if?

She needn’t have worried.He let her take full control. This was what she wanted. This was what he wanted. She had done exactly what he thought she would; be there for him when everyone else decided to leave. Her kiss was hesitant at first, was this really happening, before years of pent-up passion finally broke through and before either of them realised, she was on her back, her black hair fanned across the pillow.Their hands under each other’s shirts, eyes meeting, no words.

“We can stop,” he said, his eyes on her cross. “No, we will stop. I know what this means to you. I can wait.” Her protests died on her lips as he placed a finger over them. “I’ve waited years for this. I can wait one year longer. Unless you don’t want to get married to me. Which is fine. Or is one year not enough time to plan a wedding for women?”.

Shocked into silence by so many variables, she could do nothing as he went to retrieve an item from his top desk drawer. Encased in a navy blue box, her favourite colour, her sunrise boy asked her the question he had been waiting to ask for weeks. There could only be one answer. The fingers of the award-winning rockstar that had strummed guitar strings in front of millions were shaking as he slid the ring onto her finger.

It would be a lie to say they lived happily ever after. Fallout from leaving the music world was tough on both of them. Issues around her darker skin, in contrast to his white, the clashing of cultures and celebrity life. But the bad times paled into insignificance with the good times.

She had been nervous about the first time. And...it didn’t go to plan. Lying there, moments afterwards, she felt like crying into the awkward silence. He took her into his arms, and told her the truth. Mindblowing sex could not be used to describe what they had not just had. But had he ever made love to someone with so much laughter and pure joy? Never. Wiping tears from her eyes, he whispered that they had a lifetime to work on it. The only way was upwards.

He could never leave music completely, and chose to work as a teacher at a music specialist school. No one outside of the school was allowed to speak of his presence there. Every September she’d wait for his stories about the new students when they realised he was going to be their teacher. As for her? She finally decided to pick a plot from those swirling around in her mind, sit down and write. Her novel was no bestseller, but it had a dedicated fanbase whose letters, emails and love completed that part of her which had always felt unfulfilled. The second book was in the works.

He came home from work one day to find her on the sofa, unnaturally quiet. Holidays for them couldn’t be classed as “once in a life time”, expense was no bar, but they’d thoroughly planned an Australia/New Zealand tour over the Southern Hemisphere summer. He was shocked - why did she want to cancel?

“I don’t know about you,” a nervous smile graced her face. “ But I wouldn’t want to go on holiday with a two month old baby.” He fell at her feet, hands cradling her still-flat abdomen, their happy sobs filling the room.

“Daddy, are you really going to let Mummy give me Coca-Cola?” His daughter held his hand tightly. Feeling unconditional love from the outset for another human being had scared him at first. Seeing that trust and affection in her eyes now , he didn’t quite feel he deserved it. And didn’t quite realise that the unconditional love came from a fountain inside, for more had come when his son had finally joined and completed their family a few months earlier. He shrugged.

“It’s Mummy’s way for saying sorry for making you get up so early,” his wife (that word sounded great, even five years later) smiled. “We’ll go and get breakfast at IHOP later, okay baby?” They’d moved to the USA six months ago, so that his dying mother would be able to meet her grandson. The stress of uprooting had been worth the happiness on her face. She didn’t have long left and it was an anxious time for the whole family. In fact, he realised, this was the first time it had just been the four of them.

The car pulled up in front of an unfamiliar house. His wife opened the door - the house was fully furnished, but empty.

“I managed to find this place. It wasn’t easy,” she told him, cooing at the baby boy strapped on her chest. “But once I told them, they understood.” He was still confused and she smiled. “Wait. You’ll see.”

As they climbed up the stairs to the roof, the memories started to come back. Thumping bass, writhing bodies, a sticky soaked t-shirt. An Indian girl, her expression a mixture of shock and shame. High on more than life. The most engaging, stimulating conversation and how natural it had felt. He remembered thinking that somehow this girl had wormed his way into his heart, that she’d never leave.

“Mummy,look!!” The door was now open and the view before them was much the same as it had been years before. 

The two of them, with two humans of their own, watched the sunrise. 

Dedicated to;

I don’t think you’ll ever know that I dedicated this to you. But maybe I’ll share it with you, one day. I fell in love with the idea of what could have been between us. And I guess this was somehow the inspiration for my story, with a great deal of imagination sprinkled in. But actions speak so much louder than words, and I should have seen it coming.

[fmdtaeyongarchive]

↬ a few empty glasses, a few dozen messages.

date: august 2020 / september 2020 / october 2020.

word count: 1,936 words.

summary: part one of ash only finishes writing his album in time because he fights with youngjoo which is… you know… great for that ‘self-inflicted suffering for the sake of #art’ habit of his. the #LetAshSayFuck squad wins tho.

triggers: alcohol, marijuana.

notes: creative claims verification. mentions of youngjoo near the end.

august 2020. 

he starts the song as a concept instead of a story, and that would only make sense to ash looking back on it, when everything is clearer and not muddied by the mess of fiction and truth it eventually becomes.

it isn’t the type of song that would normally come to his mind on its own in a mostly stable state, and that’s the beauty of his slow journey of teaching himself to bring to life stories that aren’t so personally his own. it’s initial creation lies almost purely in lyrical and musical context for the album and the overall storyline that was being adhered to, but, to ash, there’s still an element of authenticity in it even from the beginning that keeps it from completely sticking out like a sore thumb in the final track list.

not every word and note of the song is a direct reflection of what he’s been through in his own life, written in a moment of intense emotion, raw and real and based entirely on feelings he writes about as he experiences them like so many of his songs have been, but that’s part of the pride he feels when it’s finally completed. the song is still influenced by ash’s own life in the grungy, dirty, regretful ways his music so often is, while being a song primarily created for the album instead of pure emotional self-indulgence in every single note and lyric. he’d long been able to identify his inability to depersonalize from his music as one of his downfalls as a songwriter, but working to get better at that could only help him write more diverse music in the future. there’s no better way to improve at something than to practice it, he figures at the start of the journey the song takes him on.

the instrumental itself isn’t so unusual. most of it is crafted in the dim light of the studio one night. it’s mainly built upon a few bars of piano that had come to him in the midst of brainstorming. it’s haunting in a certain way, the way the melody repeats so much throughout and the clinks of the keys contrasts with the more typical trap elements he layers on top of it.

ash isn’t so sure he likes the differing sounds at first. it gets even more questionable over time, but once he’s come around to a more final arrangement of layers, it has settled into itself in a kind of not-quite-dissonant harmony, slowly building up to a switch in tone from mellow drag to something heady and almost other-worldly with a released emotion behind it.

it isn’t entirely intuitive in its composition like ash usually goes with, and as he begins to piece together the structure, ash has his doubts about that, too. there’s a voice in the back of his head insisting he scale it back to something safer, but ash argues back with the cowardly voice that he isn’t married to the song yet, so if his attempt ends in a tragic, flaming trash pile of a song, ash doesn’t have to release it. songs don’t become unsalvage once taking a few turns down the wrong paths, and little good would come from insisting on sticking with his more typical ballads or classic melancholic r&b tracks every time he sits down to write out of a stubborn desire to stick to his comfort zone. 

in the end, the song isn’t that out there anyway and the busy-ness becomes a representation of all of the clashing emotions at the beginning, or the end, of the story he’s telling.

september 2020.

in the process of putting the song together, he comes to a better understanding of what the song will be and where it will fit. the path he wants his album to follow has become more clear to him, and at some point in the middle of the process on a late night he can’t even remember now, ash had made his start on the lyrics by making a list of ways a relationship can end on his phone.

anger

relapse

unable to move on / regret

acceptance (/ regret?)

happiness

the song he’s written feels like an ending. not one he wants to be the final note of his whole album, but he’ll worry about that later. this song is meant to be on the more toxic side of the end of a relationship, and he has too many songs in his catalogue already about relapsing back into the past. blame it on his current situation, but that’s been a theme he can’t seem to escape from when he sits down and writes purely based on what’s on the forefront of his mind.

by process of elimination, this one has to be about anger.

it doesn’t take long after making the decision for ash to begin his attempts to get lyrics out onto paper. anger after a break-up is the emotion from the list ash is least familiar with, even less so than acceptance, and no matter how he tries, his turn of phrase keeps lapsing back into something different than what it’s supposed to be. there are elements of anger in relapse and regret and regret hangs heavy in anger, but anger must be the most toxic mix of everything. it’s the refusal to take even a step toward acceptance of the end, refusal to admit shared blame, refusal to even fall back into old routines out of resistance to moving on.

if all of the movies he’d seen and books he’d read are to be believed, anger comes the most often in the aftermath of relationships that had had something poisonous in the cracks from the start. it seeps out until it floods, or that’s how he imagines it. perhaps it could stem from a relationship based heavily on unfettered passion and sheer physical attraction, leading to the neglect of the more emotionally important aspects of a relationship. ash hasn’t been in a lot of relationships himself exactly like what he’s aiming to write, and despite the temptation to take blame off of himself to make the end of any relationship easier, he’s also never been the type able to place fault on his exes when it’s so easy to see the mistakes he himself has made. after all, he’s cursedly prone to his own constant brand of fatal mistakes in love.

iin a way, mistakes are more sure in his relationships than love itself.

trapped in an inability to get out of his own head and his own more frequent cycles of relapse and regret, regret and relapse, ash turns to film and music first, but when that isn’t enough, he tries for something more candid.

the next time he goes into their brand new shared workspace, he asks kyung and erin and kiha about their histories with break-ups in hopes they’ll be able to spark something for him. kyung dances around the question and tells ash he should try dating someone hot who pisses him off if he wants inspiration so badly. ash doesn’t know why he’d expected anything different, but pushing will be pointless, so he leaves kyung alone. erin isn’t much help either. she and ash are too similar, and their conversation ends in the pair commiserating over their shared tendency to wallow in regret once a relationship comes to an end, although he can tell her experience with toxicity is even less than his.

kiha is ash’s best bet, and ash knows that, so he isn’t sure why he goes to him last. ash takes notes in his head as they speak in a low-lit studio. if it hadn’t felt rude, ash would have pulled out paper or his phone to take real notes, but kiha’s occasional lack of human decency isn’t going to bring down ash to the level of treating the man’s past relationship troubles like a spectacle.

he leaves the night he spends with kiha with more lyric ideas than he’d had yet. he pins the feelings of post-break up anger down that kiha had described to him to underlying shades of jealousy and resentment.

how about that bastard? are you satisfied?

he can’t let it be all resentment, though. he’s more and more convinced he wants it to be the first song of the album in an almost oxymoronical sense, and hitting the listener immediately with rage would turn them away before they could get the whole message of the album. in some ways, the song had to foreshadow the stages the rest of the album passed through, from pain to bitter, toxic longing to emptiness to a more gentle regret. 

to soften the first blow and crank up effect the mid-song punch, ash crafts a narrative.

a man in a room alone. pounding at his door. he can’t tell whether he’s committed a crime against an ex-lover or himself, but he’s slowly fading out into a shell.

the samples come before most of the lyrics do and he’s inspired to take a throughline into the album’s other songs, but he only has a intro, a bridge, and an ending by the time the track becomes yet another abandoned file in his folders.

october 2020.

he’s eight or ten shots of whiskey down paired with a few edibles, back aching in the corner of a dark room when he opens the file again and every second of it stabs into him like poison needles.

he now knows anger is a form of acceptance of reality.

a few empty glasses a few dozen messages my vision is too blurred

or maybe it’s not even close to acceptance if the way his chest tightens with that dirty, dirty thing called hope when he sees his phone light up on the couch too far away for him to reach or read the screen means anything

it’s not youngjoo. he knows that, and yet he mentally restrains himself to keep from crossing the room to check his phone so he doesn't have to have the truth confirmed.

for a short moment, he convinces himself that it’s her and he’s proving something to himself by not answering it.

yet someone keeps on callin' oh it's my fuckin' (shit) my fuckin 'ex

he drifts to a vision of what would happen if he picked up the phone and she was on the other end.

the line blurs between his imagination and his memories of the past. they cross each other and mix into one, violent shades of red with soul-sucking shades of bruising blue and purple.

“everything is a little give and take, isn’t it? and this is mine, to you. say that we no longer mean anything right to my face and i’ll leave.”

her words curve and morph and transcend the folds of his mind where they’d been implanted. is that what she’d still want, if she called him right now? could he give her those words now? would it make the break cleaner if he could?

would he have it in him to lie?

but actually, i don't care i can't really remember you

would she be happy to hear it? would he care if she was? would she say anything at all or would that be enough to finalize their parting forever?

but beyond the handset, on the phone, why is your voice sounding so unaffected?

it’s not her. he’s playing games with himself now that he can’t blame her.

he could never say those words to her anyway, out of fear of getting indifference in response.

the mix of ups and downs keeps him from stacking emotional weights on his chest for too long, but he listens to the end of the song on loop, treating as a mantra to to convince himself.

cause i'm motherfucking good and i get that money i can tell this feeling motherfucking good i'm motherfucking good right now hella good right now i can tell this feeling motherfucking good right now...

and that’s when it truly hits him for the first time.

he laughs, but it’s not really funny at all.

[chorusfm]

Matt Nathanson – Some Mad Hope

Few albums sound more like growing up to me than Matt Nathanson’s Some Mad Hope. Last year, for my 26th birthday, I wrote a blog post where I chose one defining song from every year I’ve spent on the planet. “Car Crash,” the opening track from Some Mad Hope, was my pick for 2007. For me, that song—and this record in general—marked the end of youthful innocence and the beginning of something a little more complex and a little less black and white. It’s tough to imagine a better record for that moment in life than Some Mad Hope, which effortlessly pairs pop hooks and anthemic arrangements with emotionally weighty lyrical work. What is tough to process is the fact that this record—the one that marked the start of my journey from youth to adulthood—is now 10 years in the rearview. Some Mad Hope would prove to be Matt Nathanson’s breakthrough, but it wasn’t his first record. On the contrary, in Nathanson’s catalog, Some Mad Hope holds the status of being the sixth LP. He’d moved the needle slightly in the past. His cover of the James hit “Laid” opened American Wedding, the final film in the initial American Pie trilogy, and his fifth album, 2003’s Beneath the Fireworks (produced by future Springsteen collaborator Ron Aniello) spawned reasonably well-known tracks like “I Saw” and “Curve of the Earth.” But until this record, Nathanson tended to be known as an artist who put on a fantastic live show, but could never quite translate the energy and fun of his concerts into compelling studio records. To be fair, it’s tough to convey what Nathanson does live on an album. Practically a court jester in a live setting, Nathanson cracks jokes during song breaks and develops a quirky, informal banter with every crowd he meets. It’s a rare talent—one captured perfectly on his 2006 live album At the Point—but one that really doesn’t do you much good in the studio. To truly make an album worthy of his potential, Nathanson had to do two things: 1) find the right sound and 2) write songs that would crawl inside people’s brains and live there. Some Mad Hope managed to be the record where both of those things happened, but it didn’t come easy. In the years since, Nathanson has gone on record about being in a dark place when he was writing the songs that would make up his sixth album. When I spoke to him in 2015, in the lead-up to that year’s Show Me Your Fangs, he told me that, while he loves Some Mad Hope, it’s also a snapshot of a heavy time in his life. The centerpiece track, an aching almost-power-ballad called “Wedding Dress,” is a song about “coming dangerously close to divorce and the wreck of a marriage.” Nathanson has called it the song in his catalog where he was being the most honest. The honesty may have almost broken Nathanson, but it did the opposite for his career. What makes Some Mad Hope one of the best pop singer/songwriter records of the 2000s is the tension in the lyrics. Up to this point, Nathanson had always been able to write catchy songs, but these were on another level. There was so much ache and hurt in the lyrics, songs caught between reflecting on better times and dwelling on the possibility of ending a marriage. The cold hard truth in the songs, combined with tight production work from Mark Weinberg and Marshall Altman (known nowadays as an accomplished country music producer) made for a record that could stand on its own, without live performances and comedic banter to prop it up. For good reason, Matt’s decision to be unflinchingly honest gave him the first hit song of his career. “Come on Get Higher” went to 59 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became a top 20 hit on Mainstream Top 40 radio. Breezy and intimate, “Higher” tends to get written off as a “Your Body Is a Wonderland” clone by people who never gave Nathanson a real shot. But the balance of the track—between the lovelorn, carnal bliss of the choruses and the sobering, regretful loneliness of the verses—makes it something more than meets the eye. “I miss the sound of your voice/Loudest thing in my head/And I ache to remember/All the violent, sweet, perfect words that you said” goes the second verse. Find me a pop song on the radio today with a better turn of phrase about lost love. It was that chaotic clash—of perfect happiness and bitter heartbreak—that I latched onto when I first heard Some Mad Hope. On the surface, these are love songs. That’s why someone could hear a lyric like “In your wedding dress, to have and to hold/And even at my best, I want to let go” and think the song built around it was expressing undying devotion instead of massive, restless doubt. But most of Some Mad Hope isn’t about love in the now; it’s about love in the past. “I remember hearts that beat/I remember you and me/Tangled in hotel sheets,” go the opening lines of “Still,” a song about remembering the tender moments you spent with someone who is long gone. And in the dirge-like “Bulletproof Weeks,” it’s “What happened to bulletproof weeks in your arms?/What happened to feeling cheap radio songs?/What happened to thinking that the world was flat?/What happened to that?” Some Mad Hope is a spectacularly human record. It’s about only recognizing the beauty of what you have when it’s gone. It’s about getting what you want and then being so unsure of yourself that you tear it down. It’s about running away because you’re scared to stand and fight. It’s about restlessness and stupid mistakes and regrets you’ll carry for the rest of your life. And in the end, it’s about dodging the bullet, recommitting, and doing the work to save something rather than let it become a faded photograph. It’s about doing what you need to do so that you don’t end up like the guy in “Bulletproof Weeks,” asking “What happened?” when you look back at the people and things that used to mean the world to you. All those messages caught me at the perfect time. When I bought this record on a class trip around October of 2007, I was a month from 17, newly licensed to operate an automobile, and in the midst of the most restless patch of growing up. I had a lot of things going for me: I had a great group of friends and a supportive family; I was the lead in the school musical; I was doing well in my classes. But I was yearning for something more, something amorphous that I couldn’t describe or name, and certainly not something I could reach out and grab. I felt like I was on the cusp of something, but I didn’t know what it was. And at the same time, new pressures and worries were looming: feelings I had for a girl who wasn’t available; the impending cloud of college applications; my dwindling bank account, thanks to the fact that I’d started driving just as gas prices began to skyrocket; a borderline emotionally abusive director that made the aforementioned musical more of a nightmare than a dream come true. A year previous, responsibility had seemed little more than a far-off blip on the radar. Suddenly, it was here, and I wasn’t sure I could handle it. Looking back now, those worries seem so slight and insignificant—especially compared to what Nathanson was actually singing about on this album. But therein lies the beauty of great songs: they find you and hold up mirrors to your life, completely separate from the artist’s intentions. I wasn’t going through a divorce (obviously) and I wasn’t even in a relationship, but the doubt, anxiety, and deep dissatisfaction running through the songs here resonated with me. So did the yearning sense of escape captured by anthems like “Car Crash,” “Heartbreak World,” and “Gone.” I may have been feeling empty, but I was also feeling the added freedom that growing up affords. I appreciated the humanity in those songs, tales of running away and starting over that sounded so unbridled and exciting—even if the dark side of leaving everything behind was always lurking just or song or two away. “I want to feel the car crash, ‘cause I’m dying on the inside”; “Let’s move out of Los Angeles/And drive until this summer gives/Forget the lives we used to live”; “Gone, let it wash away the best I had/Gone, and when I disappear, don’t expect me back.” These songs seemed to ask, “Can you drive fast enough to outrun your troubles?” As a teenage boy with his first car, I wanted to find out. Of course, the implicit answer the album gives is “No.” The crashing “Detroit Waves” is a song specifically about what repeated departures and goodbyes do to a relationship. “And when you’re warm enough to share your sheets/And cold enough to make it seem like I was only there/Long enough to disappear,” Nathanson sings bitterly at the top of the second verse. The point is clear: you can’t run away without leaving something behind. In “Falling Apart,” the narrator can’t decide whether he’d rather stay and be the man his partner deserves or “break loose and run.” But “Sooner Surrender,” the album’s penultimate track, was always my favorite. The aching regret of that song is so real and so pronounced, to the point where you can almost taste the bile on the back of your tongue as the lyrics describe a late-night bar where everyone is having fun but you. You, alone with a drink and your own self-imposed loneliness. “I miss when you were everything,” the track concludes. What a gut-punch. Eventually, Nathanson and his wife figured out a way to fix things and stay together. Me? I got over my restlessness and learned to be comfortable in my own skin. But I’ll never forget how Some Mad Hope made me feel a little less alone that fall, when I was growing up and felt like I wasn’t ready for any of it yet. There was comfort and commiseration in the sad songs and possibility in the call of the road, but the song that hit the hardest might have been the last one, where the excuses stopped and the lesson came full circle. “I kept falling over/I kept looking backward/I went broke believing/That the simple should be hard,” Nathanson sings in the first verse. Later, it’s “Well it’s hard to change the way you lose/If you think you’ve never won.” Those lines were my reality check after an ocean of self-centered brooding. I was overthinking my own life, and I was missing things in the process: friendships; romance; youth as it’s supposed to be. If I could go back, I would change a lot of things about that year, but I would never trade the soundtrack. --- Please consider supporting us so we can keep bringing you stories like this one. ◎ https://chorus.fm/review/matt-nathanson-some-mad-hope/

[earlyback]

“the moment he touched her, her universe constricted to the space between their lips. they were a snarl of limbs and bright-burning kisses.”

“It felt silly to say that he couldn’t bear to lose her. He never had her. She was not a thing to be possessed. but her entrance in his life had conjured light. and losing the light of her would plunge him into a darkness he’d never find his way out of.”

Surviving isn’t just about cutting out your heart and burning every feeling into ash. Sometimes it means taking what ever is thrown at you, beautiful or grotesque, poisonous or blissful, and carving out your life with the pieces you’re given.

“but for the first time, I wanted to believe in the things that outlasted us: the stories that came to life in a child’s head, the fear of the dark, the hunger to live. those were the footsteps that not even time could discover and erase, because they lived far out of reach, in the song of blood coursing through veins and in the quiet threads that made up dreams. I wanted to hold the hope of those tales within me and follow it like a lure all the way back to myself.”

Roshani Chokshi, A Crown of Wishes

a particularly good book has a way of opening new spaces in one's mind. It even invited you to come back later and rummage through what you'd learn.”

Roshani Chokshi, Aru Shah and the End of Time

“the moment he touched her, her universe constricted to the space between their lips. they were a snarl of limbs and bright-burning kisses.”

Roshani Chokshii, The Star-Touched Queen

“can we be happy for Goliath from behind a sheet of glass and a net and a fence ? maybe a ring of fire for good measure?" asked Enrique”

Roshani Chokshi, The Gilded Wolves

“your hand touching mine. this is how galaxies collide.”

Sanober Khan

“i want to be in love with you the same way i am in love with the moon with the light shining out of its soul.”

Sanober Khan

“in the afterglow of an evening rain i lay down in the grass and think of you my body aches like an after-kiss breaking in soft fires and wildflowers my dear, i will always be this tender for you.”

Sanober Khan, A Thousand Flamingos

04.26.21.06 am |  blame it on the sun or the blazing desert heat.the most disciplined of women and the most reckless of men are about to clash in the most impossibly irresistible way.- missing you and no.1 virtually matter till we meet again - for us being in love. ** i miss talking with you.

04.26.21.06 am |  blame it on the sun or the blazing desert heat.the most disciplined of women and the most reckless of men are about to clash in the most impossibly irresistible way.- missing you and no.1 virtually matter till we meet again - for us being in love. ** i miss talking with you.

clip upload : 12.10 pm **in memories to no. 1. - witty, piquant, minded and exquisite women in my life. ** ok. take care. miss u. on 15.11.2009 | **yes on t way - message on 01.12.12 ** at **** ***** .. taking u turn. message on 10.11.2012.

04.26.21.06 am |  blame it on the sun or the blazing desert heat.the most disciplined of women and the most reckless of men are about to clash in the most impossibly irresistible way.- missing you and no.1 virtually matter till we meet again - for us being in love. ** i miss talking with you.

clip upload : 12.10 pm **in memories to no. 2. - witty, piquant, minded and exquisite women in my life. ** ok. take care. miss u. on 15.11.2009 | **yes on t way - message on 01.12.12 ** at **** ***** .. taking u turn. message on 10.11.2012.

04.26.21.06 am |  blame it on the sun or the blazing desert heat.the most disciplined of women and the most reckless of men are about to clash in the most impossibly irresistible way.- missing you and no.1 virtually matter till we meet again - for us being in love. ** i miss talking with you.

clip upload : 12.10 pm **in memories to both. - witty, piquant, minded and exquisite women in my life. ** ok. take care. miss u. on 15.11.2009 | **yes on t way - message on 01.12.12 ** at **** ***** .. taking u turn. message on 10.11.2012.

I wore your shirt as I was running away from you 'Cause I like to keep the good things I know you’re hurt and I’d like to sit right next to you but you’d only say the worst things and every city was our city Like every road was our own and you loved me like you knew you'd miss me It’s like every prophecy you told, oh Wildflowers you brought me are crumbled in my hands I killed them, you caught me the stain is on my hands

read lyrics here 

04.26.21.06 am |  blame it on the sun or the blazing desert heat.the most disciplined of women and the most reckless of men are about to clash in the most impossibly irresistible way.- missing you and no.1 virtually matter till we meet again - for us being in love. ** i miss talking with you.

clip upload : 12.36 pm **in memories to both. - witty, piquant, minded and exquisite women in my life. ** ok. take care. miss u. on 15.11.2009 | **yes on t way - message on 01.12.12 ** at **** ***** .. taking u turn. message on 10.11.2012.

It's solo, solo everybody It's solo, e-e-e-everybody It's solo, solo, everybody Woop, woop, woop, woop, woop, woop, woop [ Demi Lovato & Kamille] I never meant to leave you hurtin' I never meant to do the worst thing Not to you (it's solo, solo everybody) 'Cause every time I read your message I wish I wasn't one of your exes Now I'm the fool (It's solo, solo everybody) [ Demi Lovato] Since you've been gone I've been dancing on my own There's boys up in my zone But they can't turn me on 'Cause baby you're The only one I'm coming for I can't take no more No more, no more

read lyrics here 

04.26.21.06 am | a happy new day wishes - I want morning and noon and nightfall with you. I want your tears, your smiles, your kisses. missing  you and no.1 virtually matter till we meet again - for us being in love.

You - m i S S

#3660

to them - listen adequate music : c - d - s - k - k - a

post time : 01.14.26.14 pm

VW - SN - us being in fervent love.

pic : www.vladimirbarabanov.com

pic : www.galinanabatnikova.com

[earlybeck]

he never had her. She was not a thing to be possessed. but her entrance in his life had conjured light. and losing the light of her would plunge him into a darkness he’d never find his way out of.

“It felt silly to say that he couldn’t bear to lose her. he never had her. She was not a thing to be possessed. but her entrance in his life had conjured light. and losing the light of her would plunge him into a darkness he’d never find his way out of.” 

Surviving isn’t just about cutting out your heart and burning every feeling into ash. Sometimes it means taking what ever is thrown at you, beautiful or grotesque, poisonous or blissful, and carving out your life with the pieces you’re given.

“but for the first time, I wanted to believe in the things that outlasted us: the stories that came to life in a child’s head, the fear of the dark, the hunger to live. those were the footsteps that not even time could discover and erase, because they lived far out of reach, in the song of blood coursing through veins and in the quiet threads that made up dreams. I wanted to hold the hope of those tales within me and follow it like a lure all the way back to myself.” 

Roshani Chokshi, A Crown of Wishes

a particularly good book has a way of opening new spaces in one's mind. It even invited you to come back later and rummage through what you'd learn.”

Roshani Chokshi, Aru Shah and the End of Time

“the moment he touched her, her universe constricted to the space between their lips. they were a snarl of limbs and bright-burning kisses.”

Roshani Chokshii, The Star-Touched Queen

“can we be happy for Goliath from behind a sheet of glass and a net and a fence ? maybe a ring of fire for good measure?" asked Enrique” 

Roshani Chokshi, The Gilded Wolves

“your hand touching mine. this is how galaxies collide.”

Sanober Khan

“i want to be in love with you the same way i am in love with the moon with the light shining out of its soul.”

 Sanober Khan

“in the afterglow of an evening rain i lay down in the grass and think of you my body aches like an after-kiss breaking in soft fires and wildflowers my dear, i will always be this tender for you.”

 Sanober Khan, A Thousand Flamingos

06.21.26.04 am |  blame it on the sun or the blazing desert heat.the most disciplined of women and the most reckless of men are about to clash in the most impossibly irresistible way.- missing you and no.2 virtually matter till we meet again - for us being in love. ** i miss talking with you.

06.21.26.04 am |  blame it on the sun or the blazing desert heat.the most disciplined of women and the most reckless of men are about to clash in the most impossibly irresistible way.- missing you and no.2 virtually matter till we meet again - for us being in love. ** i miss talking with you.

clip upload : 12.16 pm **in memories to both - witty, piquant, minded and exquisite women in my life. ** ok. take care. miss u. on 15.11.2009 | **yes on t way - message on 01.12.12 ** at **** ***** .. taking u turn. message on 10.11.2012.

06.21.26.04 am |  blame it on the sun or the blazing desert heat.the most disciplined of women and the most reckless of men are about to clash in the most impossibly irresistible way.- missing you and no.2 virtually matter till we meet again - for us being in love. ** i miss talking with you.

clip upload : 12.16 pm **in memories to both - witty, piquant, minded and exquisite women in my life. ** ok. take care. miss u. on 15.11.2009 | **yes on t way - message on 01.12.12 ** at **** ***** .. taking u turn. message on 10.11.2012.

06.21.26.04 am |  blame it on the sun or the blazing desert heat.the most disciplined of women and the most reckless of men are about to clash in the most impossibly irresistible way.- missing you and no.2 virtually matter till we meet again - for us being in love. ** i miss talking with you.

clip upload : 12.28 pm **in memories to both - witty, piquant, minded and exquisite women in my life. ** ok. take care. miss u. on 15.11.2009 | **yes on t way - message on 01.12.12 ** at **** ***** .. taking u turn. message on 10.11.2012.

I'm 11 minutes away and I have missed you all day I'm 11 minutes away, so why aren't you here ?

I think I missed you callin' on the other line I'm just thinkin' all these thoughts up in my mind Talkin' love but I can't even read the signs I would sell my soul for a bit more time You stain all on my body like you're red wine You're the fuckin' acid to my alkaline You run your middle finger up and down my spine I'm sorry there was no one to apologize I'm so fuckin' sorry, I'm so fuckin' sorry I've been playing somebody and it's helping nobody And her lipstick arithmetic didn't stick And now I'm sick, throwing fits And yeah, I've seen you in my head every fuckin' day since I left You on the floor with your hands 'round your head And I'm down and depressed All I want is your head on my chest Touchin' feet in my bed

read lyrics here

06.21.26.04 am |  blame it on the sun or the blazing desert heat.the most disciplined of women and the most reckless of men are about to clash in the most impossibly irresistible way.- missing you and no.2 virtually matter till we meet again - for us being in love. ** i miss talking with you.

clip upload : 12.46 pm **in memories to no. 2 - witty, piquant, minded and exquisite women in my life. ** ok. take care. miss u. on 15.11.2009 | **yes on t way - message on 01.12.12 ** at **** ***** .. taking u turn. message on 10.11.2012.

You say you love me, I say you crazy We're nothing more than friends You're not my lover, more like a brother I known you since we were like ten, yeah Don't mess it up, talking that shit Only gonna push me away, that's it! When you say you love me, that make me crazy Here we go again

Haven't I made it obvious? Haven't I made it clear? Want me to spell it out for you? F-R-I-E-N-D-S Haven't I made it obvious? Haven't I made it clear? Want me to spell it out for you? F-R-I-E-N-D-S F-R-I-E-N-D-S

read lyrics here

06.21.26.04 am | a happy new day wishes - I want morning and noon and nightfall with you. I want your tears, your smiles, your kisses. missing  you and no.1 virtually matter till we meet again - for us being in love.

You - m i S S

#3660

to them - listen adequate music : c - d - s - k - k - a

post time : 01.14.21.14 pm

VW - NS - us being in fervent love.

pic : www.vladimirbarabanov.com

pic : www.galinanabatnikova.com

[thedailyhs]

Harry Styles' New Direction

A year in the life of the One Direction star as he leaves behind his boy-band past, heads to Jamaica and comes of age

January 2016. There’s a bench at the top of Primrose Hill, in London, that looks out over the skyline of the city. If you’d passed by it one winter night, you might have seen him sitting there. A lanky guy in a wool hat, overcoat and jogging pants, hands thrust deep into his pockets. Harry Styles had a lot on his mind. He had spent five years as the buoyant fan favorite in One Direction; now, an uncertain future stretched out in front of him. The band had announced an indefinite hiatus. The white noise of adulation was gone, replaced by the hushed sound of the city below.

The fame visited upon Harry Styles in his years with One D was a special kind of mania. With a self-effacing smile, a hint of darkness and the hair invariably described as “tousled,” he became a canvas onto which millions of fans pitched their hopes and dreams. Hell, when he pulled over to the side of the 101 freeway in L.A. and discreetly threw up, the spot became a fan shrine. It’s said the puke was even sold on eBay like pieces of the Berlin Wall. Paul McCartney has interviewed him. Then there was the unauthorized fan-fiction series featuring a punky, sexed-up version of “Harry Styles.” A billion readers followed his virtual exploits. (“Didn’t read it,” comments the nonfiction Styles, “but I hope he gets more than me.”)

But at the height of One D–mania, Styles took a step back. For many, 2016 was a year of lost musical heroes and a toxic new world order. For Styles, it was a search for a new identity that began on that bench overlooking London. What would a solo Harry Styles sound like? A plan came into focus. A song cycle about women and relationships. Ten songs. More of a rock sound. A bold single-color cover to match the working title: Pink. (He quotes the Clash’s Paul Simonon: “Pink is the only true rock & roll colour.”) Many of the details would change over the coming year – including the title, which would end up as Harry Styles – but one word stuck in his head.

“Honest,” he says, a year later, driving through midcity Los Angeles in a dusty black Range Rover. He’s lived here off and on for the past few years, always returning to London. Styles’ car stereo pumps a mix of country and obscure classic rock. “I didn’t want to write ‘stories,' ” he says. “I wanted to write my stories, things that happened to me. The number-one thing was I wanted to be honest. I hadn’t done that before.” There isn’t a yellow light he doesn’t run as he speaks excitedly about the band he’s put together under the tutelage of producer Jeff Bhasker (The Rolling Stones, Kanye West, “Uptown Funk”). He’s full of stories about the two-month recording session last fall at Geejam, a studio and compound built into a mountainside near Port Antonio, a remote section of Jamaica. Drake and Rihanna have recorded there, and it’s where Styles produced the bulk of his new LP, which is due out May 12th. As we weave through traffic today, the album no one has heard is burning a hole in his iPhone.

We arrive at a crowded diner, and Styles cuts through the room holding a black notebook jammed with papers and artifacts from his album, looking like a college student searching for a quiet place to study. He’s here to do something he hasn’t done much of in his young career: an extended one-on-one interview. Often in the past there was another One D member to vector questions into a charmingly evasive display of band camaraderie. Today, Styles is a game but careful custodian of his words, sometimes silently consulting the tablecloth before answering. But as he recounts the events leading up to his year out of the spotlight, the layers begin to slip away.

It was in a London studio in late 2014 that Styles first brought up the idea of One Direction taking a break. “I didn’t want to exhaust our fan base,” he explains. “If you’re shortsighted, you can think, 'Let’s just keep touring,’ but we all thought too much of the group than to let that happen. You realize you’re exhausted and you don’t want to drain people’s belief in you.”

After much discussion, the band mutually agreed to a hiatus, which was announced in August 2015 (Zayn Malik had abruptly left One D several months earlier). Fans were traumatized by the band’s decision, but were let down easy with a series of final bows, including a tour that ran through October. Styles remains a One D advocate: “I love the band, and would never rule out anything in the future. The band changed my life, gave me everything.”

Still, a solo career was calling. “I wanted to step up. There were songs I wanted to write and record, and not just have it be 'Here’s a demo I wrote.’ Every decision I’ve made since I was 16 was made in a democracy. I felt like it was time to make a decision about the future  …  and maybe I shouldn’t rely on others.”

As one of the most well-known 23-year-olds in the world, Styles himself is still largely unknown. Behind the effervescent stage persona, there is more lore than fact. He likes it that way. “With an artist like Prince,” he says, “all you wanted to do was know more. And that mystery – it’s why those people are so magical! Like, fuck, I don’t know what Prince eats for breakfast. That mystery  …  it’s just what I like.”

Styles pauses, savoring the idea of the unknown. He looks at my digital recorder like a barely invited guest. “More than 'do you keep a mystery alive?’ – it’s not that. I like to separate my personal life and work. It helps, I think, for me to compartmentalize. It’s not about trying to make my career longer, like I’m trying to be this 'mysterious character,’ because I’m not. When I go home, I feel like the same person I was at school. You can’t expect to keep that if you show everything. There’s the work and the personal stuff, and going between the two is my favorite shit. It’s amazing to me.”

Soon, we head to the Beachwood Canyon studio of Jeff Bhasker. As we arrive, Styles bounds up the steps to the studio, passing a bored pool cleaner. “How are ya,” he announces, unpacking a seriously cheerful smile. The pool cleaner looks perplexed, not quite sharing Styles’ existential joy.

Inside, the band awaits. Styles opens his notebook and heads for the piano. He wants to finish a song he’d started earlier that day. It’s obvious that the band has a well-worn frat-house dynamic, sort of like the Beatles in Help!, as directed by Judd Apatow. Styles is, to all, “H.” Pomegranate-scented candles flicker around the room. Bhasker enters, with guru-length hair, multicolored shirt, red socks and sandals. He was initially busy raising a new baby with his partner, the singer and songwriter Lykke Li, so he guided Styles to two of his producer-player protégés, Alex Salibian and Tyler Johnson, as well as engineer and bassist Ryan Nasci. The band began to form. The final piece of the puzzle was Mitch Rowland, Styles’ guitarist, who had worked in a pizza joint until two weeks into the sessions. “Being around musicians like this had a big effect on me,” Styles says. “Not being able to pass an instrument without sitting down and playing it?” He shakes his head. It was Styles’ first full immersion into the land of musos, and he clearly can’t get enough.

Styles starts singing some freshly written lyrics. It’s a new song called “I Don’t Want to Be the One You’re Waiting On.” His voice sounds warm, burnished and intimate, not unlike early Rod Stewart. The song is quickly finished, and the band assembles for a playback of the album.

“Mind if I play it loud?” asks Bhasker. It’s a rhetorical question. Nasci cranks “Sign of the Times,” the first single, to a seismic level. The song began as a seven-minute voice note on Styles’ phone, and ended up as a sweeping piano ballad, as well as a kind of call to arms. “Most of the stuff that hurts me about what’s going on at the moment is not politics, it’s fundamentals,” Styles says. “Equal rights. For everyone, all races, sexes, everything. …  'Sign of the Times’ came from 'This isn’t the first time we’ve been in a hard time, and it’s not going to be the last time.’ The song is written from a point of view as if a mother was giving birth to a child and there’s a complication. The mother is told, 'The child is fine, but you’re not going to make it.’ The mother has five minutes to tell the child, 'Go forth and conquer.’” The track was a breakthrough for both the artist and the band. “Harry really led the charge with that one, and the rest of the album,” says Bhasker.

“I wish the album could be called Sign of the Times,” Styles declares.

“I don’t know,” says Bhasker. “I mean, it has been used.”

They debate for a bit. Nasci plays more tracks. The songs range from full-on rock (“Kiwi”) to intricate psychedelic pop (“Meet Me in the Hallway”) to the outright confessional (“Ever Since New York,” a desperate meditation on loss and longing). The lyrics are full of details and references – secrets whispered between friends, doomed declarations of love, empty swimming pools – sure to set fans scrambling for the facts behind the mystery.

“Of course I’m nervous,” Styles admits, jingling his keys. “I mean, I’ve never done this before. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I’m happy I found this band and these musicians, where you can be vulnerable enough to put yourself out there. I’m still learning …  but it’s my favorite lesson.”

The album is a distinct departure from the dance pop that permeates the airwaves. “A lot of my influences, and the stuff that I love, is older,” he says. “So the thing I didn’t want to do was, I didn’t want to put out my first album and be like, 'He’s tried to re-create the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, Nineties.’ Loads of amazing music was written then, but I’m not saying I wish I lived back then. I wanted to do something that sounds like me. I just keep pushing forward.”

“It’s different from what you’d expect,” Bhasker says. “It made me realize the Harry [in One D] was kind of the digitized Harry. Almost like a character. I don’t think people know a lot of the sides of him that are on this album. You put it on and people are like, 'This is Harry Styles?' ”

Styles is aware that his largest audience so far has been young – often teenage – women. Asked if he spends pressure-filled evenings worried about proving credibility to an older crowd, Styles grows animated. “Who’s to say that young girls who like pop music – short for popular, right? – have worse musical taste than a 30-year-old hipster guy? That’s not up to you to say. Music is something that’s always changing. There’s no goal posts. Young girls like the Beatles. You gonna tell me they’re not serious? How can you say young girls don’t get it? They’re our future. Our future doctors, lawyers, mothers, presidents, they kind of keep the world going. Teenage-girl fans – they don’t lie. If they like you, they’re there. They don’t act 'too cool.’ They like you, and they tell you. Which is sick.”

Styles drives to a quiet dinner spot in Laurel Canyon, at the foot of Lookout Mountain Avenue, onetime home to many of his Seventies songwriting heroes. He used to have a place around the corner. As the later tours of One Direction grew larger, longer and more frenetic, he offers with irony, “It was very rock & roll.” He’s not a heavy drinker, he says, maybe some tequila on ice or wine with friends after a show, but by the band’s last tour there wasn’t much time even for that. John Lennon once told Rolling Stone that behind the curtain, the Beatles’ tours were like Fellini’s Satyricon. Styles counters that the One D tours were more like “a Wes Anderson movie. Cut. Cut. New location. Quick cut. New location. Cut. Cut. Show. Shower. Hard cut. Sleep.”

Finding a table, Styles leans forward and discusses his social-media presence, or lack thereof. Styles and his phone have a bittersweet, mature relationship – they spend a lot of time apart. He doesn’t Google himself, and checks Twitter infrequently. “I’ll tell you about Twitter,” he continues, discussing the volley of tweets, some good, some cynical, that met his endorsement of the Women’s March on Washington earlier this year. “It’s the most incredible way to communicate closely with people, but not as well as in person.” When the location of his London home was published a few years ago, he was rattled. His friend James Corden offered him a motto coined by British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli: “Never complain, never explain.”

I mention a few of the verbal Molotov cocktails Zayn Malik has tossed at the band in recent interviews. Here’s one: “[One D is] not music that I would listen to. If I was sat at a dinner date with a girl, I would play some cool shit, you know what I mean? I want to make music that I think is cool shit. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.”

Styles adjusts himself in his chair. “I think it’s a shame he felt that way,” he says, threading the needle of diplomacy, “but I never wish anything but luck to anyone doing what they love. If you’re not enjoying something and need to do something else, you absolutely should do that. I’m glad he’s doing what he likes, and good luck to him.”

Perched on his head are the same-style white sunglasses made famous by Kurt Cobain, but the similarities end right there. Styles, born two months before Cobain exited Earth, doesn’t feel tied to any particular genre or era. In the car, he’ll just as easily crank up the country music of Keith Whitley as the esoteric blues-and-soul of Shuggie Otis. He even bought a carrot cake to present to Stevie Nicks at a Fleetwood Mac concert. (“Piped her name onto it. She loved it. Glad she liked carrot cake.”)

This much is clear: The classic role of tortured artist is not one he’ll be playing. “People romanticize places they can’t get to themselves,” he says. “That’s why it’s fascinating when people go dark – when Van Gogh cuts off his ear. You romanticize those people, sometimes out of proportion. It’s the same with music. You want a piece of that darkness, to feel their pain but also to step back into your own [safer] life. I can’t say I had that. I had a really nice upbringing. I feel very lucky. I had a great family and always felt loved. There’s nothing worse than an inauthentic tortured person. 'They took my allowance away, so I did heroin.’ It’s like – that’s not how it works. I don’t even remember what the question was.”

Styles wanders into the Country Store next door. It’s a store he knows well. Inspecting the shelves, he asks if I’ve had British rice pudding. He finds a can that looks ancient. He collects a roll of Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles (“since 1881”), Lindor Swiss chocolates (“irresistibly smooth”) and a jar of Branston Pickles. “There’s only two shops in L.A. that stock all the British snacks. This area’s kind of potluck,” he says, spreading the collection on the counter.

The clerk rings up the snacks. In the most careful, deferential way, the young worker asks the question. “Would you  … happen to be …  Harry Styles?”

“Yep.”

“Could I get a selfie?” Styles obliges, and leans over the counter. Click. We exit into the Laurel Canyon evening.

“Hey,” shouts a grizzled-looking dude on the bench outside the store. “Do you know who you look like?”

Styles turns, expecting more of the same, but this particular night denizen is on a different track.

“River Phoenix,” the man announces, a little sadly. “You ever heard of him? If he hadn’t have passed, I would have said that was you. Talented guy.”

“Yes, he was,” agrees Styles, who is in many ways the generational opposite of Phoenix. “Yes, he was.”

They share a silent moment, before Styles walks to his car. He hands me the bag filled with English snacks. “This is for you,” he says. “This was my youth …”

Harry Edward Styles was born in Worcestershire, England, in true classic-rock form, on a Tuesday Afternoon. The family moved to Cheshire, a quiet spot in Northern England, when he was a baby. His older sister, Gemma, was the studious one. (“She was always smarter than me, and I was always jealous of that.”)

His father, Desmond, worked in finance. He was a fan of the Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, a lot of Queen, and Pink Floyd. Young Harry toddled around to The Dark Side of the Moon. “I couldn’t really get it,” he says, “but I just remember being like – this is really fucking cool. Then my mom would always have Shania Twain, and Savage Garden, Norah Jones going on. I had a great childhood. I’ll admit it.”

But in fact, all was not perfection, scored to a cool, retro soundtrack. When Harry was seven, his parents explained to him that Des would be moving out. Asked about that moment today, Styles stares straight ahead. “I don’t remember,” he says. “Honestly, when you’re that young, you can kind of block it out. … I can’t say that I remember the exact thing. I didn’t realize that was the case until just now. Yeah, I mean, I was seven. It’s one of those things. Feeling supported and loved by my parents never changed.”

His eyes moisten a little, but unlike the young man who wept over an early bout with Internet criticism, a powerful moment in the early One Direction documentary A Year in the Making, Styles tonight knocks back the sentiment. Styles is still close with his father, and served as best man to his mom when she remarried a few years ago. “Since I’ve been 10,” he reflects, “it’s kind of felt like – protect Mom at all costs. … My mom is very strong. She has the greatest heart. [Her house in Cheshire] is where I want to go when I want to spend some time.”

In his early teens, Styles joined some school friends as the singer in a mostly-covers band, White Eskimo. “We wrote a couple of songs,” he remembers. “One was called 'Gone in a Week.’ It was about luggage. 'I’ll be gone in a week or two/Trying to find myself someplace new/I don’t need any jackets or shoes/The only luggage I need is you.’” He laughs. “I was like, 'Sick.’”

It was his mother who suggested he try out for the U.K. singing competition The X Factor to compete in the solo “Boy” category. Styles sang Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely.” The unforgiving reaction from one of the judges, Louis Walsh, is now infamous. Watching the video today is to watch young Harry’s cheery disposition take a hot bullet.

“In that instant,” he says, “you’re in the whirlwind. You don’t really know what’s happening; you’re just a kid on the show. You don’t even know you’re good at anything. I’d gone because my mum told me I was good from singing in the car …  but your mum tells you things to make you feel good, so you take it with a pinch of salt. I didn’t really know what I was expecting when I went on there.”

Styles didn’t advance in the competition, but Simon Cowell, the show’s creator, sensed a crowd favorite. He put Styles together with four others who’d failed to advance in the same category, and united the members of One D in a musical shotgun marriage. The marriage worked. And worked. And worked.

You wonder how a young musician might find his way here, to these lofty peaks, with his head still attached to his shoulders. No sex tapes, no TMZ meltdowns, no tell-all books written by the rehab nanny? In a world where one messy scandal can get you five seasons of a hit reality show …  how did Harry Styles slip through the juggernaut?

“Family,” answers Ben Winston. “It comes from his mom, Anne. She brought him and his sister up incredibly well. Harry would choose boring over exciting … There is more chance of me going to Mars next week than there is of Harry having some sort of addiction.”

We’re in Television City, Hollywood. Winston, 35, the Emmy-winning executive producer of The Late Late Show With James Corden, abandons his desk and retreats to a nearby sofa to discuss his good friend. More than a friend, Styles became an unlikely family member – after he became perhaps the world’s most surprising houseguest.

Their friendship was forged in the early stages of One D’s success, when the band debuted on The X Factor. Winston, then a filmmaker and production partner with Corden, asked for a meeting, and instantly hit it off with the group. He became a friendly mentor to Styles, though the friendship was soon tested. Styles had just moved out of his family home in Cheshire, an inconvenient three hours north of London. He found a home he liked near the Winstons in Hampstead Heath. The new house needed two weeks of work. Styles asked if he could briefly move in with Winston and his wife, Meredith. “She agreed,” Winston says, “but only for two weeks.”

Styles parked his mattress in the Winstons’ attic. “Two weeks later and he hadn’t bought his house yet,” continues Winston. “It wasn’t going through. Then he said, 'I’m going to stay until Christmas, if you don’t mind.’ Then Christmas came, and …”

For the next 20 months, one of the most desired stars on the planet slept on a small mattress in an attic. The only other bit of house-dressing was the acoustic guitar that would rattle into the Winstons’ bedroom. While fans gathered at the empty house where he didn’t live, Styles lived incognito with a couple 12 years his senior. The Winstons’ Orthodox Jewish lifestyle, with a strong family emphasis, helped keep him sane.

“Those 20 months were when they went from being on a reality show, X Factor, to being the biggest-selling artists in the world,” recalls Winston. “That period of time, he was living with us in the most mundane suburban situation. No one ever found out, really. Even when we went out for a meal, it’s such a sweet family neighborhood, no one dreamed it was actually him. But he made our house a home. And when he moved out, we were gutted.”

Styles jauntily appears at the Late Late office. He’s clearly a regular visitor, and he and Winston have a brotherly shorthand.

“Leaving Saturday?” asks Winston.

“Yeah, gotta buy a cactus for my friend’s birthday,” says Styles.

“My dad might be on your flight,” says Winston.

“The 8:50? That’d be sick.”

Winston continues the tales from the attic. “So we had this joke. Meri and I would like to see the girls that you would come back with to the house. That was always what we enjoyed, because we’d be in bed like an old couple. We’d have our spot cream on our faces and we’d be in our pajamas and the door would go off. The stairwell was right outside our door, so we’d wait to see if Harry was coming home alone or with people.”

“I was alone,” notes Styles. “I was scared of Meri.”

“He wasn’t always alone,” corrects Winston, “but it was exciting seeing the array of A-listers that would come up and sleep in the attic. Or he’d come and lounge with us. We’d never discuss business. He would act as if he hadn’t come back from playing to 80,000 people three nights in a row in Rio de Janeiro.”

“Let’s go to the beach,” says Styles, pulling the Range Rover onto a fog-soaked Pacific Coast Highway. Last night was his tequila-fueled birthday party, filled with friends and karaoke and a surprise drop-in from Adele. He’s now officially 23. “And not too hung over,” he notes.

Styles finds a spot at a sushi place up the coast. As he passes through the busy dining room, a businessman turns, recognizing him with a face that says: My kids love this guy! I ask Styles what he hears most from the parents of young fans. “They say, 'I see your cardboard face every fucking day.' ” He laughs. “I think they want me to apologize.”

The subject today is relationships. While Styles says he still feels like a newcomer to all that, a handful of love affairs have deeply affected him. The images and stolen moments tumble extravagantly through the new songs: And promises are broken like a stitch is … I got splinters in my knuckles crawling 'cross the floor/Couldn’t take you home to mother in a skirt that short/But I think that’s what I like about it … I see you gave him my old T-shirt, more of what was once mine … That black notebook, you sense, is filled with this stuff.

“My first proper girlfriend,” he remembers, “used to have one of those laughs. There was also a little bit of mystery with her because she didn’t go to our school. I just worshipped the ground she walked on. And she knew, probably to a fault, a little. That was a tough one. I was 15.

"She used to live an hour and a half away on the train, and I worked in a bakery for three years. I’d finish on Saturdays at 4:30 and it was a 4:42 train, and if I missed it there wasn’t one for another hour or two. So I’d finish and sprint to the train station. Spent 70 percent of my wages on train tickets. Later, I’d remember her perfume. Little things. I smell that perfume all the time. I’ll be in a lift or a reception and say to someone, 'Alien, right?’ And sometimes they’re impressed and sometimes they’re a little creeped out. 'Stop smelling me.’”

If Styles hadn’t yet adapted to global social-media attention, he was tested in 2012, when he met Taylor Swift at an awards show. Their second date, a walk in Central Park, was caught by paparazzi. Suddenly the couple were global news. They broke up the next month, reportedly after a rocky Caribbean vacation; the romance was said to have ended with at least one broken heart.

The relationship is a subject he’s famously avoided discussing. “I gotta pee first. This might be a long one,” he says. He rises to head to the bathroom, then adds, “Actually, you can say, 'He went for a pee and never came back.' ”

He returns a couple of minutes later. “Thought I’d let you stew for a while,” he says, laughing, then takes a gulp of green juice. He was surprised, he says, when photos from Central Park rocketed around the world. “When I see photos from that day,” he says, “I think: Relationships are hard, at any age. And adding in that you don’t really understand exactly how it works when you’re 18, trying to navigate all that stuff didn’t make it easier. I mean, you’re a little bit awkward to begin with. You’re on a date with someone you really like. It should be that simple, right? It was a learning experience for sure. But at the heart of it – I just wanted it to be a normal date.”

He’s well aware that at least two of Swift’s songs – “Out of the Woods” and “Style” – are considered to be about their romance. (“You’ve got that long hair slicked back, white T-shirt,” she sang in “Style.”) “I mean, I don’t know if they’re about me or not …” he says, attempting gallant discretion, “but the issue is, she’s so good, they’re bloody everywhere.” He smiles. “I write from my experiences; everyone does that. I’m lucky if everything [we went through] helped create those songs. That’s what hits your heart. That’s the stuff that’s hardest to say, and it’s the stuff I talk least about. That’s the part that’s about the two people. I’m never going to tell anybody everything.” (Fans wondered whether “Perfect,” a song Styles co-wrote for One Direction, might have been about Swift: “And if you like cameras flashing every time we go out/And if you’re looking for someone to write your breakup songs about/Baby, I’m perfect.”)

Was he able to tell her that he admired the songs? “Yes and no,” he says after a long pause. “She doesn’t need me to tell her they’re great. They’re great songs … It’s the most amazing unspoken dialogue ever.”

Is there anything he’d want to say to Swift today? “Maybe this is where you write down that I left!” He laughs, and looks off. “I don’t know,” he finally says. “Certain things don’t work out. There’s a lot of things that can be right, and it’s still wrong. In writing songs about stuff like that, I like tipping a hat to the time together. You’re celebrating the fact it was powerful and made you feel something, rather than 'this didn’t work out, and that’s bad.’ And if you run into that person, maybe it’s awkward, maybe you have to get drunk … but you shared something. Meeting someone new, sharing those experiences, it’s the best shit ever. So thank you.”

He notes a more recent relationship, possibly over now, but significant for the past few years. (Styles has often been spotted with Kendall Jenner, but he won’t confirm that’s who he’s talking about.) “She’s a huge part of the album,” says Styles. “Sometimes you want to tip the hat, and sometimes you just want to give them the whole cap …  and hope they know it’s just for them.”

In late February 2016, Styles landed a plum part in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming World War II epic, Dunkirk. In Nolan, Styles found a director equally interested in mystery. “The movie is so ambitious,” he says. “Some of the stuff they’re doing in this movie is insane. And it was hard, man, physically really tough, but I love acting. I love playing someone else. I’d sleep really well at night, then get up and continue drowning.”

When Styles returned to L.A., an idea landed. The idea was: Get out of Dodge. Styles called his manager, Jeffrey Azoff, and explained he wanted to finish the album outside London or L.A., a place where the band could focus and coalesce. Four days after returning from the movie, they were on their way to Port Antonio on Jamaica’s remote north coast. At Geejam, Styles and his entire band were able to live together, turning the studio compound into something like a Caribbean version of Big Pink. They occupied a two-story villa filled with instruments, hung out at the tree-house-like Bush Bar, and had access to the gorgeous studio on-site. Many mornings began with a swim in the deserted cove just down the hill.

Life in Jamaica was 10 percent beach party and 90 percent musical expedition. It was the perfect rite of passage for a musician looking to explode the past and launch a future. The anxiety of what’s next slipped away. Layers of feeling emerged that had never made it past One Direction’s group songwriting sessions, often with pop craftsmen who polished the songs after Styles had left. He didn’t feel stifled in One D, he says, as much as interrupted. “We were touring all the time,” he recalls. “I wrote more as we went, especially on the last two albums.” There are songs from that period he loves, he says, like “Olivia” and “Stockholm Syndrome,” along with the earlier song “Happily.” “But I think it was tough to really delve in and find out who you are as a writer when you’re just kind of dipping your toe each time. We didn’t get the six months to see what kind of shit you can work with. To have time to live with a song, see what you love as a fan, chip at it, hone it and go for that  … it’s heaven.”

The more vulnerable the song, he learned, the better. “The one subject that hits the hardest is love,” he says, “whether it’s platonic, romantic, loving it, gaining it, losing it  …  it always hits you hardest. I don’t think people want to hear me talk about going to bars, and how great everything is. The champagne popping  …  who wants to hear about it? I don’t want to hear my favorite artists talk about all the amazing shit they get to do. I want to hear, 'How did you feel when you were alone in that hotel room, because you chose to be alone?’”

To wind down in Jamaica, Styles and Rowland, the guitarist, began a daily Netflix obsession with sugary romantic comedies. Houseworkers would sometimes leave at night and return the next morning to see Styles blearily removing himself from a long string of rom-coms. He declares himself an expert on Nicholas Sparks, whom he now calls “Nicky Spee.” After almost two months, the band left the island with a bounty of songs and stories. Like the time Styles ended up drunk and wet from the ocean, toasting everybody, wearing a dress he’d traded with someone’s girlfriend. “I don’t remember the toast,” he says, “but I remember the feeling.”

Christmas 2016. Harry Styles was parked outside his childhood home, sitting next to his father. They were listening to his album. After lunch at a pub, they had driven down their old street and landed in front of the family home. Staring out at the house where Styles grew up listening to his father’s copy of The Dark Side of the Moon, there was much to consider. It was a long way he’d traveled in those fast few years since “Isn’t She Lovely.” He’d previously played the new album for his mother, on a stool, in the living room, on cheap speakers. She’d cried hearing “Sign of the Times.” Now he sat with his father – who liked the new song “Carolina” best – both having come full circle.

Styles is moved as he describes how he felt. We’re sitting in Corden’s empty office, talking over a few last subjects before he returns to England. “I think, as a parent, especially with the band stuff, it was such a roller coaster,” he says. “I feel like they were always thinking, 'OK, this ride could stop at any point and we’re going to have to be there when it does.’ There was something about playing the album and how happy I was that told them, 'If all I get is to make this music, I’m content. If I’m never on that big ride again, I’m happy and proud of it.’

"I always said, at the very beginning, all I wanted was to be the granddad with the best stories …  and the best shelf of artifacts and bits and trinkets.”

Tomorrow night he’ll hop a flight back to England. Rehearsals await. Album-cover choices need to be made. He grabs his black notebook and turns back for a moment before disappearing down the hallway, into the future.

“How am I going to be mysterious,” he asks, only half-joking, “when I’ve been this honest with you?”

- Rolling Stone Magazine